The proposition that women’s active participation at the negotiating tables can add to the quality of a peace process has unfortunately never been examined thoroughly. When women’s voices are missing from international conflict resolution meetings and conferences, it eventually leads to a relatively marginalised post-conflict scenario. UN Security Council's Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security calls for an increased participation of women in the promotion of peace, while UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres says: “There is increasing recognition that violence against women is a major barrier to fulfillment of human rights and a direct challenge to women’s inclusion and participation in sustainable development and sustaining peace.”
With wars waging across the globe where women are increasingly at risk, they are equally sidelined in peace negotiation processes. This unfortunate absence of women’s meaningful participation in peace processes thereby results in daunting challenges to resolve violent and complicated conflicts. Women face unique and vicious crimes in conflict zones at the moment, with these wars fought on women’s bodies where they are raped, mutilated, injured, burned alive, and mentally traumatised, yet the unwavering resilience of these adversely affected women goes unnoticed.
It has been widely observed during the Russian-Ukraine war and even in the Israel-Gaza war that although women suffer and get killed alongside men with restricted access to health care, women are excluded from the diplomatic and mediation processes. This serious lack of will and effort to include women in war and post-war dialogue decreases the chances of a lasting peaceful outcome.
Besides the setback of a lack of inclusion, women have managed to successfully organise effective protests against these wars. The Way Home, which is a recent movement comprising Russian mothers and wives of soldiers, has been organising protests demanding the return of their dear and near ones from war-affected areas, hence proving that images of motherhood and femininity have always been instrumental in turning public opinion against war. Similarly, Ukrainian women have also come to the forefront to demonstrate peace and demobilisation of their loved ones serving at the war fronts.
Conflict and post-conflict agendas hardly address gender issues. For instance, in the case of Afghanistan, women's rights agenda was completely absent from the peace talks, which had devastating consequences for Afghan women under the oppressive Taliban regime. Sudan is another example where marginalisation in peace processes led to gender-blind institutions post-conflict. The lack of meaningful inclusion of womenfolk not only acts as a major obstacle to durable peace but is also responsible for putting women's rights at a greater risk.
Heather Barr, an interim co-director of women's rights at Human Rights Watch, drew attention to this crucial aspect when she stated, “The minimal inclusion of women at Moscow talks shows an appalling disregard for Afghan women’s struggle for over a decade to be full participants in peace processes as called for by the UN security council.”
Direct involvement of women in peace negotiations facilitates much better prospects for peacebuilding. Carefully orchestrated links between women at negotiating tables and female civil society activists at grass root levels ensure a broader peace process while redressing inequality
Women bring along a fair share of real-life experiences and alternative solutions to otherwise complex conflicts involving multiple parties and interests. The inspirational words of Daisaku Ikeda help us recognise this wisdom when he affirmingly states, “Men and women who know the brutal reality of war, who know that war strips people of their very humanity must unite in a new global partnership for peace.”
Direct involvement of women in peace negotiations facilitates much better prospects for peacebuilding. Carefully orchestrated links between women at negotiating tables and female civil society activists at grassroots levels ensure a broader peace process while redressing inequality. These pivotal links lead to a very effective societal support network. The female delegates at the negotiation tables not only highlight the prejudiced treatment of common women but at the same time provide useful precise information on the ongoing negotiation process to their counterparts, thereby prompting effective mobilisation of the various women civil society groups. This significant exchange enables us to draw from the diversified experience of the female gender, contributing both at the negotiating tables and to the common women at the grassroots level.
Betty Williams, a Nobel Peace Laureate and the founder of Peace People strongly believed that simple acts of kindness and basic dialogue-driven techniques were enough to change hearts and minds. Today with wars raging across the globe and with diplomatic efforts seeming to be failing, the golden words of this peace activist continue to inspire us when she claims that: “I always say that nonviolence is not the weapon of the weak. It is the weapon of the strong.”
Glenda Sluga in her article, “What do we learn about war and peace from women international thinkers?” Shares her empowering words by stating: “Women have always drawn on uncommon examples, arrived at uncommon conclusions, and forged alternative intellectual traditions in the process.”
Although women have been thrust into the world of wars, hence enduring physical and mental abuse, drone attacks, and famine, they have risen to the daunting challenge by making life-saving contributions as war journalists and peace activists by highlighting the immense scale of human destruction in war-torn areas. Therese Bonney, a WW11 photojournalist whose images captured the sheer violence of the war shared her strength and courage during the traumatising war experience: “I go forth alone, try to get the truth, and then bring it back and try to make others face it and do something about it.”
Bisan Owda, a Palestinian journalist who recently won an Emmy in the Outstanding Hard News feature story, where she documented her experiences during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. An NGO by the name of Women Wage Peace consisting of both Palestinian and Israeli women has shown immense determination and perseverance by regularly organising peace marches throughout the last year. Even in the past during the Russia-Chechnya war, women especially mothers were instrumental in negotiations that aimed to get their loved ones back home. During this struggle, women suffered severe criticism and were often labeled as “foreign agents.”
The concept of women's movement against war is a humble beginning towards women's inclusion in humanitarian responses and is a collective voice of all mothers, wives, and daughters for the promotion of long-lasting peace. As Arrancha Gonzales, former European Union minister of foreign affairs, stated in her concluding remarks: “We must continue the fight for a “polyphony of voices at the table” to ensure that every day is International Women’s day.”