Women, Peace and Security

The CNN video 'Women Waging Peace' discusses the relevance of having women involved in peace negotiations. It can be accessed here.

A recent article authored by Ms. Miriam Kelberg stresses the importance of gender quotas in India as a way to improve the standards of living for girls in this country. Gender quotas in India have had a strong impact at the local level, having changed deeply Indian society, according to Ms. Kelberg. Those local governments with higher proportions of women representation pay more attention to issues like water access and welfare programs.

The ongoing peace negotiations for the Middle East region, and Syria in particular, are not taking into account the role of women. This misrecognition of women, against the Security Council resolution 1325, is particularly serious in a situation in which women were deeply involved during the origins of the 2011 revolutions against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The Swedish Foreign Minister, Margot Wallström, declared that Saudi Arabia’s measures against women are ‘medieval’. The declarations followed the decision by the Saudi courts of ordering that Raif Badawi, who had created a webpage encouraging free speech, must receive 1,000 lashes and ten years in prison. Furthermore, Wallström said that these kind of methods are a ‘cruel attempt to silence modern forms of expression’.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Sweden has launched its ‘Swedish Foreign Service action plan for feminist foreign policy 2015-2018 including focus areas for 2016’. This plan departs from the idea that gender equality is an end in itself, but also something necessary to achieve the rest of the commitments assumed by the Swedish Government, including peace, security and sustainable development.

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