Gender Mainstreaming for a Sustainable Peace

During the UN peacekeeping operation in Cambodia, the prostitute population of Phnom Penh increased from 6,000 to 25,000. In Mozambique and Bosnia, peacekeepers set up their own prostitution rackets. During the operation in Somalia, local women who ventured outside refugee camps to collect firewood were frequently raped by peacekeepers. Clearly, putting on a blue helmet does not transform a soldier into a saint.

Violence against women by peacekeepers is undoubtedly serious, but so too is the ignorance of women's issues which characterizes UN missions. In most wars, the overwhelming majority of refugees are female. In Bosnia and Kosovo, for instance, peacekeepers found villages in which adult males were entirely absent.

Yet despite the predominance of women in crisis spots, peacekeepers are seldom trained in gender issues. They are often unaware, for instance, of the insult which frisking women implies. Searches and interrogations are conducted without awareness of how intrusive a male soldier might seem, particularly in Muslim countries. As a result, rather than soothing tensions, the UN often exacerbates them.

Peacekeepers' ignorance of, and insensitivity to, gender issues detracts from peacebuilding efforts, as women often serve as the glue that holds a society together. Women regularly reach across ethnic and religious divides in order to rebuild communities shattered by war. In Rwanda, for instance, though almost every woman experienced violence during the genocide of 1994, suffering did not smother the desire for rebirth. By 1999, over 15,000 Rwandan women were actively involved in organizations devoted to reconciliation. Women can provide a firm foundation for peace, yet too often they are ignored by peacemakers, thus jeopardizing the chances of a lasting settlement.

Despite appearances, this is not a women's issue, and should not be seen as such. At issue is the effectiveness of peacekeeping. As Noeleen Heyzer, the under secretary general of the UN, has remarked: "The participation of women in all aspects of peace processes, and the 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 1325call_made , was designed to bring about the kind of dynamic suggested 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." In addition to addressing women's importance to the peace process, the resolution also recognizes the need "to expand the role and contribution of women in … field-based operations, and especially among military observers, civilian police, human rights and humanitarian personnel."

Behind this recommendation lies the assumption - admittedly an optimistic one - that a greater female participation in all aspects of peacekeeping will make missions more effective.

Women can contribute in part because their role as peacekeepers is often perceived differently than that of men. In other words, the way peacekeepers behave is crucial, but so too is the way they are expected to behave by the local population. Thus, the presence of a man in a tense situation could be more provocative than that of a woman given the gender-related expectations placed on each. Various studies have, for instance, shown that men react differently to confrontations with male and female police officers. For this reason, most police forces in Europe and North America today are around 25 percent female. Women have been hired not to satisfy gender equality standards, but because they are good at what they do.

Even a minor female presence can have an enormous impact. In December 2003, the Dallas Morning News remarked on the peculiar success of Dutch troops in the Iraqi city of Najaf - in contrast to American units in Baghdad. "Dutch troops," according to the newspaper, "always take a woman along while conducting house-to-house searches. She ensures that troops respect local customs regarding male-female contact. As a result, local Iraqis are comfortable with the Dutch … even as they resent American soldiers."

Female soldiers have an additional important effect, namely in reducing the incidence of gender-based violence. A 1995 study for the UN Division for the Advancement of Women found that the incidence of rape and prostitution falls significantly even with just a 'token' female presence. Evidence suggests, then, that men behave better when in the presence of women from their own culture.

The evidence to support these contentions is, admittedly, thin, for the simple reason that member states have been reluctant to implement Resolution 1325.

That said, the missions that have brought the UN the greatest shame, namely Somalia and Cambodia, were also the ones in which the participation of women was extraordinarily low. A better gender balance means that the operation more closely resembles civilian society. Its members are therefore more likely to observe social conventions that define civilized behavior.

For those who feel passionately about this issue, Resolution 1325 seemed nothing short of a revolution.

Unfortunately, however, the resolution is worded in terms of encouragement, not enforcement. Member states are under no obligation to implement its recommendations. Nor have many done so. Activists, the vast majority of whom are women, are still relentlessly pushing for the mainstreaming of gender issues against entrenched male opposition. As Africa Report No. 112, of June 2006, attests: "The international community speaks a great deal about including women in formal peace-making processes and recognizing their peacebuilding contributions but fails to do so in a systematic, meaningful way."

Last year, the Indian government took the bold step of sending an all-female police unit to war-torn Liberia. The unit, because of its uniqueness, has received enormous publicity and has reinvigorated the debate about gender and peacekeeping.

But it has also placed the UN in a very difficult position. The UN feels obliged to praise the Indian effort since it seems to be in harmony with Resolution 1325. The evidence emerging from Liberia suggests that the unit has been successful in ways that reflect well on its gender make-up.

But an all-female unit, segregated from male peacekeepers, does not accord with the goal of gender mainstreaming, which is at the heart of Resolution 1325. In many ways, the unit preserves the stereotypes about women in war that the UN is so desperate to dispel.

Currently, out of 30 peace operations in progress, there's only one woman appointed as Special Representative of the Secretary General and one in the position of Deputy Special Representative. The much-vaunted gender unit at the Department of Peacekeeping Operations has been reduced from three staff to just one. As of December 2007, women constitute only one percent of personnel in military functions, down from three percent in 2003 and a lower figure than existed before 1325. The proportion in civilian police functions hovers around four percent.

Clearly, despite all the apparent support for 1325, women are still poorly represented in peacekeeping operations and, when they do participate, are often denied an effective voice. Men continue to talk to other men, they appoint men to positions of power, they craft post-conflict agendas which favor men. Worst of all, men excuse other men for violence done to women.

The main problem is power; men realize that mainstreaming gender issues will inevitably mean sharing authority with women. That attitude is particularly prevalent in the military where the resistance to women soldiers arises not so much from doubts that they will be able to do the job, but from fears that they will do it well. In addition, the 11 September 2001 attacks caused many military planners to shift their emphasis from peacekeeping to security. The latter is equated with "toughness," which militates against an increased participation of women in such a highly gendered environment.

The slow implementation of Resolution 1325 arises from the fact that some continue to see it as a women's issue and therefore marginal in the post-9/11 world. The groups advocating implementation have inadvertently fostered this view, since they are invariably women's groups. In conferences devoted to the topic, the male presence is usually tiny. Progress is not likely to be made as long as the dialogue on this issue can be dismissed as women talking to other women about problems exclusive to them.

And therein lies the tragedy, since this is a question of making peacekeeping more effective.

The most persuasive argument for mainstreaming gender is that of cost benefit: incorporating a gender dimension increases the likelihood of a better return on the time and money invested in a mission. Including women does no harm, but can do immense good. Promoting gender equality benefits women, yes, but the main benefit comes in improving the chances of a harmonious and sustainable peace.