Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
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UNSC RESOLUTION 1325 WOMEN, WAR AND UNITED NATIONS NEWS RESOURCES ORGANIZATIONS INITIATIVES
Fair Use Notice:
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Elections in the DRC are currently offering an important opportunity for women in the country to be involved in the political process. UNIFEM has been supporting efforts to ensure women’s participation and representation in and through the process (Item 9). Several of our news stories (Item 2) note the gains made in this worldwide struggle – from Rwanda, Southern Africa and Iraq to Latin America and the Navajo Nation. Unfortunately there remain many obstacles to women’s full and equal participation. One of these is sexual and gender-based violence which, unless addressed will continue to limit women’s capacity and access to political processes. Several initiatives are being taken by governments and civil society to attempt to address this violence. Some governments have recently enacted legislation and are developing partnerships to take action. A recent International Symposium in Brussels on Sexual Violence in Conflict and Beyond issued the Brussels Call to Action which is this month’s Feature Initiative (Item 5). It calls for specific action and seeks to establish a “broad partnership of governments, civil society, the United Nations and other organizations to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in all its forms in conflict and beyond. We encourage the cross-sectoral readership of this newsletter to take action on this call. One particular issue on which action is sorely needed is that of small arms – their proliferation heightens women’s risk of being subject to sexual and gender-based violence. This and other issues of small arms and gender are covered in an insightful analysis by IANSA Women’s Network (Item 3) which works to ensure that gender is a critical aspect in world-wide work on small arms. Other women’s networks
and organizations continue to make important contributions to peacebuilding
and Resolution 1325 has become an important tool in that work. It
is thus vital that the resolution be accessible and understandable.
Our Translation Initiative, through which the PeaceWomen Project
has gathered 77 translations to date, attempts to increase access
to the 1325. We recently launched a “Using 1325 in Translation”
initiative where we share how translations of the resolution are
being used and their impact on the work of women, peace and security
advocates. In this e-news (Item 4) we feature the West African Network
for Peacebuilding (WIPNET) and how they have used 1325 translations
in their peacebuilding work. We encourage others to share their
uses of translations with us in the hopes that this will positively
impact on the full and effective implementation of Resolution 1325. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • As always we welcome your contributions to the newsletter’s content. The newsletter is sent out at the end of each month. We will feature the deadline for submissions for the next edition in each newsletter. Contributions for the September edition should be sent to enewssubmissions@peacewomen.org by Thursday 21 September 2006. IN
AFRICA, WOMEN ARE VANGUARD OF PROGRESS SOUTH
AFRICA: WOMEN'S DAY - BALANCING GAINS AND FEARS GHANA
CALLS ON UN TO BOOST NATIONAL CAPACITIES FOR PEACE-BUILDING UN
STUDY DECLARES VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN A WIDESPREAD PROBLEM IN AFGHANISTAN THE
MIDDLE-EAST CRISIS: ONE WOMAN'S VIEW IRAN
OUTLAWS HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP IN NEW CRACKDOWN FATWA
BANS WOMEN WORKING WITH NGOS IRAQ:
LAWYERS KILLED FOR DEFENDING CASES “AGAINST ISLAM” NAVAJO
ELECTION HIGHLIGHTS BENIN
BANS HARASSMENT DRC:
RAPE VICTIMS HOPE NEW LEADERS WILL HALT VIOLENCE RAPE
WIELDED AS A WEAPON IN MYANMAR NIGERIA:
CURBING ARMED VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ATTACK
AND RAPE OF 17 WOMEN OUTSIDE KALMA IDP CAMP BRAZIL
ENACTS LAW ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN LATIN
AMERICA: PROGRESS TOWARDS GENDER PARITY IN POLITICS WOMEN
CHIEFS PUSH FOR QUOTA SYSTEM IRAQ:
THE NEW POLITICAL PLAYERS DISPLACED
WOMEN BUILD NEW LIVES, BRICK BY BRICK JEWISH
AND ARAB WOMEN UNITE AGAINST WAR • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • For
more country-specific women, peace and security news, CLICK
HERE
Small arms and gender: Where do we go from here? A Review of the Small Arms and Light Weapons Review Conference, 26 June – 7 July 2006 By Susanna Kalitowski, IANSA Women’s Network Coordinator Between 26 June and 7 July 2006, UN Member States met in New York to decide the future of the UN process on small arms and light weapons (SALW). In 2001, States negotiated the Program of Action (PoA), a non-legally binding international agreement to tackle the illicit trade in SALW in all its aspects. They agreed to hold two reporting meetings in 2003 and 2005 and to revaluate the content of the PoA at a Review Conference in 2006. Taking their cue from the successful International Campaign to Ban Landmines, members of global civil society have been closely involved in the small arms process from its onset and have organized themselves under the banner of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), which is currently made up of over 700 civil society organizations working in 110 countries. IANSA members had high hopes for the Review Conference. They have long argued that the PoA fails to address crucial components of the global small arms crisis, which continues to