Master of Ceremonies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
For much of this week, I and many others have been speaking about peace and development, the role that patriarchy plays in fostering violence and conflict, wherein not only women, but essentially all in society are victims of this ideology including the men and women who are its foot soldiers.
Today’s subject on the role of women as peace-builders is actually quite a complex one. Ten years ago, the United Nations Security Council adopted a progressive resolution 1325 which called for women’s equal participation in peace building. This came during the time when women and girl children experienced immense suffering during conflicts.
Given the fact that women suffer disproportionately more in areas of conflicts it is therefore very disturbing that they only constitute “10% of the people who negotiate peace after conflict has ceased”.
Resolution 1325 indeed created an opportunity to promote women’s rights in conflict situations and called for full and equal access in all elements of peace-building negotiations and post-conflict reconstruction. And, women have taken the little space that was offered to them. In Africa, organisations such as the Pan African Women’s Organisation (PAWO) have made a significant contribution in resolving conflicts on many troubles spots in the continent.
Women around the world pursue this noble objective guided by their understanding that without peace and stability there will be no development for women. Organisations like PAWO and other progressive women’s movements that advocate for peace must be supported and their efforts will yield the desired results if co-ordinated with those of civil society and governments.
Last week, the 2010 State of the World Population Report was launched in Cape Town, South Africa. The report reveals that between 50 000 and 64 000 internally displaced women in Sierra Leone reported experiencing sexual violence by armed combatants.
This speaks volume of the impact that conflict has on the lives of women and girl children, which compromise the dignity of women. It is for this reason that women have to be at the forefront of peace building, so that they themselves play a meaningful role in entrenching a culture of human rights upon which our desires and plans for growth and development can be built.
But as we know, engaging in the peace process in not wholly without contradiction for women. Our deliberations this week illustrated the extent to which the violence promoting ideological and structural factors present during peace times are, are amplified during wars and conflicts. So yes, I need to reiterate the fact that we cannot focus on peace-building during wars and in post-conflicts arenas without at the same time tackling the issues that make violence against women the ‘norm’ at all times, in peace and in war. Ladies and gentlemen let’s be clear, armed conflicts magnify peace time atrocities and violence! If we accept this as our starting point then we can build a real programme of action for lasting peace-building in all our countries.
I have stated that South Africa welcomed the passing of Resolution 1325 and we still do, but I am also not blind to the fact, that like many resolutions passed in the UN there is painful negotiations and agreement brokering. Like almost every other resolution dealing with fundamental gender equality we know that there were concessions made so that member states ‘uncomfortable’ with fundamental gender equality would not oppose the resolution.
The problems that often occurs with such agreements, is that it makes the domestication of policy difficult as the agreements often have riders that state that it is not binding on member states. As women and men keen to see the peace-building process include changes to the peace time drivers of violence, we must begin to insist on more reporting on the domestication of all UN and Regional resolutions that seek to promote the equality of women as only this, will lay the building blocks for lasting peace. This is the first and most important task for women and men in building peace.
In my role as an anti-apartheid activist and a leader in the ANC Women’s League my own history has taught me that there are times when we feel that that the only way to fight brutal injustice is through counter-violence. The African National Congress adopted both violent and non-violent approaches to its struggle for democracy and human rights. I do however, feel that if we do an assessment of our own struggle we will find that the outcomes of the non-violent part of our struggle is more sustainable as it required different sets of processes and expertise that we still use to transform our country long after we had laid down our stones and guns.
Violence as a means to deal with conflicts and difference or to assert ideological power such as racism, sexism, religious chauvinism, national chauvinism and the ideal of economic and political dominance is fundamentally linked to patriarchy and its values.
I am therefore of the view that peace-building includes the need for women and men to build a more feminist body politic so that we can have a new set of values and approaches to resolving difference and conflicts amongst people and countries. The role of women in peace building, therefore requires us to mobilize for more open political economy where women’s rights and the equality of women is the norm and anything else is rightfully regarded as reactionary and aberrant in societies trying to build a more beautiful and peaceful humanity where all of live well and thrive.
