Active participation of women within the traditional male-dominated security sector is crucial Commissioner for Gender Equality Josie Christodoulou stressed on Wednesday, indicating that leaders all over the world must secure the effective participation and inclusion of women in peacekeeping processes.
Speaking via a teleconference at the Forum for Security Co-operation (FSC) Security Dialogue Women, Peace and Security Integrating Gender Perspective when fulfilling the OSCE politico-military commitments and activities, organised in Vienna by the Cyprus Chairmanship of the FSC, Josie Christodoulou, noted that gender equality is one of the main horizontal priorities of the Cyprus government.
She added that towards this direction the government makes new efforts through the use of the tool of the integration of the gender dimension in a horizontal and holistic manner in all Ministries and deputy Ministries and Deputy Ministries for the first time, adding that these efforts come with a new 2024-2026 strategy fo
r Gender Equality and that at the same time Cyprus is also implementing a 2020-2025 National Action Plan on Women’s Peace and Security .
As she noted, both the Strategy and the Action Plan are designed in such a way so that the gender dimension is integrated at two levels simultaneously, within Ministries and Deputy Ministries in order to create and sustain a gender friendly environment and secondly by integrating the gender perspective into the Ministries’ policies, activities and projects, adding that within these efforts, actions in relation to integrating the gender dimension in diplomacy, security and defence could not be absent.
Underlining that peace diplomacy is as necessary as ever, the Commissioner for Gender Equality stressed that peace cannot come without women in leading positions. She recalled that President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides appointed almost 39% female Ministers and Deputy Minsters noting at the same time that more women have been appointed in leading positions
within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while women head Cyprus key diplomatic missions.
Josie Christodoulou said that this example is now on its way to be followed in different settings in Cyprus including the security and defence sectors as a Military Advisory Council for the Promotion of Gender Equality has been set by the Ministry of Defence. The Council constists of 3 women and 2 men, Army Officers.
As she emphasised the role of this Council includes, among others, advocacy for gender equality and promoting policies to increase the presence of women at all levels of the army, ensuring that gender particularities are taken into account in the implementation of army actions, encouraging members of the Army to co-operate and contribute to its activities and report on gender equality issues, informing members of the army of the impact of armed conflict on both sexes and the value of women’s involvement in conflict resolution and decision-making and organizing awareness seminars and workshops to inform memb
ers of the army on gender equality issues.
At the same time, she added, the Council carries out the tasks of the Gender Equality Committee in the prevention of harassment and sexual harassment in the army, noting that the government aims to set up a similar Committee in the National Guard.
The Commissioner for Gender Equality emphasized that peace and security diplomacy within multilateralism is crucial and that through different resolutions with the most known to be the UN Resolution 1325 Women Peace and Security or better the WPS Agenda, diplomacy is pushing for peace.
Noting that since the Security Council adopted resolution 1325 there were some success stories for gender equality, she said that ‘at the same time we must recall that we have neither significantly changed the composition of peace tables, nor the impunity enjoyed by those who commit atrocities against women and girls’.
‘The progress is slow! The resolution was adopted almost 24 years ago and the world still has not managed to implement th
e resolution fully,’ she said, indicating that leaders all over the world must secure the effective participation and inclusion of women in peacekeeping processes.
As Josie Christodoulou said according to the International Peace Institute, when women participate in peace processes, stronger agreements can be made and have a rate of success of more 35% and more than that, while these agreements are more likely to last more than 15 years.
Therefore, she stressed that the active participation of women within the traditional male- dominated security sectors where these issues are addressed is crucial.
The Commissioner underlined that the governments should create an environment that will enable women to actively participate in order to use both women’s and men’s diverse experiences as an added value to security and defence to lead to peace. In parallel, she added, ‘we must rethink the way we draft and implement our own plans; we need to implement more specific measures and be accountable for their implementati
on’ and that ‘at the same time, we should not forget civil society’ in the sense that ‘we urgently need better ways to communicate with civil society and to support women’s movements across the world’.
She underlined that now more than ever, it is imperative to deliver on the values and principles outlined by the ‘Women, Peace and Security’ agenda, indicating that as the world faces alarming security shifts, instabilities and geopolitical tensions and challenges and witnesses rapid changes due to advanced technology and cyber warfare that redefine how we should think about security, ‘women’s leadership, and their full, equal, and meaningful participation at all levels of decision-making is essential’.
Source: Cyprus News Agency