Gender and Peacebuilding: Global Policy Project

Approximately 80% of today’s civilian casualties are women (Oxfam) and 80% of all refugees and internally displaced people world-wide are women and children (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). Women in unstable, disruptive conflict and post-conflict situations are at risk from multiple forms of violence and are often deliberate targets in conflict:

Civilian victims, mostly women and children often outnumber casualties among combatants…women often become carers for injured combatants and find themselves unexpectedly cast as the sole parent, manager of the household and caretakers of elderly relatives. Parties to the conflict often rape women with impunity, sometimes using systematic rape as a tactic of terrorism. The impact of violence against women and violations of their human rights in such situations is experienced by women of all ages, who suffer displacement, loss of home and property.
(Beijing Platform for Action - 1995).

However, women are not simply passive victims. From Northern Ireland to Burundi, from the Middle East to Colombia, women are working towards constructing new visions of peace and security, which place human concerns at their centre. In all their varied roles; as community leaders, social organisers, farmers, teachers, welfare workers etc. and despite overwhelming challenges against them women play a significant role in peacebuilding and reconciliation processes within their communities. These activities include:

Peacebuilding initiatives through cross community-level reconciliation.
Participating in peace processes at local, national, regional and global levels.
Involvement in reconstruction, demobilisation, disarmament, reintegration & development programmes.
Involvement in lobbying and demonstrating activities to promote peace.
Coping strategies concentrating on day to day basic needs and holding communities together

Not enough is being done to protect women’s rights, or to ensure that they have equal access to political, economic and social resources. Often high level peace negotiations, exclude women and their peacebuilding work and perspectives are rendered invisible. They are neglected and disempowered. The campaign's aim was to address this exclusion.

In May 1999 at a conference on Women and Violent Conflict, women from conflict areas gathered to discuss issues and formulate collaborative strategies for gender-sensitive peacebuilding. The international Women Building Peace Campaign resulted from this event.

Influencing policy processes by targeting policy-makers and practitioners, in particular the United Nations Security Council, United Nations agencies, the European Union, national governments, militaries and international Non-Governmental Organisations.
An awareness-raising process to highlight the concerns and experiences of women in conflict prevention and to recognise their contribution to peacebuilding.
A coalition-building process focusing on building relationships with and between peacebuilding organisations.

Mary Brownell was a retired school teacher in 1994, when the Liberian civil war was still raging across the country, leaving devastation and destruction in its wake. "At first when the war started the women were not saying anything," she says, "but this wild idea came to me." Brownell wanted to get women's voices heard at the peace table. In her home she called a first meeting with just a handful of friends. They decided to call a public meeting. "We went on radio appealing to the women to join us at the city hall - and the women came out in full. We told them 'we can't just sit down' after all we are the victims - women and children - so we have to play a more active role. We must get our voices heard and make our presence felt." The group, The Liberian Women's Initiative (LWI), chose disarmament before elections as their primary focus. When the time came, they mobilised women across the country to disarm soldiers, and to encourage citizens to vote. Despite the lack of funding and initial resistance from the war lords, the LWI gained an influential position, and is amongst the most credible groups in the country. They continue to play a prominent role in ensuring that women are central to the government's post-conflict agenda.

But the Liberian case is an exception - from Dayton to Rambouillet, East Timor to Tajikistan, despite the peacebuilding work of women at community and grassroots levels, women continue to be absent or poorly represented at peace negotiations.

Why Women's voices at peace negotiations?

Despite the enormous steps that women have taken, most approaches to conflict resolution and peacebuilding have either ignored, marginalised of failed to address the unique needs of women in conflict situations. Women consistently remain a minority of participants in peacebuilding projects, negotiations and policies. Burundian women were at first largely excluded from the Arusha peace process, similarly the Dayton Peace Accords were lacking in a consideration of women’s perspectives and none of the offices established included any gender-based action plans at the beginning of the mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina. A gendered analysis towards peacebuilding strategies, which could potentially strengthen peacebuilding efforts is rarely given any priority or attention. This is despite the many United Nations and European Union resolutions which for more than a decade, have criticised such marginalisation and called for women’s needs to be given more serious attention in all policies relating to conflict and peace. Excluding the majority population from decision-making structures counters all basic principles of democracy and human rights.

Women comprise over fifty percent of the population. With fifty percent of the population absent from negotiations, fifty percent of the skills, talents, experience, knowledge and understanding needed to build sustainable peace is missing.

It is critical to include the experiences and perspectives of all sectors of society, especially those who have been working towards sustainable peace and who have been previously marginalised, moving beyond the perspectives of those responsible for perpetuating the conflict and violence.

