Peacekeeping

The Peacekeeping theme focuses on a gendered approach to multi-dimensional peacekeeping missions, predominantly through gender mainstreaming of peace support operations and the increase of female recruitment in peacekeeping, military, and police.

The Security Council calls for an increase in the number of women in peacekeeping operations (1325,OP6).

It is also important to note that the issues of gender and peacekeeping should never be reduced to the number of women recruited as peacekeepers. Promoting security is about providing real human security for the population, not about the militarisation of women. The point is not to achieve gender parity for its own sake, but rather to draw on the unique and powerful contribution women can make to peacekeeping.

The Security Council commits to include a gender component in UN field operations (1325,OP5), and requests that the Secretary-General’s reports to include information on the progress of gender mainstreaming within each operation (1325,OP17). Without a gender perspective, it is almost impossible to adequately create an inclusive security, which forms the basis of promoting sustainable and durable peace. Gender training, pre-deployment, on the ground, and post-deployment is effective for ensuring peacekeeping personnel have sufficient knowledge and skills.

Peacekeeping missions are increasingly being mandated to address sexual violence (1960,OP10), and training can increase the prevention, recognition, and response to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and sexual exploitation and abuse (1820,OP6). The implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda varies greatly among Peacekeeping Operations. This variation is a result of the peacekeeping mission’s mandates and also structure, leadership, funding, whether there is a designation of a separate unit to address gender, and the number of gender advisors. These key gaps were highlighted in DPKO’s Ten-Year Impact Study on Implementation of Resolution 1325 in Peacekeeping.


These measures can trigger positive changes for women within conflict and post-conflict situations, such as increased physical security, employment-related benefits, capacity building for local women’s organisations, and increased awareness of women’s rights. Additionally, positive role models and examples of women’s leadership have a positive effect on the environment and contribute to the success of peacekeeping missions.

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INTERNATIONAL: Greater Action Needed to Include Women in Peacekeeping – UN Study

Ten years after the Security Council called for greater involvement of women in peacebuilding, United Nations peacekeeping missions have a mixed record and need to deploy greater efforts to reach the goal, according to a study launched today.

INTERNATIONAL: Greater Action Needed to Include Women in Peacekeeping – UN Study

Ten years after the Security Council called for greater involvement of women in peacebuilding, United Nations peacekeeping missions have a mixed record and need to deploy greater efforts to reach the goal, according to a study launched today.

UNITED STATES: Military's 'Restricted Reporting' Draws Fire

U.S. Army veteran Susan Avila-Smith runs the military sexual trauma advocacy group VETWOW, or Veteran Women Organizing Women, based in Seattle. Sadly, it's a group that numbers 3,000 and is growing.

Avila-Smith has been advocating for military sexual trauma victims since 1995, after the military refused to punish her Army ex-husband after he "jumped up and down" on her pregnant stomach and ended her pregnancy.

AFGHANISTAN: Trainers Aim to Increase Women's Role in Afghan Society

Human rights has been a hot topic in Afghanistan since the Taliban's near-medieval treatment of Afghan girls and women became known. Now that Afghanistan is working toward a more modern society and government, the rights of the nation's female population are moving front and center for those in charge of NATO Training Mission Afghanistan and Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan.

INTERNATIONAL: Greater Action Needed to Include Women in Peacekeeping – UN Study

“The impact study is a call to action to the senior leadership of peacekeeping to accelerate implementation of resolution 1325,” UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Alain Le Roy said, referring to the Council's resolution of October 2000, which sought to end sexual violence against women and girls in armed conflict and encourage greater participation by them in peacebuilding initiatives.

DRC: UN Envoy to Congo Notes some Improvements, but says Peacekeeping Mission still Needed

Progress has been made toward quelling mass rapes by armed combatants in Congo, but the U.N. peacekeeping mission is still needed in the African nation and requires more helicopters to do its job, the U.N. envoy to the African country told the Security Council Monday.

DRC: Indian Peacekeepers Rescue Women in DR Congo: UN

Indian peacekeepers rescued seven women held by a militia group in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN said Friday as it expressed concern over a new wave of rape attacks in the now notorious region.

Scores of new rapes have been reported in Nord and Sud Kivu provinces by militia groups and the DR Congo army, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters.

SOUTH AMERICA: Military Women Making Great Strides in Latin America

Colombian Air Force Capt. Maria Andrea Bueno and Peruvian Air Force Capt. Nadia Maycock have several things in common.

Both are the children of military officers, both are human resources specialists, and both were among the first women admitted into the air force academies of their respective countries.

Bueno was admitted in 1997; Maycock, in 1998.

INTERNATIONAL: UN Reports Fewer Cases of Sexual Offenses Involving Peacekeepers

The number of allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse involving UN peacekeeping personnel in 2010 fell from the previous year, according to new statistics released here Tuesday by the United Nations Departments of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and Field Support (DFS).

SUDAN: UN Says Darfur Situation Improving as Peacekeepers Report Violent Incidents

January 20, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – The UN on Thursday claimed that the security situation in Sudan's troubled western region of Darfur is improving, but daily reports from its peacekeepers on the ground paint a different picture.

Georg Charpentier, the head of the UN humanitarian mission in Sudan, told reporters in Khartoum on Thursday that the UN had observed “a trend of decreasing overall violent incidents in Darfur.”

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