Sex Strike Brings Peace in Philippines

On the often lawless southern Philippines island of Mindanao, fighting among villages brought daily violence and economic strife. UNHCR reports that the violence there ended in July, after women in the rural Dado village organized a sex strike to bring an end to conflict in the area:

MSN on the history of disputes on the island:

"Fighting had been common on Mindanao Island since the early 1970s, spearheaded by a separatist rebellion, with about 100,000 villagers displaced by the unrest in 2008.

The United Nations refugee agency helped settle these villagers by providing the necessary resources for self-sufficiency, but fighting continued to flare up when residents of one village, Dado, had to pass through two others to get to a regional market."

The idea of the sex strike was reportedly conceived by a group of women who had set up a sewing business that was unable to deliver their products because violence closed the roads between villages. New York Post:

"The sewing group's leader, Hasna Kandatu, said they warned their husbands they would be cut off from sex if they continued causing trouble.

'If you go there [to fight], you won't be able to come back. I won't accept you,' Kandatu recalled telling her husband, in a video on the UNHCR website.

Her husband, Lengs Kupong, recalled his wife telling him, 'If you do bad things, you will be cut off, here," he said, motioning below his waist.'"

The denied husbands then organized, and called on key village leaders to encourage others who continued the fighting, to stop. At the moment, the strategy seems to have worked as fighting has stopped and the road has been reopened. UNHRC says that the strike not only brought peace, but a renewed sense of empowerment, as villagers now can earn a living instead of relying food aid.

(H/T: Gawker)