Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force for the period from 20 November 2014 to 3 March 2015.

Countries: 
Syria

Code: S/2015/177

Period of time and topic: An account of UNDOF activities from 20 November 2014 to 3 March 2015.

WPS Section

Report S/2015/177 references the women, peace and security agenda mostly in regards to women’s protection and participation concerns. Focusing heavily on the technical aspect of UNDOF’s monitoring activities, women’s concerns only surface twice in the entire report. Of these two references to women’s concerns, only one is a substantial reference.

In regards to the occurrence of crossfire, the report stated that mostly women and children were affected. In total 300 civilians were affected by airstrikes and 150 civilians were affected by shelling. By highlighting the fact that women and children are the most affected, the report attempts to display that women are disproportionately affected by the conflict.

The report emphasizes women’s role as officers in UNDOF. Comprised of 32 female officers and one female observer, UNDOF makes a positive stride towards fully integrating women in the mission. Through the inclusion of this information, the report successfully provides much needed sex-disaggregated data regarding the makeup of UNDOF. While the integration of women in the mission does not equate the full integration of women’s concerns, the reporting of it is a positive step.

References in Need of Improvement Section

Even though the report does emphasize that women and children are most affected by the conflict, the report should attempt to not conflate the two distinct groups together. By grouping women and children together, the report glosses over the distinct effects and issues. Rather, the report should strive to provide disaggregated data as well as information specific to women versus children.

Missed Opportunities Section

Given that the report focuses on UNDOF’s observations of the cease-fire line in the Golan Heights rather than proactive activities administered by UNDOF, there aren’t opportunities to refer to women’s promotion and participation concerns. However, the report does miss an opportunity in the observation section to call for the increased reporting on gender-specific attacks.

Ideal Rsks 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.