The theatre after a conflict, a war, is mostly the same. Destroyed houses, roads, bridges. Landmines and cluster bombs complicating the reconstruction. Jobs non existent, Widows, missing persons, orphans, dead and injured civilians. Education is functioning badly, so is social and healthcare. Watersupply is insufficient, there is a threat of deseases. Most of the population is suffering from war traumas, especially children who have witnessed things happen that no one should ever need to witness.
Mostly a total lack of rule of law too, badly functioning police and justice. The only thing flourishing is the organised crime – criminals find their markets immediately in a post-conflict situation. They unfortunately also support the political leadership – and get protection in exchange.
This sounds hopeless, but is exactly what we face in the conflicts of today. We have to remember that the nature of wars has changed totally, from being wars between nations to civil wars, or sometimes interventions from outside for different reasons…
The civil wars are dictated by the strong demand for power – economical or political – or both. Diamonds in Westafrica, cocain in Colombia, oil and gas in various warzones. Or simply the dream of political power, so sadly seen in the Balkans.
Connecting all these conflicts is the unbelievable brutality against the civilians, who form the most part of the victims of the wars of today. Means of war like mass rapes are most common, and one could even say that in the wars of today women’s bodies have become the battlefield of the fighting troops.
When you make statistics about the victims of war, I don’t think it is correct to only count the dead and injured. All those women and small girls, even babies who have been raped, will be victimized for the rest of their life, like the 500.000 raped women of Rwanda. Many of them were raped by HIV-positive men, and a sad percentage of them are now positive themselves.
There is a clear important element we must consider in all this I have been describing.
Building up a destroyed infrastructure is not difficult if funds are found. Much more difficult is to build up the invisible damage, the damage on the society and the mental survival of those who suffered most.
Who are the natural experts in the society, the caretakers of families, the children?.
Of course the women, seldom seen at the negotiation tables when the programs for building peace are drawn up.
Finally in October 2000 the UN Security Council took a clear position on this, and adopted the SC-resolution 1325, demanding not only the protection of women and girls in conflicts, but also enhancing the role of women in peace negotiations and throughout the peace processes. The message was clear: Without women in the decision making process there will be no sustainable peace. When the resolution was presented to the SC, the Namibian President of the council stated: ”Women are half of every community… Are they therefore, not also half of every solution?”
To make sure the resolution 1325 should not be forgotten, UNIFEM encouraged by Graca Machel, decided to appoint two independent experts, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Elisabeth Rehn, to assess the real situation of women in war situations, and also to report on our findings. We travelled to 14 different regions of conflict, met with thousands of victims of war, raped, tortured, limps cut, IDP:s refugees, prostitutes, trafficked women. We also met the perpetrators, and ministers and presidents. Our report “Women War Peace” was presented by Secretary General to the SC in October 2002, but it was never accepted by UN as an official document because of it’s direct language and criticism of the International Community, UN included.
Our studies showed clearly that to end a conflict military strength from outside is needed, in the best case by UN-peacekeepers. It is needed for the security of the people, but nobody can honestly believe that soldiers are trained to deal with social and health care, psychotherapy against war trauma, starting schools again, creating an impartial judiciary. To get the process of building peace on track, we need immediate action from the civilian crisis management. In this activities women are strongly needed, both national local women and international experts. The international level must follow it’s own resolution, and bring in women to the negotiations. Aceh was successful, but women are complaining for been left outside. Women in Sri Lanka and Nepal cry for participation, and Unifem has mastered meetings between Palestinian and Israeli women for the peace process hopefully to start again one day.
Women of Kosovo are demanding seats at the Status negotiations, but have been side stepped by their male collegues. In Sudan women were present at the negotiation table even though the final report failed to mention it. A group of women comprised of academics, refugees and leaders took part in Abuja peace talks on Darfur. The participants in these talks especially emphasized the priorities of Sudanese women which included the need to address the lack of experience, financial resources and organization that are necessary to participate fully in negotiations for peace. The training of women for political decision making is an important issue in most post-war countries.
An instrument of importance is also reinforcing and promoting implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of all the Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and to put in place adequate mechanisms for advocacy.
Why women in leadership positions? I am confident from my own experience that women who are accepted as experts and leaders give an important role model for the women on the local level.
I will also stress that women as leaders of peace operations are taking the misbehaviour of the international community itself towards women much more seriously.
UN and NATO have introduced zero tolerance regarding trafficking and use of prostitutes. Unfortunately not all leaders of peace operations are enthusiastic to fulfil the rules. During 2005 almost 300 UN -peacekeeping personnel have been dismissed or repatriated – amongst them 6 commanders because of breaking the rules. The UN leadership is most worried, and hopes that the quite newly established Conduct and Discipline Team at DPKO will be helpful. Scandals like DRC are definitely not wanted.
Women fight strongly against the impunity of those who committed sexual crimes during war and after. National or international, when involved with minors or trafficked women, you have committed a crime. There should not be any impunity allowed, neither for former warlords or international actors. Without real justice no reconciliation can be built, to know the thruth is one important part of it.
I always tell that Rule of law is the best friend of women. The widespread corruption is a real hinder for justice. Those who receive money from organized criminals, support smuggling of drugs, organs, trafficking in human beings, money laundering. My co-author of the report, president Johnson-Sirleaf declared war against corruption in her inauguration speech in January this year. It is risky, but sets an example for Africa and others.
It is easy to count all the problems women are facing, the lack of representation on the high level, neglecting the expertise of women. Regarding international organisations like UN, EU, NATO, all member governments are responsible.
It was with special joy I attended the inauguration of the Norwegian Plan of Action for implementation of Resolution 1325, on the International Women’s day 8th March, six months ago. It is of course only a program, but a program binding the Government of Norway to act in accordance to the resolution. Some other countries have made their programs, and I have encouraged the African countries to make their own plans. We have to remember that African Union has shown an extraordinary understanding by demanding in their rules full parity starting with the Commission: 5 to 5! EU is far behind.
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My strong message to all of you is that we have to change the picture we have built up of the women in conflict, well supported by media. It is seldom we read about the brave, politically strong women in Afganistan, Iraq, Somalia, Ivory Coast, Kosovo. They are portrayed as shy, weak persons looking out from a narrow opening of a door, we hear about the horrors they have gone through, but seldom as actors. Women are not only victims, many women have participated fully in the war, like in Colombia. Others have been forced to be a part of war, against their own will. Their future is very sad – for many of the girls prostitution is the only option left to them. The girls are not fitting in the DDR-systems very well.
But most of all, there is a clear demand for women’s participation in the rebuilding of their society. Many women have told me “don’t teach us cooking or handicraft, we are much better on that than you are”, but please “bring us computers and data skills, we have to be networking, supporting eachother in the work for peace in our countries.” “Our men have not been able to create peace, on the contrary they have brought us to war that has taken the future away from our children” . “Now it is our turn to build up the new future”.
There is a clear willingness amongst the women of the world to build peace – many men too! Let us give them a chance, let us support this crucial work with all the means we have
at our disposal, knowledge, experience, trust – and money.
There are no victors in a war, in the long run only losers. It is well worth to use all the available forces to build peace, not to let the hostilities start at all. The women have their important role – they have to take it.