kill 1000 people per day. However, there were signs of real progress during the 2003 and 2005 reporting conferences when a large number of States echoed their concerns in their national statements. IANSA members and a host of likeminded States, mostly from Africa, Europe, and Latin America, reiterated the need for the PoA to address, among other things, human rights, the regulation of small arms in the hands of civilians, the problem of arms transfers to non-state actors, the link between small arms and development, assistance to survivors of small arms violence, and the highly gendered nature of gun misuse and gun injury. The PoA only makes a single reference to gender in its preamble, where it carelessly lumps women with children and the elderly. However, the global gun violence epidemic affects men and women differently. The vast majority – around 90% – of direct victims and perpetrators of gun violence are men. But women suffer disproportionately given that they are rarely gun owners and users, and they experience gun violence differently to men. For example, they are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence at gunpoint. Unlike men, they are more likely to be killed by someone they know, often in their own homes and with a legally-owned gun. The PoA only addresses illicitly-held guns. Partly in response to the weakness of the PoA, the IANSA Women’s Network was founded to connect activists, advocates, policy experts, and researchers around the world who are producing much-needed information about the different ways that women, women, girls and boys are affected by and respond to gun violence. Many of these impressive women were present throughout the Review Conference, as NGO delegates on national delegations, speakers at side events (notably the IANSA Women’s Network panel discussion, ‘Women and guns: voices from the front line’) and the IANSA presentation to the plenary, and advocates in governmental meetings. At the Review Conference, the Women’s Network called for the inclusion of gendered language, including a specific mention of men and the explicit recognition of the role of women’s organizations in preventing, combating and eradicating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects in the text of the Conference Outcome Document. It is clear that a large number of States supported our recommendations because a paragraph specifically referring to gender and to Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security consistently appeared in a number of versions of the draft Outcome Document produced by the President, Ambassador Kariyawasam of Sri Lanka, before and throughout the Conference, including in the his last substantial draft of 3 July. However, despite the efforts of the majority of governments to secure a strengthened PoA, agreement on almost all the major issues was blocked by a handful of states, notably the US. In the end, the Review Conference failed to produce an Outcome Document, leaving the entire small arms process in question. The shape of any future process will now have to be resolved during the First Committee in October 2006. It is now more vital than ever that States, international organizations and civil society begin to proactively mainstream gender in small arms policy and practice at all levels. Failure to recognize that gun violence affects men and women differently and that men make up the majority of gun violence will mean that projects, activities and interventions will miss the mark when it comes to reducing the suffering. A wide range of practical information has been generated since 2001 to assist policymakers with this work. The IANSA Women’s Network has produced a resource paper, ‘Gender-specific action to prevent all arms violence,’ which offers nine concrete recommendations on how to integrate gender into small arms policy and practice; the UN Coordinating Action on Small Arms (CASA) has produced detailed guidelines on how to mainstream gender in the implementation of the PoA; and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue has written a policy brief focusing specifically on men and guns, which also offers policy suggestions and questions for further research. Now is also the time to utilize existing binding international law to our best advantage. It is essential that States begin to recognize that the full implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 will play a vital role in combating the illicit trade in small arms in all its aspects, and that it should be interpreted to mean that women should be wholly involved in all small arms policy and practice. A number of Women’s Network members are also calling for 1325 to be interpreted to apply to ‘peaceful’ States that are plagued by high levels of armed violence such as Brazil and El Salvador. The way ahead has been charted, and the IANSA Women’s Network will continue working with States and civil society to make sure that gender is accurately reflected in small arms work all over the world. To help us accomplish this goal, we are seeking the involvement of all organizations interested in gender and disarmament. For further information, write to Susanna Kalitowski, Women’s Network Coordinator, at women@iansa.org. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • FURTHER RESOURCES: Women’s Network Bulletin
and Portal Survivors- women affected
by gun violence speak out It is available online at:
http://www.iansa.org/women/documents/survivors-for-web.pdf
