Participation

Additional actions are being developed, such as setting up institutions for the exclusive purpose of guaranteeing the rights of the victims and implementing an emotional recovery strategy, in which more than 3,000 women are taking part.

Women's development is the foundation for truly realizing their empowerment. The international community should promote socioeconomic development and thereby effectively enhance the status of women and promote their positive contributions to the maintenance of international peace and security.

Fourthly, the effective participation of women is an important foundation for realizing sustainable peace and social stability. Women should become important participants in conflict prevention and mediation, and they should enjoy adequate rights when it comes to decision-making and participation in post-conflict peacebuilding and national development.

While our country has periodically taken part in these debates, our comments today are special significance since this is our first speech following Chile's election as a non-permanent member of the Council for the period 2014-2015.

We agree with the recommendations in the report about the need to promote sustainable budgets for the work, so as to strengthen women's organizations working at the national levels and to train women leaders of peace movements.

Chile will continue promoting the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000), convinced as it is of the important role played by women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and of the need to increase their participation in decision-making processes.

Prime Minister Harper and other leaders in New York recently reviewed progress on the 2010 Muskoka summit of the Group of Eight and the United Nations initiatives to improve to improve global maternal and child health. Under Canada's leadership, the Human Rights Council adopted the robust resolution 23/25 this past June on the elimination of violence against women.

Particularly egregious is the practice of child, early and forced marriage, which puts the very lives of young girls at risk. That practice denies girls' rights, disrupts their access to education, severely jeopardizes their health and limits the development of their community as a whole. Conflict situations exacerbate that practice among displaced and refugee populations, such as we know to be the case in Syria.

Canada firmly believes that the participation of women in all decision-making processes, particularly those related to the prevention and resolution of conflict and the transition to democracy, is a necessary precondition to securing sustainable peace, as is their access to justice and their inclusion in the economic and social lives of their countries and communities.

“We must invest in opportunities for women and young girls. We must ensure that women participate fully in all parts of our society and in all the countries of the United Nations. That will help us build a stronger, more secure, more prosperous and more peaceful world” (A/68/PV.21, p. 2)