WUNRN
Creating Space
for Women as Transformers of Conflict
Women attend a Workshop on the UN Security Council
Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security in Malha,
By Laurel Stone – June 10, 2014
Do women hold the key ingredient to a peaceful society?
Much is known about the victimisation of women through rape, trafficking, and
early marriages, but much is yet to be discovered about how women can be
empowered in conflict settings to bridge the gap toward peace. I recently
conducted research analysing female peacemaking and found that women do hold
significant capacity in the peace process. However, this significance is not
always long-term, unless gender equality is institutionalised through the
establishment of gender electoral quotas. Better understanding of how women
can transform conflict and how creating space for them to do so will be a vital
agenda for the UN and other concerned actors in the coming years.
It was not until 2000 when the passing
of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 detailed the specific risks facing
women in conflict and determined to tackle this major challenge.
The critical needs of women in conflict have not always
been a focal point in conflict management and post-conflict reconstruction agendas. It was not until 2000
when the passing of UN
Security Council Resolution 1325 detailed the specific risks facing women
in conflict and determined to tackle this major challenge. From this seminal
resolution activists, academics, and policymakers began to address the specific
“burden of war” women carry and how the international community could protect
and empower them.
In the creation of new development agendas seeking to
specifically address the needs of women, the recommendation for female leadership
in the peace process gathered greater force after success stories of women’s
peace activism in countries like Liberia.
A report by UN Women furthered this claim of calling for more female
peacemakers by revealing that only 4%
of peacemaking participants were women. Advocates for greater female representation
declare that women are essential because they will bring a more comprehensive
peace plan to the negotiating table by addressing societal needs rather than
solely focusing on what will make the warring parties happy. However, a couple
of key challenges exist in determining the extent to which women are able to
aid the peace process.
After compiling a dataset of female participation by
extracting gendered information from Uppsala’s
Peace Agreements, I analysed the impact of women’s participation in peace processes
on lasting peace. The results demonstrated that women do carry a positive and
significant impact on peace as encouraging their participation increases the
probability of violence ending within a year by 24%. However, restrictions do
apply. For instance, including women in the peace process does not mean that
adding a woman from outside the conflict, like from the UN or AU, will cause a
more durable peace agreement to be implemented. Rather, it is local women from
the conflict that are vital for creating a lasting peace agreement. This
distinction is extremely important because it reveals that female presence does
not necessarily provide the key to peace.
Rather, it is local women from the conflict
that are vital for creating a lasting peace agreement.
While these results do show the precedence of women in
the peace process, it is the reconstruction process after conflict that can be
the most critical indicator of long-term peace. Institutionalizing gender
equality by ensuring female participation in the implementation of a peace plan
and establishing gender electoral quotas can significantly increase the
likelihood of peace lasting. For instance, implementing gender quotas for
national legislatures could increase the probability of violence ending within
five years by 27%. These long-term policies empowering women to move past
victimisation and into leadership positions can provide the keys to
establishing a more peaceful society over time.
While quota policies requiring a certain number of women
in peace processes can seemingly be a panacea creating stronger peace
agreements, special attention needs to focus on the qualities of female
participants that are truly pushing conflict towards a resolution. At this
point, female representation has often been regarded as a requirement to check
off the long list of peace agreement measures. This focus on quantity rather
than quality of representation has been criticized by women’s groups,
especially in policy development at the UN. Current cases like South
Sudan illustrate how local women desperately want to become more involved
in the peace process but are sidelined by the warring parties. How might
Based on these initial results, building local women’s
capacity will be an important area of investment for the international
community in order to encourage female leadership. Women have been called the
necessary instruments of a sustainable peace. Only by creating more inclusive
policies inviting the participation of women can the UN, state governments, and
other interested institutions understand the vital role women carry. Building
quality representation in local female leadership may be the key ingredient to
a peaceful society as women are empowered as transformers of conflict.
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