Women remain the first victims of wars and remain a minority in diplomacy
On October 31, 2000, the UN adopted a resolution intended to protect women from armed conflict, and include them in peace processes. Despite this, 22 years later, they remain the first victims of wars and underrepresented in diplomatic negotiations, officials denounced Tuesday before the Security Council.
This terrible observation, the United Nations Organization drew it up on Tuesday, on the eve of International Women’s Day on March 8, during the 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). “During the first 20 years (…) we have witnessed historic firsts for gender equality,” said Sima Bahous, director of UN Women.
But “we have neither significantly changed the composition of the peace negotiation tables, nor altered the impunity enjoyed by those who commit atrocities against women and girls “, she acknowledges.
Sima Bahous targeted Afghanistanwhere the Taliban regained power in August 2021, “one of the most extreme examples for the regression of women’s rights “. She also cited the war in Ukraine where “women and their children represent 90% of the nearly eight million Ukrainians forced to leave for other countries”.
8% of negotiators are women
Alongside him, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield urged the international community to “fully implement the agenda women, peace, security ». In front of the press, she castigated “the violence and oppression faced by women and girls around the world, in Iran, in Afghanistan, in areas of Ukraine occupied by Russia and in so many other places”.
Representing France on the Security Council, Marlène Schiappa, Secretary of State for the Social and Solidarity Economy, formerly in charge of Gender Equality, also denounced the fact that “in all conflict and crisis situations ( …) in Ukrainein Yemen, in Somalia, women are particularly affected, even deliberately targeted, by sexual and gender-based violence”.
And “only 28% of peace agreements contain stipulations relating to the place of women and during the last 25 years, only 2% of mediators and 8% of negotiators were women”. According to her, the advances in rights thanks to the “#metoo and the emancipation of women” movement are suffering a “backlash” and a return of “patriarchy”, including in the United States and in Europe.
