In the Andean region, indigenous groups have become an important political force, even participating in rewriting constitutions. On gender issues, indigenous demands raise important issues for feminists, as women’s rights are understood within a cultural context of gender complementarity rather than gender equality. Jane Jaquette discusses the content of these debates and explores their implications for women’s rights.
Drawing on 25 years of experience working with a host of governmental and nongovernmental human rights organizations, Julie Mertus explores the mistakes and successes in over two decades of human rights advocacy.
During his term as United Nations Security Council President, Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury played a critical role in the adoption of the groundbreaking UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. Throughout the years since, he has continued to campaign for the resolution's increased implementation in the United Nations and the global community. In this talk Ambassador Chowdhury addresses the essential role of women in the international community’s efforts toward building sustainable peace.
Denise Horn discusses the development of a new international regime in which hegemonic states have used funding for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to manipulate the development of civil society in transitional states. Through an examination of US funding strategies for women's NGOs within a sample of transitional states (Estonia, Moldova, and Thailand), Horn assesses the power of such strategies and the long-term effects they have had on the development of democratic norms within these states and regions.
The UN is mandated to apply gender mainstreaming in its work. In late 2006, the UN Secretary-General released two reports calling for greater synergy on such efforts. One report, "Delivering as One" places mainstreaming in the context of broader UN reforms; the other "Report on Progress of Implementing Resolution 1325" considers the peace and security agenda. In this talk Ramina Johal compares the ways that gender mainstreaming is operationalised in the UN World Food Programme, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, and explores ways to enhance their synergy from the context of refugee and displaced populations.
How have men and women been represented in Iraqi war discourses? Laura Sjoberg examines the discourses used by national leaders, the media, and individual soldiers. Identifying the appearance of gendered stereotypes of men and women, she interrogates the role of these stereotypes in public understandings of the war.
Paula Mills explores the strategies used by activist women from the Isha L'Isha Haifa Feminist Center in Israel to create an environment for the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. UNSCR 1325, which was passed in October 2000, specifically addressed the impact of war on women and women's contributions to conflict resolution and sustainable peace. Activists have faced complex challenges when working to promote changes in the government and its policies. Awareness-raising work on 1325 has also had an impact upon the delicate fabric of cooperation between feminist activists, privileged Jewish women, marginalized Palestinian women, and citizens of Israel.
Policymakers and practitioners are often keen to ensure women’s political participation in post-conflict transition processes. In recognition that women are differentially placed within social and political systems, policymakers are more and more adopting specially-designed measures to ensure women’s participation. In the case of Iraq, women’s political participation has been held up as one of the most important symbols of the transition from authoritarianism to democracy. In this talk Nicola Pratt examines and evaluates the different activities and strategies pursued by both internal and external actors to increase women’s political participation in post-Saddam Iraq.
Drawing on in-depth interviews with full-time UN gender advisers responsible for implementing UN gender mainstreaming in peacekeeping missions, Colleen Keaney-Mischel, outlines the various approaches the advisers take to their task and explores how they interpret their role within the missions. The discussion focuses on how advisers negotiate their relative lack of power in this setting and the potential for success that their actions have on the gender mainstreaming mandate.
On October 18, 2005, Refugees International released a new report, “Must Boys Be Boys? Ending Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in UN Peacekeeping Missions.” The report charges that a culture has evolved within UN peacekeeping missions that breeds a tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse, and argues that the misconduct of peacekeepers compromises the UN’s ability to transform conflict and bring about stable peace. Sarah Martin, the report’s author, discusses the scope of this problem and what can be done to resolve it.
In August 1999, the East Timorese voted overwhelmingly to end 25 years of brutal Indonesian rule and to become an independent nation. For the next two and half years, the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) functioned as the de facto government, overseeing reconstruction, governance and the building of institutional capacity. In this climate East Timorese women's groups found UNTAET both an ally and an adversary to their organizing around women's issues. Drawing on frameworks as diverse as feminist international relations, post-conflict studies, and social movement theory, this talk explores the consequences for women's organizing when the UN plays the role of government.
In 2002, Women Waging Peace launched an ambitious field-based research program with the goal of producing 10-15 stand alone case studies on women's contributions to peace processes and post-conflict reconstruction, drawing on key themes including conflict prevention, peacemaking, and post conflict reconstruction. The cases range from women's roles in peacemaking to their influence on the ICTY, their role in shaping security sector reform in
Nadine Puechguirbal – Senior Gender Advisor, UN Peacekeeping Mission in Haiti
Nadine Peuchguirbal has worked in the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) in New York, and as a Gender Affairs Officer to the UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She comes to us directly from Haiti to reflect on the challenges of mainstreaming a gender perspective in the Haiti peacekeeping mission.
Cynthia Enloe – Research Professor of Women's Studies and International Development at Clark University
Cynthia Enloe is the author of many ground-breaking books, including Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (2001), Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives (1999), and The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War (1993). She will explore gendered questions that have been absent from the public discussion of the Abu Ghraib scandal, and their impact on the US’s ability to secure the peace in Iraq.
Malathi de Alwis discusses trends in feminist peace activism in
Felicity Hill, Carol Cohn, and Cynthia Enloe discuss the impact of UNSC Resolution 1325. Recognizing that 1325 breaks new ground by putting women squarely in the center of efforts to end armed conflicts and create sustainable peace, the speakers address questions such as: to what degree is this merely a rhetorical shift? To what degree has it resulted in a transformation of United Nations' policies and practices? What are the barriers to institutional change at the United Nations?
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