Brussels - Women's Rights and Gender Equality Committee –also known as FEMM- is the committee within the European Parliament entrusted to tackle gender equality issues. Last 5th of November, this committee celebrated its 30 years of commitment and work for women’s rights. On the same day, the committee organized the high-level conference “Spring Forward for Women”, as part of the EU – UN Women joint regional programme for the Southern Mediterranean region. One of the points discussed during the conference was about the challenges and opportunities to women´s political participation. Many of the participants and speakers were women parliamentarians from countries in conflict as Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq, among others. The attendees of the conference were able to listen from these women many valuable experiences and some were extremely emotional.
Women as peacebuilders
In an international context where violent conflicts - latent and ongoing conflicts – as well as challenges to address them increase, the analysis about women as transformers of conflict through their participation in politics is more necessary than ever. Laurel Stone, an author specialized in conflict resolution and women's political participation, highlights some key elements about women and conflicts on a recent article published on the webpage insightonconflict.org. Many studies have focused on women as victims of conflicts. The media have continuously warned audiences about the harsh reality of women in conflicts caused by human trafficking, rape and early marriages. However, Laurel Stone has showed the role of women as peacemakers.
As she explains, this approach started due to a greater awareness of actors involved in conflict management and post-conflict reconstruction: the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2000 was the first document that detailed the needs of women in conflict mediation and reaffirmed their significant role in preventing and resolving conflicts. Successful stories of women as peace activists in the peace process of Liberia fostered the inclusion of female leadership in peace processes into the development agendas. Some of the proponents of this approach affirm that women in conflict resolution tend to address the needs of the society rather than only focus on interests of the parties to the conflict. Assessments of the impact of women’s participation show that the probability of ending violence increases 24% per year when women influence the peace process.
To achieve effectiveness of “women as transformers of conflict” means to work on the empowerment of women and their involvement in the implementation of peace plans. For instance, electoral quotas are a step forward to gender equality which will increase the probabilities of conflicts resolution.
Obstacles to women’s participation
On 21th September a report called “From the Ground” launched by Womankind Worldwide and ActionAid summarized the obstacles encountered for women participation in peacebuilding. The findings are based on a research undertaken with focus group and interviews to over 550 women and men across Afghanistan, Liberia, Nepal, Pakistan and Sierra Leone. Most obstacles include social and contextual factors.
According to this report, women often face restrictive social norms and attitudes that reinforce gender roles and prevent their involvement in peace processes in a safely manner. Women suffer of threats and intimidation once they involved in their communities as peacebuilders, partly due to the militarization and long-lasting violence of countries in conflicts. This situation goes hand in hand with poverty and economic inequality as well as with low access to education. Women that develop an income activity and attend their houses at the same time do not have much time left to peacebuilding actions, becoming an obstacle for their active participation. Low education rates among women also means low participation even though this is not completely required if we look at many cases of women with strong peacebuilding abilities. Lack of self-consciousness on their importance as player in peacebuilding is another obstacle highlighted during the interviews held in the research. Finally, the support of organizations towards women part of peacebuilding initiatives does not achieve impact due to their limited and short term funding.
According to these analyses, the obstacles in the involvement of women in politics should be addressed by the main stakeholders such as UN, state governments, and other concerned institutions. Initiatives like the conference “Spring Forward for Women”, aiming to empower women in the Southern Mediterranean region, are valuable opportunities to tackle the barriers to the women political participation. With the organisation of this event the FEMM committee, together with the UN and the EU, not only fosters women’s rights but also the road to the peace.
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