"WOMEN & WAR" Event Sponsored by GABRIELA NETWORK

San Francisco) – Gabriela Network presents "Women & War: Voices from the Philippines and the Middle East", an event to be held this Friday, April 26, 2002. The event aims to expose the impact of war on women in both the Philippines and the Middle East. The gathering will be from 7-9pm at The San Fancisco Friendship Meeting Center, located 65 9th Street at Mission Street, and will examine the context of violence against women and the role that militarism plays on their exploitation around the world.

Scheduled speakers include: Kate Rafael of Women in Black, Representative from Arab/Palestenian Women's Solidarity Assocation, and guest speaker Ninotchka Rosca of Gabriela Network.

Ninotchka Rosca is an award-winning novelist, author of five books and recipient of the 1993 American Book Award for excellence in literature. A political prisoner under the Marcos regime, Rosca is on the board of the Survivors Committee, a network of former political prisoners and human rights activists. Rosca was the founding chair of GABRIELA Network.

GABRIELA Network is a US-based women's solidarity organization working with GABRIELA Philippines. GABRIELA Philippines is an alliance of 105 women's organizations and is the largest and only multi-sectoral women's assembly in the Philippines. GABRIELA Network organizes around issues such as the global traffic of women, world trade and the sex industry, the mail-order bride industry, first world and third world perspectives on the women's movement, and gender relations in the Asian-American community.