Women and women's civil society organizations are all too often excluded from...

Women and women's civil society organizations are all too often excluded from participating in peace efforts and negotiations. The very instructive data, collected against the indicators, contained in the Secretary-General's report (S/2012/732) clearly shows the need for improvement in the meaningful inclusion and participation of women from an early stage in all efforts towards conflict prevention and resolution, including peace negotiations and peacebuilding. Measures to improve women's security are crucial to ensuring their political and economic participation in post-conflict settings. We are concerned about the information in the Secretary-General's report on the high number of attacks on human rights defenders in some of the countries and territories reviewed in the past year. We fully support the Secretary-General's recommendation that the Security Council pay special attention to protecting women human rights defenders.