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DAVAO
CITY—Women leaders from most of Asia and Africa gathered
here this week to seek ways to increase representation
of women in peace and conflict-resolution bodies,
relying on a UN Security Council resolution mandating
member-states to ensure their representation as their
leverage.
Mary Ann
Arnado, deputy director of the Initiatives for
International Dialog (IID), sponsor of the four-day
gathering, said “this will give women advocates and
activists the opportunity to discuss current conflicts
in their areas and how they can make use of the United
Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 to recognize
the role of women in peace and security processes of
their respective countries.”
Many of
almost 50 participants come from conflict areas such as
in Banda Aceh and West Papua in Indonesia, Sri Lanka,
South Thailand and the dictatorship in Burma. One woman
leader came from Nigeria, where banditry is rampant
under the guise of rebellion.
Arnado
said the conference would like to find out how women’s
organizations could wrench out more representation in
such bodies as peace negotiation panels, cease-fire
monitoring teams, and peacekeeping forces.
“What I
know is that there is a quota, about 35 percent, in the
membership of women in these bodies,” she said. “There
are only a few, if there are, women in many of these
agencies involved in peace and conflict resolution.”
“We hope
that at the end of the conference, we would have a
platform for women to link all offices to have a
regional expression,” she said. “We would also like to
learn from each other.”
UN
Security Council Resolution 1325 laid out 18 items for
member- states to comply with, “noting the need to
consolidate data on the impact of armed conflict on
women and girls.”
The
first of these items was a call on member-states to
ensure “increased participation at all decision-making
levels in national, regional and international
institutions; and mechanisms for the prevention,
management and resolution of conflict.”
The
resolution also “urges member- states to increase their
voluntary financial, technical and logistical support
for gender-sensitive-training efforts.”
Clarita
Benzon, head of the Southeast Asia section of Novib (a
Netherlands-based social-development agency), told
BusinessMirror that “we are looking at it [UNSC
Resolution 1325] [and] how we can translate it into
national legislations on women representation in
cease-fire monitoring bodies and even peacekeeping
forces.”
Benzon
said the conference would also explore how women could
advance their pleading for more representation “by
probably sending a nicely worded letter to the
secretary- general of the [UN Security] Council to urge
member-states to really enforce the resolution.”
In her
speech, she told conference participants that “we would
like to have a document of good practices so that all
the other women organizations, especially in our
network, could also partake and read your good
practices.”
The IID
is cosponsored by Novib and the International Women
Leaders Conference on Conflict-Transformation and Good
Governance. The conference ends Tuesday. |