I am, therefore saying that we need to be militant about building peace in our societies by dismantling all the institutions, values and beliefs that seek to oppress women. This will be part of the building blocks for a revolution that will wipe out poverty, inequality for all - men, women and children. When we recognize the need for peace and equality between men and women and work towards it we are working towards a more egalitarian society for all.
Now that I have firmly pinned my colours to the masts of the anti-war feminists who are of the view that war and violence should never be considered as an option for resolving conflicts and difference, I need to state that I am also aware of the reality that right now we have wars and post-conflict societies, that require the active participation of women.
Jacklyn Cock a feminist sociologist in South Africa has outlined three process in the peace process. They are peace-making, peace-keeping and peace-building. Her view is that women should not only be active in the more grassroots oriented peace-building component which involves social reconstruction work, democratization, consciousness raising and demilitarization. I agree with her that these are the foundations for lasting peace but I also agree with her that women should be involved in the more militarily oriented phase of peace-keeping and the politics of peace-making.
With regards to peace-keeping research has shown the presence of women in the military and civilian components of peace-keeping missions have served to make their male counterparts more sensitive to the needs and suffering of the communities that they are meant to protect. As abhorrent as the militarization of society may be for many of us, - if we leave these institutions completely in the hands of men we lose the opportunity to transform.
Transforming these institutions are part and parcel of our struggle to transform society. At the same time we will also begin to negate the socialization of our boys and men as innately violent and women as innately nurturing. Recent history in the form of women leadership in many countries has demonstrated that women are not averse to the indiscriminate use of violence while uncritically ensconced in patriarchial institutions.
The many feminist men in peace movements also indicate the naturalness of peace in nurturing in our boys and men. We therefore need to engage in these institutions as feminist men and women to fundamentally transform them and over time reduce their importance and prominence in our societies.
Given my earlier statement for the need for us to build a more engendered society it is very important for women to engage at the political level where peace is negotiated. This engagement needs to happen at the national and international level so that we can build the policies that we believe will result in more equal and peaceful societies and wherein violence and the institutions of violence are no longer revered.
I dream of the day when we can celebrate the lives of activists advocating for women’s rights and equality for all as Veterans of Peace in the same way that our current patriarchal societies celebrate and revere war veterans. I hope many of you share that dream.
I would like to conclude by quoting Dr. Funmi Olonisakin of the Department of War Studies at Kings College in London. At a seminar in October 2010, on the impact of Resolution 1325 on Women in Africa, Dr Olonisakin delivered a paper in which she outlined the following steps as vital to peace building in Africa:
- The development of a critical mass of African women who have the necessary skills, knowledge and expertise on all elements of peace-making, peace-keeping and peace-building.
- The visible participation and representation of African women in the highest decision-making institutions in all national government and international bodies like the UN. It is clearly unacceptable that has never been a female secretary-general in the UN, nor more female presidents in Africa, Asia and Europe and of course, that the US has never had a female president. I do need to stress, however, that sex is not always the key determinant of values and being progressive and we should ensure that feminist and progressive men are also prominently found in all these decision-making structures. This will yield the necessary critical mass for a better politics and better societies.
- Legislation against sexual violence should be passed in all countries. I would like to add that this requires the domestication of all UN and Regional resolutions that seek to advance the equality of women and that implementation of these should be subjected to real and regular scrutiny by the international community.
Lastly and perhaps just perhaps just to inspire us I would like to look back in time. The fight for the equality of women has a long history in Africa. More than 2500 years ago the Egyptian Goddess Isis, the goddess of wisdom, was credited with teaching Egyptians how to communicate by developing a writing technique.
This placed Egyptian women in positions of power in their society at that time and served to break down the prevailing traditional roles of womens role in society at that time. While this was clearly not sustained, may we all strive to be goddesses and gods of wisdom and peace so that we can build beautiful and peaceful societies for our children, grandchildren and their children.
I thank you.
Source: Department of Social Development
