General Women, Peace and Security

The first United Nations (U.N.) Security Council resolution to specifically address women's contributions to conflict prevention and sustainable peace was passed just 11 years ago, on Oct. 31, 2000. Today, activists continue to make the annual pilgrimage to U.N. headquarters in New York for the open debate on Resolution 1325, with the mission of "taking women beyond 1325" and taking part in collaboration, advocacy and action.

Eleven years since its adoption, once again, the international community will be debating progress towards implementing a UN commitment to ensure that women are included in peace deals.

The United Nations Security Council began Thursday debating on the need for women to have a greater involvement in achieving peace and security.

Women are the worst sufferers of conflict. Study after study has shown this.

Before US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left the podium at the International Conference on Afghanistan in London on 28 January 2010, she pointed to four women wrapped in green scarves and clustered together in the corner of the crowded press conference room and asked them to stand up.

There is a profound silence in conflict. Women's voices are absent. They are excluded from decision-making and peace processes across the world's trouble spots.

This exclusion not only perpetuates political and social structures that disenfranchise women, but also violates international law.

The United States introduced in the UN General Assembly on Tuesday a draft resolution entitled Women and Political Participation.

The resolution was co-sponsored by 48 countries representing cross-regional support, the US State Department said. They include Columbia, Cyprus, Honduras, Monaco, Palau, Maldives, Moldova, South Korea, Tunisia, Ukraine and Britain.

Crime hurts, and the protection of victims from criminality is always a priority in any criminal policy.

Thousands of women and girls who have been abducted by armed groups, enslaved and repeatedly raped during conflicts across Africa are left without support when the war ends, experts say.

After the bullets have stopped flying, peacekeepers and governments focus on disarming fighters – who are usually men and boys - and helping them to return home and reintegrate into their communities.

As an African woman, I declare: The Nobel Prize got it right, it celebrated three African women. Two Liberians and one Yemeni woman were honored. Two grassroots leaders -- women's rights activist Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, and democracy activist Tawakkul Karman of Yemen and one president -- Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won this year's Peace Prize. It showed that the Nobel Committee understood.