Report Back from Working
Sessions
Working Session: 1325
and Displacement: The
Protection and Participation of Displaced
women
Number of delegates in attendance: 19
Number of countries represented: 10
Recommendations
• 1 – Look to technology as a tool for mobilizing and
hearing women’s voices
• 2 – The role of women peacemakers is significant
(should have a solely woman unit)
• 3 – Modes of empowerment (looking toward strong
female presence/characters in order to enable)
Recommendations
• 4 – Strengthen education (literacy)
• 5 – Hold NGOs accountable
• 6 – Reintegration programs into own and host countries
• 7 – Truth and reconciliation (story telling; listen to the
women so that they can heal)
8 - Creating IDP-specific indicators
Working Session: Burden of Proof: Is Indicator Reporting
Realistic for Countries in Conflict
Number of delegates in attendance: 24
Number of countries represented: 10
Recommendations
•
1 – Consideration of whether indicators should be developed in pilot phases
in non-conflict affected communities; building capacity before implementing
in conflict-affected countries.
•
2 – Greater consideration of conditions permissive of violence against
women; cultural, historical, patriarchal cultures and systems that contribute
to make VAW an effective weapon of war.
•
3 – Participation means all categories of women – create and adjust
conducive conditions for women (rural, poor, disabled, linguistic minority,
displaced, indigenous, etc. women) to participate.
Recommendations
•
4 – Increase the accessibility of women to participate through resources
(financial, creative in-kind, security, childcare, etc.)
•
5 – Focus on accessing rural areas for data collection, services,
participation and protection.
•
6 - ALL projected programs, grants, and budgets should include a gender
marking system (rating 0-3).
•
7 – Strategic planning needs to engage larger donors in PRSPs to facilitate
government buy-in.
Working Session: Bridging Interpretations and
Implementations: Islamic Law and 1325
Number of delegates in attendance: 24
Number of countries represented: 10
Recommendations
1. Establish a national action plan for the implementation of UNSCR 1325 in
Afghanistan, Iraq and many other Islamic countries
2. Increase knowledge of Islam and technical expertise in interpretations of
Islamic law concerning women's rights for international, national and local
actors.
3. Translate UN Resolution 1325 into local languages.
4. Enable women parliamentarians to unite across party lines to form women
Caucasus to be able to represent a broad-based powerful political force to
help forward the agenda of women development and to promote 1325.
5. Provide training to enable Islamic women to advocate for and protect
themselves at a household and community level.
Recommendations
6. The participation of men in increasing women's rights and women's
participation in the public sphere is essential. There is a need for greater
examination of the role of men in supporting women’s empowerment. These
men have been and can continue to be powerful allies.
7. There is a need to engage with powerful religious councils in order to tackle
a variety of challenges to women’s human rights.
8. The Mullahs and religious scholars should be sensitized to women’s human
rights and gender issues so that mentally and spiritually they themselves
accept and understand the rights of women. They can then play a role as
reformers in helping communities broaden their views and making them
understand the existing differences between the traditions and religious
beliefs and towards eliminating tradition based on neglecting and denial of
rights of Muslim women and girls.
Working Session: Missing Links: Engaging Men in 1325
Number of delegates in attendance: 35
Number of countries represented: 15
Recommendations
1 – Acknowledge that men, like women, are not a homogeneous category of
actors
2 – Motivate and mobilize men to become active partners in the implementation
of the WPS agenda
3 – Include “grooming of champions” and targeting of gatekeepers as part of
strategic engagement with institutions
Recommendations
4 – Utilise entry points such as sport, media and life skills provision to work with
young men and women
5 – Explore how Resolution 1325 can speak to and resonate with men
6 – Consider and address the risk of resource diversion
Working Session: Advancing the Responsibility to Protect
Agenda: What do women’s rights have to do with R2P?
Number of delegates in attendance: 30
Number of countries represented: 11
Recommendations
•
1 – Recognize the complementary nature of the Responsibility to Protect and
Women, Peace and Security agendas. RtoP can bring the timely action that is need
to respond to massive rapes and other gender-based mass violence crimes that
occur in conflict situations. RtoP can certainly benefit from UNSCR 1325 provision on
women’s participation in ALL decision making peace processes (peace
making/keeping/building, negotiations, mediations…)
•
2 – Encourage the sharing of analysis and information between early warning
mechanisms and ensure the integration of gender sensitive indicators at all levels
(international, national, regional and local actors)
Recommendations
•
3 – Continue raising awareness of the Responsibility to Protect by highlighting the
centrality of prevention of atrocities including systematic attacks against women inherent in
its framework to dispel certain myths about RtoP.
•
4 – Harmonize advocacy efforts with civil society organizations and movements working on
RtoP related agendas such as gender justice including under the ICC framework, women ,
peace and security (UNSCR 1325, 1820, 1888, 1889), disarmament, peace
keeping/making/ building…
•
5 – Create opportunities for governments and organizations at all levels to work together
on related agendas.
