Women’s Role in Peace Processes More Urgent than Ever as Violent Conflicts Multiply, Rage across Globe, Speakers Tell Security Council
Source: UN Press
As conflicts multiply and women remain largely absent from peace negotiations, senior United Nations officials, civil society and Member States today urged the Security Council to move beyond rhetoric and make women’s participation in peace processes funded and non-negotiable, warning that peace built without women is “only a pause in violence”.
“Gender equality and women’s empowerment is among the most powerful approaches to achieving peace,” said Sima Bahous, Executive Director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), as she opened day-long debate on the topic. “When women are safe, nations are more peaceful,” she added.
More than two decades after the adoption of Council resolution 1325 (2000), evidence continues to show that women’s inclusion reduces violence, strengthens peacekeeping, improves accountability and makes peace agreements more likely to last, she explained. Yet, she warned, women remain excluded from diplomacy even as conflicts and crises spread across Afghanistan, Haiti, Myanmar, Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan and Ukraine.
“These are conflicts women neither choose nor lead,” she said, but women pay the highest price while being kept out of the negotiations meant to end them. She called on Member States and mediation officials to implement the Secretary-General’s Common Pledge on Women’s Participation in Peace Processes, including by endorsing a minimum one-third target for women’s representation and reporting regularly on women’s direct inclusion in talks.
As conflicts multiply and women remain largely absent from peace negotiations, senior United Nations officials, civil society and Member States today urged the Security Council to move beyond rhetoric and make women’s participation in peace processes funded and non-negotiable, warning that peace built without women is “only a pause in violence”.
“Gender equality and women’s empowerment is among the most powerful approaches to achieving peace,” said Sima Bahous, Executive Director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), as she opened day-long debate on the topic. “When women are safe, nations are more peaceful,” she added.
More than two decades after the adoption of Council resolution 1325 (2000), evidence continues to show that women’s inclusion reduces violence, strengthens peacekeeping, improves accountability and makes peace agreements more likely to last, she explained. Yet, she warned, women remain excluded from diplomacy even as conflicts and crises spread across Afghanistan, Haiti, Myanmar, Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan and Ukraine.
“These are conflicts women neither choose nor lead,” she said, but women pay the highest price while being kept out of the negotiations meant to end them. She called on Member States and mediation officials to implement the Secretary-General’s Common Pledge on Women’s Participation in Peace Processes, including by endorsing a minimum one-third target for women’s representation and reporting regularly on women’s direct inclusion in talks.