As victims they have a right to voice their fears and concerns. Apart from coping with their own trauma, they are often left with the sole responsibility of raising and educating children, earning a living, and caring for the wounded and maimed returning from war. As caretakers of the young and the victims of war, they have a right to articulate their needs and demands.

In many societies women have unequal access to the full benefits of society. For women, presence and representation at the peace table is a step towards attaining equal rights and breaking the pervasive cycle of violence, poverty and oppression.

Women have a right to self-determination. For women, freedom is not only limited to freedom from political or racial oppression. It is also freedom from social and gender-based discrimination. Self-determination is not an abstract notion relating to national identity and statehood alone. It is also about women’s lives, and their rights to determine and chart their own course. Participation at the peace table is a means of ensuring that these principles are equally applicable to all.

2. Put Women at the Heart of Reconstruction and Reconciliation

"What is peace?" asks Thandi Modise, now Chair of the Defence Select Committee in South Africa. There are two important things that we want for any situation that is called peace, she says. "One, there should be stability internally, so that we can move forward socially, economically and politically. In the social sphere women want to make sure that they are secure. This affects the way we look at security. In Southern Africa, we can no longer think of peace without considering what constitutes security. Am I secure when I cannot walk in the streets of Johannesburg at midnight?," she asks, "definitely not. Therefore can I say that I am at peace? Can I say that I am able to progress economically if I am unsure of what happens in my house when I return from work? I and other women cannot. So 'peace' has had little effect on our lives."

Modise is a member of the ANC women's Executive Committee. During the apartheid regime she trained as a fighter, and spent ten years in jail. But in South Africa women have succeeded in securing their place in the decision-making structures post-apartheid and post-conflict. Their involvement has made a qualitative difference to the way South Africa addresses the challenges of peacebuilding, economic growth and political stability and security.

Security, says Modise also embraces traditional notions of national security and the role of the military. "When we looked at the issue of demilitarisation in South Africa," she recalls, "we asked everyone for their views on whether or not we needed a national defence force... The consensus was that we did, not only to defend the country but also so that other parts of Africa could look to us for help... Women, have acted as the strong conscience of the nation, demanding that the defence force should not be a machine used against people but that its functions should be broadened to include preventive and rescue work.

True democracy involves free political activity and access to government, but it should also empower people to pursue their social and economic well-being. It cannot be a democracy if the majority of the people do not feel secure and if only a small group of people makes the decisions.

The Marginalisation of Women

More often than not, when peace is at hand, women, even those who have fought alongside men, or struggled for peace in their communities are pressured into stepping out of the public arena, and returning to their traditional roles. But the traditional and private spheres are very different.

In southern Sudan for example, approximately half the households are headed by women. In Rwanda seven years after the genocide and despite the return of many refugees, 34% of households are headed by women. Yet the majority (64%) of them have had no education. With the loss of their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons, women have taken on the roles traditionally held by men. In Sudan, women's participation in planning and decision-making remains limited. They have little or no access to land and few opportunities to earn income. Most lack basic resources such as clean water or firewood.

In the majority of cases, they are unaware of services available to them and gender-based discrimination prevents many Sudanese women from taking advantage of the available services. Few programs focus on women's rights as refugees or as citizens of Sudan. Without gender-sensitive programming, there is a danger of creating a mismatch between the needs of women and limited programs available to them.

Bearing the responsibility of the family and coping with the trauma of war is a heavy burden to carry, but too often little attention is paid to women. Often, international relief and reconstruction programmes have not only overlooked the needs of women, but sometimes exacerbate their marginalisation. If the aim is to assist affected communities, clearly women themselves are the best qualified to articulate their concern and needs. They must have the right and legitimacy to choose the issues on which they will stand firm, and those upon which they will accept compromise. They must be included in the planning processes that aim to rebuild society, be it plans for disarmament and the reintegration of soldiers, or programmes for rebuilding physical infrastructure, and strategies for social, political and economic recovery.

Women not only have the right to be at the heart of this agenda, but by virtue of their role in families post conflict, they are often the key to rebuilding peace. Excluding and ignoring them, not only excludes vast sectors of the population, but is a loss of immense resources, and understanding of a society's most critical social and economic capital and their needs.

3. Strengthen the Protection and Participation of Refugee and Internally Displaced Women

War and violence has uprooted and displaced 34 million people world-wide from their homes. Some 20 million of them are internally displaced - that means that they fall through even the most basic safety net that international humanitarian laws provide.

In camps sexual and gender-based violence is a reality of every day life for most women and girls. Children, boys and girls are recruited as soldiers, sex slaves, and domestic servants. The prevalence of sexual violence is the primary cause of the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. From day to day, women, adolescents and children risk their lives to care for each other, and struggle to change the circumstances in which they live. Amongst refugee populations, women still suffer from a lack of protection.

