Despite a UN resolution in 2000 meant to protect women from armed conflict and include them in peace processes, they remain the primary victims of wars and underrepresented in diplomatic negotiations, officials told the Council on Tuesday. of security.
The UN has been organizing since Monday in New York and for ten days the 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), an international body of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
On the eve of International Women’s Day on March 8, UN Women Director Sima Bahous sounded the “alarm bell” during a “women, peace and security” debate before the Security Council . “In the first 20 years … we have witnessed historic firsts for gender equality,” she said. But, “we have neither significantly changed the composition of the peace negotiation tables, nor altered the impunity enjoyed by those who commit atrocities against women and girls”.
She also cited the war in Ukraine where “women and their children represent 90% of the nearly eight million Ukrainians forced to leave for other countries”.
Afghan women demonstrating for their rights.
AFP
Alongside her, United States Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield urged the international community to “fully implement the ‘women, peace, security’ program as we approach the 25th anniversary of the adoption of resolution 1325” in October 2025. In front of the press, she lambasted “the violence and oppression faced by women and girls around the world — in Iran, Afghanistan, parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia and in so many other places”.
And, she detailed, “only 28% of peace agreements contain stipulations relating to the place of women and during the last 25 years, only 2% of mediators and 8% of negotiators were women”.
During an exchange in English with some journalists in New York, Ms. Schiappa lamented that the advances in rights thanks to the “#metoo and the emancipation of women” movement are suffering a “backlash” and a return of “patriarchy”, including in the United States and Europe.