By Frances Harrison BBC correspondent in Colombo

More than 50 women activists from conflict zones around the world are in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo for a four day conference on women, peace building and constitution making.

The idea is to challenge the conventional image of women as the passive victims of war and men as the negotiators of a political settlement.

The participants include women from Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, Rwanda, East Timor and many other areas of recent conflict.

The Tamil Tiger rebels include women in their ranks

The sessions deal with the effect of war on women, who make up the majority of the refugee populations in many conflicts and are often left alone to head families as the sole breadwinners.

The conference is to discuss issues like sexual violence and torture as well as the experience of female combatants, some of whom have had trouble being accepted back into society after conflicts have ended.

Differing concerns

The idea is to go beyond what many participants see as the male obsession with ceasefires and decommissioning of arms, and look at the need for accountability including womens' rights in post-conflict administrations.

But the delegates come from such different societies that their concerns vary enormously.

Women from Afghanistan say the issue for them is survival and the right to feed their children, whereas for women in Northern Ireland the main issue is increasing the level of female participation in the negotiating process and representation in government.

Overall, the delegates say the best way to get their voices heard is international pressure, and that is why conferences like this help.

It is apt the conference is taking place in Sri Lanka, which is in the throes of a peace process that has suddenly sprung to life with talks expected in June.

The organisers hope the meeting will raise some of the broader issues surrounding the current negotiations, particularly those affecting women, whom they say have been completely excluded from the process so far.