Ibo (Igbo) is a language spoken by the Igbo people of South-eastern Nigeria. It is one of the most widely spoken languages in Nigeria. Ijaw (Izon) is a language spoken by the approximately14 million Ijaw people who live around the Niger River Delta in Nigeria. Tiv is the language of the Tiv people of Nigeria and Cameroon. The 3 translations were completed by the Women in Peacebuilding program of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) Nigeria, with support from NOVIB Netherlands. Contact: Bridget Osakwe, Program Officer Other languages identified as a priority for translation by women, peace and security advocates are: Achehnese (Indonesia)
WIPNET - NIGERIA: The importance of translating
SCR 1325 In the article below, Bridget Osakwe, a program officer of the women in peacebuilding program explains the motivation for the organization’s translation efforts and the use of the translations in their peacebuilding work. The Vision of the WIPNET program is “A West Africa sub- region where women are key to decision making in peace and security while the Goal is “To build women’s capacity to play active and visible roles in peacebuilding in West Africa”. WIPNET’s work is based on the ideology of “Women’s peace activism” which calls for the cessation of physical violence during conflict and war and also the deconstruction of structural forms of physical violence which exist in everyday society by promoting social justice and fighting patriarchal systems. In the course of consultations across
West Africa, WIPNET learnt that women are excluded either by design
or default from the peace process by themale establishment, and
also they often suffer from lack of awareness and skills in peacebuilding,
and also lack of confidence, exposure and opportunity to get involved. For the rest of this article
please visit: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Brussels Call to Action to Address
Sexual Violence in Conflict and Beyond At the conclusion of this symposium, delegates issued a call for urgent and long-term action against sexual violence in all its forms, in conflict and beyond. This Call to Action is for governments, European Institutions, the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations, and civil society to prioritize the issue of sexual violence against women and girls, in particular, and also against men and boys, in all humanitarian, peacebuilding and development frameworks and programming in countries affected by conflict. This Call to Action builds on existing agreements and recognizes that these efforts should address not only sexual violence but all forms of gender-based violence that endanger civilians in conflict as well as in peacetime. This Call to Action builds on existing agreements and calls for their immediate and urgent implementation. There must be zero tolerance for acts of sexual and gender-based violence, and zero tolerance for complacency by governments and other institutions responsible for the safety and well-being of women, men and children affected by conflict. Brussels Call to Action We, the delegates to the International Symposium on Sexual Violence in Conflict and Beyond, call for urgent and long-term action to: 1. Prevent sexual and gender-based violence by promoting gender equity and equality and the economic, social and political empowerment of women. 2. Enhance mechanisms for regional and subregional collaboration of governments, donors, international organizations and civil society to address sexual and gender-based violence, with special attention to highly volatile areas. 3. Incorporate sexual violence prevention and protection into all aspects of humanitarian assistance including food, fuel, water and sanitation, and shelter as prescribed by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Guidelines for gender-based interventions in humanitarian settings. 4. Prevent and respond to sexual violence in all planning and funding frameworks for humanitarian response, peacebuilding, recovery, development and political dialogue, and link relief and development funding to ensure the continuity of sexual violence prevention and response. 5. Strengthen accountability frameworks and systematic monitoring and reporting on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1325 and relevant resolutions adopted by the European Council. 6. Intensify international, regional and national efforts to end impunity for perpetrators by strengthening the legal and judicial systems and by enacting and enforcing legislation, and provide national judicial systems with the necessary resources to prosecute cases of sexual and gender-based violence. 7. Recognize the right and ensure access to material and symbolic reparation, including restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition for all survivors. 8. Develop national action plans to address sexual and gender-based violence that identify comprehensive programmes and opportunities for action across sectors, including sexual and reproductive health and the prevention, treatment and care for HIV/AIDS; education and life skills; human rights; justice; security sector reform; and socioeconomic recovery and livelihood support. 9. Ensure the full and active participation of youth, women and other vulnerable populations, including refugees and internally displaced persons, in the development of comprehensive national action plans to address sexual and gender-based violence. 10. Include in national plans the prevention of gender-based violence as an indicator of good governance to be used as an element in determining access to funding, including incentive tranches. 