Participation

We particularly wish to highlight the importance of replacing the image of women in conflict situations as humiliated, marginalized victims — with an image of active partners in the process of conflict prevention, mediation and resolution.

Tunisia, for its part, has begun to implement a plan of action for the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000), which, inter alia, encourages the training of women in the area of peacekeeping and peace building, in order to be able to deploy qualified personnel to United Nations missions in the field.

First, prevention is a priority as it is an essential part of our efforts to protect, in which many stakeholders have a role to play. Specific and timebound commitments to put an end to all acts of sexual violence and to bring their perpetrators to justice can help to break the cycle of violence.

It is essential that every process aimed at security sector reform include a focus on sexual violence, as well as the broader security needs of women and girls. Training and capacity-building of national security actors should aim at a real shift in attitudes from a conflict management posture to the provision of security for citizens and communities, placing the person in the centre.

Yet more gender-related legislation has been enacted since then. For example, the principle of gender equality in pension age was established in 2003. The status of women took a qualitative leap forward in the domain of political participation in 2008, when an election law was enacted stipulating that women must hold at least 25 per cent of the seats not only in the Sudanese federal Parliament but also in all 10 state Parliaments.

Sri Lanka stands ready to extend its support to achieving gender parity in United Nations peacekeeping activities and in carrying our gender-related mandates of the peacekeeping missions. Necessary predeployment training has been completed to deploy an all-female battalion comprising 855 personnel and 28 female officers, at any time.

We fully concur with the recommendation that the Security Council should systematically reflect conflict-related sexual violence in the authorization and renewal of peacekeeping mandates and the renewal of special political missions.

We are pleased with the development of a framework of early warning signs specific to conflict related sexual violence by UN-Women, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and the broader United Nations system. That will assist a great deal towards preventing those heinous crimes.

Women are clearly decisive actors at every stage of the peace building process in the long term. It is therefore necessary to promote their full participation as an integral part of efforts to establish, maintain and strengthen peace.

We agree with the Secretary-General that women are decisive players in the context of the three pillars required for lasting peace: economic recovery, social cohesion and political legitimacy.