Peacekeeping

The Chinese have a powerful proverb that ‘women hold up half the sky'. Twelve years after this Council first made landmark commitments in Resolution 1325, we must all stand united behind efforts to confront those who seek to exclude, harm or marginalise half their populations.

It must be recognized that there is much greater awareness today of the multifaceted discrimination faced by women in conflict and that significant efforts have been made with a view to remedying that situation.

It is therefore important that national legislation incorporate international criminal law, which provides for such acts and punishes their perpetrators. The Council must ensure that impunity is not the rule, but the exception. My country welcomes the fact that measures adopted by the United Nations to protect women and girls include guidelines that have been drawn up by the heads of military and police units in peacekeeping operations.

In 2011, women were represented in 12 — or 86 per cent — of the 14 United Nations mediation support teams. However, only four of fourteen delegations to peace negotiations had a woman among their ranks.

When the situation demands it, Thai women can also be effective agents of peace, as caring peacekeepers and peacebuilders. We were pleased to see the role of female peacekeepers mentioned in several parts of the Secretary-General's report. Thailand also attaches great importance to enhancing the role and participation of women in peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations.

Since the adoption of resolution 1325 (2000), many variables have changed in our approach to peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. In that changing context, questions of gender have become an ever more important factor when it comes to the planning, training and evaluation of missions. However, the reasons that led to the adoption of resolution 1325 (2000) still persist.

We are supportive of the efforts undertaken by the Council to ensure that more systematic attention is given in all its work to the implementation of commitments in the area of women, peace and security. The integration of appropriate gender perspectives into the mandates of the relevant peacekeeping missions and in other thematic areas related to peace and security would positively advance efforts in that regard.

South Africa is pleased to note the valuable contribution that gender advisers in post-conflict settings continue to make through the provision of training to and awareness-raising of peacekeepers and assisting in the capacity-building activities of national Governments and of civil society. However, we remain concerned at the slow deployment of women protection advisers to peacekeeping missions.

Russia is convinced that there exists a significant and positive potential for women to participate in various aspects of armed conflict settlement and postconflict recovery. The Council and relevant agencies and mechanisms of the United Nations system must pay more attention to ways to involve women in such processes, as required under resolution 1325 (2000).

This Council has adopted a Presidential Statement encouraging efforts to strengthen the capacities of women's organizations to engage in conflict prevention and mediation. Portugal strongly supports these specific efforts by Members States and the UN. In this regard, we welcome DPKO and UN Women's efforts to give technical support to women's organizations at local and regional level to strengthen women's civil society groups.