General Women, Peace and Security

On September 30, 2009 the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution on sexual violence in situations of armed conflict. Sam Cook, Project Director of PeaceWomen, a project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, spoke with AWID about Resolution 1888 and its implications.

AWID: Why is resolution 1888 so important?

This fall, after years of advocacy, the UN General Assembly adopted a historic resolution to create a strong women's agency. To be headed by an undersecretary general—the third highest-ranking UN officer, after the secretary general and his deputy—the new unit will consolidate the work of four existing bodies.

More than 100 experts from women's organizations, UN agencies and government ministries from many countries meet in Oslo this week with the aim to create international standards on how to implement UN resolutions on women, peace and security.

“It is important to build bridges, not only to connect different government ministries or women's organizations but also across all the sectors and areas of responsibility to connect different stakeholders in different countries to reach our goal for the full implementation of the Resolutions on women peace and security.”

On this International Women's Day, it is fitting that we reflect upon United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted almost ten years ago. With this resolution, the United Nations recognized that conflict disproportionately impacts civilians, and particularly women.

What do women fishing, school building and better farming skills have to do with U.S. national security? A lot — and that's a bipartisan consensus.

Shelley Anderson is an old colleague with an inspiring track record in gender work. We see things very much alike. As she suggests in her article Vital peace constituencies a hidden war is being waged against women: a war on many fronts, expressed as beatings, rapes (whether marital or otherwise), ‘honour killings' and other murders.

Momentum is building to eliminate the most pervasive yet least recognized human rights abuse in the world—violence against women. Studies show that 70 per cent of women experience some form of physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. Everywhere, communities, civil society and governments are mobilizing to end practices that harm the health, dignity, security and autonomy of women and negatively impact society as a whole.

At the end of September 2009, two sharply contrasting events coincided: the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton introduced resolution 1888 at the United Nations Security Council on 30 September which, like resolution 1820 passed the previous year, condemns conflict-related sexual violence and aims to equip the UN with measures to prevent it and to address impunity.

In October this year, the United Nations will commemorate the tenth anniversary of an important, but inadequately recognized international development landmark: Security Council resolution 1325, which recognized the importance of understanding the impact of armed conflict on women and girls and guaranteed their protection and full participation in peace agreements.