Not Just a 'Women's Issue': Gender and UN Peace Operations

15 Jun 2011

The exclusion of women from the peacemaking process has reduced the effectiveness of UN missions - and imperils long-term stability and development.

On UN operations, the virtue of a young woman can be bought for less than the cost of a packet of cigarettes. A case in point is external pageAziza, who began by selling bananas in Bukavu, in the Congo, and ended up selling herself. Her life changed permanently when some UN peacekeepers offered her five dollars in exchange for sex - more than she could ordinarily make in a month. "I didn't have the strength to refuse", she confessed. A few days later, the men returned with more depraved demands. They beat her when she refused. "I don't know whether they are normal or not", she remarked. "I wonder whether all white people are like that." When Aziza contracted a sexually-transmitted disease, her family banished her for shaming them. With no means of support, she returned to the men in blue helmets.

Aziza's story is outrageous not because it is extraordinary, but rather because it is commonplace. Every UN mission produces a harvest of depravity. Reports repeatedly emerge of soldiers setting up child prostitution rackets, and demanding sex in exchange for rations. A Congolese soldier who rapes a 12 year-old-girl is technically guilty of a war crime. A UN soldier who commits the same act usually enjoys impunity.

This scandal first emerged during the Cambodia mission of 1991-93, when officials noticed a steep rise in the prostitute population of Phnom Penh. A consequent HIV epidemic inspired an increased demand for young girls, on the grounds that they were more likely to be disease-free. When confronted with the shameful behavior, the mission chief, external pageYasushi Akashi, remarked: "boys will be boys".

Helpless, or hopeless?

The UN has come a long way since Akashi's notoriously callous response. It has implemented gender training for peacekeepers, and a zero-tolerance policy toward gender based violence has been introduced. But the problem refuses to disappear. One internal investigation during the Congo mission found external page"zero compliance with zero tolerance".

UN officials often take refuge by claiming helplessness. The argument runs like this: The UN is dependent upon member states to supply troops and civilian personnel for missions; the agency has no authority to discipline peacekeepers and, furthermore, has to be extremely careful not to offend member states. The only thing the UN can do, therefore, is to plead with the soldiers to behave.

Granted, the UN's scope for action is limited, but that does not excuse a conspicuously feeble response. In the two decades since this issue emerged, the UN has devoted more energy to protecting its own image than to confronting the problem. While Akashi's callousness is no longer evident, his helpless resignation remains typical. "What do you think is going to happen when you have external pagethousands of men away from home?" is a common, if unofficial, refrain.

The boys' club

Gender issues are disregarded because they are judged marginal to the greater goal of establishing peace. Missing from this rationale is an understanding of the importance of gender to the peace process. It seems patently obvious that it is difficult to establish stability in a society torn apart by prostitution, rape, pedophilia and sexually transmitted diseases. But that is only the most blatant manifestation of this problem. In truth, the issue of gender-based violence obscures a much more fundamental neglect: women being systematically excluded from peacemaking.

The UN is, quite simply, a external pageboys' club. While on the surface it seems a model of gender balance, appearances are deceptive: Women make up 54 percent of lower-level personnel, but just 30 percent of mid-level positions, and an even lower ratio of senior posts. As external pageone insiderremarked: "If the UN were a private company located in New York City, it might have gone bankrupt years ago from paying off gender discrimination settlements."

The problem is even more pronounced away from UN headquarters. At present, only four of 33 regional representatives of the Secretary-General are women. The participation of women in external pagepeacekeeping operations, either as soldiers or civilian police, has actually declined in recent years, despite the massive publicity given to the external pageall-women Indian police unit currently stationed in Liberia.

Male domination has meant that peacekeeping operations assume a distinctly masculine tinge. When UN representatives arrive in a trouble spot, they immediately look for local bigwigs with whom they can negotiate; these are invariably men. A camaraderie develops - men talk to men, and disregard the injustices suffered by women. The locals are often warlords, unscrupulous entrepreneurs, mafia bosses or religious leaders with an agenda. They talk the talk, mouthing the noble rhetoric that pleases the UN. But what they want is a return to the status quo, which often means a reinstatement of the conditions that brought conflict in the first place.

The pressing need to mainstream gender

This is not a 'women's issue'. It is a gender issue critical to the success of peacekeeping. If women are excluded from the peace process, the entire society suffers. When men go off to war, women hold communities together. When the fighting pauses, they are usually the first to initiate reconstruction. As external pageNoeleen Heyzer, the former executive director of the UN Development Fund for Women and now Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, has remarked: "The participation of women in all aspects of peace processes, and systematic attention to the needs and priorities of women, are not simply gender equality goals. They are crucial to a just and sustainable peace. Women … know the realities on the ground, and what needs to be done to address the injustices of war and to prevent relapse into conflict. They can be, and must be, part of the solution for lasting peace."

external pageSecurity Council Resolution 1325 , (SCR1325) formally announced on 31 October 2000, was supposed to address the concerns raised by Heyzer. The resolution recognizes "that an understanding of the impact of armed conflict on women and girls … can significantly contribute to the maintenance and promotion of international peace and security". It called for an increased participation of women in all aspects of the peacemaking process. But the resolution is worded in terms of encouragement, not enforcement. Because concrete measures of implementation were not established, SCR1325 has had little more than symbolic value.

Over 10 years ago, an official statement by the external pageDepartment of Peacekeeping Operations maintained that "Women's presence [in peacekeeping missions] improves access and support for local women; it makes male peacekeepers more reflective and responsible; and it broadens the repertoire of skills and styles available within the mission, often with the effect of reducing conflict and confrontation." That is an impressive statement, but the passage of time has revealed it to be little more than rhetoric. external pageLesley Abdela, a veteran of many missions, has remarked: "In the aftermath of dictatorship and conflict, everyone talks of human rights and democracy - yet women find themselves having to fight for any voice at all."

Some will argue that the UN is an organization whose purpose is peace, not women's rights. That is true, but also terribly disingenuous. Implementing 1325 is not just a matter of being fair to women. Ignoring women jeopardizes peace. Exploiting women imperils it. Resolution 1325 is a noble ideal, but more importantly, is a tool useful in the establishment of a just and stable peace. The UN needs to start using that tool.

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