General Women, Peace and Security

The Philippines has scored another first in Asia, this time as the first country in the continent to adopt a national action plan ensuring human rights of women in armed conflict.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed Executive Order No. 865 creating a National Steering Committee on Women, Peace and Security to implement United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820.

According to the Alerta 2010! Report on Conflicts, Human Rights and Peacebuilding, sexual violence was used as a weapon in most armed conflicts taking place in 2009. In addition to the report, the School for a Culture of Peace of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona also published the Yearbook 2010 on Peace Processes.

The Philippines National Action Plan on Women, Peace & Security was officially launched on 25 March at Miriam College in Manila.

The Philippines is the first Asian country to adopt a National Action Plan (NAP) on UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820. Thanks to the expertise of IANSA women such as Dr. Jasmin Nario-Galace of the Center for Peace Education & Sulong CARHRIHL, the NAP is the first ever to include a specific section dealing with small arms control in relation to violence against women.

I went to see the film Avatar the other day. As you know, it's about a people, the Na'vi, on another planet: Pandora. They have a culture that is respectful of nature, unexploitative, integrated and empathetic with other life forms. Unfortunately they also have a mineral that people of planet Earth lust after. Human space ships and personnel are out to destroy this pleasant people and appropriate their valuable resource.

A workshop on conflict prevention, mediation and peace-building for women leaders from member states of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) was concluded on 12 January in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with the participants agreeing on a number of recommendations related to women's involvement in conflict resolution.

Politically motivated sexual violence directed against women is an issue that is seldom the subject of widespread media coverage yet it profoundly affects millions of women in communities worldwide. Organized rape is a tactic used to denigrate and repress political prisoners and victims of war and it is often under reported due to the stigma attached to being a victim of this crime in many parts of the world.

Fiji, a multi-racial, multi-cultural country of 300 islands in the South Pacific, has undergone another coup - the fourth in 22 years. The women of Fiji want their voices to be heard as they work on ways to bring peace back to their country, and they are asking for the United Nations to support their efforts.

On 3 August 2009, President Michelle Bachelet of Chile signed the National Action Plan to implement the United Nations Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, making Chile the first Latin American country to do so. Security Council Resolution 1325 calls for women to be fully involved in peace and security missions throughout the world and mandates the use of a gendered perspective on peacekeeping, reconstruction, and armed conflict.