11. Build and strengthen ownership of all national frameworks and develop the capacity of country partners, governmental and non-governmental organizations, particularly women's organizations, and the United Nations system to ensure the centrality of sexual and gender-based violence in poverty reduction strategy papers, sector-wide approaches, country and regional strategy papers, consolidated appeals processes, post-conflict needs assessments and national transitional strategies, and common country assessments/United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks. 12. Ensure specific protection mechanisms for especially vulnerable groups such as unaccompanied and separated children and persons with disabilities. 13. Strengthen behaviour change communication and other measures to preserve and restore positive social values and change harmful beliefs and practices to protect against sexual and gender-based violence and strengthen the protective capacities of families and communities. 14. Incorporate strategies to prevent and respond to sexual violence in disarmament, demobilization and reintegration and in security sector reform processes, and ensure the full engagement of the security sector, including police and army, to prevent and respond to sexual violence in a sensitive and effective manner. 15. Urge all nations providing troops to United Nations peacekeeping operations to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. 16. Develop awareness of humanitarian laws, human rights and gender equality for humanitarian workers and peacekeepers and enforce the United Nations code of conduct on zero tolerance for sexual abuse and exploitation. 17. Develop comprehensive awareness-raising strategies on the nature, scope and seriousness of sexual and gender-based violence at all levels to ensure the protection of survivors from discrimination and stigmatization, and engage men and boys, as well as government officials, community and religious leaders, the media, women's groups and other opinion makers in promoting and protecting the rights and welfare of women and children. 18. Develop a comprehensive methodology and tools to assess the scope and nature of sexual and gender-based violence in conflict-affected countries and specify budgetary and cost implications. 19. Undertake comprehensive, ethically and methodologically sound, qualitative and quantitative research on the nature, scope, impact, root causes and contributing factors of sexual and gender-based violence, and develop ongoing data collection, monitoring and evaluation, and reporting systems, including gender budgeting. 20. Invest in the capacity-building of all stakeholders involved in the prevention and response to sexual and gender-based violence in conflict and beyond. 21. Empower the media to educate and advocate against sexual and gender-based violence. Together we call for a broad partnership of governments, civil society, the United Nations and other organizations to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in all its forms in conflict and beyond. For complete statement or more information, please
click visit: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • For more women, peace and security initiatives – in country, regional, global and international, visit: http://www.peacewomen.org/campaigns/global/index.html Women in Armed
Opposition Groups in Africa and the Promotion of International
Humanitarian Law and Human Rights The objective of the 2005 Addis Ababa workshop was to identify ways of strengthening the understanding and observance of international humanitarian law and human rights law within the African armed groups and their political wings. At the same time, the workshop sought to contribute to African and international organizations’ understanding of and ability to work with armed opposition groups to promote and uphold international humanitarian and human rights norms. Four topics were discussed during the workshop: humanitarian law, human rights law, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) and transition into governance roles. This report presents information and analyses that came out of these four thematic working groups. For the full report, please visit: http://www.peacewomen.org/resources/DDR/GenevaCall.pdf Peacekeeping Watch UN
PROBES PROSTITUTION RING • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • For PeaceWomen’s Peacekeeping Watch index, visit: http://www.peacewomen.org/un/pkwatch/pkwatch.html For more gender and peacekeeping news, visit
PeaceWomen’s Gender and Peacekeeping News Index:
UN High Level Mission To Nepal Meets With Women Peacebuilders A high-level United Nations assessment team traveled to Nepal from 26 July- 3 August discuss proposed UN assistance for the peace process. The team was led by Staffan De Mistura, the Secretary-General’s former Deputy Special Representative for Iraq. According to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, recent developments have provided an “unprecedented opportunity” to achieve a negotiated solution to the 10 years of conflict in Nepal. Concerned that women have not played an active role in the peace negotiation process, the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security sent an open letter to Ambassador De Mistura and his team. The NGO Working Group would like to sincerely thank Ambassador De Mistura and the team and commend the mission for organizing a meeting with Nepalese women peacebuilders who discussed their experiences and recommendations with them. It is our hope that this marks the beginning of a process which includes women’s full and active participation in the peacebuilding process and the implementation of Security Council resolution 1325 in Nepal.
