WUNRN
UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee: Addressing the
Role of Women in Countering Terrorism & Violent Extremism
September
17, 2015 - The UN Security Council’s Women, Peace and
Security Agenda (WPS) has become the dominant discourse framing
women’s engagement in international affairs over the past fifteen years.
It has also marshalled the ways in which women are both made visible by
and remain invisible in security conversations by key institutional actors such
as the United Nations.
In this same
period, following the events of 9/11, states have brought new urgency and
vibrancy to their action in the realm of counterterrorism. Indeed, creating and
bolstering new international security regimes constitutes the bulwark of
states’ normative actions in the international sphere. This international
security system was ushered in by United Nations
Security Council Resolution 1373 and the creation of the
UN Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC),
in conjunction with European Union
Regulations on Combatting Terrorism. Both the EU and UN’s approaches
had antecedents during prior decades of patchwork multilateral
terrorism conventions and resolutions but their scope, content,
and institutional power has risen considerably in the world we inhabit after
9/11.
State
momentum stemming from the priority accorded to addressing international
terrorism is illustrated by both the response of national legal systems and by
more concerted efforts to achieve multilateral and multilevel counterterrorism
efforts on the international plane. The central institutional legacy of
that urgency is the CTC. Yet, by and large, the WPS agenda has been excluded
from any meaningful engagement with the CTC since its creation. The result is
that the WPS agenda has been not only normatively limited in its reach, but
distinctly and institutionally peripheral in some of the key security and
conflict discussions of the past decade plus.
It is in
this context, that I report on an open session held by the CTC on
September 9th, briefing member states on the role of women in countering
terrorism and violent extremism. The stated goal of the session was to report
on how the CTC is encouraging states to integrate gender in to the UN’s
programming on counter-terrorism. The session comes on the heels of UNSCR 2129 which
renewed the mandate of the Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) and
for the first time made a link between the Council’s work, counter-terrorism
and the WPS agenda. The briefing addressed
the use of sexual violence by terrorist groups, and the relationship between
sex trafficking, slave trading, ransoms and women’s safety. In parallel, it
also identified the role that women, particularly mothers might play in
preventing radicalization of their children, an issue I have previously
reported on here addressing
the problematic and compromised policies of engaging mothers as the frontline
of preventing radicalism. Given the often marginal status of women in the
contexts where they are expected to become the “minders and informers” of their
sons and daughters for the state, the potential harms to the women themselves
have been grossly underestimated or ignored. This rather naive view of
women’s capacity, in highly fraught communities and societies, where as a
practical matter their status is limited, and their equality not guaranteed,
also permeates last week’s debates at the CTC and the position papers offered
by various states including Spain and Norway.
This is a
dangerous continuation of a long-held status quo. Security Council
resolutionson terrorism and counter-terrorism show the continued
dominance of a masculine paradigm in the arenas intersecting international
security and terrorism— where the heart of the international peace and security
agenda currently lies. The invocation of women and their experiences
is rare in fora addressing terrorism and counter-terrorism, no matter whether
the discussion includes female terrorism, the mobilization of women
to support extremist violence, or the effects and harms experienced by women as
a result of counter-terrorism strategies. I conducted a recent survey
(forthcoming in International
Affairs) of 139 Security Council Resolutions broadly addressing
terrorism and counter-terrorism between January 2013- May 2015, and the results
demonstrate a dearth of gender awareness and no systematic attempt to
address the interface of gender and terrorism. Only a handful of
resolutions make references to women and frequently only stress the prohibitions
against sexual violence in situations of violence and terrorism. Moreover, when
the Security Council has included reference to women the specificity can
generally be explained by the particular geo-political context of the countries
under scrutiny (for example Mali, Somalia and Libya).
Terrorism
focused resolutions not only constitute a particular form of condemnation
politics, but they are critical to enabling the use of force and the resources
of multiple states to target phenomena labeled, sometime with controversy, as
terrorism in their own and other states. In explaining the lack of reference to
women in such resolutions, we should understand that security partnerships with
key countries are at play, along with the corollary sensibilities of partner
countries (read culturally relativist positions) regarding gender issues. The
result has been the consistent marginalization of women’s issues in the name of
advancing broader geo-political interests – all while ignoring and cloaking
partner countries’ nefarious culturally relativist positions on women’s rights.
Moreover,
the lack of gender mainstreaming in the terrorism and counter-terrorism
arena underscores a yawning gap between the invocation of WPS in
classic interstate wars (or neatly categorized internal armed conflict) and the
lack of attention to women in the “new” counterterrorism-focused wars of
our times that are at the heart of state preoccupations about security, use of
force, and extremism. To ignore gender in these contexts is to leave out
a huge part of the war and peace arenas in which women’s lives are affected in
macro and micro ways.
Some might view recognition
(finally) by the CTC of the gender dimensions of terrorism as a welcome
addition to the scope and mandate of the WPS agenda. But, there are reasons to
be wary. One reason is the dismal track
record of the CTC in addressing human rights issues broadly defined in
relationship with counter-terrorism, as well as a structural unwillingness to
engage in broader conversations about the positive balance to be stuck
between counter-terrorism measures and those which violate and undermine
human rights. Given that track record, we might have some cause for concern
that the legitimacy of the WPS agenda is being used instrumentally without
a broader commitment to the totality of the WPS, including addressing issues of
equality, autonomy, and discrimination against women. Moreover, the
invocation of women in this highly fraught area of countering violent
extremism, chooses to fundamentally ignore women’s engagement in violence in
multiple societies (see my earlier posts here and here)
and the agency choices they make to support extremist and violent
organizations. The CTC’s gender essentialism does little to address the underlying
causalities of extremist violence, and fails to bring about the kind of
holistic societal responses that might address radicalism successfully.
