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No women, no peace: gender perspectives on positive peace initiatives

Many UN and European Commission resolutions have recognized that marginalisation and neglect of women have stymied peace initiatives. Why, then, is gender analysis still conspicuously absent from peacebuilding programmes?

A paper from Bradford University’s Department of Peace Studies produces powerful evidence that motivated groups of women are often more committed to the sustainable ending of violence than men. As well as reviewing women’s experiences during recent conflicts, the study sets out practical recommendations on how to bring women into the heart of peace processes.

A vision of positive peace is set out, a scenario which requires not only that all types of violence are virtually non-existent, but also that the major potential causes of future conflict are removed. A society experiencing positive peace is democratic and inherently egalitarian. All too often the goal of equality between ethnic, regional and religious groups is highlighted in pursuit of the limited goals of negative peace. Positive peace additionally requires that other fundamental building block of an egalitarian society – gender equality.

War can provide women with the chance to shake off cultural restrictions. Where women have taken up arms they may obtain political representation, post-conflict. Too often, however, female ex-combatants have been inadequately supported by demobilization initiatives and forced back to kitchens and fields. In places where forms of truth commission have been established it has been hard for women to testify while still under the threat of domestic and sexual violence.

Findings which emerge from the study include:

A gender conscious approach to peace building has to analyse women’s role in conflict. Women’s participation or collusion in organized violence should not be glossed over.
Land reform, often an essential plank of peacemaking, frequently ignores women’s rights to title or access.
The most successful groups of female peacemakers are those which have initially formed and established their objectives in the absence of, or with only minimal, external funding.
Merely inviting women to peace fora may be insufficient to ensure women’s input; few women have the education, training or confidence to participate fully.
Conditions of structural adjustment programmes in post-conflict states often prevent adequate funding for physical and mental health services for traumatised women.

Among the many policy recommendations are:

Women’s peace organizations need extended external support and training in management, leadership and advocacy skills.
Donors should stop supporting public reconciliation processes (public hearings, ritual blessings, acts of forgiveness, corporal punishment etc) which exclude women.
Measures to enhance women’s personal security, and enable them to call rapists to account, must become an integral part of peacebuilding and be implemented by trained female investigators.
Post war combatant demobilization programmes must recognize the needs of female ex-fighters and offer practical support to women as carers and providers.
Measures need to be taken to involve women in building institutions for security and law enforcement.

Source(s):
‘Women, Gender and Peacebuilding by Donna Pankhurst, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, Working Paper 5, August 2000

Funded by: International Alert, London and the Joel Joffe Fund, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford

id21 Research Highlight: 1 May 2001

Further Information:
Carol Hutson
Department of Peace Studies
University of Bradford
Bradford
West Yorkshire BD7 1DP
UK

Tel: +44 (0)1274 235235
Fax: +44 (0)1274 235240
Contact the contributor: c.r.hutson@bradford.ac.uk

Contact the contributor: D.T.Pankhurst@bradford.ac.uk

Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, UK

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