Implementation

Canada supports the efforts of SRSG Margot Wallstrom to provide strategic leadership and strengthen UN coordination mechanisms in order to address sexual violence in armed conflict. The recent systematic acts of sexual violence perpetrated in the eastern DRC demonstrate the necessity of Ms. Wallstrom's work. Canada calls on the UN system to ensure that her office is adequately resourced and capable of timely action.

As we said in the Security Council Debate on October 13th, Canada is pleased with the Secretary General's concrete efforts to redress the disparity in women's participation in peace building efforts. And we support the Secretary-General's seven-point action plan. Canada reiterates the concerns raised in the Review of the UN peacebuilding architecture.

In that respect, we welcome the creation of the new entity, UN Women, and given the enormous task facing its Director, Under-Secretary-General Bachelet, we hope that she will receive the sustained support of Member States, so that the new entity can respond to the expectations of women, who are only asking for access to resources. Once this has been achieved, the empowerment of women will have become a reality.

The topics promoted through these pillars are primarily participation, conflict prevention, protection against violence against women and children and community recovery.

The question that remains crucial in Burundi is that of customary law and the access of women to property and inheritance. That issue has become a social concern that the Government of Burundi must address in order to align itself with the parliamentary debate convened in 2004, which resulted in a proposed draft law on succession, matrimony and rights.

Since 2005, Burundi has sought to give women an important role in managing public affairs. The unremitting struggle of the women of Burundi, together with the determination of the Government, made it possible to achieve the results that the whole world can see today in terms of the representation of women in decision-making bodies, both at the executive and the legislative levels.

On 31 October 2000, when resolution 1325 (2000) was solemnly adopted by the Security Council, Burundi was in a good position to implement it, given not only the experience that Burundian actors had recently acquired in Arusha and the backing of international organizations in the support of women of Burundi during the peace process, but also the challenges still to be tackled, in particular, agreeing on a ceasefire with the armed movements and

In this connection, during the Global Open Day for Women and Peace on 11 June 2010, the women of Burundi firmly recommended to the Executive Representative of the Secretary-General for Burundi the establishment of a basket fund that would facilitate the economic recovery of women in the context of post-conflict reconstruction.

In order to fully achieve the objectives of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000), women in civil society, under the leadership of the Ministry of National Solidarity, Human Rights and Gender and in partnership with United Nations agencies, have drawn up plan of action for resolution 1325 (2000) comprising eight pillars that outline the steps to take to make this resolution effective.

During the same period, two decisive events were under way at the regional and international levels. The first was the Arusha negotiations, which gave the women of Burundi a seat at the negotiating table. The second was the period of the evolution of resolution 1325 (2000), here at the United Nations.