how to better integrate women in peace negotiations?

How to better integrate women in peace negotiations? This was the theme discussed this Thursday at the “Normandy for Peace” forum which takes place until Friday evening at the Abbaye aux Dames in Caen. With this overwhelming figure: less than 10% of conflict mediators are …. mediators. This subject was the subject of a major conference which brought together several personalities. Like the three-time world karate champion and founder of Fight for dignity Laurence Fischer, the lawyer specializing in war crimes Céline Bardet, the photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, or the director of the association UN Women France, Fanny Benedetti.

If women are not involved in the moment of peace in a country, decades will go by without them

The latter recalled that the objectives set by resolution 13-25 have still not been achieved. This UN resolution adopted just 20 years ago (October 31, 2000) aims to involve women in decision-making. “It has been twenty years since this resolution was adopted by the Security Council and we see in 2020 that its implementation is not sufficient. As we know, the periods of peace building are pivotal periods in a If women are not involved then, decades will go by without them. That is to say, peace agreements are not simply ceasefires. agreements which involve all the country’s resources, which will shape public policies, which will decide on the allocation of resources, the composition of representative decision-making bodies and therefore all this must be done with women and this is insufficiently the case for the time being.”

When more importance is given to the role of women, peace is much more sustainable

Florence Besson, editor-in-chief of ELLE magazine, is leading the debates: “Women represent half of humanity, yet in peace processes they are an ultra-minority”. The journalist explains this imbalance for three reasons. “First for reasons of patriarchy, then for self-confidence, and then quite simply usually. One always has the impression that war is a matter of belligerents who must make peace or a process of peace is the construction of peace through the social fabric and therefore with women. Moreover, the times when more importance was given to the role of women, for example in Colombia with the FARCs or in Rwanda, the peace is much more sustainable, studies prove it. Quite simply because the more people there are, the more it works. “ In other words, a real, just and lasting peace is done with everyone, or it doesn’t.

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