9th October 2015
Women, peace and security: a high priority
On 13 October there will be a High Level Review at the United Nations to commemorate 15 years since the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325. This was a ground breaking resolution that recognised not only the inordinate impact of war on women and girls, but also the pivotal role women should and do play in conflict management, conflict resolution and building sustainable peace.
Groundbreaking but, as too often, not yet fully implemented. Despite clear evidence of the links between women’s participation and the success and sustainability of a peace process, only 8% of participants in peace negotiations have been women. Incredibly, of 585 peace agreements signed between 1990 and 2010, only 16% made any reference to women at all.
This is clearly not only unacceptable, but seriously flawed. We know that all forms of gender-based violence, including inter-personal violence, increase during conflict. The examples of South Sudan, of the Democratic Republic of Congo or of Syria, to name just three conflicts of our times, have shown this clearly. Not only that, but over one fifth of women who are displaced by a conflict or an emergency experience sexual violence in addition to the trauma of being uprooted from their homes and families.
We are hoping that the High Level Review will provide an opportunity to change this. One of the milestones it will certainly point to will be the first ever World Humanitarian Summit, due to take place in Ankara in 2016, in which the UK and the Holy See will participate.
These major events are essential for global awareness raising. But they cannot replace the hard graft on the ground. As the British Embassy to the Holy See, we have been looking at how global Catholic networks – such as the networks of women religious across Africa – might contribute to ways of strengthening peace and improving women’s security at local level. Baroness Anelay, Foreign Office Minister and the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, has just recently been visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo to see for herself how local actors with UK funding are making a real difference in helping women and girls respond to the challenge of sexual violence and receive justice.
All to often, it is men who are ready to go to war. Ensuring that women are part of the peace will improve our chances of making sure it lasts.
In addition to my earlier comment, it would be wonderful if the UK and other human rights respecting nations could ensure that the necessary requests are made to UN so that the Holy See is invited by UN to sign and ratify the Convention against all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and thus make the Church’s prohibition of discrimination (Gaudium et Spes 29) binding instead of merely rhetorical. The Holy See’s failure to sign and ratify the Convention would simply mean that the hierarchy has not real intention of complying with GS 29 and the spirit of the Second Vatican Council.
Thanks Nigel. Let us not forget the great work done already. We did break ground in the Intl Conf on Peace&Security in Great Lakes Region of Africa. Involvement not just ‘role’ of women happened with women in our negs + docs for DRC Rwanda Burundi Uganda & 5 other countries
Anne Leahy Canada Co-Chair of ICGLR Group of Friends 2004-2007
Ambassador, thank you for your blog. The UK is notable for what it does in favour of women. It has a long history of women leaders and of men who are sure of themselves and who do not, in consequence, have to prove themselves by exerting authority over women. As a result, they have generally not been afraid of women leaders. That is not the case in many countries, particularly in the Southern hemisphere, where women are systematically discriminated and subjected to violence which is widespread if unreported.
Violence against women stems from the notion that exists in the minds of many men that women should be subordinate. If women are subordinate, it follows that they are objects, they are instruments, and they must obey. It is thus legitimate to coerce them into submission if they don’t.
The Catholic Church is largely responsible for keeping in place the mindset that women are subordinate to men. Church structure projects and even sacralizes the image of women as subordinate to men. “Even Mary,” the priests say patronizingly, “the most important woman in the Church, is subject to the Twelve”. Moreover, to Francis, feminism, a movement of women seeking equality and the respect of their basic human rights, is (quote) “chauvinism in skirts”. Catholic prelates have done nothing to change the system arguing that the unholy tradition of women’s subordination stems back to Christ. It doesn’t. It stems back to Paul, an ecclesial, but not an apostolic tradition. Misogynism is something that must be taken seriously and yet it tends to be ignored, denied or treated as a joke. Misogynism exists, just as racism exists.
Needless to say, all efforts made by the Catholic Church in the struggle against violence suffered by women are sops to quiet conscience and public opinion; they are petty and ineffectual, tainted by its overall policy and structure of masculine headship and necessary feminine subordination. Christ sent some men as his apostles to represent him of course. He also sent some women for that purpose. Mary Magdalene and the woman Mathew calls the other Mary are paradigmatic. Yet this Scriptural, non-lay feminine apostolate in Magisterium and Church governance is not reflected in Church structure.
While UN and those nations that have the power to do so, do not address the causes of violence against women, including mindsets such as those that result from religion, all of its work and that of any other organization that purports to stem the violence against women, and ultimately, violence in general, will simply address the effects and thus remain largely futile.