ABSTRACT
Women have not been actively participating in peace and security. After the efforts conducted by women’s group, the UN adopted Resolution 1325 on the 31st October 2000. The Security Council resolution stresses the importance of women’s participation and full involvement in peace and security. There is empirical evidence which demonstrates that the participation of women in peacekeeping operations is beneficial for the mission since due to their participation, a strong peace agreement is more likely to be reached leading to a long-lasting peace in the country. Nevertheless, despite the adoption of the resolution and the evidence, women’s participation in peacekeeping missions remains low. The study examines the United Nations Mission in Liberia, the first peacekeeping mission that made great efforts to implement Resolution 1325.
The study employed a qualitative methodology approach which relied on a semi-structured interview as well as on the review of relevant literature regarding the matter. The findings showed how, despite the efforts made by the Liberian government to empower women and to increase their participation, the peacekeeping mission was not gender-balanced. The greater challenges to the enhancement of women included very low percentage of women in the top troop contributing countries to the mission, the absence of sex-disaggregated data, and the lack of local women in Liberian peace and security institutions. The study proposed several recommendations that included encouraging States to increase the number of female peacekeepers, helping governments in the creation of a national action plan, and improving the quality of sex-disaggregated data. It is an imperative necessity to overcome the challenges which still constitute a barrier for women’s participation in peace and security.
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
Background to the Research Problem
By the simple act of glancing over the current news regarding peace and security affairs, women are clearly underrepresented. One just has to take the example of the G8 summits, meetings in which global issues such as security threats are discussed, only two participants out of eight are females. Even the figure of the Secretary General of the United Nations –a key figure on implementing policies for the achievement of global peace and security- has never been personified by a woman.
The UN is an international organisation which was founded on 12th October, 1945. The main objective of the UN is to promote and maintain international peace and security in order to avoid catastrophic confrontations among states as it was the case with World War II.1 The need and will to create an entity capable of dealing with the maintenance of peace and security led to the creation of the Security Council in October 1945 by the states which were victorious in World War II – The United States, China, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (which was succeeded in 1990 by the Russian Federation), France and the United Kingdom. Its functions are determined at Article 24 to 26 and its powers are granted by Chapters VI, VII, VIII, and XII of the UN Charter. 2
The focus of attention of the constitutive Charter is set on proceedings and recommendations oriented towards the member States to uphold the stability of the global order and avoid going through the bloody conflicts of the 20th century. As an example, the case of Article 33.1 where the organisation calls for the Pacific Settlement of Disputes –through negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration. In case these proposed diplomatic solutions do not resolve the confrontation, the dispute must be brought out to the attention of the International Court of
Justice as a last appeal. This article reaffirms the will of the UN on maintaining international peace and security and therefore avoiding any violent conflict.
By the time of the redaction of the Charter in 1945, inter-state armed conflicts were the only ones that were taken into consideration because of the aftermath of the World Wars. The nature of armed conflicts, however, has shifted from inter-state confrontations to intra-state conflicts like civil wars, where civilians play a major role both as perpetrators and victims.3 The nature of intra-state conflicts involve different rivalries between different ethno-cultural groups or religious divergences. The community that perceives itself as being underprivileged and unfairly mistreated tends to seek to overturn the situation through conflict.4 The victims are no longer comprised of professional fighters, but civilians who are being targeted by other civilians or even governmental forces when the State in conflict decides to intervene.5
The States’ monopoly on the legitimate use force to resolve a dispute inside or outside its territorial boundaries is being questioned due to the emerging civil wars where civilians are the ones principally involved.6
The consequences of such conflicts go beyond losses in the battlefield. It includes population fleeing to safer places, the decrease of a state economic welfare which leads to the impoverishment of the population along with other human rights violations including mass gang rape, systematic torture, sexual mutilation and genocide among other atrocities.7 Targeting civilians during a conflict constitutes a flagrant violation of International Humanitarian Law. 8
The objective of International Humanitarian Law is to regulate the relations among states by limiting the effects of an armed conflict, in order to protect those who do not take part in them.9 In effect, civilians are protected by the norms of Humanitarian Law because they do not have the status of combatants which would allow them to attack and be attacked; thus, civilians
cannot be targets in a war under any situation whatsoever. Furthermore, the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War was adopted in 1949. This Convention is applicable during inter-states and intra-states armed conflicts, filling somehow the existing normative gap regarding civil wars.10
The shift from inter-state conflicts to intra-state wars has laid out a controversial situation for the international community because of the existence of the principle of territorial sovereignty. This International Law principle establishes that a state exercises its jurisdiction over its territory and population.11 In addition, Article 2.7 of the UN Charter underpins this principle by establishing the principle of non-intervention; no state should interfere in the domestic jurisdiction of any state. Thus, when there is a mass violation of human rights within a state, the UN cannot freely decide to intervene because it would be against International Law. To overcome the problem created by the principle of non-intervention, the UN created the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) under the direct supervision of the Security Council with the objective of restoring peace and stability in critical conflict zones.
