Women, Peace & Security
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E-Discussion:
Security Council Resolution 1325 — What’s Next? |
Today, about 1 in every 150 people on earth — a total of 40 million — are displaced by conflict or human rights violations. More than 75 per cent are women and their dependent children. During armed conflict, women and girls are continually threatened by rape, domestic violence, sexual exploitation, trafficking, sexual humiliation and mutilation. Yet, when it comes to negotiating peace and facilitating the reconstruction of societies after war, women are grossly underrepresented. Only one woman participated in the Linas-Marcoussis Agreement, which negotiated the terms of peace in Côte d’Ivoire in 2003. In countries such as Timor-Leste and Guatemala, women’s political participation has undergone a backslide as initial gains made in the post-conflict period are undermined.
UNIFEM’s Response
UNIFEM recognizes that women experience conflict differently than men, that their protection is neglected, and that their contributions to peace building are marginalized. For the past 10 years, UNIFEM has been strengthening its assistance to women in conflict situations and supporting their participation in peace processes. This work is guided by international humanitarian and human rights standards. UNIFEM’s work is also based on the landmark October 2000 Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, the first to give political legitimacy to women's struggle for a seat at the negotiating table and to recognize the disparate impact of conflict on women and men.
UNIFEM’s work on women, peace and security focuses on the following priority areas:
- Early warning and prevention, understanding the impact of armed conflict on women. UNIFEM provides policy support, information and gender analysis of the political, humanitarian and human rights dimensions of conflicts.
- Improving protection and assistance for women. Women and girls are often neglected in the delivery of protection and assistance during conflict and in post-conflict reconstruction. UNIFEM helps mobilize protection, humanitarian, psychosocial and economic assistance for women.
- Making women and gender perspectives central to peace processes. UNIFEM supports women's participation in peace building, and helps to leverage the political, financial and technical support needed for these efforts to have an impact on peace building nationally, regionally and internationally.
- Gender justice in post-conflict peace building. During the transition to peace, a unique window of opportunity exists to put in place a gender responsive framework for a country's reconstruction. As a central element of peace building, UNIFEM seeks to strengthen a gender focus in electoral, constitutional, legal, judicial and policy reform.
UNIFEM at Work Around the World
As follow-up to Security Council Resolution 1325, UNIFEM commissioned
a global assessment of the impact of war on women and their role in peace-building
processes. The findings and recommendations from this study were published
in the report “Women,
War and Peace” and presented to the Security
Council on the first anniversary of the resolution in 2002. The study continues
to be a cornerstone for work and advocacy on the issue.
On the third anniversary of Resolution 1325 in 2003, UNIFEM launched
a comprehensive Web portal to consolidate data on the impact of war on women
and girls. The portal, www.WomenWarPeace.org, contains more than thirty gender
profiles of countries in conflict as well as information and resources on
various cross-cutting themes related to women, peace and security, such as
displacement, health and HIV/AIDS.
The
African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) and UNIFEM
jointly published a special edition of the magazine Conflict
Trends that seeks to illustrate
and analyze the issue of women, peace and security and
stimulate debate on the African continent regarding the positive contribution
that women make on peace and security issues.
During the Burundi Peace Negotiations, UNIFEM partnered with the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation, UN agencies and NGOs to organize the first All-Party Burundi Women's Peace Conference. As a result, more than 50 Burundian women presented a common vision for peace and reconciliation to former President Nelson Mandela, facilitator of the negotiations, and 19 of their recommendations were included in the final peace accord.
During the Liberia peace negotiations in 2003 in Accra, Ghana, UNIFEM facilitated the organization of women’s groups to articulate a set of demands. The resulting Golden Tulip Declaration was presented to the negotiating parties and regional and international actors.
During the peace negotiations for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), UNIFEM supported women to make their voices heard. In September 2003, UNIFEM also co-organized a training of disarmament practitioners in the DRC on gender-sensitive Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR).
UNIFEM helped to facilitate the inclusion of gender provisions in Sierra Leone's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which will provide victims of gender-based violence with witness protection when they testify.
In Afghanistan, UNIFEM has been active since early 2002 in advancing women's agenda in the process of reconstruction. As part of these activities, it supports the Gender and Law Commission, the Constitution Commission and other mainstream actors to ensure that women are actively involved in political processes.
UNIFEM is working in Colombia with civil society, governmental bodies and UN agencies to promote women's capacity to build peace at all levels and to raise the visibility of the conflict's disparate impact on women.
» Download “UNIFEM at a Glance: Women, Peace & Security” (PDF, 40KB)