In the following years she fought against exploitation of home workers in the garment industry, for higher wages and improved working conditions, for establishing a law defining minimum wages (which was enacted on 10 July 1915), for equal pay and for the promotion of syndicalism through education of the workers.

[3] In 1915 Duchêne ceased union activism to devote her efforts to the pacifist cause, but retained her interest in the economic liberation of women.

[1] That year she was invited to the Hague Congress, where she met pacifists from many countries and where the idea emerged of creating an international league of women for pacifism and liberty.

[3] The Comité d'Action Suffragiste (CAS) was created in December 1917, directed by Jeanne Mélin, Marthe Bigot and Gabrielle Duchêne.

Duchêne's pacifist beliefs were gradually influenced by the Russian experience, and have been called "tinged pacifism".

She thought of Russia as a "land of peace" and a place where women were liberated, but did not have any profound understanding of Communist ideology.

[1] In the Congress Against War and Imperialism in Amsterdam, where the foundations were laid for the Amsterdam-Pleyel Movement, she was sponsored by Romain Rolland and Henri Barbusse.

Duchêne said the congress had a mood of great enthusiasm and brought together "the women that race, geographical situation, social milieu, intellectual formation, religion, philosophical conviction, individual or general interests, everything, finally, had separated until now".

[3] World War II (1939–45) was a difficult period for Duchêne, but by great good fortune her apartment was never raided and her records remain intact.