Women bring different perspectives of cultures and conflict and when those voices are at the negotiating table a lasting peace is more likely, writes Maha Akeel.
It is important to include women at the negotiation table of conflict resolution and peacebuilding early in the process and not be persuaded to delay that for any reason. Ensuring that women’s rights, needs, and expectations are reflected in any texts adopted during the talks lays the groundwork for their political participation and social empowerment later. Third-party mediators can and should play a role in including women in such negotiations whether as negotiation delegates or mediators. A mediator is a neutral third party and a negotiator takes sides or negotiate on behalf of a side.
Including women in peace processes
Research indicates that women’s participation in peace processes, whether at the formal or informal level, leads to a more durable peace. Women not only bring different experiences of war from men but also different perspectives. Most often, through their informal networks and grassroots activism, women can bridge ethnic, cultural, and religious divides, such as in Liberia, Nigeria, and Somalia.
Despite these documented benefits, women face barriers to their effective participation in peace negotiation processes. One of the most persistent and difficult to overcome is the structural problems of patriarchy. Patriarchal structures define the roles women are allowed or assigned to play in peacebuilding and their level of involvement. Even if their numbers are increasing steadily in the political sphere, women remain constrained by patriarchal structures of male leadership.
Mediators play an important role in supporting women’s inclusion in peace processes and in leading by example through having women in mediation. However, from 1990 to 2018, mediation was involved in only 34 per cent of the total 876 conflict-years, and of those mediations only 10 per cent included at least one woman as co-mediator. Despite evidence that women’s full participation makes peacebuilding much more effective, the number of women in decision-making roles is actually falling.
In 2023, women represented only 9.6 per cent of negotiators, 13.7 per cent of mediators and 26.6 per cent of signatories in peace processes. According to a report by the United Nations Secretary General, women were virtually absent from talks on ending the conflicts in Ethiopia, Sudan, Myanmar and Libya. In Muslim societies, culture and tradition are most often used to justify the exclusion of women from peace processes even though the women are active. In fact, women were consulted and included in resolving conflicts and negotiating peace since the time of Prophet Mohamed.
The culture factor
In most cases it is not the mediation team or the conflict parties that initiate the call to include women. It is intense lobbying by the women themselves. In Mali peace talks in 2015, co-mediators did not make women’s participation a priority despite the mobilisation by Malian women. Only five women participated among the 100 delegates and a negligible number in the mediation team. After years of lobbying, women’s representation in the monitoring commission on the Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation increased from 3 to 31 per cent in 2021. As a result of their inclusion, the committee discussed issues raised by Malian women that were not previously on the table, such as the closure of schools and the absence of health services in specific locations, according to a UN Security Council report.
Even when they are kept out, women continue to engage in mediation and reconciliation processes and adopt innovative means to gain access and influence on negotiations. Libyan women, for example, played an active role in the revolution that toppled the dictatorship regime of Qaddafi but were excluded from the formal peace talks because the tribal male elders would not agree to their participation. However, they were able to influence the talks through separate meetings with the mediator, organizing and working together on common goals, and holding ‘tent movements’ by camping out to pressure and reconcile the different tribes.
In Yemen’s 2013-2014 national dialogue, women’s engagement was supported by the mediator as well as senior leadership and political. Women delegates were vehemently opposed by traditional tribal actors and fundamental religious movements. However, with international support and sustained pressure from local women’s movement, Yemeni women succeeded in having a 30 per cent quota in the National Dialogue’s Preparatory Committee. Women had their own delegation of 40 seats and were included in all working groups with leadership positions, and raised many issues related to gender equality.
Syria has a longer history of women’s empowerment and greater number of educated women. However, the justification of “cultural resistance” was used by mediators to marginalise women in the early phases of negotiations. This emphasis on culture and tradition was criticized by local women in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen involved in mediation, according to a 2022 UN Women report. They rejected the overuse of “tradition” or “social norms” as a means of limiting their agency. The report stresses that placing general blame on tradition or social norms distorts the distinctions present in each culture and undermines the historical contributions women have made to peace. Instead, the report highlights the wide range of local conflicts in which the women mediators negotiated, the diverse roles in mediation they played, and the risks they faced and circumvented. The women succeeded in their local mediation efforts at addressing issues that Track 1 processes could not, such as releasing political detainees and prisoners of war, and at bringing up issues at the Track 1 negotiation table, such as transitional justice and accountability for human rights violations.
The fact that women are often invited to the peace process in other roles, such as observer, witness, or civil society, and other phases of the process, affects their ability to introduce issues and influence discussions. Many internal factors, particularly insecurity, and external forces affect the level and type of input and role women play during peace processes that are not necessarily cultural or religious. It is important for international organizations involved in mediation to engage different political and civil society women leaders and groups in Muslim societies to open space for them to contribute and participate and not be dissuaded by “cultural factors” enforced by certain factions to serve their interests.
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