WUNRN
For Immediate Release Media Contact:
June
15, 2010 CSAG
contact: Jennifer McCarthy:
+212-895-8089, jennifer.mccarthy@wliforum.org
Geoffrey Knox: +212-229-0540
Global
Open Days for Women and Peace are a First Step In Responding to
Women in Conflict Countries
“Stronger efforts to promote the role of
women in peace and security must focus on empowering women to speak for
themselves in the development of policies and programs that affect them
directly.”
Mary Robinson, Co-Chair,
Civil Society
Advisory Group to the UN on Women, Peace and Security
(June 15, 2010) The Civil Society
Advisory Group to the United Nations on Women, Peace and Security (CSAG)
expressed support today for the “Global Open Days for Women and Peace,”
organized by several UN agencies and departments, to hear directly from women
in countries affected by past or ongoing conflict and substantively to
incorporate women’s rights and concerns in their mission planning.
Open Day events
have been held in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Nepal, Sudan, Somalia
and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In the coming weeks, Open Days
will be held in Afghanistan, Haiti, Pakistan, Iraq, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire,
Burundi, and the Office of the UN in West Africa based in Senegal, among
others.
Women in these
countries have raised key issues with UN representatives of the need to include
women in peace and state-building, the requirement that their security be
guaranteed, and that impunity for war crimes must not be tolerated.
“Stronger efforts to promote the role of women in peace and
security must focus on empowering women to speak for themselves in the
development of policies and programs that affect them directly.” said
Mary Robinson, co-chair of the Civil Society Advisory Group to the UN on Women,
Peace and Security. “Open Days are providing a free and safe space for women’s
voices to be heard loud and clear by UN missions across the world. The
international community must develop policies that are responsive to the
reality of women on the ground.”
“It is vital that such meetings be regularly
held in all UN missions, and the recommendations from these consultations be
meaningfully incorporated in specific policy decisions,” said Bineta Diop of
Femmes Africa Solidarité,
co-chair of the Civil Society Advisory Group to the UN on Women, Peace and
Security. “The United Nations must lead on women’s empowerment, and can provide
real leadership and bring about substantial positive change for women globally
by ensuring that these meetings take place throughout the year, and that the
issues raised are meaningfully reflected in mission planning and policy.”
By consulting
regularly with women’s civil society actors in conflict and post-conflict
situations, UN Special Representatives will be able to more effectively
discharge their mission mandates: by finding out far more concretely about the
particular challenges women face, their specific concerns, and priority areas
for action. The year 2010 will see the 10th Anniversary of UN
Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security and Open Days
activities send a clear message that women’s rights are not incidental to
peacemaking and peacebuilding efforts, but are central to them.
The Civil Society Advisory Group to the
United Nations
The Civil
Society Advisory Group to the UN on Women, Peace and Security (CSAG) was
established to advise the High-Level Steering Committee of the heads of all
relevant United Nations agencies and entities to ensure a coherent and
coordinated approach by the UN system to implementing UN Security Council
Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. The CSAG helps translate policies
and resolutions adopted by UN agencies and entities into on-the-ground actions
to protect women in the context of armed conflict and empower their full
participation in peace processes, post-conflict governance and reconstruction.
The CSAG is
co-chaired by Mary Robinson (Ireland) and Bineta Diop (Senegal). Other members are Salim Ahmed Salim
(Tanzania), Hina Jilani (Pakistan), Elisabeth Rehn (Finland), Swanee Hunt
(United States), Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda (Zimbabwe), Donald
Steinberg (United States), Zainab Salbi (Iraq/United States), Thelma Awori
(Liberia/Uganda), Sanam Anderlini (Iran/UK), Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls (Fiji), Lakhdar
Brahimi (Algeria), and Susana Villarán de la Puente (Peru).
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