Women in post-conflict societies should play a bigger role in revitalising their countries and governments must take action to ensure their participation in peacebuilding activities, researchers of a new study said.
Research conducted in the aftermath of three recent conflicts analysed the recognition and role of women in peace processes as well as the security of women in South Africa, Northern Ireland and Lebanon who attempt to return to everyday life. The British-funded study was released at a United Nations press conference on Thursday.
”There are still too many men in the room when post-conflict settlements are negotiated,” researcher Margaret Ward said.
”The evidence is that lasting peace will never be achieved unless positive action is taken to guarantee women an equal position in the development of peace agreements and in all post-agreement political and civic institutions,” she said.
Another researcher, Northern Ireland human rights commissioner Monica McWilliams, said Northern Ireland’s peace agreement has succeeded in involving women, but it did not have the mechanisms to keep their roles intact.
”The mistake was not to have enforcement techniques,” she said.
McWilliams used the post-conflict example of South Africa as being successful in cementing women’s role in the peace process.
This was done by the African National Congress which established a commission on gender equality and a quota system for women.
The study also examined the safety of women as men return from war and conflict. McWilliams said that prisoners released after the 1998 Good Friday accord between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland returned to find women more empowered. While some of the men accepted this, ”others came back very resentful,” she said.
The study notes that women in Northern Ireland and South Africa expressed concern that ”gender-based violence had increased”.
There is a need ”to decommission mindsets, not just hardware”, McWilliams said.
Of the three conflicts studied, women played the most limited role in Lebanon, the study found.
It said one of the most consistent security concerns for women there ”was the personal status laws, which regulate women’s lives according to their denomination/ethnicity”.
Among the study’s recommendations is ”a radical rethinking on how we understand the relationships between men and women in times of transition”.
McWilliams rejected the notion that patriarchal systems would take centuries to change.
”Can you change the system? The answer is yes,” McWilliams said. – Sapa-AP