AFRICA: the role of women in conflict and peace

U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

AFRICA: IRIN interview on the role of women in conflict and peace and
security

ABIDJAN, 31 October (IRIN) - Angela King is the UN Secretary-General's
Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women. In an interview
with IRIN, King discussed the role of women in conflict, peace and
security. While acknowledging that women are frequently the victims of
conflict, King argued that women are playing an increasingly important
part in its resolution in their roles as peace negotiators and
peacekeepers.

QUESTION: How does the impact of armed conflict on women differ from its
impact on men ?

ANSWER: With the changing nature of warfare we have found that the victims
now are not just other soldiers or military targets but that the majority
tend to be women and children. For example, during ethnic cleansing in
Rwanda and the Balkans, women were targeted as a means of humiliating a
particular ethnic group through rape, forced marriages and genocide.
HIV/AIDS is also a big problem because there is usually no condom use or
anything like that when you are raped. In the overall population more
women are now getting HIV/AIDS than men.

Q: Does your office focus on the role of women as combatants ?

A: We do, but there's not always a whole lot of information. We do know
that women are combatants in a number of countries in Africa. But what we
are finding is that in many of the cases where there is resettlement and
training the women combatants get left out so part of what UN Security
Resolution 1325 [on women, peace and security] is saying is that we have
to look at all of these areas as they regard women. Don't just create
reintegration programmes for the men. So to a certain extent this had been
neglected but it is now being addressed.

Q: Is the UN system taking special needs of displaced and refugee women
into account in its programming?

A: No, it is not happening in a perfect way but I would say that the UN
system is very much aware that women's needs are different to those of
men. I went to an Afghan refugee camp in Peshawar in Pakistan and found
that the same traditions that were carried out in Afghanistan were
translated to the camp. Women had to wear burkas and other traditional
attitudes were maintained. UNHCR has become much more aware and they now
have a gender policy because they do know that particularly younger women
and girls can suffer rape in the camps as well as other violations. In one
instance there was a case of Rwandan refugee women who had not been raped
and in a single night some of the older women performed female genital
mutilation on over one hundred of these girls thinking that if they were
raped they would at least have had the culturally designed ritual. So the
UN is becoming more aware that it has to safeguard against such
occurrences and a set of guidelines has been put out by an inter-agency
committee which has been quite successful in setting policy.

Q: What about role of women as peacemakers ?

A: Women have traditionally been looked at as victims but the new thinking
is the role that women can play as peacekeepers, in peace accords and the
rebuilding of society. There is more and more empirical evidence to show
that women do have a role to play. So far none of the literature I have
read or even my own personal experience has said that women are better
peacemakers than men but there have been certain instances where they have
been very effective...women tend to listen more so they tend to be more
open to the other side's point of view. They also seem to be better at
transmitting messages of peace. If a peace accord has been signed, women
seem to be good at convincing their spouses and the community that it
should be carried out. They also seem to be better at traditional means of
negotiation that might work in a community. They are less hierarchical
than men. If there is an attempt at a meeting which doesn't come off they
tend to go for a second time whereas men tend to be more offended.

In Somalia it was the women who brought the clan leaders together for the
first time. They were sort of left out of the peace accord so they formed
themselves into what they called the womens' clan or the sisters' clan.
And they were able to influence the peace accords. More recently there has
been a very interesting initiative called the Mano River Union project
whereby women from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia actually persuaded the
presidents of Guinea and Liberia to meet. And [Guinean] President Conte
acknowledged this publicly. In the case of Liberia, and to a certain
extent Sierra Leone, it was the mothers who got together and went to the
bush to persuade the young child soldiers to lay down their arms. During
the negotiation of the Burundi peace accord a group of women went to see
Mr Mandela [chief mediator of the talks] and said you need to have certain
issues included and they got at least half of their demands into the final
version.

Q: What does the UN do to support these groups ?

A: Many of these groups would happen anyway because women are good at
groups and most of them have been involved in civil society. Very often
what happens is that there is a ceasefire and the women are forgotten or
pushed out of these active decision-making roles. What has happened in a
number of cases, partly because of the UN presence and the philosophy of
democracy and so on, is that there has been a transformation where the
women do continue to have a say. In South Africa more than a third of the
cabinet is now women. During the UN Observer Mission in South Africa [
headed by Angela King ] the UN pushed for women to be part of the peace
committees and fostered this feeling among women of all parties to get
together. They certainly used this very effectively to get at least three
women on the constitutional negotiating committee.

Q: In October 2000 the UN Security Council adopted a landmark resolution
on women, peace and security. How has this helped to promote the role of
women in such situations ?

A: This was the first time in 55 years that the Security Council had
introduced a debate about women and, of course, they made the point of
talking about women as victims and the need for better humanitarian law
and so on, but the main thrust was that women and civil society
organisations should be fully involved in the peacekeeping process. Part
of our role is to enhance the capacity of women who are already on the
ground working. In June we had a workshop in [Ethiopian capital] Addis
Ababa in collaboration with the Economic Commission of Africa and the OAU
[Organisation of African Unity] to determine how to enhance the existing
roles of women and see how they could be supportive to peacekeeping
missions. For example, it would be very useful to have some of these women
as resource people for initial assessment missions. Recently the Security
Council has started to meet women's groups. They did so in Kosovo and they
did so when they went to the [Democratic Republic of] Congo and this will
become routine.

I have also been asked by the Secretary-General to coordinate the
preparation of a study on the impact of armed conflict on women and
children and also to look at the role of women in peace processes and
peace-building. So it is really a very comprehensive study and we are
hoping that out of this there will be a report to the Security Council
which will not just give the facts as they are but act as a blueprint and
give some guidance to the Council.

UNIFEM [the UN Development Fund for Women] is also looking at its the
effectiveness of its own activities around peacekeeping missions. Their
findings will provide valuable input on the operational aspects of the
report to be submitted to the Security Council. DPKO [UN peacekeeping
department] is also trying to develop manuals for codes of conduct for
peacekeepers and we are also trying to develop these networks so that if,
for example, the Security Council is going somewhere we can tap into them
on their behalf.

[ENDS]

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[This item is delivered in the "africa-english" service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post
this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial
sites requires written IRIN permission.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001