S/PV.4635 Security Council

I should like to inform the Council that I have received letters from the representatives of Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Egypt, Fiji, Indonesia, Jamaica, Japan, Liechtenstein, Morocco, Namibia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, the Republic of Korea, South Africa and Venezuela in which they request to be invited to participate in the discussion of the item on the Council’s agenda. In conformity with the usual practice, I propose, with the consent of the Council, to invite those representatives to participate in the discussion without the right to vote, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Charter and rule 37 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure. There being no objection, it is so decided.

In accordance with the understanding reached in the Council’s prior consultations, I shall take it that the Council agrees to extend an invitation under rule 39 of its provisional rules of procedure to Mr. Ivan Šimonović, President of the Economic and Social Council. It is so agreed. I invite Mr. Ivan Šimonović, President of the Economic and Social Council, to take a seat at the Council table. In accordance with the understanding reached in the Council’s prior consultations, I shall take it that the Council agrees to extend an invitation under rule 39 of its provisional rules of procedure to Ms. Carolyn Hannan, Officer-in-Charge of the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women. It is so agreed. I invite Ms. Carolyn Hannan to take a seat at the Council table. The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. The Security Council is meeting in accordance with the understanding reached in its prior consultations. Members of the Council have before them document S/2002/1154, which contains the report of the Secretary-General on women, peace and security. I welcome the presence of the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, and invite him to take the floor.

Let me start by thanking you, Mr. President, for your initiative in holding this meeting on women, peace and security. Two years ago, the Security Council adopted resolution 1325 (2000), a landmark step in raising awareness of the impact of armed conflict on women and girls, and of the vital role women play in conflict resolution and peace-building. Since then, the Council has continued to devote close attention to this key aspect of international peace and security. It has used the Arria formula to hear directly from women living in countries mired in conflict. During missions to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kosovo and Sierra Leone, Council members have met with women’s groups and networks, and last July the Council held a further open discussion on the issue. Resolution 1325 (2000) has also galvanized the United Nations system into looking more critically at our own work, and at how we deal with gender perspectives not only in peacemaking, peace-building and peacekeeping, but also in humanitarian, disarmament and reconstruction activities. More importantly, women at the grassroots level around the world have found the resolution an effective tool in bringing greater attention to their needs and priorities and in supporting their efforts to contribute to peace processes. My report on women, peace and security, called for in resolution 1325 (2000), is now before the Council. It is based on the larger study distributed to the Council earlier this week. I hope that members will read it closely and sustain the momentum that has been generated. Towards that end, I would like to draw the Council’s attention to a few issues. The report stresses that, while many of the experiences of women and girls in armed conflict are similar to those of men and boys, there are important differences. Existing inequalities between women and men, and patterns of discrimination against women and girls, tend to exacerbate their situation in armed conflict. Women and girls become particularly vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation. Women and children make up the majority of the world’s refugees and internally displaced persons. Even in refugee camps, which are meant to be safe havens, the vulnerability of women and girls may continue, especially if there is a proliferation of small arms. Some women may be forced to follow camps of armed forces, providing domestic services or being used as sexual slaves. But if women suffer the impact of conflict disproportionately, they are also the key to the solution of conflict. Women’s groups and networks at the grassroots level have provided many examples of the imaginative strategies and flexible approaches required for effective conflict prevention. They have worked tirelessly and courageously in preserving social order in the midst of chaos, and promoting reconciliation through informal processes that receive very little support. However, with few exceptions, women are not present in formal peace negotiations. The report calls for greater representation of women in formal peace negotiations and for the incorporation of gender perspectives in conflict prevention activities and in mandates for peace- building and peacekeeping operations, including those set in motion by the Council. It also stresses the need to increase the appointment of women at the highest levels of decision-making, including as special representatives, deputy special representatives and special envoys. The report also points out serious gaps in the legal protections available to women. Certainly, advances have been made in recognizing women’s rights. The legal framework is increasingly responsive to the experiences of women and girls in conflict, especially in cases of sexual violence, as we have seen in the important work being carried out by the international criminal tribunals. But much remains to be done, particularly to improve prevention and to combat impunity. The report recommends the strongest possible response to the sexual exploitation of women and girls, including prostitution and trafficking, which can occur in the context of peacekeeping, humanitarian activities and other international interventions. The United Nations and its Member States, in particular troop- contributing States, must do their utmost to ensure that an international presence provides protection and security for all people — women and men, girls and boys — and does not exacerbate inequalities or lead to an increase in violence against women and girls. The United Nations must not and will not tolerate sexual or other abuse by any staff — civilian, military or humanitarian. Two important steps in this direction are the investigation by the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) of allegations of sexual abuse in West Africa, the results of which were made public earlier this week, and the work of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Task Force on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Humanitarian Crises. Since the allegations leading to the OIOS report first arose, the United Nations has been determined to act firmly and quickly, not just in West Africa, but on a global basis. Improved systems for recourse, investigation and discipline are being instituted. Mechanisms for protecting those who depend on international aid are being strengthened, and strict standards of behaviour — expected of all United Nations personnel and our partners in the non- governmental organization community — are being adopted. I welcome those steps and reaffirm my commitment to working closely with all involved to ensure full and speedy action wherever necessary. Finally, the report emphasizes the need for extensive capacity-building. If women are to play their full part in negotiating peace accords, mediating disputes, creating new Governments, rebuilding judicial and civil infrastructures and the many other activities that support peace, the world needs to make an investment in building up their skills for doing so. This will require both political will and a much larger pool of funding. In addition to my own study and report, an Independent Experts Assessment, commissioned by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), has been made available to you. Elisabeth Rehn and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf travelled to many of the world’s conflict zones and talked to women and girls who have experienced the devastating impact of conflict firsthand. Their analysis, insight and recommendations provide additional food for thought to this Council, as well as for the wider membership, the United Nations system and civil society. The world can no longer afford to neglect the abuses to which women and girls are subjected in armed conflict and its aftermath, or to ignore the contributions that women make to the search for peace. It is time that they are given the voice in formal peace- building and peacemaking processes that they deserve. Sustainable peace and security will not be achieved without their full and equal participation. Just as your work can promote gender equality, so can gender equality make your work more likely to succeed.

