Twenty years after the historic UN resolution, women are still excluded in peace processes when their presence is essential.
Twenty years ago, the UN Security Council passed a historic resolution to'' include more women in conflict prevention and resolution. However, the head of the UN-Women agency warns against "alarming gaps" in the implementation of resolution 1325 and regrets that "exclusion is always the norm". For his part, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterreses, explains that women are under-represented in the bodies of power and in peace processes. The latter specifies that today they "run only 7% of the world's countries".
"Evidence shows that peace processes that involve women are essential to lasting peace, but women are still systematically excluded, confined to informal processes, or relegated to the role of spectators, while men sit in them. rooms that will define their life and decide their future ", said Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of UN-Women, at a meeting of the Security Council that celebrated the anniversary of the adoption of resolution 1325.
According to her, during the peace negotiations between 1992 and 2019, only 13% of negotiators, 6% of mediators and 6% of signatories to the peace agreement were women. "These negotiations are still structured in a way that uplifts and empowers the actors who fueled the violence, rather than empowering the peacemaking constituencies.", she revealed.
Resolution 1325 was adopted unanimously by the Council on October 31, 2000. It stresses the importance of equal participation of women conflict prevention and resolution, as well as peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction. The resolution also calls for the protection of women and girls from gender-based violence.
In 2020, men still represent three quarters of the members of teams and committees responsible for combating Covid-19. "Decisions concerning international peace and security continue to be made overwhelmingly by men", deplores the head of the UN.
For him, inclusion of women must be a priority in peace processes, in particular in the fight against the coronavirus. "With peace processes taking place online during the pandemic, it is important not to slow down efforts to promote the participation of women", he asserted.
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka also warned that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on the female population. The different lockdowns have brought to light deep inequalities in education systems, health systems and the economic opportunities for them. She also recalled that women constitute the majority of frontline caregivers around the world. "Yet they are once again under-represented in pandemic decision-making. ", she concluded by stressing that the situation was worsened for women in conflict zones.