Although women shoulder the burden of caring for their children, the elderly and the sick, they are rarely consulted or included in the management of humanitarian aid. This only reinforces the cycle of pain and poverty, prostitution and violence.

4. Ending Impunity and Ensuring Redress for Crimes Committed against Women

Throughout history, in times of war, women have been targeted for sexual violence. Especially in ethnic, religious or other conflicts based on identity and community, women are the proxy targets. Their bodies become the battlefield. Women represent a community's honour, their rape and forced impregnation is a means of reaching into and destroying that community. Women are thus often considered as the spoils of war for the victors.

How many women in Rwanda were raped during the genocide? How many women and girls were raped and abused in the infamous Serbian 'rape' camps during the Bosnian war? The figures and statistics for these crimes range between 5,000 to 20,000, but no one knows for sure. In Sierra Leone, Algeria, India and elsewhere rape, sexual slavery, mutilation, pregnancy and other gender-based violence is on the increase. But the perpetrators of these crimes rarely face or indeed fear prosecution. Fifty years after World War II, the Korean ‘comfort women’ who were enslaved by Japanese forces are still struggling for reparations and justice.

Prior to the Ad Hoc International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, only two cases of rape in war time were prosecuted by international courts. In 1998, however, the International Criminal Tribunal in Rwanda set a precedent by convicting one man of sexual violence perpetrated during the 1994 genocide. But, the 1998 precedent is not bringing change. Where convictions for rape have been made, they are often as part of a series of crimes committed. Rape and sexual violence still have secondary importance.

Women victims have limited access to real justice and redress. Human Rights specialists are critical of the investigators used by the courts, suggesting that they lack expertise, knowledge and sensitivity in dealing with sex-based crimes. In Kosovo/a, a year after the bombings, only NGOs have been documenting the crimes committed against women.

Witnesses also face serious security, psychological, and other medical concerns. For example, many victims of gender-based crimes, have refused to participate in the tribunals' proceedings because of fears of reprisals against them or their families. Many who have testified are faced with being ostracised by their families and communities. Victims who do testify may experience profound stigma and shame.

But it is a myth to assume that women themselves do not want to testify. Women victims want justice. Despite the risks they face, they are willing to come forward. However, witness protection programmes do not often provide basic services, such as counseling, medical attention, legal protection, or even full protection prior to, and after the witness has testified.

The founding of the International Criminal Court (ICC) will be a key step towards ending impunity for crimes committed against women and civilians in conflict and war. When ratified if implemented fully it will be a permanent court for trying individuals accused of committing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ICC statutes recognises rape and gender-based violence as war crimes and crimes against humanity and is a great step forward for ensuring redress for crimes committed against women. It is still however at an early stage and needs to be carefully monitored and be given the power by governments in order to become an effective legal apparatus.

5. Provide Women’s Peacebuilding Organisations with the Support and Resources they Need

Traditionally women have not had access to formal political spaces, but this has not prevented them from entering the public space and pushing for political power and equality, through collective movements and grassroots organisations.

"If you have a strong women's movement which is not geared towards fighting for a narrow little ghetto where men are, but seeks to ensure that women participate fully in the processes and in their society it becomes something very powerful," says Her Excellency Ms. Cheryl Carolus, South Africa's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.

Thousands of women's peace building organisations exist worldwide. In Guatemala it was the mainstream women's movement that invited the Indigenous Women's organisations into their processes and supported indigenous women in their efforts to get their voices heard in the peace negotiations. Together they succeeded in ensuring that the peace accords included legislative and political protection and rights for indigenous women, gave women access and rights to land ownership and also established an office for the protection of indigenous women.

In Northern Ireland, long before the official peace process took place, women's grassroots groups were working to build bridges across the Catholic and Protestant divide. They came together around basic every day issues, such as healthcare and education. By working together they broke down the barriers of mistrust, and showed their communities that peace is a way of life, not just the absence of violence and conflict.

In Israel, the Four Mothers group tapped into a silent majority in the country when it advocated for the unilateral withdrawal of Israeli troops from Southern Lebanon. The group was initiated by four women, mothers of soldiers based in Lebanon. They started by standing on traffic islands with posters, yet turned into one of the most influential groups in Israel, with many male members.

However, because women's efforts are usually in the informal sphere, at the grassroots and in communities, politicians and diplomats can easily ignore them. The peace agreements that are negotiated and signed neither acknowledge the work of these groups, nor draw on their experiences to gain strength and sustainability. Yet, time and again when the red carpet is rolled up and the cameras turned off, it is civil society, women organisations, community groups are carrying out vital peacebuilding work on a daily basis. They are the people with the commitment and the long term interest in sustainable peace