All Women Are Saying Is Give Them a Chance to Create Peace
Despite promises to end a 14-year war in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama announced Thursday that nearly 10,000 American troops will stay on through the end of his term in an attempt to curb the resurgence of the Taliban. The persistent danger and instability in Afghanistan was highlighted in a report from The New York Times on Wednesday, revealing that Taliban commanders seeking to take over the northern city of Kunduz "relentlessly hounded" women who had assumed any position of power or public prominence, driving them to flee.
As in many war zones and power vacuums, in Afghanistan the plight of women is often the firmest marker of a broader malignant chaos—women are not only victims in conflicts but strategic targets of the violence that marks a particular brand of ill-gotten power.
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"Gone are educated women who worked for the government or international organizations; gone are some women who were school administrators and women who were activists for peace and democracy. They left, mostly at night, on foot or in run-down taxis, hiding under burqas, running for their lives," the Times reported.
When such women are gone, hopes for peace and prosperity dim for everyone—which is part of the reason that the United Nations decreed 15 years ago that women need to have more of a role in the peace process. Vis-à-vis a resolution, the leaders at the U.N. foresaw that problems like Syria's conflict-driven refugee crisis wouldn't be solved without the participation of women in the peace process.
That just isn't happening, as the head of U.N. Women, along with NGO workers from around the world—Iraq, Libya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—testified earlier this week before the Security Council.
"In conflict and post-conflict countries around the world, women are seen as less threatening economically and politically and for that reason garner more societal trust than their male peers," Alla Murabit of the NGO Voice of Libyan Women told the Security Council on Wednesday.
Yet, too often, getting to the table to broker peace requires something else altogether.
"From my own experience in Libya, I know the only reliable requirement for admission to peace talks is a gun. The lack of actionable commitment by the U.N. and its member states to women and security beyond these walls only validates those who exclude women from these negotiations at home," Murabit said.
Despite all the consequences, the gendered exclusion persists and not for lack of effort—on Wednesday, an all-time record was set when 113 speakers registered to testify before the Security Council about women, peace, and security.
In light of this testimony and 15 years of disappointing progress, the U.N. on Wednesday vowed again, with a new resolution, to take up the cause of women's equality and giving women a role at peace negotiations. Resolution 2242 promises more women peacekeepers and recommends more involvement of women at every level of the peace process. Women leaders argue that the fate of men, women, and children in conflict zones around the world depends on it. Yet, it is the eighth time such a resolution has been adopted.
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Original article from TakePart
