Women push for greater peace role

Participants in women’s affairs in the seven countries involved in the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) have called for an enhanced role for women in peace-building and humanitarian programmes during and after armed conflicts in the East and Horn of Africa region.

After a two-day policy seminar in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, in mid-October, participants from Djibouti, Kenya, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda on Friday called for clear linkages between women’s peace initiatives and regional/subregional initiatives on peace building and conflict prevention.

The participants at the Khartoum meeting included ministers in charge of women's and/or gender affairs, women parliamentarians, representatives of ministries of foreign affairs and of local women's NGOs from the seven countries. The seminar was organised by IGAD and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

The contribution of women has been shown to be an important factor in building peace in war-torn areas, but greater effort was required the international community and warring parties to include them in peace processes, the UN Security Council was told on Tuesday, when women peace leaders from Afghanistan, Kosovo, East Timor and the Democratic Republic of Congo spoke about violations committed against women during and after conflict.

"We have seen that even after several years, women's protection is glaringly neglected in many war-torn countries and that their contributions to peace-building processes are still being marginalised," UNIFEM Executive Director Noeleen Heyzer told the UN Security Council. [see http://www.un.org/News/]

She stressed that as long as international protection and assistance systematically neglected women and girls, the world would not be able to address some of the critical concerns of our time, "including the unanswered fate of mothers and thousands of children born of rape, the number of women dying of HIV/AIDS, and the issue of rape used as a weapon of war".

Heyzer had on Friday commended IGAD for its commitment to women in the East and Horn of Africa region. "Recognising and supporting women's contributions can prevent many lifetimes of untold sorrows. We need women at the peace table," she stated.

The recommendations adopted by IGAD after the Khartoum policy meeting included a provision that there should be clear linkages between women’s peace initiatives and IGAD's subregional and regional level mechanisms for peace building, conflict prevention and management, and development.

This should particularly be ensured in IGAD’s Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanisms and Conflict Early Warning and Response Unit, as well as other peace and development committees, they said.

It was also agreed that a broad-based Women’s Forum for Peace and Development should be established at the regional, subregional and national levels; and that all IGAD policies and programmes on prevention, management and resolution matters should be reviewed in order to allow integration of a gender perspective into existing and emerging mechanisms.

In addition, the women ministers asked IGAD's gender desk to undertake specific action plans: to develop and implement a comprehensive gender-responsive conflict resolution and peace building programme for IGAD; and strengthen institutional mechanisms within IGAD to be more gender-sensitive and inclusive.

IGAD was also requested to undertake research, documentation and dissemination of women's and other population-based experiences of conflict and perspectives on peace building.