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Medea Benjamin is Founding Director of Global Exchange. For over twenty
years, Medea has supported human rights and social justice struggles around
the world.
Medea is a leading activist in the peace movement and helped bring together
the groups forming the coalition United for Peace and Justice (see
www.unitedforpeace.org ).
She is also the co-founder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace, a women's group
that has been organizing creative actions against the war and occupation of
Iraq. CODEPINK is pushing for a reorientation of budget priorities in the US
to focus on heath care, education and housing, not war. Code Pink now has
over 250 chapters throughout the United States (see www.codepinkalert.org ).
2006 saw the release of Code Pink's book, "Stop the Next War Now: Effective
Responses to Violence and Terrorism", which she co-edited with Jodie Evans.
"Stop the Next War Now" is a diverse collection of essays from the peace
movement's freshest, most dynamic voices, including Barbara Ehrenreich, Eve
Ensler, Arianna Huffington, Alice Walker, Helen Thomas, Camilo Mejia and
Jody Williams.
In 2005, Medea was nominated as one of 1,000 exceptional women from around
the world to receive the Nobel Peace Prize as part of the project "1000
Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005." The project selected 1,000
exceptional women from around the globe to be nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize collectively, representing the many anonymous women who work for
peace, justice, human rights, security and education worldwide.
In 2006, Medea and other members of CODEPINK organized an Iraqi women's
delegation for International Women's Day, March 8. They brought six Iraqi
women ~ Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurd ~ to New York and Washington D.C., took them
to the streets and the stage, the halls of Congress and the United Nations.
They lobbied Senators and Congresspeople, met with NGOs and think tanks, and
delivered a petition calling for an end to the war with over 100,000
signatures from people around the world. The women traveled with Iraq war
vets, grieving military moms, and a former diplomat and army colonel who
resigned because of the war, and later embarked on nationwide speaking
tours.
Medea has traveled several times to Iraq and helped establish the Occupation
Watch International Center in Baghdad. The center monitored the military
occupation forces and foreign corporations, hosts international delegations,
and kept the international community updated about the occupation forces'
activities through its website, (http://www.occupationwatch.org ). In early
December 2003, Medea brought a delegation of military families to Iraq. (see
report ). At the start of 2005, Medea returned to the region, again
accompanying a delegation of US military families whose loved ones had been
killed in Iraq. This delegation traveled to the Iraqi/Jordanian border to
bring a shipment of humanitarian aid for distribution to the Iraqi people in
Falluja and those most in need.
Ever since the tragic events of 9/11, Medea has been organizing against a
violent response. In 2002, Medea accompanied four Americans who lost loved
ones in the September 11th terrorist attacks on a trip to Afghanistan to
meet people there who lost relatives during the US bombing of Afghanistan.
Their extraordinary journey received such international attention that the
US Government was pressured to discuss civilian casualties and to create a
compensation fund for Afghan victims.
Medea's previous work has focused on improving the labor and environmental
practices of US multinational corporations, and the policies of
international institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
In September 2003, Medea was in Cancun, Mexico challenging the policies of
the World Trade Organization (WTO) and in November in Miami protesting the
proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and highlighting the
coalescing of the global peace and economic justice movements.
For much of 2001, Medea focused on California's energy crisis, fighting the
market manipulation by the big energy companies and rate hikes that cause
hardship for low-income ratepayers and small businesses. She headed a
powerful coalition of consumer, environmental, union and business leaders
working for clean and affordable power under public control.
Medea was the Green Party candidate for US Senate from California in 2000.
Her run for U.S. Senate succeeded in mobilizing thousands of Californians
around platform issues such as living wage, schools-not-prisons, and
universal healthcare.
During the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in December 1999,
Medea's organization, Global Exchange, helped fix world attention on the
need to place labor and environmental concerns over corporate profits.
While critical of unfair global trade policies, Medea has promoted "fair
trade" alternatives that are beneficial to both producer and consumer. She
helped form a national network of retailer and wholesalers in support of
fair trade and was instrumental in pressuring coffee retailers such as
Starbucks to start carrying fair trade coffee.
Medea is a key figure in the anti-sweatshop movement, having spearheaded
campaigns against the giant sports shoe company Nike and clothing companies
such as the GAP. In 1999 Medea helped expose the problem of indentured
servitude among garment workers in the US territory of Saipan (the Marianas
Islands), which led to a billion-dollar lawsuit against 17 US retailers.
After several fact-finding visits to China, Medea co-sponsored with the
International Labor Rights Fund an initiative to improve the labor and
environmental practices of US multinationals in China. The ensuring Human
Rights Principles for US Businesses in China have been endorsed by major
companies such as Cisco, Intel, Reebok, Levi Strauss and Mattel.
In 1999, San Francisco Magazine named Medea to their "Power List" as one of
the "60 Players Who Rule the Bay Area." She serves on the board or advisory
council of numerous organizations, including the United National Development
Program, the Interhemispheric Resource Center, the National Student Campaign
Against Hunger and Homelessness and Green Empowerment.
Medea helped build US support for the movement to oust General Suharto in
Indonesia and for the right of self-determination for the people of East
Timor. She supported the Peace Process between the Zapatista rebels and the
Mexican government, fought to lift the embargoes against Cuba and Iraq, and
was active in cutting US military aid to repressive regimes in Central
America. She has been an election observer and led fact-finding delegations
to dozens of countries.
Medea is the author of eight books, including "Bridging the Global Gap, The
Peace Corps and More," "Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to
Violence and Terrorism" and the award-winning book "Don't Be Afraid, Gringo:
A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart." She has helped produce various TV
documentaries such as the anti-sweatshop video Sweating for a T-Shirt.
Medea received a Masters degree in Public Health from Columbia University
and a Masters degree in Economics from the New School for Social Research.
She worked for ten years as an economist and nutritionist in Latin America
and Africa for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the
World Health Organization, the Swedish International Development Agency, and
the Institute for Food and Development Policy. |
