WUNRN
Afghan Women’s Network
Policy Brief
Why Women as Peace Negotiators & Peace Builders?
17 September 2015
Introduction
Women ‘wage conflict nonviolently’ by pursuing democracy and human
rights. As peacekeepers and relief aid workers, women contribute to
“reducing direct violence.” As mediators, trauma healing counselors, and
policymakers, women work to “transform relationships” and address the roots of
violence. As educators and participants in the development process, women
contribute to “building the capacity” of their communities and nations to
prevent violent conflict. Socialization processes and the historical experience
of unequal relations contribute to the unique insights and values that women
bring to the process of peace building. Research indicates that Afghan
women score high on conceptual skills that include the ability to analyze a
situation and distinguish cause and effect. This skill set is required for the
planning, organization, and long-term vision needed by senior level managers.
The study concluded that Afghan women bring diverse views and perspectives with
an orientation toward top management positions.
Afghan Women’s Network would like to mark “International Peace
Day” with a strong message on inclusion and role of Afghan women as peace
builders/ peace negotiators. Despite of the fact that women have struggled over
years for their inclusion and impactful representation, they yet remain
underrepresented. Through this Policy Brief, AWN would like to highlight the
findings of desk review on examples of women peace builders internationally.
AWN also will share the outcome of it is round table discussions with over 50
women from Kabul and provinces on “why women as peace negotiators/ peace
builders”. As set of key solutions, AWN is proposing Five Strategies for
women’s inclusion in peace negotiations in this brief.
Women and Peace Negotiations: A long history of exclusion
In spite of the fact that equality between women and men is
guaranteed in Afghanistan Constitution, the country launched it is first
National Action Plan on Implementation of United Nations Security Council
Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, the obligations and remarks the
National Unity Government (NUG) have made during national and international
Afghanistan related events, the most striking features of past as well as
current peace discussion in Afghanistan is the inequality, characterized by
over representation of men and the almost total absence of women.
There is very limited data accessible to measure the progress of
the contribution of High Peace Council and Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration
Process. There are also no concrete examples and lessons learned to find out
how women in High Peace Council (HPC) and Provincial Peace Councils (PPC) are
contributing and raising women’s needs. It is also believed that women in HPC
and PPCs hardly have negotiations, consultation, information sharing and
lobbying skills to push and continue their representations.
Even where policies explicitly call for more equal representation,
underlying attitudes toward women prevent implementation of the policies, and
rhetoric remains removed from reality. On 7 July 2015, an official delegate of
National Unity Government met Taliban in Pakistan which was called the first
formal peace negotiation. There were seven men delegate members introduced by
NUG. No women members from HPC, PPCs and women leaders were invited.
The security situation unfortunately is deteriorating in
Afghanistan. Years 2014 and 2015 to date are considered deadliest years for the
people of Afghanistan. In 2014, UNAMA recorded the highest number of women’s
deaths and injuries from conflict-related violence since 2009, when UNAMA began
systematically documenting civilian casualties. Five hundred and fifty-six
(556) incidents were recorded which caused 909 women casualties (298 deaths and
611 injured), a 21 per cent increase from 2013 Similarly UNAMA Mid Year
Report on Protection of Civilian in Armed Conflict has documented 23 per cent
increase in women casualties (559 women casualties, comprising 164 deaths and
395 injuries).
Afghan women remain victims of insecurity, more vulnerable and
less supported due to the fact that NUG hardly consult them for their needs,
the challenges they face and their contribution to directly or
indirectly address increased insecurity and culture of extremism. After Shah
Shahid shocking attack that resulted in killings and injuries of over 450
civilians, President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani had number of consultations and
discussion on stand of NUG however women were hugely absent from these
important discussions.
Lessons Learned: Women Impact on Peace Process
In a male dominant and culturally diverse country like
Afghanistan, lobbying and pursuing for women’s meaningful participation in the
peace process, it is perceived as a miracle and impossible step. There are
local and international examples of formal and informal mediation, peace
building and peace negotiation roles women have played. AWN would like to share
number of these examples and call on NUG and it is international allies to
reconsider their strategy towards peace process in Afghanistan.
1. A woman peace builder, not member of
provincial peace council in Wardak voluntarily supports local peace building.
When in this province, two girls schools were closed down by insurgents, she
and other local women reached out to insurgents and demanded the re-opening of
these schools. While women members of HPC and PPC in formal structures hardly
find ways for consultations and informal negotiations, women outside these
structures are practicing this on daily basis.
