UN condemns continued exploitation of women

Five years after a landmark UN resolution committed governments to protect women from the abuses of war, the Security Council has condemned the continuing sexual exploitation and violence against women.

A presidential statement adopted at the end of a day-long council meeting yesterday also expressed deep concern at the continuing lack of representation of women in peace negotiations and peace-building activities.

“The Security Council believes that more must be done in order to achieve the greater participation and effective contribution of women at the negotiating table and in developing and implementing post-conflict strategies and programs,” said the statement read by Romania’s UN Ambassador Mihnea Motoc.

At the meeting, several speakers said women remain a largely untapped resource when it comes to peace-building, and sexual exploitation continues to occur at “shameful” levels.

Women’s valuable role in peace processes at every level of society is more widely recognised than it was five years ago, said UN Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette. But “women are still not adequately represented at the negotiating table, the cabinet table or the conference table”.

Frechette and others at the debate also highlighted the lingering problem of sexual exploitation of women and girls – in particular alleged abuses by UN personnel and peacekeepers.

UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno called the revelation of such abuses in recent years “damning and shameful”.

“This problem should be a wake-up call for all of us to attach even more importance to incorporating a gender perspective in our work,” he said.

A report released October 18 by Refugees International accused UN peacekeepers of engaging in sexual misconduct despite the global body’s zero tolerance policy, and of erecting a “wall of silence” to protect themselves from outside criticism.

The council statement reiterated its strong condemnation of sexual misconduct by UN peacekeepers and condemned ”sexual and other forms of violence against women, including trafficking”.

It called on all parties involved in conflicts “to ensure full and effective protection of women and emphasises the necessity to end impunity of those responsible for gender-based violence.”

Many participants at the meeting also noted positive developments at the grass roots level in countries such as Afghanistan and Burundi, where recent elections and constitutional referenda have furthered women’s rights.

Yet in those countries and elsewhere, there is still a lot of work to be done, they said.

Assistant Secretary-General Rachel Mayanja, the UN special adviser on gender and the advancement of women, said the Security Council resolution adopted in 2000 had fundamentally changed the image of women from being seen exclusively as victims of war to being considered active participants in peacemaking, peacebuilding and negotiations.

But while progress is evident, she said, “gaps remain” and much remains to be done.

“Women’s and girls’ bodies have become battlegrounds,” she said, and in Sudan where she recently visited they are still the primary victims of sexual and gender-based violence.

She called on the Security Council to hold the parties to conflict accountable for protecting women’s human rights and on donors to ensure that humanitarian and development assistance reaches women.

In order to implement the resolution, Mayanja said, the UN has developed a two-year plan of action for the period from 2005 to 2007 to advance the role of women. It will focus both on the efforts of individual UN member states and also on practices within the UN itself.

The plan is divided into 12 areas and calls for a greater women’s role in conflict prevention, post-conflict rehabilitation and conflict prevention. It also calls for a stepped up response to sexual exploitation and abuse by UN staff.