Focusing on women as peacemakers
Focusing on women as peacemakers, UN marks
International Women's Day
8 March – The United
Nations family of agencies and organizations today marked
International Women's Day with a series of special events
around the world, highlighting the vital role of women in
preventing conflicts and building peace. With this year's
observance focusing on a recent landmark resolution by the
Security Council on women and peace, Council members today
stressed the need for "early and full implementation" of the
measures outlined in the text. In a press statement by the
Council's President, Volodymyr Yel'chenko of Ukraine,
Council members renewed their call to Member States to
insure increased representation of women in decision making
for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts.
This call was echoed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who
stressed in a message that women possessed particular skills
and experiences that enabled them to contribute to all
stages of a peace process. "In times of conflict, it is
often women who take over the running of homes, farms and
villages," he said. "Women understand the root causes of
tension and know which power groups within communities and
countries are most likely to support peace initiatives. We
must make greater use of that potential." The
Secretary-General said the international community must
build partnerships among all actors -- governments,
non-governmental organizations, community groups and the
private sector -- to bring more women to the negotiating
table and into decision-making positions. Strong appeals
for reaching this goal were also heard today at a
commemorative event in New York, where UN Deputy
Secretary-General Louise Fréchette underscored that steps
were finally being taken to end the "lamentable state of
affairs in which women, who rarely initiate conflicts, are
disproportionately its victims." Such steps included the
designation of rape in conflict as a crime against humanity,
Mrs. Fréchette noted. She added, however, that much more
work needed to be done to integrate women's efforts into
every peace strategy. The UN would be more effective in
reaching that goal if it had more women in leadership
positions, she said, appealing to Member States to present
as many qualified candidates as possible. For his part,
General Assembly President Harri Holkeri of Finland said
women and girls continued to bear the greatest burden in
armed conflicts. "At the same time, studies have confirmed
that the participation of women in conflict prevention,
peace keeping and peace building operations would improve
the efficiency of these operations," he said. Mr. Holkeri
pointed out that Member States and the UN would have an
opportunity to discuss how to increase the number of women
in peace building when they consider the implementation of
recent recommendations by an independent panel on improving
UN peacekeeping activities. The UN has been observing
International Women's Day since 1975 -- the International
Women's Year.
UN agencies highlight women's
contributions to peace making
8 March – Observing
International Women's Day, United Nations specialized
agencies and programmes today drew attention to the
contribution made by women in preventing conflict, building
peace and promoting reconciliation in post-crisis
situations. In a statement issued in New York, the head of
the UN Development Programme (UNDP) highlighted the role of
women within the peace process in Sierra Leone, where a
group of women staged a sit-down strike that paralyzed the
capital, Freetown, and held the government accountable for
the implementation of the Lomé Peace Accord. Similar
participation by women was noted in Rwanda, Somalia, the
Sudan, the Philippines and Albania, UNDP Administrator Mark
Malloch Brown said, adding that his agency was helping
coalitions of non-governmental organizations,
parliamentarians and national gender experts to remove legal
constraints on women's input to political processes in
Botswana, Kenya, Rwanda, Swaziland, Tanzania and Uganda.
Noeleen Heyzer, the Executive Director of the UN Development
Fund for Women (UNIFEM) said in a statement that her
organization was helping to ensure a continuous focus on
women's role in peacebuilding through a Millennium Peace
Prize for Women, the first of which was set to be awarded
this evening in New York. "As women are half of every
community, they should be half of every solution," she said.
The six women to receive the award are "inspirational
leaders and representatives of organizations that
demonstrate how to transcend conflict and strengthen
commitment to restoring healthy communities," she said.
Meanwhile in Geneva, the Director-General of the
International Labour Organization (ILO), Juan Somavia, took
aim at the "glass ceiling" that still prevents women from
gaining equality in the workplace. He told a panel of
international dignitaries assembled to celebrate the Day
that the world could not afford to lose out on women's
talent. "Improving gender equality in the workplace is the
right thing to do; the smart thing to do," he said. The ILO
chief also pointed to the problem of the "sticky floor,"
describing the forces that keep many women stuck at the
bottom of the economic pyramid. He said it was necessary to
"speed up women's entry to the highest echelons of decision
making and insisted that "faster progress is possible." In
the United States, for example, the number of women in
Fortune 500 executive management positions more than doubled
between 1996 and 1997, from 2.4 per cent to 5.1 per cent, he
said. The head of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Thoraya
Ahmed Obaid, called attention to the fact that women and
girls are routinely assaulted and raped during armed
conflicts and that "the perpetrators are rarely apprehended
or punished." The UNFPA chief noted the progress made by the
international community in acknowledging that rape and
assault during conflicts constitute war crimes and crimes
against humanity, as evidenced by the recent conviction by
the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia of three individuals for rape as a crime against
humanity.
ENDS