The International Alliance of Women (IAW) is a non-governmental, feminist organization, which embraces both women’s groups and individuals. The basic principle of the IAW is that the full and equal enjoyment of human rights is due to all women and girls.
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The decision for the establishment of the organization was taken in Washington in 1902 by suffragists frustrated at the reluctance of the International Council of Women to support women's suffrage.[1] The Alliance was formally constituted in Berlin in 1904 as the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.[2] Amongst subsequent congresses were those held in Copenhagen (1906), Amsterdam (1908), London (1909), Stockholm (June 1911), and Budapest (1913). The IWSA also started its own monthly journal, the Jus Suffragii. The IWSA, influenced by Millicent Fawcett against the militancy of suffragettes in the style of Emily Pankhurst, initially refused membership to the WSPU at their 1906 Copenhagen meeting.[3]
In the late 1920s the organization changed its name to the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, and in 1946 this was altered to its current name, International Alliance of Women: Equal Rights - Equal Responsibilities.[4][5]
The IAW represents more than 50 organizations world-wide and has attracted many individual members. The IAW has consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council[6] and participatory status with the Council of Europe.[7] The IAW has permanent representatives in New York, Vienna, Geneva, Paris, Rome, Nairobi and Strasbourg and addresses the European Union through its membership in the European Women’s Lobby[8] in Brussels.
The IAW pays particular attention to the universal ratification and implementation without reservation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and its Optional Protocol.
The current IAW Commissions deal with the topics: Justice and Human Rights; Democracy; Peace; Elimination of Violence and Health.
Archives of International Alliance of Women are held at The Women's Library at London Metropolitan University, ref 2IAW