Bangladesh

I welcome the Secretary-General's most recent report on women and peace and security (S/2012/732). In the report, the Secretary-General calls for enhanced women's participation and a stronger commitment to addressing the challenges to women's engagement in the prevention and resolution of armed conflicts and in peacebuilding at all levels.

There have been some developments in women, peace and security, such as the steps taken to implement the seven-point action plan on gender-responsive peacebuilding, the adoption of the United Nations strategic results framework on women and peace and security and the civilian capacity review. Prevention also gained an increased focus with the inclusion of the protection of civilians in the mandates of 8 out of 16 peacekeeping missions.

The core message of resolution 1325 (2000) was to ensure women's equal participation at all decision-making levels. In the United Nations context, women's participation should be ensured through achieving a 50/50 gender balance, with a special emphasis on the recruitment of women at higher levels. In general, more female military and police personnel need to be deployed to United Nations peacekeeping operations. For an adequate global balance, women from the South should be considered with special preference for such leadership positions. For all gender- based violence, there should be a zero tolerance policy, and all incidents of such violence must be unequivocally condemned.

Poverty, the struggle and rivalry for resources, socioeconomic injustices and forced occupation lie at the heart of conflicts. They create a breeding ground for such social scourges as conflicts, including violence against women and girls, increase. The impact of that violence not only weakens the safety and security of women and girls but also tears the entire political, economic and social fabric. Therefore, we need to prevent conflict and establish sustainable peace.

In Bangladesh, from our experience of nation- building, we have embraced a perspective of women's empowerment and developed a model that our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina calls a “peace model”. The central message conveyed in the model is the empowerment of people, including women and vulnerable groups, through a focus on seven interlinked issues. The model advocates empowering people by eliminating hunger and poverty, by providing them with skills, education and training, by including the excluded, by eliminating all forms of discrimination, by providing decent jobs, by guaranteeing participation in governance, and by ending terrorism. I am pleased to note here that at its sixty-sixth session the General Assembly adopted resolution 66/224, entitled, “People's empowerment and development”, and we have proposed a follow-up draft resolution in the current session of the General Assembly. We seek Members' support for it.

The Government has enacted laws to protect women against domestic violence, and is currently implementing a number of innovative projects for developing women's capabilities. In order to involve women in decision-making processes, the Government has adopted a quota system for women in the national Parliament and in recruitment for our civil service jobs — alongside direct election and open competition. It also expanded effective gender-based budgeting in 20 of the country's ministries. It has been providing microfinancing, mostly to women, and has started providing small business enterprise loans to women- run small and medium-sized enterprises at preferential rates.

In conclusion, I reiterate that we in Bangladesh have been making our best efforts to ensure women's empowerment and participation in all spheres of our lives. We know that much more needs to be done. We are willing to replicate in our national policy any good practices that we learn about from around the world, and we are similarly ready to share our experience with others.