However, there has to be an acceptance sine qua non of the State that goes under an armed conflict for the UN to be able to deploy its personnel. Consent is therefore one of the three core principles of peacekeeping missions.12 Nonetheless, despite the fact that little could be done about an absence of consent, the UN should continue making sure that civilians are being protected during an armed conflict and that no crimes are being committed.
During the course of a conflict, there are differences regarding how war is experienced among civilians. A general statement concerning the nature of conflicts made by The UN Platform for Action described in 1995 how women’s and girls’ needs are more vulnerable during a confrontation. According to the Human Security Report Project in 2003, women and girls are more likely to be subjected to non-lethal violence, such as involuntary disappearance, sexual
slavery, rape or sexual abuse among other undesirable actions.13 They are more likely to be affected by the long-term consequences of a war. These long-term consequences include shortages of food and resources or lack of medical treatment.14
The violence suffered by women during a conflict has been identified as gender-based violence. This concept refers to the violence perpetuated towards an individual because of their gender roles in society. 15 The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women adopted in 1993 described gender-based violence as “Any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” 16
Even though these hostilities are particularly harmful for women, they have been notably absent from peace and security matters. The absence of women is mainly due -among other factors-, to the association of war and security to a masculine figure. Characteristics such as strength, power, autonomy, independence and rationality are associated with men and women are perceived as peaceful beings that need protection instead of them being the protectors. 17
Great efforts have been made at an international level in order to redress the absence of women. The most notable efforts have been made by women’s peace activists and the NGO Working Group on Women International Peace and Security. As they have argued, women have qualities that can contribute to peace, and therefore should be able to participate in peace processes and post conflict resolutions. 18
The UN has not fallen behind in trying to redress such discrimination. The UN agency focused on women’s’ rights, the Commission on the Status of Women, was created in 1946 and since then, it has campaigned the promotion of women’s active role in the fight for peace. 19 There have also been several conferences to address the problem. The first International Conference
for Women was held in Mexico in 1975 and was followed by the Women’s Decade in the United Nations (1975-1985) where various instruments were adopted to create a legal framework about women, peace and security. In 1982, UN Resolution 3763 concerning the participation of women in promoting Peace and International Cooperation was adopted. There were subsequent meetings and conferences such as the International Conference for Women held in Beijing in 1995, where an agreement on an Action Plan to prevent violence against women and to reinforce the exiting norms in International Law was reached.20
Aware of the magnitude of the matter, in 1999 the Department of Peacekeeping Operations of the United Nations established the Windhoek Declaration and the Namibia Plan of Action to improve gender-balance and gender equality in UN peacekeeping. This legal instrument emphasized women’s participation and called for reaching equality between men and women who served in managerial and decision-making positions in peacekeeping missions.21
These efforts to enhance women’s position in Peace and Security concluded with the adoption in 2000 of UN Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. The Resolution recognizes the serious impact that armed conflicts have on women and children and the important role that women play in conflict prevention, resolution and reconstruction. It states the need for an equal participation and involvement of women to preserve and promote peace and security, and it calls the member states to make sure that women are involved at all decision-making levels.22
As far as the involvement of women at all decision-making levels is concerned, new empirical data states the positive impact of women’s leadership and participation on peace processes. The inclusion of women in such processes is linked to better outcomes including a more durable and stable peace in the given State.23 The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva undertook a research from 2011 to 2015 of 40 peace processes. The findings confirm the statement mentioned before “in cases where women’s groups were able to exercise
a strong influence on the negotiation progress, there was a much higher chance that an agreement would be reached than when women’s groups exercised weak or no influence” and in fact “in cases of women’s participation and strong influence, an agreement was almost reached.”24
The inclusion of females is beneficial for the protection of women and girls.25According to a study based on the UN missions that were held in Namibia, South Africa and Rwanda, women police peacekeepers were seen by the locals as “less threatening, more willing to listen and better able to diffuse potentially violent situations”. 26 Women who have been victims of sexual abuses are more likely to talk about it and to report incidents of sexual violence to other women, as a result, the presence of female peacekeepers is beneficial since they could provide the needed help that could not be so easily provided by men.27 Furthermore, there is also the presupposition that women could possibly help in the mitigation of the instances of sexual exploitation and abuse. In 1995 a study made by the UN Division for the Advancement of Women reached the outcome that a minimal female presence reduced significantly the cases of rape and prostitution during the peacekeeping missions. 28 The report Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in Multidimensional Peace Operations underpins the argument that women can effectively reduce aggressiveness and hyper masculinity.29 Nonetheless, the fact that women’s presence mitigates sexual aggressions remains a controversial statement since officers at peacekeeping missions argue that this benefit has not been clearly demonstrated yet.30
As the case of study of this work is the analysis of the peacekeeping mission in Liberia, it is necessary to acknowledge the fact that Liberia is a member state of the UN since its creation in 1945.31 According to Article 25 of the Charter of the United Nations, states must carry out the all decisions adopted by the Security Council -being the Resolution 1325 part of those decisions. Therefore, states have an obligation to comply with Security Council resolutions.
