At a regional workshop, Arab and African women emphasised the necessity of women's participation in peace processes. Dina Ezzat listened in The Suzanne Mubarak International Movement for Women and Peace (SMIMWP) held its first regional workshop last week, bringing together women peace activists from several Arab and African countries to debate ways of getting women more involved in peace- making around the world, and especially in the Middle East. The gathering focussed on finding the ways and means to secure the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for the high- level involvement of women in making peace, underlining the need for governments to support this role. Adopted in 2000, it also calls for an overall empowerment of women as an essential part of enabling them to become full partners in making peace. Mrs Mubarak inaugurated the event, held under the title 'On the Road Towards UN Security Council Resolution 1325, Women, Peace and Security -- A Future Perspective', on Saturday, saying that only via "collective efforts to spread awareness" could Resolution 1325's implementation be secured. The two-day workshop examined the potential for building civil society coalitions, and considered ways to make the little recognised UN Security Council resolution more prominent, via action plans to be implemented within different social and cultural contexts. "Women suffer most as a result of conflicts," Mrs Mubarak said in her opening speech. "They sustain the heaviest toll that wars bring about. This is what makes women passionately seek peace." Focussing on the Arab context, Mrs Mubarak said, "the status of Arab women today is a clear reason why women should have a way to introduce creative participation to all efforts seeking peace." According to Mrs Mubarak, "Arab women, particularly in Palestine and Iraq, are paying their lives and their dignity, and are losing their dear ones as a very high price for freedom, independence and identity." It was via these kinds of sacrifices, she said, that peace would eventually come round. Mrs Mubarak urged people around the world, and especially women, to speak up against wars and the atrocities they bring. "Let our calls wake up the human conscience and lead the way to reduce human suffering and end wars and conflicts." The appeal was echoed throughout the two-day event. Speakers from Palestine, Iraq, Somalia, Kenya and elsewhere related their personal understanding of the devastation wreaked by wars on women, as well as the ways a will for peace had actually made some situations improve, or at least provided reasons for hope. The working groups and round tables handled a wide range of issues, including the handicaps barring women's participation in making peace, and the role young people, especially women, could assume in perpetuating the culture and language of peace. One thing participants were in agreement on -- especially those who spoke of their own experiences -- was the formidable task at hand, made even more difficult by the disadvantaged socio- economic contexts that so many women come from. Huda Imam, director of the Centre for Jerusalem Studies, said that people often tell her that she should invest her efforts on improving the economy and combating illiteracy, rather than discussing peace. "This is what my son keeps telling me. He keeps asking me why I'm not ashamed to meet Israelis to talk about peace while the occupation forces are making the lives of every Palestinian a living hell, and so many young men, and women for that matter, are offering their lives in martyrdom operations to bring about independence, sovereignty and freedom." Palestinian Ministry of Women's Affairs Secretary-General Salwa Hodeib confirmed that Palestinian women peace activists tend to meet Israeli women peace activists in secret for fear of being called weak and complacent. Iraqi participant Zana Amin bemoaned society's tendency to underestimate women's efforts to overcome the impact of wars. "This happened when we tried to offer our contribution to build the new Iraq," she said. One of the most daunting challenges, described by the Coalition for Peace in Africa's Dekha Ibrai Abdi, was convincing the powers that be that women have a right to talk politics in the first place. Abdi and other women dedicated to ending civil wars in North Africa have found "women's role in conflict mitigation often unrecognised, as evidenced in some traditional beliefs." In Somalia, participants told the workshop, a common proverb says, "where there is breast there can be no brain". Despite such challenges, women peace activists in Somalia, Kenya, Iraq and Palestine remain undeterred by the gender bias that their peace efforts stumble upon. "If I want to make a change, if I want to get my message forcefully enough to the Israeli side, then I have to feel strong. I have to know that I can make a difference and that my efforts can help bring about peace," Imam said. For Abdi, this meant, "peace is inextricably linked with equality between men and women." Workshop participants noted that the undermining of women's participation in peace-making was not limited to underdeveloped countries or conflict-ridden milieus. Even the UN itself seemed to be suffering from this trend. Statistics presented to the workshop revealed that of 27 current peace operations, the UN secretary-general had appointed only one woman as head of mission or special representative -- with the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia. In fact, only four missions have designated gender units, and just four of the 16 members of the UN secretary-general's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change are women. The workshop ended with a Cairo declaration stressing the need to ensure women's participation in peace-making, especially in relation to monitoring and training. It also called for a more aggressive enforcement of existing UN guidelines, and especially Resolution 1325. The workshop called on the UN to engage more women in its peace-making efforts, and urged governments to make use of women's unique talents for making peace. Media was seen as one of the main conduits through which these messages could be spread. A working group discussed the clear handicaps presented by most Arab and third world based media's handling of women's roles in society in general, and especially when it came to making peace. Another working group looked at the importance of young people playing roles in adopting the concepts of peace, talking its language and spreading its culture. "I am proud that SMIMWP offered a platform for women of the region to share their own testimonies and experiences in relation to peace-making. And I am proud that SMIMWP is acting as a beacon for peace and women's participation in peace-making," Mrs Mubarak said. The two-day event in Cairo, she said, was only the beginning of the very long road that will have to be travelled by the region's peace and women's rights activists. Mrs Mubarak will also be delivering speeches on women and peace at the Arab League in Cairo, and the Sorbonne in Paris, next week.
