Beyond Victimhood: Involving Women in Peace Operations, Donald Steinberg

Presentation by Donald Steinberg, Vice President, International Crisis Group, to UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations Townhall Meeting, 6 December 2007

It’s a great honor to speak here today on the topic of women and peace process. I’ve been a proud partner to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations for many years at the United States Department of State and National Security Council, and currently as Vice President at the International Crisis Group. I salute your dedicated, professional, and often courageous efforts.

The engagement of women in peace operations is an issue on which I’ve focused throughout much of my professional life.

Frequently, I hear that including women in peace processes is a matter of justice and fairness; women should be there because they make up half the population, or because women are the main victims of conflict, or because women are inherently more peaceful and collaborative and less corrupt. For me, the real question is that of effectiveness: put simply, peace processes and peace building are more likely to work, to enjoy support from civil society, and to address the “make or break” issues if there is full participation of women.


A Cautionary Tale from Angola

In 1994, while serving as President Clinton’s advisor for Africa, I supported the negotiations to end two decades of civil war in Angola that had killed a half million people. When the Lusaka Protocol was signed, I remember giving a speech where I boasted that not a single provision in the agreement discriminated against women. “The agreement is gender-neutral,” I proclaimed proudly.

President Clinton then named me as US ambassador to Angola and a member of the Joint Commission implementing the peace accords, working with the remarkable and courageous SRSG Maitre Alioune Blondin Beye. It took me only a few weeks after my arrival in Luanda to realise that a peace agreement that is “gender-neutral” is, by definition, discriminatory against women.

Consider the evidence. First, the agreement did not require the participation of women in the Joint Commission itself. As a result, at each meeting of this body, forty men and no women sat around the table. This imbalance silenced women’s voices on the hard issues of war and peace, and meant that issues as internal displacement, sexual violence, abuses by government and rebel security forces, and the rebuilding of maternal health care and girls’ education were generally ignored.

Second, the peace accord was based on 13 separate amnesties that forgave the parties for atrocities committed during the conflict. One amnesty even excused actions that might take place six months in the future. Given the prominence of sexual abuse during the conflict, including rape as a weapon of war, amnesties meant that men with guns forgave other men with guns for crimes committed against women. The amnesties also introduced a cynicism at the heart of our efforts to rebuild the justice and security sectors.

Similarly, as we launched demobilisation programs for ex-combatants, we soon realised that the agreement essentially defined a combatant as anyone who turned in a gun. The thousands of women who had been kidnapped or coerced mostly into the rebel forces were largely excluded, since most of them were exploited as cooks, messengers, bearers, and even sex slaves.

Male ex-combatants received a little money and demobilisation kits, but were shipped back to communities that had learned to live without them during decades of conflict. The frustration of these men exploded into an epidemic of alcoholism, drug abuse, divorce, rape, and domestic violence. In effect, the end of civil war unleashed a new era of violence against women.

Even such well-intentioned efforts as clearing major roads of landmines to allow more than 4 million refugees and IDPs to return to their homes backfired against women. Road clearance generally preceded the demining of fields, wells, and forests. As newly resettled women went out to plant the fields, fetch water, and collect firewood, they faced a new rash of landmine accidents.

The process was largely silent on other issues, such as trafficking in persons, reproductive health care, HIV/AIDS, small arms in civilian hands, and psycho-social needs of rape victims.

We recognised these problems, and working with our partners in the United Nations system, we responded by bringing out gender advisers and human rights officers; launching programs in maternal health care, girls’ education, micro-enterprise, and support for women’s NGOs; and insisting that women be planners, implementers and beneficiaries for our humanitarian and reconstruction programs.

But it was too little, too late. The people viewed the peace process as serving the interests of the warring parties rather than civil society. And when the process faltered in 1998, there was little civic pressure on the leaders to prevent a return to conflict. The killing only ended with the death of UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi four years later.

The Unfulfilled Promise of 1325

For this reason, I was so pleased in 2000 when the Security Council passed resolution 1325, promises a systematic approach and concentrated energy to address issues of women in armed conflict and peace building. But thus far, the promise of this resolution has largely been a dream deferred, in large part because of the absence of monitoring, accountability, and enforcement mechanism.

• Courageous and talented women trying to help build peace around the world still face discrimination in legal, cultural and traditional practices.
• We have been unable to expand the scale of outstanding conflict resolution done by women’s organisations at local levels and extend them writ large throughout their countries.
• Sexual violence and threats against women in power impose a stigma of victimisation and a real danger that makes even the most impressive and courageous women think twice before stepping forward.
• Men leading peace conferences still exclude women or shunt them off to ante-rooms while “real” negotiations take place.

One area I have not focused upon in the question of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers themselves. This is a conscious omission, because I believe that the United Nations under the leadership of Under Secretary-General Jean-Marie Guehenno has taken important and appropriate steps to address this horrendous practice, and because much of the work to be done is in the purview of troop-contributing countries themselves. Nonetheless, I do strongly support the recent call by Refugees International for the creation of a position of Special Advisor to the Secretary General on the Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.

Six Practical Steps Forward

In addition, I would like to make six additional proposals for DPKO to bear in mind:

• First, every peacekeeping mission should have as a priority to safeguard and strengthen women peacebuilders, including through the provision of personal security and training.
• Second, the heads of UN missions should help ensure a critical mass – beginning at 20 percent – of women in peace talks, reconstruction conferences, and governance mechanisms, even if it takes quotas to do so.
• Third, post-conflict reconstruction should rebuild social structures of particular importance to women, such as reproductive health care and girls’ education, and all plans should be subjected to gender-impact analysis.
• Fourth, while the balance between peace and justice should be carefully weighed in each situation, no amnesty should be provided to individuals who have used rape as a weapon of war.
• Fifth, as security sector reform occurs, the security forces of post-conflict countries, as well as international peacekeepers and civilian police should include a minimum percentage of women, so that local women who have been abused will come forward with their accusations, and that community-based policing is gender-sensitive.
• Finally, the UN must show the way by upgrading the role of gender advisers in its missions and expanding the number of women serving as SRSGs and in other positions of leadership. This task should be accompanied by programs to more effectively recruit women into these systems at all levels, and to promote their success through training and mentorship programs.
  

Hard Issues, Hard Solutions

Again, I do not propose these steps simply as a question of fairness and equity. They are an investment in the success of peace operations. Even today, people within the halls of the United Nations refer to these issues as the “soft side” of peace-building.

You know that there is nothing “soft” about going after traffickers who turn women and girls into commodities. There is nothing “soft” about preventing armed thugs from abusing women in IDP camps, holding warlords and other human rights violators accountable for their actions against women, forcing demobilised soldiers to refrain from domestic violence, or insisting that women have a seat at the table in peace negotiations and post-conflict governments.

These are among the hardest responsibilities in our foreign policy agenda, and I’m proud to be here today among so many dedicated and courageous individuals who are addressing them. Thank you.