Moreover, there is the prescient danger that the focus on countering
violent extremism by the P5 and the same powerful states within the CTC
framework becomes a means to appropriate the liberal space of protecting and
supporting women but actually and practically avoids enforcing the
commitments made in UNSCR 1325.
This is because states now understand that enforcement requires dealing
with the issues of inequality and autonomy, and ensuring the meaningful
participation of women in the making of peace and security policy.
Violent Extremism clearly affects women worldwide and in many dimensions,
but viewing it as the mainstay of the work that needs to be done for women in
the peace and security area is a convenient distraction.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
http://www.un.org/en/sc/ctc/news/2015-08-20_Role_of_Women.html
Website Link Offers Document in 6 Official UN Languages.
IN A FIRST FOR THE COUNTER-TERRORISM COMMITTEE,
THE SECURITY COUNCIL BODY HELD AN
OPEN BRIEFING ON THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN COUNTERING TERRORISM & VIOLENT
EXTREMISM
21 September 2015 - Despite
the growing awareness of women playing an important role in terrorism and
violent extremism – including as suicide bombers – the potential for women to
act as a vital resource in policy and planning on countering violent extremism
(CVE) has traditionally remained largely untapped. In 2013, this began to
change, when the Security Council reaffirmed the Council's intention to
increase its attention to women, peace and security issues in all relevant
thematic areas of work on its agenda, including in threats to international
peace and security caused by terrorist acts (resolution 2129). A more recent
Security Council resolution, 2178 (2014) on stemming the flow of foreign
terrorist fighters, encourages Member States to engage relevant local
communities in developing strategies to counter the violent extremist narrative
that can incite terrorist acts and address the conditions conducive to the
spread of violent extremism, which can be conducive to terrorism, including by
empowering inter alia youth, families, and women. And in its Presidential
Statement of 28 October 2014 (S/PRST/2014/21),
the Council noted that violent extremism is frequently targeting women and
girls, which can lead to serious human rights violations and abuses against
them, and encouraged Member States to engage with women and women's
organizations in developing CVE strategies.
As a concrete follow-up, the
Counter-Terrorism Committee on 9 September 2015 organized, for the first time
ever, an open briefing on The role of women in countering terrorism and
violent extremism. Three women's activists from three regions affected by
terrorism and violent extremism – Hanaa Edwar from Iraq; Pastor Esther Ibanga
from Nigeria; and Sureya Roble from Kenya – shared their testimonies with the
Committee in New York. Other speakers included Chair of the Counter-Terrorism
Committee, H.E. Ambassador Raimonda Murmokaité, Permanent Representative of
Lithuania to the United Nations; Jean-Paul Laborde, Assistant Secretary-General
and Executive Director of the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate
(CTED); and Yannick Glemarec, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy and
Programme with UN Women. Moderator was Professor Jayne Huckerby with Duke
University.
Describing the abduction of
Yazidi women and girls by ISIS in her home country Iraq, Ms. Edwar said that
"[They] were assaulted in practices reminiscent of practices in previous
eras of history, such as the sale of women into sexual slavery, rape, torture,
murder, not to mention the psychological violence of humiliation, threats, and
forcing them to convert to Islam. At least more than 3,000 of the abducted
women and girls are still being held." Ms. Edwar also pointed out that out
of the 2,070 citizens executed in Mosul last July and August some 300 were
women.
"Although the estimated
number of foreign women who have joined ISIS is only 10 percent of the total
number of Western men fighting, it is still significant that women are joining
an organization that a majority of the world deems oppressive towards women and
extraordinarily violent," Ms. Roble remarked.
Panellists, as well as
numerous Member States, took the floor to point out the positive and proactive
role that women can play to build resilience to radicalization to violence and
conflict, inter alia through their influence on the family, community, and
Government. Women's inclusion is therefore an indispensable component of any
comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy.
"Even though in Nigeria,
as well as most African nations, the involvement of women in security issues is
not only seen as an alien culture but also a taboo and sometimes quite
offensive to the men, women civil society groups tap into the needs of
communities, where women and children are disproportionally impacted by
terrorism," Pastor Ibanga said.
The open briefing on this
theme being a first, the Counter-Terrorism Committee and CTED will continue its
work on the role of women in countering terrorism and violent extremism.
Brief Bios
of the Three Participating Women's Activists
An advocate for women's
rights and equality and for peace and democracy in Iraq, Ms. Hanaa Edwar
is the Secretary-General of the Iraqi Al-Amal Association (IAA), an NGO working
to improve the socio-economic conditions of the Iraqi people, and founder of the
Iraqi Women's Network (IWN), which represents over 80 Iraqi women's groups.
Ms. Esther
Ibanga is a Christian Pastor and interfaith peace activist who works in
Plateau State, a highly volatile region of central Nigeria. In response to the
ethno-religious conflicts that have afflicted the region since 1994, Pastor
Ibanga has become a leader of a strong coalition of diverse women's groups
united in their desire for peace.
Ms. Sureya
Roble is a women's rights activist and national vice chairperson of the
Mombasa-based Maendeleo ya Wanawake Organization (MYWO), a non-profit voluntary
women's organization working to improve the quality of life of rural Kenyan
communities, especially for women and youth.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Open Briefing -
Agenda - http://www.un.org/en/sc/ctc/docs/2015/Open%20Briefing%20Agenda.pdf
Open Briefing - Concept Note - http://www.un.org/en/sc/ctc/docs/2015/Open%20Briefing%20Concept%20Note.pdf