General Women, Peace and Security

On viewing war photography, Susan Sontag had a famous aphorism: “No ‘we' should be taken for granted when the subject is looking at other people's pain.” (Regarding the Pain of Others, Picador, 2003)

IN 2002, women in Liberia helped bring an end to one of Africa's bloodiest wars by staging a series of peace protests — including a boycott on having sex with their husbands. In 1996, a female political party in Northern Ireland helped push for an end to sectarian violence.

Wartime rape is a persistent and brutal aspect of conflict, whether during or in the aftermath of hostilities. In the recent warfare in Libya, as well as in most civil and international armed conflicts, women were subjected to different forms of visible and invisible violence, including sexual exploitation and abuse.

Just 15 years old, Sahar Gul has become the bruised and bloodied face of women's rights in Afghanistan. The teenage bride's eyes were swollen nearly shut as she was wheeled into the hospital seven months after her arranged marriage. Black scabs crusted her fingertips where her nails used to be.

Before we finally close the chapter on 2011, flipping a fresh page for a new beginning in 2012, let's not forget that the unresolved issues of 2011 and other past years are still in need of solutions.

“The goal for more women in politics is not fewer men in politics but a more equitable society.” This is a popular statement of the United Nations Development Programme which clearly reaffirms abhorrence at the international level for the lingering culture of gender disparity in the structures of power at the national and local levels.

(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. James J. Vooris)

In the third week of December 2011, a confluence of political events profoundly affecting Iraqi and American women took place.