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Goddess Amani

Resolution 1325 of the United Nations Security Council.

The annual meeting of the United Nations Security Council on “Women, Peace and Security” was held on October 25, 2018 at the UN headquarters in New York. The meeting was chaired by Bolivia. The discussions focused on the recent report by the UN Secretary-General on “Women, Peace and Security” with a focus on the theme of “Promoting, Disseminating and Implementing UN Guidelines on Women, Peace and Security and Sustainable Peace through Women’s Political and Economic Empowerment”. This meeting provided an opportunity to assess the implementation of programs related to “Women, Peace and Security” and for member countries to make new commitments in this area at the local, national and regional levels.

Important points in the above negotiations are as follows:

As of September 2017, 77 countries have joined the United Nations’ “National Action Plan” for implementing the “Women, Peace and Security” guidelines and implementing Security Council Resolution 1325.

The National Action Plan (NAP) on “Women, Peace, and Security” is one of the tools that commits governments to not only recognize the important role of women in establishing sustainable peace, but also take action to achieve it. As the historic resolution 1325 of the United Nations Security Council was not enough to achieve this, in 2005 – 5 years after its adoption – the UN asked member countries to develop a “national action plan” to increase women’s participation in politics and pave the way for their involvement in peacebuilding and support for women and girls during times of war.

It is worth mentioning that in the first decade of the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, out of 92 countries in the world, 23 countries developed a “national action plan”. In 2018, after 18 years since the adoption of this resolution, the number of these countries has increased to 77.

2- Despite international efforts by institutions and civil society organizations and annual negotiations at the United Nations, only 2% of women have had the opportunity to participate in peace negotiations between 2017 and 1990.

Despite extensive efforts by the “UN Women” organization and negotiations on equal opportunities and representation of women in the United Nations, 40% of positions in the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) are held by women.

Furthermore, the Secretary-General of the United Nations emphasized and confirmed the call for civil society organizations to manage the financial activities related to “women, peace, and security”. It should be noted that since last year, representatives of civil society have had the opportunity to participate in the annual negotiations of the Security Council on “women, peace, and security”, and this presence has expanded every year. The Secretary-General of the United Nations welcomes and encourages this action and its growth. The Secretary-General of the United Nations also encouraged countries that have developed a “national action plan” to pursue it seriously and assess its positive steps and progress, and asked countries around the world to open the way for women’s participation in peace at the national, local, and regional levels.

In this year’s negotiations and the report of the United Nations Secretary-General, he not only emphasized the need for agreements and treaties that are sensitive to gender and sexuality, but also stressed the importance of their content in addressing the impact on the lives and security of women and girls from a gender perspective. He identified sexual and gender-based violence, the use of gender norms and stereotypes to justify violence against men, and the equating of “violence” with “masculinity” as reasons for the slow and insignificant progress in women’s participation in peacebuilding.

Furthermore, at this year’s conference, the importance of “real and impactful” participation of women in the peace process was emphasized, both by some countries and mainly by non-governmental representatives and civil societies. This is because the presence of women as “symbolic and ineffective” in peace negotiations or related activities is merely superficial and symbolic.

“Structural inequalities” alongside the patriarchal society, gender stereotypes, the glorification of “masculinity” through violence, have been serious obstacles in women’s effective and impactful participation in the pursuit of peace.

One of the notable discussions is when we talk about the presence of women in peace negotiations or delegations for peace-related activities, even at the level of United Nations negotiations or local, national, and regional discussions, the precondition of “women’s readiness” or “women’s empowerment” for their participation in these activities is always discussed. Meanwhile, in most cases, the men who attend these negotiations assume that simply being male makes them capable and prepared due to their gender.

Furthermore, access to resources for achieving the goals of “women, peace, and security” has been raised by many representatives. Because without access to resources, especially financial resources, it is not possible to talk about the “serious and influential presence” of women. Without economic capacity and access to resources and financial facilities, women will not have the ability to influence in areas such as preventing conflicts, reducing ethnic, religious, and tribal tensions, preventing sexual and gender-based violence, and other goals of the “women, peace, and security” action plan.

Access to resources is not limited to financial resources alone. For many African and even Asian countries, especially in South and West Asia, access to water is considered a key factor in economic empowerment. This is particularly true for many African countries where women play a significant role in agricultural production. This issue was raised at the United Nations Security Council meeting under the presidency of Sweden in July 2018, stating that global peace and security are closely linked to environmental changes and the level of access to natural resources. This is the root cause of many local and regional conflicts, especially in parts of the world where the negative and heavy impacts of environmental changes are affecting human lives.

Iran.

Iran is one of the countries that does not have a “National Action Plan” in the field of “Women, Peace, and Security”. The lack of political will from the government in this area and the absence of an active and influential civil society have resulted in no commitments being made by Iran in this regard.

In October 2017, Iran participated in the “Women, Peace and Security” negotiations at the Security Council, but did not accept any commitments. Iran is also one of the four countries that have not signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and in 2017, it ranked 140 out of 144 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index.

In 2017, Iran spent 14 billion and 548 million dollars on military expenses, but did not commit any expenses to the United Nations’ guidelines on women, peace, and security, which include the role of women in peacebuilding, peace negotiations, and actions to address sexual and gender-based violence.

The reality is that in Iran, the security of women is very fragile in both private and public spheres, on the streets and in the workplace, in universities and educational environments, at home and in society. Women, alongside men, face insecurity, intimidation, arrests, and imprisonment in their civil and peaceful efforts.

Although Iran is under heavy economic sanctions, especially from the United States, and is threatened with military attacks that create an atmosphere of insecurity, it is also involved in military conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen and bears the burden of significant costs.

The civil society in Iran is not equipped with the necessary security to take effective actions towards gender equality due to widespread oppression and lack of freedoms outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Among Iran’s neighboring countries, Afghanistan has a “National Action Plan”, but the realities of recent negotiations indicate that the presence of women in this country and many other Western Asian countries is neither serious nor influential. However, it is still a positive step towards promoting the culture of accepting the role of women in peace and the fact that sustainable peace will not be achieved without gender equality.

For more information, refer to:

• A page named “Women, Peace and Security” on .

  Website.

  United Nations Political Affairs Department.

• A page titled “Peace and Security” about the role of United Nations peacekeeping forces.

  Website.

  Women of the United Nations.