Edith Ballantyne (born 10 December 1922) is a Czech-born Canadian citizen, who has been a prominent member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) since 1969. At that time, she became the executive secretary of the international organisation, based in Geneva, Switzerland, serving in that capacity for twenty-three years. Between 1992 and 1998, she served as the International President of the organisation. In 1995, she was honored as the recipient of the Gandhi Peace Award.
Early life
Edith Müller was born on 10 December 1922 in Krnov in Czech Silesia to Rosa and Alois Müller. She was raised in Czechoslovakia until the Sudeten Crisis of 1938. The family fled first to England, and by 1939 made their way to Canada, where they were placed by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company to farm in British Columbia. Unable to sustain their family, they moved to Toronto in 1941, where Müller found work as a domestic labourer. Unable to speak English, she was taught the language by Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) volunteers, who kept track of the Bohemian refugees and tried to assist them in making adjustments to life in Canada. Joining the WILPF, Müller found their message of pacifism and human rights inspiring but lost touch with the group when she moved to Montreal in 1945. In July 1948, Müller married Campbell Ballantyne, an official of the International Labour Office and moved with him to Geneva later that same year.
Career
Upon her arrival in Switzerland, Ballantyne began work for the World Health Organization, in the publications section, as the deputy director. After five years, she left the post to care for the couple's four children. After twenty years of living in Geneva, she discovered that the headquarters of WILPF were located there and volunteered to serve in 1968. The following year, she became the Secretary General of the organisation, and accepted a full-time position to work on improving WILPF's interaction with NGOs and the United Nations (UN). In 1970, she attended the WILPF's Eighteenth Congress, held in New Delhi, which had a profound effect on her view of balancing freedom and peace. She recognized that if peaceful means of solving a conflict had been exhausted, there had to be a means to recognize that the oppressed were likely to resort to violence and members could support non-violence without condemning exploited persons who felt that other options did not exist. The debates that followed the meeting, resulted in a resolution that idealistic pursuit of pacifism could not replace the recognition that the ultimate goal of peace was to allow people to attain their liberation and live freely. In 1972, she became the coordinator of WILPF's work with the UN. Her Indian trip was followed in 1975 with an observer group which toured the Middle East, which spurred Ballantyne to recommend that WILPF press for continued dialogue between the sides of conflict but remain neutral on issues such as violence and human rights abuses which resulted from, rather than caused conflict. She believed that the role of WILPF was to encourage both sides to find peaceful means to coexist without focusing on who was to blame for the situation or favoritism.