General Women, Peace and Security

The EU must ensure a gender balanced approach as it spearheads talks between Kosovo and Serbia, writes Lena Ag.

EU high representative, Catherine Ashton, is showing great courage in taking on the task of facilitating dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia. The ongoing talks have opened up new possibilities to normalise the frosty relations between the two countries.

The campaign to ensure women's equal participation at the peace talks on Syria in January has become more urgent, as certain parties recognize that women are vital in rebuilding and reconciling Syrian society. Yet only a few weeks before the talks are scheduled to start, no commitment has been made as to whether women will actually sit at the negotiating table between the Syrian government and the opposition.

There are over fifty Syrian women in Geneva this week. They are demanding a ceasefire in Syria and to be part of the planned peace talks in Geneva, January 22. Supported by international women's organisations, they are there to break the medieval narrative and to ensure that the voices of those who believe in humanity are heard.

Next month in Geneva, rebels will sit down to talk to representatives of President Bashar al-Assad's government about a peace plan to end Syria's civil war -- a conflict that has killed over 100,000 people since 2011 and driven a third of the population from their homes. In the room alongside the rebels and government officials will be a whole slew of negotiators from various Western countries and Russia.

On Monday, November 18th, 2013, PeaceWomen, along with the Mission of Liechtenstein and Princeton University, hosted the eleventh panel of our Women, Peace and Security lecture series, titled “Women, Peace, Security: Looking Ahead to 2015”, with keynote speaker Ms. Anne-Marie Goetz, Chief Advisor for Peace and Security, UNWomen. Ms.

Two important issues to gain traction in Israeli civil society this past year are gender issues and the peace process. And while neither is new, there has been movement on both. Gender issues exploded onto the scene in 2011 with the ultra-orthodox fanatical takeover of public space in the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh by terrorizing young girls and women as they walked city streets.

PeaceWomen has attended several events on Men, Peace and Security in the last month, which we covered on our social media. “Gender roles are dynamic and peace and security is gendered”, stated of our tweets from the Men, Peace and Security Symposium (Washington DC) which offered a

Since the announcement of peace talks in Colombia between the Colombian Government and the FARC-EP in 2012, slow developments have been taking place in relation to the participation of women and inclusion of a gender perspective.

Something is missing in the discussions, somewhat secretive though they be, as to finding some sort of solution to the war in Syria. There was also something missing in the post-Libya crisis. Something missing in the Egypt of Morsi and absolutely missing after the “coup” by the generals.

MORE THAN a decade after United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) was adopted, the absence of women from formal peace negotiations has revealed a gap between the aspirations of global and regional commitments and the reality of peace processes.