Peace & Security Decision-making: where are the women?

Cheryl Hendricks

Institute for Security Studies

For PRIO - 12 November 2010

Outline

• Introduction

• Why should women be included in P&S

• Where are the women

• Influence of women

• SA as example

• Concluding points

Introduction• CEDAW – 1979 – equal participation of women in politics and

decision-making• Report of the secretary general to the Commission on the

Status of Women - 1995• Beijing Platform of Action – 1995• By 2000 – shift from viewing women merely as victims of

conflict• UNSCR 1325 – 2000 - In relation to participation – increase

number of female peacekeepers and increase number of women leaders dealing with issues of peace and security both in national governments and in the UN system

Introduction

• Speaking to the skewed gender representation of peace-missions prior to 2000 where women made up less than 3% of military positions and only 4 of the SRSG’s had been women.

• Very little data of women in peace-negotiations prior to 2000 – but we know there were very few

• Central argument: that we have little data on impact/influence and that we need to look beyond women’s participation in formal peace processes and peace missions

Arguments for women’s inclusion in Peace Negotiations

Human Rights

Argument

Special Attributes Argument

Experience Based

Argument

Sustainable Peace

Argument

Arguments for women’s inclusion in Peace Missions

Increase Operational

effectiveness

Special Attributes Argument

Role models

Impact on GBV

Report of SG – CSW - 1995

• ‘Whenever women have joined decision-making bodies in sufficient numbers they have created a more collaborative atmosphere…,’

• ‘… the attitudes of women politicians, and in particular women’s groups at the grass-root level, are different from those of men to many world problems, including peace and security’

• ‘…women are less militaristic, more concerned with the preservation of peace…’

• ‘When there was a critical mass of women in the peace and security operation, women in host countries tended to mobilise themselves’

Report of SG – CSW - 1995

• ‘Such issues as the need for a code of conduct for the participants in peace and security operations were placed on the agenda’

• ‘Women were perceived as diffusers of tension, as compassionate, unwilling to apply force, providing an element of reconciliation’

• ‘Their presence … reinforce(d) a commitment to the principle that the UN peacekeepers were not armed and could only use their weapons in self-defence’

Report of SG – CSW - 1995

• ‘Women gain the confidence and trust of the local people’

• ‘…perceived as less threatening negotiators’

• ‘…Undertake ‘unorthodox’ actions such as participating in community meetings’

• ‘Women helped to dismiss traditional views and images of women’

1. Repeating the same arguments2. Limited to peace tables and peace missions3. 10yrs later - little headway, but we have also

not concentrated on other areas where peace and security decision-making takes place – reviews/reforms, parliamentary defense committees, ministries of defense, home affairs, foreign affairs, military police and correctional services, regional and international security architectures .

4. Emphasis in SSR debates – but few women participate in these.

5. If we want to transform representation and culture in the way we address conflict we need to change the way we conceive of peace and security in the everyday performances thereof

Where are the women?

• 2009 UNIFEM Report: “in a review of 21 major peace processes since

1992 only 2.4% …were women; No women have been appointed chief or lead mediators in UN sponsored peace talks, but in some talks sponsored by the AU or other institutions women have joined a team of mediators [eg. Graca Machel in Kenya crisis in 2008]. Women’s participation in negotiation delegations averaged 5.9% of the 10 cases for which such information was available. Priority gender-specific provision in peace accords are women’s physical security and human rights guarantees.”

Where are the women?

• Currently 5 female heads of missions (CAR, Nepal, Liberia, Timor, Cyprus) and 4 deputy heads (MINURCAT, MONUSCO, UNMIL, UNAMI)

• 2 female formed police units – Liberia (from India) and Haiti (from Bangladesh)

• First female UN police Advisor (Sweden) appointed March 2010

• Never been a female force commander• Only been 2 women as deputy Secretaries

General• Of the 17 DPKO Missions, only 11 have a

dedicated gender advisor

Where are the women?

• Out of the 191 permanent reps to the UN in NY only 24 (12.5%) are women

• In 2010 only three members of the SC –Brazil, Nigeria and the US, had female permanent reps

• In the 65 sessions of the GA there has only been one female president from Bahrian in the 61st session 2006 – 2007.

• Since the adoption of 1325 only 14 of the 24 UNSC field missions met with women’s organisations

[ from the Security Council Report – Women Peace and

Security – 2010 No.2 – October]

Where are the women?

• For the year ending October 2008 – only 2.3% of troops, 3.4% of mil obs and 7.2% of police in UN peacekeeping operations were women (Annual Review of Global Peace Operations 2009)

• Women in Politics 2010 notes that only 30 of 188 countries had reached the 30% mark for women as ministers/deputy minister.

