Delegates welcome women’s involvement in peace process

Delegates attending peace talks in Arusha at the weekend welcomed advice from a UN expert team on how women’s rights should be considered within the peace negotiations. The Hirondelle news agency said the delegates each agreed to attend an upcoming conference on the issue of women, to be held in Arusha in the next three to four weeks. “I think that one of Burundi’s problems is that very few women are involved in politics,” Hirondelle quoted the leader of the exiled wing of the FRODEBU party, Jean Minani, as saying. “Perhaps they would be more sensitive to Burundi’s problems than we men, and we must encourage them.”

Minani was reacting to an address by a high-level expert group from the UN Fund for Women (UNIFEM) which on Friday urged negotiators to integrate women’s issues into the peace agreement and involve Burundi women as much as possible in its implementation. The expert team, comprising of women representatives from South Africa, Uganda and Guatemala, two technical experts from UNIFEM and Eritrea’s attorney general - the only man in the team - were invited by the peace talks facilitator, Nelson Mandela.