Security Council Open Debate on Women, Peace, and Security

27 October 2017

Madam/Mister President,

I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Group of Friends of Women, Peace and Security, an informal network of 51 interested Member States chaired by Canada, representing all five regional groups of the United Nations. On the 17^th anniversary of Security Council Resolution 1325, the Group reaffirms its unwavering support for the Council’s work on this important agenda.

Despite an increasingly robust normative framework on women, peace, and security, we emphasize that real, tangible progress lies in implementation. In this regard, much remains to be done. We applaud those countries which have established or renewed national action plans in the past year. We reiterate that such plans must be coupled with sufficient resources to deliver results. Such implementation will also directly contribute to the realization of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, agreed to by all Member States. We wish to thank Spain for its initiative to establish the network of WPS Focal points and for organizing the first substantive meeting in Alicante and its follow-up in New York. We look forward to Germany and Namibia chairing the Focal Points’ Network in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Furthermore, we wish to highlight regional efforts which can coordinate and combine efforts towards more effective implementation.

The Group welcomes the Secretary-General’s leadership on conflict prevention and sustaining peace and notes that the effective implementation of the women, peace and security agenda directly contributes to these objectives. Indeed, we know that gender-based violence and the repression of women’s human rights is correlated with the outbreak of conflict. We also know that women’s participation has a positive impact on the credibility and durability of peace agreements. Therefore, it is all the more essential to include gender considerations and the meaningful participation of women in early warning, mediation, and conflict resolution efforts, as well as the mainstreaming of gender-specific language and the human rights of women in peace agreements. A greater role for women needs also to be ensured in post-conflict peacebuilding and economic recovery.

This approach should also apply to the Security Council’s work in preventing and addressing conflict. In this regard, we welcome the ongoing work undertaken by the Informal Experts Group to facilitate a more systematic approach to the Council’s agenda, including in resolutions, statements, reporting, and visits to the field, as well as regular input from civil society. Indeed, we recognize the importance of engaging with and supporting civil society in delivering real impact on this agenda.

The Group highlights the need to further the implementation of the women, peace, and security agenda in UN peacekeeping, both in terms of women’s participation and gender expertise and mainstreaming into doctrine and all planning documents. Women play an indispensable role in peacekeeping and their participation at all levels is key to the operational effectiveness of missions. We must therefore redouble efforts and engage in new and creative thinking to resolve persistent gaps and structural barriers to female participation and leadership. Separately, peacekeeping operations need to be equipped with appropriate gender-responsive conflict analysis and expertise. We are deeply concerned that cutting, downgrading, and under-resourcing gender advisors and women protection advisors positions may cripple the ability of peace operations to fulfill these critical tasks.

We must also ensure that UN peacekeepers themselves are not part of the problem and condemn cases of sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping operations. We welcome recent initiatives by the Secretary-General,  including the conclusion of sexual exploitation and abuse Voluntary Compact with Member States, the establishment of a Circle of Leadership, and the appointment of a SEA Victims’ Rights Advocate. Still much more needs to be done to tackle this scourge, ensure accountability, and fundamentally reconfigure our collective approach to make it victim-centered.

Unfortunately, sexual violence also remains prevalent in situations of armed conflict worldwide. The Group condemns in the strongest terms such acts, which constitute a grave violation and abuse of human rights and international humanitarian law, and raise barriers to the full achievement of gender equality, peace, and development. To end impunity, perpetrators must be brought to justice, and victims and survivors must be assisted in a comprehensive manner in order to fully recover from these violations and be able to reintegrate in their societies. We are also appalled by acts of sexual violence, including rape, child, early and forced marriage, and enslavement, including those committed by terrorist groups such as Daesh. In this regard, we welcome the recent adoption of Security Council Resolution 2379 on accountability for the acts committed by Daesh in Iraq. It is our hope that this is the first step in a process to ensure more comprehensive accountability. We highlight the importance of including specific expertise on gender and sexual violence to ensure the documentation of sexual violence as part of these efforts as well as a focus on reducing stigma associated with survivors of sexual violence in conflict.

Indeed, a gendered approach is critical to facing new and emerging challenges such as violent extremism. We support the engagement of women’s leadership and the incorporation of a gender lens in the development of strategies to prevent and address violent extremism, and recognize Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership as a dynamic network of independent women-led organizations that are locally rooted and globally connected. Such an approach recognizes the role of women in developing resilience, the impact of violent extremism on women, and the reality of women joining violent extremist groups. We also welcome the establishment of the Group of Friends of Preventing Violent Extremism as and when conducive to terrorism, co-chaired by Jordan and Norway, which stresses the need for full and executive participation of women and youth in efforts to prevent violent extremism.

