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UN: Security Council Urges Integrating Women Into Peace, Security Issues

By Nikola Krastev

UNITED NATIONS, October 27, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The UN Security Council is appealing to UN member states to undertake concrete steps to prevent violence against women in armed conflicts and to ensure their participation in the postconflict rebuilding process.

The call comes six years after the Security Council adopted a landmark resolution on the role of women in security and peace issues. Some progress has been made, Security Council members say, but note that women continue to suffer discrimination that impacts all aspects of rebuilding efforts in war-torn countries.

Adopted on October 31, 2000, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 for the first time highlighted issues that prevent the participation of women in the rebuilding process in postconflict countries.

Effort 'Falling Short'

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special adviser on gender issues and the advancement of women, Rachel Mayanja, says it is taking too long for some UN member states to bring their legal frameworks into compliance with Resolution 1325. 

"Our collective efforts to ensure equal participation of women in the consolidation of peace so far have generally fallen short of what is required," she says. "Women continue to be exposed to violence or targeted by parties to the conflict, marginalized in formal processes, particularly on war and peace issues."

Mayanja outlined three main priorities:

-- establishing clear accountability systems on a government level for implementation of Resolution 1325,

-- more effective leadership by the Security Council in monitoring progress and implementation,

-- and convincing states and UN entities to allocate sufficient resources to fully implement the resolution.

Leading By Example

In the October 26 Security Council debate, the UN's undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations, Jean-Marie Guehenno, noted that women constitute only 2 percent of UN military personnel and just 5 percent of its police forces.

"Our predominantly male profile in peacekeeping undermines the credibility of our efforts to lead by example in the host countries in which we are engaged," he said. "We need [UN] member states to nominate more women candidates for senior civilian positions in missions."

The cultural sensibilities of local populations, Guehenno said, imperils the ability of predominantly male UN peacekeeping forces to carry out their mandates.

The executive director of the UN Development Fund For Women, Noeleen Heyzer, said the UN recently held training for countries contributing troops and police for overseas missions, as part of its commitment to boost the role of women in peace and security matters.

"Women make a difference, in part, because they adopt a more inclusive approach to peace and security and address key social and economic issues that provide the foundations of sustainable peace that would otherwise be ignored," Heyzer told the UN Security Council.

Rape Seen As Minor Crime

But Heyzer said women urgently need guarantees of physical safety, economic security, and justice. "Too often in conflict-affected countries, we see that laws on compensation for victims do not include the compensation for rape, which is still regarded as a minor crime," she notes.

"I have just returned from Kosovo with our goodwill ambassador, [Australian actress] Nicole Kidman, where we met with women who had been raped during the conflict," she added. "They feel that they have undergone a double violation as they seek justice, both locally and from the international system, who promised to help them but have never delivered."

Heyzer said women in many nations are left at the mercy of traditional legal systems. The result are so-called "honor" crimes, exchanges of women to resolve interclan conflicts, and women routinely being denied inheritance claims.

She said that "justice for women...cannot be done on the cheap. And women's rights cannot be bargained away for other political gains. Justice for women has to be featured as an integral and achievable part of any UN plan of assistance."

Roman Kirn, who is Slovenia's ambassador to the UN, noted that sexual and gender-based violence in conflict areas is continuing at alarming rates.

"Sexual violence is repeatedly used as a deliberate method of warfare with frightening persistence," he said. "Therefore, the issue of violence against women needs to receive adequate attention during and after the armed conflict."

Copyright (c) 2006. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org