In order to construct successful conflict management and peace building programs, it is necessary to pay specific attention to the differing experiences of men and women. It looks at the role of women in post-conflict resolution and peace building, as well as the challenges they encounter. Conflicts frequently prompt women to organize themselves in order to protect fundamental needs and to carry out activities such as education and healthcare. These activities are important for achieving long-term peace, and governments must guarantee that women are represented at all stages of critical peace negotiations.
Women are crucial to the peace building process for a variety of reasons. They make up half of every community, for example, and the tough effort of peace building requires men and women working together. Women are also the primary caregivers in families, and when they are excluded from peace building efforts, everyone suffers. As peacekeepers, relief workers, and mediators, women are also advocates for peace. Women have played an important role in the Horn of Africa’s peace processes, such as in Sudan and Burundi, where women served as observers.
Efforts to include women’s viewpoints in peace processes and to avoid gender-based violence, on the other hand, have had mixed results. A number of reasons hinder women’s engagement in conflict resolution and peace building, including:
- Rape and sexual assault are common, as they are in Nigeria, Rwanda, Bosnia and other part of Africa country. This type of abuse instills fear and contributes to the silencing of social, economic, and political rights initiatives.
- Women are more likely to have fled conflict and taken on responsibilities such as primary carers and providers for dependants, making participation in peace building more difficult.
- Cultural pressures against women putting themselves forward, such as pressures to avoid travel and not engage in important public arenas. Where women do participate, it is possible that they lack the necessary knowledge or training.
- A scarcity of resources, such as employment possibilities and productive assets like land, capital, health care, training, and education.
- In post-conflict settings, women’s movements lack institutionalized procedures to monitor and evaluate the gender agenda’s implementation. Male-dominated structures in Somalia, for example, have not felt the necessity to implement approved affirmative action.
The UN, all governments and NGOs therefore have a lot to do to encourage and assist women in developing their role in post-conflict resolution and peace building activities. This can be achieved by:
- Ensuring that women play a key role in the design and implementation of post-conflict resolution and peace building activities.
- Supporting and strengthen women’s organizations in their peace building efforts by providing adequate and sustained financial and technical support.
- Strengthen the protection and representation of refugee and displaced women by paying special attention to their health, rehabilitation and training needs.
- Ending impunity and ensure redress of crimes committed against women in violent conflict and enforce and bring to justice culprits involved in rape as a war crime.
- Establishing mechanisms for enforcing and monitoring international instruments for the protection of women’s rights in post-conflict situations.
Women as tool for peace can not be overemphasized. This is why WEPBI uses intervention to promote peace building in conflict related zones.
By Okoye Ngozi Tabitha