Women nonetheless largely excluded from peace processes

That’s one of the key findings of the UN Secretary-General’s annual report on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) revealed on Monday.

The report highlights the function that ladies play as peacemakers, describes how battle impacts girls general, and descriptions the UN Secretary-General’s objectives for the important thing agenda.

“Women and girls are being killed in record numbers, shut out of peace tables, and left unprotected as wars multiply. Women do not need more promises, they need power, protection, and equal participation,” commented Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women.

 

25 years on

This yr marks the twenty fifth anniversary of the WPS agenda and Security Council resolution 1325, a landmark resolution adopted by the worldwide neighborhood on the flip of the century, affirming the significance of ladies’s participation in battle prevention and peace processes.

Since its adoption, there was a rising consensus supported by actual world examples – from Colombia to Liberia and the Philippines – that ladies’s participation makes peace agreements extra possible and sturdy, in keeping with the report.

But issues persist. Implementation of WPS objectives requires funding, and since final yr’s report, women-led organizations are in want extra funding as battle and disaster put them in danger.

 

Women nonetheless under-represented

Women can play an instrumental function in mediating battle. As a part of negotiations to lastly finish Yemen’s lengthy civil warfare, girls leaders managed to negotiate entry to pure sources.

Data collected from 2020-2024 discovered that ladies’s illustration as negotiators, mediators and signatories in peace processes is way under the goal set by the UN.

Last yr, girls made up solely seven per cent of negotiators on common worldwide, and almost 9 out of ten negotiation tracks included no girls negotiators in any respect, mentioned the report.

Women had been barely extra represented in mediation roles, averaging 14 per cent however nonetheless, two-thirds of mediation efforts didn’t embrace girls.

In the annual open debate on the WPS agenda earlier this month, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that whereas progress has been remodeled the previous quarter century, “gains are fragile and – very worryingly – going in reverse.”

 

 

‘Unfulfilled promises’

Presenting the report on Monday, UN Women Deputy Executive Director Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda harassed that whereas civilian casualties amongst girls and youngsters quadrupled in comparison with the earlier two-year interval – and sexual violence additionally elevated – many ladies’s organizations engaged on the frontlines are cutting down or closing resulting from lack of funding.

“These numbers tell a story, one of unfulfilled promises,” she mentioned.

Sarah Hendriks, the company’s Policy Division Director, warned that if the present pattern continues, progress made on girls’s rights over the previous twenty years dangers being erased.

She reiterated the report’s name for binding targets and quotas for girls’s participation, accountability for gender-based crimes and violence in battle and different suggestions.

“The evidence is clear: when women lead and when their organizations are resourced, peace is more possible, recovery is faster, and societies are stronger,” she concluded.