Important role of women in peace efforts

More women are serving in front-line combat roles in the armed forces and taking on key responsibilities in Russia’s year-long invasion of Ukraine, but this has not always been the case. All military roles available to men were opened to women only last year. Gender-inclusive reforms in 2018 gave women the same legal status as men in the armed forces and lifted restrictions on women for 450 different jobs in Ukraine.

Women and girls face the same dangers as men in combat, including in the military, but women also face many gender-based problems, such as sexual violence, human trafficking, and maternal mortality. The Special Adviser to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on Gender Issues estimates that 70 percent of casualties in non-combat operations in recent conflicts are women.

The United Nations adopted the historic Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security in 2000, recognizing the need for women’s participation in peacekeeping processes and the importance of their role in global peace and stability. It also recognized that women are not mere victims, but active participants in peacekeeping, as interlocutors and peacekeepers.

However, even after more than a decade, this proposal failed to live up to the expectation. Violence against women persists, and there are cultural and social barriers to their full participation in peacebuilding and peacekeeping. The age old patriarchal norms and thinking in Afghanistan pose significant challenges to the overall development of women and their participation in any creative activity.

An Afghan student studying at Bangladesh’s BRAC University said people in Afghanistan believe a woman is born only to bear children and take care of them and her husband. Despite this, she said, many women work for peace efforts, but they usually do so in secret. “I also worked as a teacher for the UNHRC (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees),” she said.

Manzoor Hasan and Arafat Raza of the Center for Peace and Justice at BRAC University in Bangladesh report that women were not involved in nearly 80 percent of peace talks in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2020, and only 15 out of 67 meetings and talks were attended by women. took. She said that women have limited access to education and are deliberately kept out of decision-making processes due to patriarchal mindset. It should come as no surprise that women’s path to making a meaningful contribution to peacekeeping and conflict prevention is fraught with numerous obstacles.

Afghan women have played an important role in preventing violence and establishing peace with the help of some local and international organizations. They have been involved in many efforts, including education and spreading awareness about the importance of peace and women’s rights and combating extremist thought, but the return of the Taliban to power has made many women afraid to participate. Research shows that the presence of civil society organizations, including women’s organizations, reduces the likelihood of failure of peace agreements by 64 percent, but major global peacekeeping organizations such as the United Nations have yet to make progress in this direction.

Monash University lecturer Eleanor Gordon said women are reluctant to talk about their childcare responsibilities for fear of being seen as unprofessional or less committed. On the other hand, when they decide to work in this field, they are often perceived as mothers who are not aware of their ‘basic responsibilities’, she said. Women’s full and equal participation in public life is critical to building and maintaining strong democracies on a national basis, but according to the United Nations, women’s representation in parliaments in conflict-affected countries or countries emerging from conflict is less than 21 percent. is less.

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