Situations of armed conflict as well as periods of post-conflict reconstruction provide special challenges for the advancement of gender equality and the protection of women’s rights.
UNESCO’s programmes in regions of armed conflict or post-conflict aim to increase knowledge and understanding concerning the transformations that occur in gender relations during and after conflict, and to ensure the protection of women’s rights, and their full participation in peace-making, conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction.
Our activities in this area include:
- Networking and collaborative work with women peace activists, peace researchers, and feminist scholars of international relations on contemporary conflicts and their gender dynamics;
- Research into the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 and obstacles to its realization, in collaboration with other agencies within the UN system;
- Dissemination of research findings to national and international policy-makers and other relevant actors;
- Creating women's observatories or research and documentation centers that will establish programmes to promote women's involvement in conflict-resolution, peace processes, and reconstruction efforts, and in post-conflict democratization processes.
During recent conflicts around the world women have continued to endure unprecedented levels of sexual violence and assault, leading to consequences including HIV infection, pregnancy and other health complications, as well as possible stigmatisation and exclusion from their communities. Women who are made refugees as the result of conflict experience intense insecurity that comes both from being isolated from their habitual support systems and from the additional physical insecurities often present in situations of forced displacement. However, despite the horrific consequences of conflict for many women, it would be wrong to see women only as “victims” of conflict and to ignore their very important role in peacemaking and conflict resolution.
Women’s engagement in peace-building is recognized by many international institutions as a crucial element of recovery and conflict prevention – a fact reflected in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 [PDF, 36 KB - October 2000], which commits the United Nations and its member states to engaging women in conflict prevention and peace-building.
Further UN Security Council Resolutions have emphasized the need to protect the rights of women during armed conflicts, to prevent sexual violence, and to fully integrate women into post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction processes. In particular Resolution 1820 [PDF, 39 KB – 2008] and Resolution 1888 [PDF, 51 KB - 2009] highlight the ongoing crisis of sexual violence used as a tactic of war, and call for the immediate cessation of this type of violence.
Despite elaborate international and national policy frameworks, women around the world face enormous challenges to their participation in peace-building processes and in translating legal instruments into real rights and concrete change. Furthermore, women’s ability to effectively influence peace-building processes is often compromised by the threat or the actual experience of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV), which commonly escalates during and after armed conflicts, as well as by continuing obstacles to women’s full political participation in many countries.
Too often women are neither adequately represented at decision-making levels nor involved in peace negotiations and agreements and women's grassroots organizations and peace initiatives are marginalized or ignored. Further, gender issues are often ignored in post-conflict reconstruction.
UNESCO aims to promote women’s participation in peace-making and post-conflict reconstruction and to advance gender equality in situations of conflict and post-conflict.