NEPAL: Women and Peace Talks, Little to Celebrate in Ten Years

Date: 
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Source: 
The Daily Star
Countries: 
Asia
Southern Asia
Nepal
PeaceWomen Consolidated Themes: 
General Women, Peace and Security

Five months ago, Nepal's fragile peace was on the brink of disintegrating. After ten years of civil war, a newly elected assembly was tasked with writing a constitution that would keep the peace, but was about to dissolve because the country's politicians could not agree on the terms of an extension. Women learned bitter lessons from their exclusion from the peace talks and mobilised. On the night of May28, as the deadline for dissolution neared, women legislators from across the political spectrum demonstrated in the heart of the parliament, demanding the assembly continue its work. Their male colleagues could not ignore their call.

The women parliamentarians of Nepal showed what millions who have lived through conflict intuitively know: women are needed to hold together the peace. Across the world, women have been critical to peace-building, the process of sustaining peace once an agreement between warring parties has been made.

But women are largely absent from peacemaking, the negotiations which forge a peace agreement in the first place. Their inclusion in peace talks is not an optional extra. It is central to meaningful peace. If, for example, the needs of survivors of sexual violence are not part of peace negotiations, it makes it all the more likely that rape will be used as a "weapon of war" later. The views of half of the population must be heard.

But there is an even bigger argument for why women must be involved in peacemaking. A peace agreement that leaves women out is less likely to hold.

Ten years ago today [October 31, 2000], the UN recognised this, and urged action. The Security Council passed Resolution 1325, which demanded that more women be involved in resolving conflict.

How much has been achieved since? Not nearly as much as those who suffer from violent conflict deserve. To date there has not been a single peace process where women have been represented to anywhere near the same level as men. Research by the UN shows that less than 3% of signatories and 8% of representatives to peace talks since 1992 have been women.

In may experience, working with those on the frontlines of conflict, I hear the same excuses: since men are typically the political and military leaders making war, it is natural that they be those who must make peace; there are not any women capable of negotiation or mediating conflict; having women involved is desirable but not critical.

This kind of thinking is short-sighted at best and dangerous at worst. Focusing on the most belligerent actors in a conflict ignores the enormous potential that women have as peacemakers. From Nepal to Liberia, women have shown a greater willingness to work with those across the conflict divide and break down the barriers to peace. As for the argument that the "capacity" of women must be improved before including them in negotiations, it is striking how rarely the same argument is made regarding incapable men.

It does not help that the international community has not set the best example. No woman has ever been appointed chief or lead peace mediator in UN-sponsored peace talks. Indeed, the secretaries general (present and past) have succumbed to geographical interests in senior appointments at the expense of women. Ten years after the groundbreaking Resolution 1325 was agreed, just five out of some thirty "special representatives," mediators, envoys, heads of political and peacekeeping missions are women.

So what can be done? For a start, those in the peacemaking industry need to do better. There are plenty of capable women who could ably mediate the most challenging conflicts -- like Betty Bigombe, who was chief mediator in the Ugandan peace process with the Lord's Resistance Army, or Graca Machel, who was one of the three mediators that successfully mediated the Kenyan election crisis in 2008.

Mediators also have a responsibility to make sure that warring parties include women on their negotiating teams -- as well as their own teams -- and not in token capacities.

But we cannot simply wait for the international community or insurgent groups to take action. Women must also be more forthright.

In my work for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a private foundation in Geneva dedicated to peace-making, I am helping identify women who can be called upon in the work of the organisation in Africa and Asia. We have also been gathering women together in the recent past to reflect on experiences in peace processes. Those who made it to be negotiating table tell stories of how they did it. Those who have been shut out of peace talks learn how to break in.

A lot more work needs to be done: by mediators, other third parties (donors particularly), by belligerents and by women themselves. With political will and women pushing for peace -- from Nepal to Kenya -- surely the promise the UN made ten years ago will be fulfilled.