Dear H.E. Ambassador De Mistura, On the occasion of the high-level United Nations mission to Nepal to discuss United Nations assistance in the peace process, the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security (NGOWG) would like to echo the wide concern that women have not been present at the peace negotiating table. Any reconstruction plan for Nepal will not be effective without the equal participation of women who are champions of peace, human rights and democracy and their inclusion in the design, delivery and evaluation of all development programmes and plans. The NGOWG endorses the Open Letter
on Nepal to the United Nations Secretary-General from the Wilton
Park Conference on Security Council Resolution 1325, and respectfully
urges the mission to implement the resolution by:
We also encourage the mission to meet with key women’s organizations working in this field. In order to facilitate this, we are attaching contact information for these groups. They can provide first-hand, field level expertise and recommendations that we believe will greatly benefit the United Nations and help promote its work. For meaningful and effective dialogue to take place, representatives from these women’s organizations must also be included in joint meetings with United Nations, military, and governmental actors. It is our hope that the high-level United Nations team to Nepal will set this example for others to follow. Sincerely yours, Gina Torry, Coordinator
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• • • • • • • 2006 Presidential and Legislative Elections in the DRC As the Democratic Republic of Congo experiences this historic elections period, UNIFEM is supporting the National Network for Elections Monitoring and Observation. Part of this support is to document the participation of women in the elections process as well as generate sex-disaggregated data on this issue. In addition to standing for office, women participated in the first round of elections activity by serving as polling station monitors, observers and candidate witnesses. A UNIFEM brief noted that 4 female candidates stood for presidential election, while 1311 “stood for the legislative elections, contesting for 500 parliamentary seats” representing a ratio of 2 women candidates per seat. For more information on the elections monitoring
please visit: For more information on UNIFEM’s activities
in the DRC please visit:
From 17 – 18 August, UNIFEM and UNDP co-organized a consultation on Gender, Early Warning and Conflict Analysis: Programming for Conflict Prevention in New York. This consultation focused on work undertaken by UNIFEM and UNDP in developing gender-sensitive early warning systems as well as gender-sensitive conflict analysis, focusing on experiences in the Solomon Islands, the Ferghana Valley, Fiji, Colombia, and Indonesia. The consultation drew on expertise from UNIFEM and UNDP, as well as other UN partner participants to highlight good practices, lessons learned and ways forward for partnership in this growing area of analysis and programming. More information on UNIFEM’s work in conflict
prevention can be found at: For more information on UNDP-BCPR conflict prevention
visit: • •
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• • • • • • • Online
Discussion: The Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination and
Violence Against the Girl Child The purpose of this online discussion is to contribute to an understanding of the causes and consequences of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child and to identify good practices and strategies required to accelerate the elimination of these violations of the human rights of girls. Contributions to the online discussion will provide the background information to a meeting of experts convened by the Division for the Advancement of Women in collaboration with UNICEF from 25 to 28 September 2006, to discuss this theme. The online discussion and Expert Group Meeting are part of the preparatory process for the 51st session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in March 2007, which will consider "The elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child" as its priority theme. For information on how to participate in the discussion,
please visit: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • "Equal Chances in
Europe. EU-Enlargement: Gender Equality, Participation" For a copy of the invitation please visit: http://www.peacewomen.org/frame/calendar/fliers/WomnetFlier.pdf If you have any other questions, do not hesitate to contact Nadine Heller from WOMNET at: nadine.heller@womnet.de • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Institute for Peace and
Justice Women Peacemakers Conference Co-Convened byJoan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice (IPJ) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) For more information on this event, please http://peace.sandiego.edu/events/womenpeace/application.php
Women PeaceMakers Program:
2006 Fall Residency The Women PeaceMakers Program is a unique learning and teaching experience in which individuals take time to narrate a unique story of peacemaking from a personal perspective. Women will work both in small groups and one-on-one with a peace writer, offering opportunities to share experiences in their respective country and conflict setting. Participants will also develop new skills to take home from fellow peacemakers. Through better understanding of an individual's experience, the program is intended to build greater cross-cultural understanding and to document the challenges and successes of women who have been involved in peacemaking efforts. For more information on the program and
applications, please visit: http://peace.sandiego.edu/programs/women.html • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • For the complete calendar, CLICK HERE. The
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International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
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