World: Women's Leadership in Peace and Security: an Insecure Agenda
March 7, 2014
AHRC-ART-015-2014
An Article by the Asian Human Rights Commission released on the
occasion of International Women's Day
WORLD: Women's Leadership in Peace and Security: an Insecure Agenda
One of the rare positive impacts of armed conflict on gender
relations is the increased movement, mobility and opportunities for
women in political spaces for leadership in constructing and
reconstructing peace in the society during conflict and post conflict
situations. Women's participation in conflict is multi-dimensional.
Women play multiple roles in an armed conflict such as combatants,
mediators, sleeper cells, informants, armed forces, nurses, peace
negotiators and rights activists. Armed conflict affects women's life
in different ways. However, the prominent portrayal of women in an
armed conflict situation is mostly as victims and survivors. Their
leadership role in peace building as agents of change and their
contribution is completely marginalised, often ignored and uncounted
for various reasons.
The feminist movement in the 1970s against the use of sexualised
violence as a weapon of war gained momentum, encouraging a discourse
on the prevention of sexualised violence. This later influenced
international human rights jurisprudence. Sexualised violence in armed
conflict is as old as the practice of conflict as a resort of
resolution. However attention to address this as an issue is
comparatively new. It was only during the 1950s that the issue began
to emerge in the human rights discourse. The campaign by 'Comfort
Women' brought forth the issue of sexual violence against women in
war. This campaign and the demands of justice for past crimes
influenced a series of reforms in international criminal law.
The International Criminal Tribunal of former Yugoslavia (ICTY),
International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR) and the International
Criminal Court (ICC) recognised sexual violence in armed conflict
situations and criminalised such acts in an effort to end the culture
of impunity. The ICTY and the ICTR codified sexual crimes in armed
conflict situations and pronounced penal sanction for these crimes.
The ICTR judgment in the case of Jean Paul Akeyesu (Case No ICTR
-96-4-T) marked a watershed in the development of the treatment of
sexual crimes during internal armed conflict situation. Rape in armed
conflicts was till late penalized under the categories of the offences
of 'Crimes against Humanity' and 'Genocide". For the first time the
Akeyesu judgment, categorized the offence of rape during armed
conflict as a 'war crime'.
The Rome Treaty of 1998 which established the permanent International
Criminal Court has adopted a similar codification of sexualised
violence. The treaty categorises rape, sexual slavery, enforced
prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other
form of sexual violence of comparable gravity as 'crimes against
humanity' and establishes individual criminal responsibility for any
crimes committed under the Treaty.
However these remarkable developments didn't promote or recognised
women's leadership in peace building.
In the South Asian context, violent armed conflicts increased the
number of women as victims. For example, the Bangladesh war of
independence exhibits how sexual violence was used to propagate
strategic military purposes. The war resulted into nearly 200,000
women being used as sexual slaves. They were later given 'recognition'
as '/Birangana/' (War Heroines). The government run special project
for them allocated monetary rewards for men on becoming their
husbands. The project did not run successfully and the majority of
women preferred to remain unmarried or to live with their rapists. At
the end of the brutal war, only two women were declared as /Mukti
Jodhdha/ (freedom fighters). Armed conflict in pockets of the country
remained even after the independence without formal acceptance of the
fact.
The portrayal of women as victims remains prominent even among the
standard setting practice with international bodies like United
Nations. The Convention on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW), a prominent convention dedicated to ensure
elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, is a widely
used tool in advocating gender rights. It is one of the most signed
conventions with 187 state parties. However, even this convention did
not explicitly talk about the peculiar situation of women face during
and after violent armed conflict and their roles in peace building. It
was only in 2013, after an existence of almost 33 years, that CEDAW
came up with a general recommendation to ensure women's participation
in peace and security issues. CEDAW adopted General Recommendation 30
in October 2013 on women in conflict prevention, conflict and
post-conflict situations creating an obligation for member state
parties to ensure the participation of women in the peace process.
The major world's conferences on women's rights (Mexico, 1975,
Copenhagen 1980, Nairobi 1985, Beijing 1995) too focused mostly on the
women's victim mode and talked of the empowerment of women's
leadership only remotely.