2. Another woman, hardly educated in
Nimroz province, continuously follow up the security situation of the province,
identify the insurgents and try to meet them and negotiate for a peaceful
environment in the province.
3. In the Republic of Guatemala, women
significantly influenced the talks that led to the 1996 peace accord, in spite
of the fact that only two women were included in the negotiating teams of the
Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity and the Government of Guatemala. Civil
society participation, including by women’s groups, was strongly supported by
the United Nations and the Group of Friends that sponsored the talks. Jean
Arnault, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Guatemala and
mediator of the negotiations, endorsed the formal tabling of women’s concerns
and recommendations for the parties’ consideration. Despite the
underrepresentation of women at the peace table, the agreement contained a
number of important provisions regarding gender equality.
4. In Liberia, a delegation of eight
women from the Liberia chapter of the Mano River Women’s Peace Network, led by
Ruth Sando Perry and Theresa Leigh-Sherman, participated in the peace talks in
2003 as official observers without the power to speak or vote. At a later
stage, in Accra, Ghana, the Liberian Women in Peace building Program (WIPNET)
was also granted observer status, but they had a greater impact as agitators
for peace, both during many months of restless social mobilization, sit-ins,
vigils and demonstrations, and by physically impeding the delegates from
leaving the site of the talks without signing the peace agreement
Key Solutions: Five Strategies for
Women Inclusion in Peace Negotiations:
Afghan Women’s Network calls on NUG and
International Community for a thorough review of current formal structures
addressing peace, evaluate the performance of the current members of HPC and
PPCs both men and women, bring necessary changes to the structure and members
of these formal structures to make the process transparent, inclusive and
gender balanced. In order to increase women peace negotiators, expand
consultation and information sharing and include women as equally as men in
discussions and decisions relevant to peace, AWN would like to propose five
strategies for women inclusion in peace negotiations. These include:
1.
Direct
participation at the negotiation table
It’s time for commitments to be actualized and for
words on paper and in speeches to be turned into action. We would like to
discourage the culture of tokenism, nepotism, or elitism. We call on NUG to
select female participants in the upcoming peace negotiations on the basis of
their knowledge of the issues,
their speaking skills, and their decision-making,
negotiation, mediation, and consensus building skills. 33 percent of the peace
negotiators should be women. We call on NUG to consider working closely with
Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Afghanistan independent Human Rights Commission,
women leaders, and women focused organizations in identifying experienced and
skilled women in the field of women, peace and security to form a shadow
negotiators roster of women peace builders for easy engagement of women in
peace negotiations.
2.
Observer
status
Broadening participation in peace negotiations
through observer status can allow women to
Influence the negotiating parties through a more
informal mechanism. It also creates a mechanism for selected groups to
communicate information about the process to a wider audience. In the next
peace negotiations NUG should also guarantee women observer role for women
leaders outside formal structures, for inclusiveness and transparency of the
process. International community should support this action as women’s finding
could help them in underlining the gaps and challenges that might put women’s
rights into challenge.
3.
Consultations
To make the peace process people led and
inclusive, to enable an acceptable environment for women as 50% population of
Afghanistan, NUG needs to establish a consultation mechanism with a sustainable
implementation plan. The consultation can be in the form of a peace forum,
people dialogue and women’s voices where the peace process is discussed at the
grass root level, the root causes of extremism is identified by communities and
women particularly are encouraged to join local efforts to access insurgents
and their families and negotiate for peace locally.
4.
Problem-solving
workshops
The women should be armed with relevant facts,
figures, statistics and examples etc. to back up their arguments. The women
will have well developed conceptual skills that strengthen their ability to
distinguish cause and effect. Problem solving, skills building workshops and
exchange sessions for women peace negotiators outside HPC and PPC should be
funded and supported by International Community. Once women peace
negotiators are identified, ongoing mentorship and technical support by
international organizations and donors particularly the UN Women as part of
their mandate should be designed and supported.
5.
Mass
action
Women representatives from any sector, group and community should mobilize themselves and join inclusive actions related to peace negotiations where women peace negotiators are missing or need support. Women led CSOs should design campaign and awareness raising sessions for women at the grass root level. Women organizations and movement is encouraged to develop a long term implementation plan, design campaigns to address peace and reach out to women members of HPC and PPC to assess their contribution and jointly take necessary actions where need be. Women organizations are also encouraged to use all means of media (TV, Radio, Facebook, and Twitter, Online petitions) to speak out about women’s role as peace builders, the need for women’s representation and the impact.