Korea Peace Now! is a campaign to educate, organize, and advocate for an end to war and the establishment of lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. Originally launched as a global campaign in March 2019 by four women’s peace groups — Women Cross DMZ, the Nobel Women’s Initiative, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), and the Korean Women’s Movement for Peace — Korea Peace Now! is now primarily a U.S.-based movement for peace in Korea led by Women Cross DMZ.
Recognizing that the United States is the greatest obstacle to advancing a peace agreement, and therefore a U.S.-based grassroots peace movement was necessary to build the political will, the core campaign members launched the Korea Peace Now! Grassroots Network in 2019 to advocate for a peace agreement in the United States. We now have hundreds of members across the country, including in Atlanta, the Pacific Northwest, Honolulu, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Texas, Chicago, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. Our members include multigenerational Korean Americans, humanitarian workers, faith leaders, anti-war activists, veterans, community organizers, and peace supporters working together to advocate for a formal end to the 73-year-old Korean War.
Strategy & Values
Our strategy:
- Advocacy: We advocate for Korea peace legislation in Congress to build the political will for a peace agreement.
- Education: We educate policymakers and the U.S. public about the urgent need to end the Korean War and for Washington to adopt a peace-first approach.
- Narrative change: We aim to change the narrative of the so-called “Forgotten War” by amplifying stories that highlight the human impacts of the ongoing war in the media and other forums.
- Organizing: We grow and strengthen the U.S.-based movement calling for peace in Korea by mobilizing Korean Americans, anti-war/peace activists and progressives, college students, and allied organizations and by supporting the next generation of Korea peace leaders.
- Coalition Building: We build coalitions with other social movements to democratize U.S. foreign policy and help us realize our vision of a world free from militarism and war.
- Peace-building process including a formal ending of the Korean War, a Korea peace agreement, and normalized relations.
- Tangible de-militarization including denuclearization, ceasing military exercises and testing of missiles and nuclear weapons, removal of landmines, and reduction of arms, bases, troops.
- Redefine security away from “national security” based on a military-first approach towards achieving security grounded in a feminist understanding of security centered on basic human needs and ecological sustainability.
- Feminist leadership and gender-based analysis (government and civil society) in peace processes.
- Lift broad-based sanctions against North Korea, especially those impacting humanitarian conditions.
Coalition Partners
