Participation

Women are the worst sufferers of conflict. Study after study has shown this.

Before US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left the podium at the International Conference on Afghanistan in London on 28 January 2010, she pointed to four women wrapped in green scarves and clustered together in the corner of the crowded press conference room and asked them to stand up.

There is a profound silence in conflict. Women's voices are absent. They are excluded from decision-making and peace processes across the world's trouble spots.

This exclusion not only perpetuates political and social structures that disenfranchise women, but also violates international law.

The need to engage women in all phases of conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation was highlighted at the closing of a two-day conference held in Sarajevo on 27 and 28 October.

The United States introduced in the UN General Assembly on Tuesday a draft resolution entitled Women and Political Participation.

The resolution was co-sponsored by 48 countries representing cross-regional support, the US State Department said. They include Columbia, Cyprus, Honduras, Monaco, Palau, Maldives, Moldova, South Korea, Tunisia, Ukraine and Britain.

"The greatest lesson of the Arab Spring, whoever rises to power in these countries, is that if basic human rights are not respected, it is impossible to guarantee security to people”, reveals Bernard Sabella, a Catholic professor of sociology at Bethlehem University in Rome for the conference "Women agents of change in the South Mediterranean." The last Nobel peace prize, assigned to the Yemeni Tawakkul Karman (along with

The UN Security Council has urged countries to implement a landmark resolution which seeks to strengthen women's participation in peacebuilding, peacekeeping, conflict prevention and mediation process.

As an African woman, I declare: The Nobel Prize got it right, it celebrated three African women. Two Liberians and one Yemeni woman were honored. Two grassroots leaders -- women's rights activist Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, and democracy activist Tawakkul Karman of Yemen and one president -- Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won this year's Peace Prize. It showed that the Nobel Committee understood.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday called for the involvement of more women in conflict prevention and mediation, saying ``their participation is essential to building blocks in reinforcing democracy'.

On the anniversary of the UN Security Council resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, the UN Security Council is holding an Open Debate today on the theme of “Women's Participation and Role in Conflict Resolution and Mediation.”