•
6 – Incorporate the prevention of mass atrocities in National Action Plans for Human Rights
Working Session: Agenda 2010 and Beyond for 1325 and
Disarmament
Number of delegates in attendance: 18
Number of countries represented: 11
Recommendations
•
1 –Commitment to fully implement disarmament and arms control
instruments, in particular in relation SALW
•
2- Commitment to fully implement gender related norms and instruments
•
3 – National security policies must promote the participation and
representation of women in the security sector
•
4 - Specific training must be given to the top level officials and decision
makers in government to explain why the contribution of women will make
them more successful.
•
5 - Training by female trainers must be promoted in the security center.
Recommendations
•
6 – Regional and national monitoring mechanisms and observatories must
include at least 30% women
•
7 – Traditional women led ministries must take part in defense and security
policies of countries (health ministries, women affairs, Youth, Education)
•
8 – Financial, human, technical resources shall be allocated to women
participation and representation at all levels of policy and decision making
related to security and disarmament (local, regional, national gov)
Recommendations
• 9 – Need to strengthen U.N. and Civil society partnerships, in
particular women organizations (mutually reinforcing relationship)
• 10 – Outreach and advocacy campaigns must recognize the
necessary contribution of women to peace and security (include and
target women)
Working Session: Protecting Security and Women’s
Rights in Afghanistan
Number of delegates in attendance: 29
Number of countries represented: 8
Recommendations
• 1 – Assure women’s participation in reconciliation and
reintegration programs
• 2 –Provide ongoing support for women in public life
• 3 –Maintain support for development and health
programs
• 4 –Provide sanctuary and asylum for threatened women
Working Session: Women and Peacekeeping: Lessons
Learned and Next Steps
Number of delegates in attendance: 32
Number of countries represented: 15
Recommendations
• 1 – More pressure to be exteted on Member States to set out
policies to recruit more women Police and Military officers as
women officers are much more effective in reaching out to
vulnerable population in conflict ridden and post conflict situations.
• 2 –Materials are more women-friendly
• 3 –-New focus on security gap-do no harm
• 4 –Continue work at Grass roots level
Recommendations
• 5 – New incentives for joining Local police getting work
in and with the UN DPKO? Some affirmative action
policy?
• 6 –Set quotas within Battalions
Working Session: Transitional Justice Mechanisms and
Accountability: The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation
Commission
Number of delegates in attendance: 12
Number of countries represented: 7
Recommendations
• 1 – Ask victims for their input and concerns.
• 2 –Consider what is sexual violence and why is it important?
• 3 –Need for Local consultation prior to mandates and
emphasis on comparative cases in which GVB was
prosecuted.
• 4 –International donors create gender specific budgets
Recommendations
• 5 –Learn how to listen to women in the language of
gender based violence.
• 6 –Establish conditions for gender sensitive truth seeking
• 7 –Reparation programs that target feelings and balance
individual and collective needs
• 8 – Community preparation to receive and accept victims
Working Session: Defining and Implementing Appropriate
Means of Reparation and Rehabilitation
Number of delegates in attendance: 41
Number of countries represented: 18
Recommendations
• 1 – Ensuring a gender dimension in reparation programs
• 2 –Addressing imbalance in victim/survivor representation from
various sides of conflict
• 3 – Creating “survivor” language in an effort to recognize the agency
of victims with respect to context
• 4 – Address amnesty as benefitting perpetrators not
victims/survivors
Recommendations
• 5 – Supporting community level traditional methods
• 6 – Value symbolic as well as monetary reparations and
rehabilitation
• 7 – Addressing the importance of involving civil society. Specifically
women’s grassroots organizations
• 8 – Addressing the protection of victims following testimony
Working Session: Women Confronting Violent Extremism
Number of delegates in attendance: 35
Number of countries represented: 15
Recommendations
•
1 – Engage external support systems in the international/global arena to
influence policies of countries in conflict
Examples: Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) and Arab women’s
network around the world
•
2 – Demand Holistic and Integrated Peace and Development Framework in
approaching complex situations.
Recommendations
•
3 – Promote indigenous, traditional practices of conflict transformation and
advocate for inter-religious program engagements to promote tolerance and
respect diversity
Working Session: Law and Policing: Opening new roles
for women in Islam
Number of delegates in attendance: 15
Number of countries represented: 7
Recommendations
• 1 – Offer asylum to vulnerable girls/women. Take DIRECT ACTION
to protect women
• 2 –Building bridges between more secular and conservative
women’s organizations
• 3 –International Development agencies need to run programs within
an Islamic framework
• 4 – Funding for incentives for women in the security forces
Recommendations
• 5 – Challenge cultural norms misconstrued as “Islam”
• 6 – Reach out to liberal men in positions of decisionmakers
• 7 – Build women’s network
• 8 – Framing gender equality in terms of benefits to men
and women