In conclusion, we believe in the transformational potential of the women, peace, and security agenda. We remain committed to work with the United Nations and all Member States to its full realization.

Madam/Mister President,

Allow me to make a few additional remarks in a national capacity.

This October, we mark the 17th anniversary of the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and recall the efforts of civil society in bringing the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda to the attention of the UN Security Council.  There is no doubt that progress has been made in implementing this agenda, however, it has been slow and many challenges remain.

First, to change the status quo, we must ask ourselves why implementation of the WPS agenda isn’t happening at a faster rate.

Why are the ethnic, economic and political clauses of conflict well-recognized, while the role that structural and social gender discrimination plays in conflicts and in impeding sustainable peace and development is not? Overwhelming evidence shows that the advancement of gender equality acts as a multiplier for achieving success across the UN’s three pillars – human rights, development and peace and security.

We must ask ourselves why as we respond to emergency and conflict situations, any effort to advance gender equality often gets lost to sequencing arguments prioritizing the need to respond to urgencies over the need to integrate gender perspectives – even when research clearly demonstrates that they need to be addressed together to be most effective.

We must ask ourselves why we continue to fail to meaningfully collaborate with local women’s organizations when we know that their participation is critical in addressing the needs and interest of women and girls?

We must think about doing things differently.

If we desire sustainable peace, we must embrace the idea that it will not be achieved without adopting the values of inclusion and diversity. In times of increased conflict, we can no longer afford to sideline the voices of women and girls in all of their diversity.  We must stop making excuses.  If conflict is the problem then gender equality must be an uncompromisable component of the solution.

We must challenge ourselves to move beyond incrementalism. 

Canada is committed to finding opportunities to create and support gender transformative solutions to conflict.  We will defend women’s voices and human rights. We will challenge narratives undermine women’s ability to contribute, lead and shape solutions.  We will collaborate with civil society, Member States, and the UN to help re-invigorate the implementation of this important agenda. Finally, we will continue to demonstrate our commitment to transparent and regular progress reporting on the implementation of our national action plan on WPS, which is currently being finalized, to ensure that we are making progress.

In the context of our Feminist Foreign Policy, Canada is taking concrete actions to advance the implementation of the WPS agenda.

We recognize that women are key actors in conflict prevention and resolution and peacebuilding.  Peace and Security is one of the cornerstones of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy, which puts gender equality at the centre of international assistance programming.  In support of this policy, Canada will dedicate $150 million over five years to support local organizations that advance women’s rights in both developing and fragile states.  Last year, Canada also provided $1.5 million to the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund that supports women’s organizations working on the front lines of conflict prevention and resolution.  We strongly urge others to support this fund to ensure that women’s and girls’ voices are heard.

We know that by failing to mainstream gender perspectives in peace operations we will fail to effectively respond to the needs and interests of local women and girls. At the Vancouver Peacekeeping Ministerial, which Canada is pleased to host in November, mainstreaming gender in our discussions and reflections is of the utmost importance.  We are challenging the panelists and participants to suggest and present innovative solutions to integrating gender perspectives in peacekeeping. Canada continues to demonstrate its commitment to supporting women’s participation in peace operations. We are working to increase the proportion of Canadian women police officers deployed to peace operations and have been at the forefront of a UN training initiative aimed at increasing the number of women police officers deployed to UN peace operations. 

Canada is also a strong advocate for the full implementation of the UN’s zero tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse. Our Prime Minister has recently joined the Secretary General’s Circle of Leadership and signed the Voluntary Compact on Eliminating Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. We are also providing funding to the Office of the Coordinator on SEA and the Trust Fund for Assistance to Victims of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, and we strongly encourage all Member States to do the same.

The question of accountability resonates strongly for Canada. Under our first National Action Plan, Canada tabled five annual progress reports on the implementation of the WPS agenda in Parliament, which helped to take stock of the progress achieved and record lessons learned. The progress reports also allowed us to identify shortfalls and highlight emerging good practices, all of which have been useful in the development of the second Action Plan. We wish to thank civil society and national Indigenous organisations that provided invaluable input into this action plan, which will be launched shortly. We look forward to collaborating with our domestic and international partners in its implementation.

Thank you.