UNSCR 1325 and Prevention: A Hybrid for Utilising Human Rights and Early Warning Frameworks in the Campaign to End Violence Against Women

This paper, regarding “UNSCR 1325 and Prevention: A Hybrid for Utilising Human Rights and Early Warning Frameworks in the Campaign to End Violence against Women”, seeks to expand the rubrics of the on-going discourse on UNSCR 1325 to include a focus on human rights instruments and conflict early warning frameworks with the aim of examining how these can be jointly utilised in the prevention of violence against women in Africa. In this regard, the paper examines some existing 1) human rights instruments, in terms of both policies and operating structures; and 2) conflict early warning systems to show that in combination with UNSCR 1325 indicators, these instruments and structures have a greater propensity for the prevention of violence against women.

After fifteen years of extensive work in the field of Gender, Peace and Security, Femmes Africa Solidarité (FAS) has witnessed firsthand how women become the worst-hit victims of war through the pervasive application of rape and other forms of sexual violence as weapons of war on one hand, and active stakeholders of peace on the other hand. This dual outcome of war on the roles and functions of women indicates that no single strategy is sufficient for addressing the peace and security needs of women. As such, FAS not only recognises the importance of the concept and principle of prevention‟ of all forms of violence against women as enshrined in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security; but also acknowledges that the underlying obligations embedded in prevention cannot be realised in isolation from the other two intertwining pillars, „participation‟ and „protection‟.