United Nations Security Council, a prominent body in the UN system
dedicated to uphold peace and security in the world, made a paradigm
shift and recognised women's leadership in 2000's and adopted
resolutions on women, peace and security. Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325)
adopted in 2000 by the Security Council is a widely known resolution
that recognises women's roles and potential for contributions in the
peace process. The resolution has four 'pillars' coined as
Participation, Protection, Prevention, and Relief and Recovery. It
calls for the increased participation of women at all levels of
decision-making, not only in national, regional, and international
institutions but also in other mechanisms engaged in prevention,
management and resolution of conflict and in peace negotiations and in
peace operations as soldiers, police and as agents of the UN. The
resolution also calls for the protection of women and girls from
sexual and gender-based violence during armed conflict situations
through preventive strategies against violence against women by ending
impunity, strengthening women's rights under national law and
encouraging local women's initiatives for peace and conflict
resolution. However, though the resolution is strongly worded, it's
implementation relies on the sweet will of the UN member countries.
There is no implementation and monitoring mechanism or bench marks set
up allowing the state parties to get away with obligations.
Building on this momentum generated by the UNSCR 1325, the Security
Council continued to adopt several other resolutions in the subsequent
years highlighting the victim mode of women in conflict situation.
Resolution 1820 adopted in June 2008 focuses specifically on sexual
violence in situations of armed conflict and 'demands the immediate
and complete cessation by all parties to armed conflict of all acts of
sexual violence against civilians'. Some of the remarkable resolutions
in the same line adopted by Security Council, are 1888 (2009), 1889
(2009), 1960 (2010) and 2106 (2013).
One of the main reasons of not recognising women's role in armed
conflict situation is that of non-recognition of the existence of the
armed conflict situation itself. In a study entitled 'The Contested
Corners of ASIA: Subnational Conflict and International Development
Assistance' by the Asia Foundation, it is revealed that the conflict
of the nature of* s*ubnational conflict is the most widespread, deadly
and enduring form of conflict in Asia. The report says, 'over the past
20 years, there have been 26 subnational conflicts in South and
Southeast Asia, affecting half of the countries in this region. These
conflicts are among the world's longest running armed struggles, often
lasting for multiple generations, and more than 40 years on average.
Within Asia, subnational conflicts have been the most common form of
armed conflict since 1955 with 60\% of the world's active subnational
conflicts in the past decade affecting 50\% of countries are in South
Asia and South East Asia'.
Violent armed conflicts in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Philippines, Burma,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, and Bangladesh are continuing for years,
affecting a major portion of the population in multiple ways. In
India, central states, north eastern states and the Jammu and Kashmir
region remained under violent armed conflict for decades without any
formal acceptance by the country. In fact, India in its report to the
Committee on Convention on Child's Rights (CRC) in 2005 denied the
existence of any armed conflict in the country.
In Nepal, the Maoists movement ending in 2006 encouraged women to
participate as combatants. Conflict induced poverty equally compelled
them to do so. The presence of international agencies in the initial
peace building period in Nepal in post 2006, encouraged the adoption
of a National Action Plan (NAP) on UNSCR 1325. Nepal became the second
country in Asia to adopt such an action plan after the Philippines.
The Governing Council of the National Judicial Academy of Nepal
adopted a resolution for mainstreaming gender equality issues in its
policy and practice, as part of its legal reforms in the country.
Indonesia and Japan are the two other Asian countries in the process
of similar adoption of a NAP. However, the adoption of an NAP among
the UN members states remains slow. So far 25 countries have adopted a
National Action Plan (NAP) to implement UNSCR 1325.
The position of women and their situation in such conflicts is
affected by what experts point out as 'a result of deep-rooted
structural problems: discrimination, inequalities, collusive power
structures and development agenda impacting multiple generations'.
Despite, the adoption of affirmative actions by several countries for
the emancipation of women their status remains unequal reinforcing
subordination at every leave. For example, poverty is feminized at
present with women constituting about 70\% of world's poor. About 80\%
of world's unpaid labour is performed by women. Though the world
comprises of nearly 50\% of women, an equitable representation of
women in politics and governance is still a distant reality. They
remain unrepresented in grassroots, national, regional and
international governance architecture.
The leadership of women in peace and security processes remains an
insecure agenda. Space for engaging in a constructive manner is
remote. Women's organisations need to intensify advocacy towards the
Post 2015 agenda in order to ensure that gender, social, cultural,
economic and ecological justice, sustainable development and inclusive
peace becomes a part of it. Strengthening the influence of the
Commission on the Status of Women, rigorous implementation of
obligations under CEDAW and other policy documents like the Beijing
Platform for Action could be the possible arenas for meaningful
engagement. Time is very limited and the goals are miles away.
*/*About the author/*/: Anjuman Ara Begum is Program Officer - India
Desk at Asian Human Rights Commission and can be contacted at e-mail
//[email protected]/
* This PR was sent to e-pao.net by Asian Human Rights Commission who can be contacted at ua(at)ahrc(dot)asia
This Press Release was posted on March 09, 2014
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