REPORT OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1701 (2006) (S/2015/147).

Date: 
Friday, February 27, 2015
Countries: 
Lebanon
PeaceWomen Consolidated Themes: 
Participation
Protection
Displacement and Humanitarian Response
Document PDF: 

Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701 (2006) (S/2015/147).

Code: S/2015/147

Period of time and topic: Assessment on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701 (2006) from 6 November 2014 to 27 February 2015.

WPS Section

The report of the Secretary-General (S/2015/147) concentrates its women, peace and security references on issues concerning violence against women, the security sector and humanitarian situation. These references focus on women’s protection and participation concerns.

Seeking to point out the violence committed against women, the report elucidates two incidents. In response to the ISIL attacks, the Lebanese Armed Forces detained two women who were affiliated with ISIL and associated with the prior abduction of Lebanese soldiers. [1] This case highlights that women are not only passive agents in the conflict, but play rather active roles, contradictory to their “innocent” nature.

The report provides sex-disaggregated data, explicitly stating UNIFIL’s active efforts to correct the mission’s gender imbalance problem. Of the 10,171 total UNIFIL officers, 366 are women.[2] By including this information, the report provided context as to the setting for UNIFIL’s higher recruiting initiative.

Concerning the humanitarian situation, the report discusses the safety of and the specific types of violence against women. In the midst of the conflict between armed gangs, one Syrian refugee woman was killed.[3] It is notable that the report does not only detail that the killed civilian was a refugee, but also states that the refugee was a woman. The report goes on to detail the types of violence inflicted upon refugee women. Rather than just stating that refugee women suffer from SGBV, the report detailed that refugee women suffer from forced marriage, prostitution, and sex in exchange for assistance. [4]

References in Need of Improvement Section

The report of the Secretary-General (S/2015/147) should refrain from grouping women and children together. In the report’s description of the types of violence inflicted upon female refugees, the mentioning of children is both irrelevant and distracting. Women and children are two distinct groups with varying concerns, hence they should not be conflated.

Missed Opportunities Section

The report of the Secretary-General (S/2015/147) misses several opportunities to provide information regarding women’s participation concerns. Rather than merely reporting on explicitly labeled women’s concerns, the report should have questioned whether women’s concerns are integrated in all aspects of the implementation of resolution 1701 (2006).

Regarding the inclusion of non-governmental organizations, the report did not state whether UNIFIL includes women’s NGOs in the design of its outreach programs.[5] Even though the mission takes a positive step by including nonprofit organizations, the implicit exclusion of women’s rights organizations is indicative of the only partially successful integration of women’s concerns.

Neglecting to mention whether women’s concerns are integrated in the design of security plans, the report fails to explicitly demonstrate that women’s concerns have been integrated by the mission. While the mission has undergone a pilot program to streamline and integrate gender issues, reporting must remain vigilant and track the progress concerning the integration of women’s issues.

Regarding UNIFIL’s undertaking of mine clearance, the report misses a critical opportunity to inform the reader as to whether women are integrated in the training support events.[6] Meaningful implementation of the women, peace and security agenda should be holistically reported on. The design and actual implementation of the trainings should be reported on with the demonstration of how they integrate women’s concerns.

Ideal Asks for WPS Transformation Section

The report should be improved with an explicit reference to and ideally an analysis of all genders, emphasizing diverse masculinities and femininities, including the dynamics between and amongst genders as well as the power relations and hierarchies at play, and the intersection of gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, class and age across all political peace and security processes.

________________________

[1] S/2015/147, para. 45

[2] S/2015/147, para. 60

[3] S/2015/147, para. 47

[4] S/2015/147, para. 51

[5] S/2015/147, para. 23

[6] S/2015/147, para. 36