WILPF at CSW59: Institutional Mechanisms, Human Rights and Armed Conflict: Assessing the Situation for Women and Girls

Organised by: International Sociological Association (ISA), the Clinical Sociology Division (RC46) of ISA, Criminologists without Borders and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)

Panelists/Participants: Sarah Boyd, WILPF; Rosemary Barberet, Susan Kang, and Heather Jones, John Jay College of Criminal Justice; Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, Bangladesh and Former UN Under-Secretary General and High Representative

Summary:

"In any country where women's rights are denied, women in that country are in conflict"

Susan Kang began by highlighting work done by the Diplomacy Lab in analyzing global trends within the recruitment and retention of women in the criminal justice systems. Sarah Boyd spoke on her experiences with CSOs and women’s organisation relative to women’s roles in peacebuilding post-conflict in Nepal and also spoke on challenges and limitations to the implementation of National Action Plans (NAPs). She illustrated that in Australia, the NAP was created and drafted in 2008-9 and then implemented in 2012. While early on, there was heavy consulting of CSOs, there were challenges in pushing the agenda because the argument came down to “a peace and security issue” versus a “women’s rights issue”. Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury reiterated the presence of two “ands”: “women” and “peace and security” and called for women to be included within peace and security. He stated that the two greatest obstacles to the WPS agenda are: the feminization of poverty and the lack of human security perception to corporations. Further, the Ambassador stated, “In any country where women's rights are denied, women in that country are in conflict.”