Despite the existence of the empirical evidence supporting the benefits of women participation in conflict prevention and conflict resolution, women’s inclusion have often been contested. In effect, in the cases where women actually get the chance to participate, their participation does not always come from the willingness of the parties to establish a gender-balanced negotiating table, but from the support of outsiders to the peace processes such as local women’s movements or international actors.32
Statement of the Research Problem
Women have not been as equally represented as men concerning peace processes. This entails that even though women are the main victims, they “are affected by war but mostly […] react to rather than manage it”.33 The former Secretary General Kofi Annan declared in 2002: “One of the greatest challenges is harnessing the energy and activism that many women exhibit in informal [peacebuilding] activities and translating them into their participation and influence in formal activities”.34
Despite the adoption of the Resolution 1325, there is still a low percentage of women participating in peace negotiations in official roles such as negotiators, mediators, signatories or witnesses.35 The UN carried out a study in 2008 analyzing women’s participation in 33 different peace negotiations.36 The findings confirmed the clear absence of females. In effect, there were 11 women out of 280 individuals – only 4% of the participants were women.37 Consequently, women are underrepresented at places and situations where crucial decisions about the conflict, post-conflict recovery and governance are made.
As it has been mentioned in the prior section, the parties in the dispute might not consider the inclusion of women as a priority. Therefore, the issues of underrepresentation might continue to go unsolved. On the other hand, the problem of underrepresentation goes beyond the simple
solution of increasing the number of females, it is about making sure that women participate and that they play an active and effective role in peace negotiations. Otherwise, not only does women’s absence constitute an attempt to the gender-balance objective, but peace outcomes are reached only with the participation of male leaders –the only ones making the important decisions.38
In order to resolve a conflict, it is necessary to have enough information about the local milieu
to act in the most suitable way possible. In relation to the peace processes issuing from conflicts
–especially in the African continent-, foreigners who do not have the sufficient knowledge and experience to adequately address the conflict, might participate in the peacekeeping mission holding high-ranked positions within the operation.39 This entails that not only masculine is the predominant gender on peace negotiations –following the findings of the reports made about peace negotiations-, but they might also lack of local understanding.
When it comes to the role played by military and police female peacekeepers, the percentage remains low. 40 In 2008, out of 77,117 personnel in the UN peacekeeping, only 1,640 were female constituting a scant 2%. This underrepresentation is not the only problem female peacekeepers face. Once they have been sent to a peacekeeping mission, women may be prevented from participating in peacekeeping jobs and they are often deployed to do what is conceived to be “feminine tasks” such as administrative duties. They may also be prevented from interacting with local communities that might be targeted as “too dangerous” for women.41
Furthermore, the fact of increasing the number of females with the expectation that they would come in between men and sexual abuses, perpetrates the existing gender dichotomies and gender roles. As in this example, it reinforces the idea of women being peaceful beings that would be able to counter-balance the unacceptable behavior of their male counterparts.
The lack of a gender-balanced peacekeeping missions, including all levels of participation, results in the foreseeable outcome that missions do not benefit from the positive impact of female personnel.
A full implementation of the Resolution 1325 should be done at every peacekeeping mission. Nevertheless, currently there are operations which still face drawbacks in assuring women’s participation.42 This work is focused on the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) due to the fact that it is one of the first countries that has implemented the Resolution 1325 in many aspects of the peace building process. Furthermore, the Government of Liberia has fully implicated itself in adopting National Plans in order to ensure its implementation. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze how the presence of women as well as their contributions were considered as a priority in Liberia by the negotiating parts and not only by external actors. UNMIL could set the example on how to increase women’s participation to other peacekeeping missions which are struggling gender-balancing their units.
