Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Abyei

Date: 
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Document PDF: 

Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Abyei

Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Abyei.pdf

Code: S/2015/439

Period of Time and Topic: situation update and implementation of UNISFA’s mandate from 29 April 2015

Women, Peace and Security

The report makes a reference to UNISFA trainings which include briefings on gender-related matters, including gender equality and sexual and gender-based violence prevention (S/2015/439 para. 11). The report also includes one instance of sex-disaggregated data on women’s participation in UNISFA’s police component (S/2015/439 para. 33).

References in Need of Improvement

The report’s brief consideration of the women, peace and security agenda could have been more detailed and comprehensive. While the inclusion of gender training for UNISFA staff is positive, the report could have been stronger in its reporting on those trainings by including women and women’s civil society organizations in the design and implementation of both the briefings on gender equality and SGBV protection to ensure they met women’s needs and protected and promoted their human rights (S/2015/439 para. 11). Furthermore, the report should have included more information on the gender equality training to include in which areas gender equality was considered and if the briefing considered all genders in addition to women’s equality (S/2015/439 para. 11). Additionally, any efforts to prevent SGBV could have been stronger by including men in sexual violence protection and prevention (S/2015/439 para. 11). Finally, the brief mention of sex-disaggregated data on female police officers in UNISFA could have been much stronger by discussing women’s broader participation in the security sector, including quotas for women’s inclusion in the police and the unique needs and contributions of female officers (S/2015/439 para. 33).

Missed Opportunities

This report was submitted pursuant to resolutions 2205 (2015) and 2024 (2011). As resolution 2205 (2015) only includes the zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse and resolution 2024 (2011) containes no women, peace and security content, the report did not miss any opportunities to include the women, peace and security agenda (S/RES/2205 (2015) OP. 25).

Ideal Asks for WPS Transformation

The report should be improved with an explicit reference to and analysis of all genders, emphasizing diverse masculinities and femininities, including the dynamics between and among 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.