{"id":4854,"date":"2014-09-09T12:33:47","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T10:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=4854"},"modified":"2014-09-09T12:33:47","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T10:33:47","slug":"has-the-uk-broken-its-pledge-to-include-afghan-women-in-peace-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2014\/09\/has-the-uk-broken-its-pledge-to-include-afghan-women-in-peace-building\/","title":{"rendered":"Has the UK broken its pledge to include Afghan women in peace-building?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: The Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n

As the Nato summit gets under way, the government\u2019s promise to ensure women are fully represented is being put to the test<\/span><\/h4>\n

In June, Britain\u2019s then foreign secretary, William Hague, and Hollywood actor, Angelina Jolie, co-hosted the much-publicised\u00a0Ending sexual violence in conflict summit<\/a>\u00a0in London. The UK government boldly committed to ensuring that women are \u201cfully and meaningfully represented at any international peace-building event or summit hosted by the UK, by encouraging government delegations to fully include women representatives\u201d.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward three months to this week\u2019s\u00a0Nato summit<\/a>\u00a0in Wales and the government\u2019s promise was put to the test. The future of Afghanistan hangs in the balance, yet it seems Afghan women have again been excluded from crucial discussions on the future of their country.<\/p>\n

The timing could not be more critical. The imminent withdrawal of international troops and reported\u00a0power-sharing negotiations with the Taliban<\/a>\u00a0are placing Afghan women\u2019s rights on a knife edge. The fragile and uneven gains made for women over the past decade are in danger of being overturned.<\/p>\n

Evidence has emerged of women being systematically targeted with violence in areas where the Taliban insurgency is gaining ground, while vital progress in women\u2019s access to health and education is being reversed.\u00a0Research conducted by ActionAid<\/a>\u00a0(pdf) in 2011 \u2013 when troops had already begun to pull out \u2013 showed 86% of women were worried about a return to Taliban-style government, with one in five citing their daughter\u2019s education as the biggest concern.<\/p>\n

The Nato summit is the largest gathering of international leaders held in the UK. David Cameron is hosting President Barack Obama, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Fran\u00e7ois Hollande, along with a government delegation from Afghanistan, which did not include the new president as the election process is still in limbo.<\/p>\n

But despite Afghan women\u2019s rights being frequently cited as a justification for the war, including by members of the government of the time, it seems they have again been largely excluded from critical talks to establish security and peace. Just one woman was reportedly listed among Afghanistan\u2019s delegation of 10 (the delegation lists are yet to be published) and it\u2019s unclear if she actually attended. No mention was made of women\u2019s rights or development in\u00a0Cameron\u2019s invitation letter to leaders of Nato<\/a>\u00a0member states, which framed the Afghanistan agenda item for the summit.\u00a0Fewer than one in 40 of signatories to peace deals are women<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The exclusion of Afghan women from the summit is a far cry from\u00a0Hague\u2019s speech at the<\/a>\u00a0meeting in June, which recognised the need to build new norms around women\u2019s participation:<\/p>\n

\u201cI am saddened that women and women\u2019s groups still have to ask to be included at the negotiating table, as if it were a concession to be granted, or a right to be begrudgingly accorded, when in fact it is the only route to better decisions and stronger and safer societies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hague\u2019s speech marked the launch of the UK government\u2019s strategy for implementing its\u00a0action plan on UN security council resolution 1325<\/a>. This legally binding resolution \u2013 now 14 years old \u2013 explicitly recognises the disproportionate impacts of violent conflict on women and girls, the essential role women play in conflict prevention and resolution, as well as their right to participate equally in all such processes, and urges member states, including the UK, to act accordingly.<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s 1325 strategy promises to work towards ensuring women\u2019s full and meaningful representation at international peace-building events hosted by the UK by encouraging government delegations to fully include female representatives.<\/p>\n

Hague did host a discussion on women\u2019s participation in conflict resolution at the Nato summit with the Nato secretary general\u2019s special representative on women, peace and security, Mari Sk\u00e5re, and foreign ministerial leads on preventing sexual violence in conflict. Referring to Nato\u2019s own action plan, Hague again stated the importance of women\u2019s participation in conflict resolution. Echoing this, the Nato\u00a0declaration of Afghanistan<\/a>\u00a0issued on 4 September emphasised the importance of including women \u201cfully in political, peace and reconciliation processes\u201d. And yet where were the voices of Afghan women in the summit discussions?<\/p>\n

The failure to include women at the Nato summit reflects and further fuels the tendency to ignore and devalue the dynamic, creative efforts of women in conflict-affected countries all over the world, who put their lives on the line to broker peace and foster reconciliation in highly volatile circumstances. In Afghanistan, Liberia, Nepal, Pakistan and Sierra Leone,ActionAid has documented<\/a>\u00a0and supported women\u2019s vital peace-building roles, sustained in the face of discrimination, high levels of violence, and a lack of funding for women\u2019s organisations.<\/p>\n

Women in Afghanistan, such as the\u00a0Afghan Women\u2019s Network<\/a>, rightly point out that peace and development cannot be inclusive and sustainable, and women\u2019s rights safeguarded, if women are prevented from taking part in decision-making processes.<\/p>\n

It is not enough to talk about women and girls. Nato heads and host countries of future summits \u2013 including an international conference onAfghanistan due to take place in the UK this year<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 must uphold their commitments to involve women directly and ensure Afghan women have a voice and a place at the table.<\/p>\n

Without this, all the past and future work of impressing upon the Afghan government the importance of upholding rights stands to be undermined by the message being sent from this summit: that it is acceptable to exclude women from decision-making. For the women of Afghanistan more than anyone this could be the difference between life or death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The Guardian As the Nato summit gets under way, the government\u2019s promise to ensure women are fully represented is being put to the test In June, Britain\u2019s then foreign secretary, William Hague, and Hollywood […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,19,90,88,12],"tags":[341,260,532],"class_list":["post-4854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-citizens-and-civil-society","category-editor-selection","category-slider","category-transitional-justice-and-peace","tag-afghan-women","tag-afghanistan-peace-process","tag-uk"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4856,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4854\/revisions\/4856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}