A math lesson

The analysis

From a very political approach we recognize that increased violence against women is a result of neoliberal globalization and wars. Now, thanks to the above mentioned UNSC resolutions, sexual violence is recognized as a war tactic and a war crime. We are dealing with power hierarchies. It is imperative that we add to our debate the added value of starting to define what a militarized masculinity is. In the EU we are now at the point where it is a political commitment and a legal obligation to implement 1325 but if there’s anything we have learned is that such normatives are no guarantee for a good practice. The role of international comunity lies then in pushing the gender approach, while at the same time trying to avoid the inherent danger of using and abusing this gender approach to the extent that it can later lead to the utilization of gender as justification for a militarized intervention. This we saw in the examples of Afghanistan and Iraq where we also have confirmed how the women’s rights are the first to be negotiated and relinquished in bargaining situations. The interconnection of militarism and traditional gender roles is also a fact that needs to be further explored and studied as is the concept of masculinity linked to the concept of militarization. Finally we know that sexual violence is mostly directed against civilians, but we need to recognize the fact that sexual violence is also directed against men, without denying that the majority of victims are women.

What needs to be done

Well, first we need to lounge a new decade of implementation of UNSCR 1325. The goal is to create a sustainable peace policy with focus on women and men and eventually create a different social structure that takes gender equality as a clear meassure.

The strategies to achieve this encompass the development of an effective communication strategy, a comprehensive approach and the
translation of our visions into policy.

The necessary aims are: to start a new understanding of security, especially for peace missions; the all-too-known changing of gender stereotypes (yes, la lucha continúa); the establishment of a rule of law; the creation of a political will among the political actors and the demilitarization the masculinity. A point that was stressed is the need to come out from the “ghetto-ization” and bring the debate for gender mainstream into the hardcore debates about security. So, there’s the need to integrate the gender perspective but therein lies the need to also be able to explain it. To achieve this added value it is imperative that we break down the indicators to small comunities and incorporate them into the everyday language. There’s nothing new about the urgent need of establishment of national and regional action plans for the implementation of UNSCR 1325, increase the number of women in missions and get more women on the negotiating tables. However we have to pay attention to the issue of selection
criteria and who are the women we want on those tables.

About the main obstacles to overcome, the most mentioned were a weak State, weak governments, still existing values but also cultures and traditions, bad infraestructure and the trap of the one dimensional focus.

Among the needs of the women groups that were expressed during the conference the consensus showed that they have to reach women behind
the well educated urban elite, go public and be seen, involve men in their activities and in the case of conflict zones offer gender specific support for
victims.

The methods discussed to achieve this include a conceptual challenge, a strategic approach (sectoral, intersectional, local) and the
translation of key messages to local languages.

Relating specific to the UNSCR 1325 we see that the major steps to be taken are to integrate gender perspective in peace and security
policy, put the resolution in the political agenda, use it to lobby and advocate for womens participation and, last but not least, monitor and evaluate
the implementation with the use of benchmarks.

As far as the pressing issue of gender mainstreaming is concerned, there was the agreement on the need to reinforce it by developing
interdisciplinary and cross cutting strategies and creating guidelines.

The different forms of activities that the (also different) groups of women are doing in order to push the implementation of the resolution
go from the resistance & dialogue to political pressure, from grassroot work to the institutionalization of mechanisms and structures to the creation of shadow reports. It was agreed that a prerequisite to achieve anything is to reinforce the networking.

Networking encompasses many things some of which are: cooperation and political dialogue, learning from each other, bringing back the links between comunities, involvement of civil society and the involvement of political decision makers.

Who do we want to work with? Everyone. But specially the youth, deserters, victims (to have them become activists). It is also very
useful to work CEDAW and MDG.

Finally, the word is training, training, training. For that we have the UNSCR 1325 as a valuable education tool. And when it comes to
training and gender awareness, it was agreed that there is a big need to design the trainings adeuately, create a special masculinities training and, first and foremost, use the local expertise. And that about sums it all up.