• As of 30 June 2010 the proportion of women in national parliaments - world average - is 19%. - Nordic Countries at 42% - Sub Saharan Africa at 18.6 and Arab states at 8.9%

Where are the women?

• Currently only 15 women as head of state and government

• 11 women as Ministers of Defence (only 65 ever and 49 of these since 2000); 40 as Minister of Foreign Affairs (147 to date) and 44 for home affairs (98 to date).

Women therefore hardly represented in key peace and security decision-making institutions

Numbers however say very little about impact/influence.

Influence of women?Despite the numbers women have impacted on the

debate and practice of peace and security1. Growing awareness of the gendered nature of war in

policy circles – number of UN resolutions2. Acceptance (even if only at rhetorical level) of the

need for women’s participation in peace and security decision-making at UN, Continental bodies and REC’s

3. Women have been at the fore front of promoting a human security perspective

4. Pointed out the linkages between war militarism and masculinity

5. Women made in roads into gender sensitive and gender responsive DDR and SSR programs and practices and gender mainstreaming in peace missions

Influence of women?

6. Growing recognition of the need to include more women in the military and the police – though this is still at the lower levels

7. All evidence suggest that women head’s of peace missions are more willing to engage with local women’s organisations

8. There are 19 countries with 1325 NAPS – 12 in Europe and 5 in Africa –but gender also integrated into countries without NAP’s

9. No conclusive evidence that women make better peace-keepers than men but also none to show that they fair any worse

Influence of women?

10.On the whole little hard evidence of the contribution that women are making – we have been concentrating on numbers – need more qualitative assessments

11.Need to also be aware of reinforcing gendered stereotypes when we feel the need to justify women’s presence

12.Be careful of placing the burden of change only on the shoulders of women

South African Example?

1. Women mobilized across party politics prior to the negotiations – charter

2. Brought negotiations to a halt to demand women’s inclusions

3. Gender equality entrenched in the constitutions – 30% quota accepted

4. Establish gender machinery to ensure implementation

South African Example?

5. Policies and legal frameworks in place and numbers impressive – 44% women in parliament,– Minister of Defense, Secretary of Defense, Minister of Home Affairs, Minister of Foreign Affairs are all women

6. But, SA has one of the highest rates of GBV in the world, maternal mortality and infant mortality on the increase

Military & Police

• In 1994 there were 10,014 (12%) women and 75,310 men in the SANDF

• In 2010 – 24% women • ‘an estimated 14 per cent serve in the armour corps, 18

per cent in artillery, 8 per cent infantry, 21 per cent combat navy and 6 per cent as aircrew (including pilots)’.

• Police have 21% women• 10% female military peacekeepers deployed, 40% of

police women peacekeepers

SANDF Created a Chief Directorate on Transformation Management and a Gender Mainstreaming Council tasked with ensuring the implementation of gender equality.

Gender Champions- Highlight three women as examples- Hon. Thandi Modise- Major Gen Motumi- Provincial Commissioner Mala Singh

Women can and do make a difference in peace and security decision-making – but it does not follow that all women in these positions will make a difference

-

Conclusion1. Need for a strong women’s movement to enable

women to get into decision-making and to hold them accountable

2. Peace tables should be conceived of more broadly – spaces where peace and security issues are being discussed/decided

3. Security fluency4. Gender mainstreaming and gender

transformation5. Transformation of conceptions of peace making

ConclusionLot of the spade and conceptual work and policy

formulation and guidelines on gender and conflict have been done.

• Gaps reflect a need for more empirical work and for monitoring and evaluation of existing policies and programmes.

1) What have been the tangible contributions of the few women who have been at the peace tables and involved in broader peace and security to transform gender relations? Do the interviews and track follow through.

Conclusion2) We require a gendered examination of the nature and

functioning of peace-tables themselves. 3) How many women do we currently have in the various

security sector institutions in Africa? Do they see their own contributions in the ways in which the literature reflects? How have they organised themselves within these spaces and what effect has it had both in terms of transforming institutional cultures and in providing more responsive security, especially for women?

4) How do women in conflict zones protect themselves and in other spaces access security and what are the implications for the methods in which we currently provide security?

5) Unpack the relationship between customary institutions and peace and gender peace and security?

Conclusion6) What is the impact of UNSCR 1325 on the

‘everyday experiences of women’ – where has it brought tangible dividends for women and where and why is it ineffective?

7) What are the conditions for transformational institutional change in the security sector?

8) Document country and security sector specific case studies on gender and SSR to highlight and compare processes and outcomes across time and space.