In the maintenance of international peace and security, we take pride in our modest contribution of troops and police to United Nations peacekeeping missions. We have made the necessary provisions to recruit women in the police and military. We are pleased that we could deploy two full contingents of all-female formed police units to the United Nations peacekeeping operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Haiti.

In conclusion, I reiterate that we in Bangladesh have been making our best efforts to ensure women's empowerment and participation in all spheres of our lives. We know that much more needs to be done. We are willing to replicate in our national policy any good practices that we learn about from around the world, and we are similarly ready to share our experience with others.

In Bangladesh, from our experience of nation- building, we have embraced a perspective of women's empowerment and developed a model that our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina calls a “peace model”. The central message conveyed in the model is the empowerment of people, including women and vulnerable groups, through a focus on seven interlinked issues.

However, women and girls still suffer violations of international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law, including forced displacement, constraints on humanitarian access and sexual and gender-based violence. Therefore, much needs to be done.

The Secretary-General and I welcome the Presidential Statement on women, peace and security issued on 31 October. In this statement, the Council pledged to advance women's participation in all aspects of conflict resolution, including transitional justice.

But women in Mali and across West Africa are strong and resilient. They have already demonstrated their ability, if given a chance, to bring about peace, reconciliation and development. We must empower and assist them further.

Through the evolution of the women, peace and security agenda over the past 12 years, through country-specific decisions and mission mandates, the Security Council has demonstrated that decisions made around this table can tangibly improve the lives of women and girls in conflict and post-conflict situations. We must however, ensure that, those issues are not addressed just once a year, on the anniversary of resolution 1325.

The United Nations system is strongly committed to strengthen the rule of law. This goes particularly for women's access to justice during and after conflict -- precisely when it is most needed but is least accessible. We are reviewing the United Nations' programming in order to galvanize a stronger and more effective impact in this area.

The role of women's organizations across the world in preventing violence, resolving conflict and building the foundations for peace is well known. Our challenge is to become more systematic in supporting and scaling up these initiatives and making the necessary links to formal peace processes.

I would like to begin with a warm expression of appreciation to both India and Guatemala, who during their Security Council Presidencies have focused our attention on the important contributions by women and women's civil society organizations to prevent to resolve armed conflict and to carry out peacebuilding.