I should like at the outset to express my appreciation to you, Mr. President, for having convened this open debate of the Security Council to deliberate on the issue of women and peace and security — an issue that occupies an important place on the international agenda. I should like to welcome the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, back from his trip, and to thank him for his statement as well as for the report that is before us, which we consider to be outstanding. The convening of this Security Council meeting on the second anniversary of the adoption of resolution 1325 (2000) on women and peace and security is proof of the increasing concern of the Security Council about this very important issue, that is, the role of women in peace and security, including in post-conflict periods. In this regard, I should like to express our gratitude to the delegation of Singapore for having convened an Arria-formula meeting — the kind of meeting referred to by the Secretary-General earlier — several days ago to consider the issue of women and peace and security. Men, women and children suffer greatly and catastrophically during armed conflict. However the effect of such conflict is surely worse on women and children because they are the most vulnerable members of society. During periods of conflict, women shoulder the burden of many responsibilities, including caring for and defending their families in dire circumstances and for obvious reasons. The fact that women are affected by conflict and have a direct role in mitigating its consequences surely underlines how valuable and essential they can be in helping to resolve conflict by participating in negotiations leading to agreements. Women are in touch with the masses and are fully cognizant of the needs and demands of various sectors of society. Enhancing the role of women in peacekeeping and peace-building missions is essential and important, as affirmed in Security Council resolution 1325 (2000). We have noted the importance attached to these key areas in the report of the Secretary-General contained in document S/2002/1154 and in the statement he has just made. My delegation has read the report of the Secretary-General, which contains a comprehensive analysis of the impact of armed conflict on women and the role of women in peace-building. We believe that some of the Secretary-General’s recommendations provide an excellent basis to build upon to reinforce the positive steps taken so far and to address any shortcomings that may now exist. Furthermore, the Secretary-General’s observations reflect the facts on the ground. We therefore believe that a greater effort should be made to address them. In that regard, I should like to recall the outcomes of various United Nations conferences on women, the latest of which was the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly, on “Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the Twenty-First Century”, because we believe that those outcomes are important milestones on the road to promoting the status of women in national societies and in the international community, as well as their role in all aspects of life, including the subject under discussion today. Resolution 1325 (2000) correctly expressed concern that women and children account for the vast majority of those adversely affected by armed conflict because they are easily targeted. In that regard, I cannot fail to mention the Arab women and children in the occupied Arab territories, who are, indeed, easy targets for the Israeli occupying forces. It would not be an exaggeration to say that at least half, if not more, of the victims of the Israeli military machine are women and children. In times of conflict and occupation, women are deprived of their right to participate in political decision-making on issues of peace and security, particularly if they cannot even leave their homes or shelters. In that regard, we stress the need for the Israeli occupying authorities to respect international humanitarian law and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention relative to civilians, particularly women and children and to put an end to the practices that they carry out daily, violating the rights of Arab civilians, in particular Arab women, in the occupied Arab territories. In the Syrian Arab Republic women are given great importance. That is clearly shown in the achievements made in improving the status of women in all political, economic and social fields, based on the equality of men and women in their rights and obligations under the Constitution.

We welcome the opportunity to participate in this discussion on women and peace and security. It has been nearly two years to the day since the passage of the landmark Security Council resolution 1325 (2000), and we are pleased that the Council has maintained a focus on tracking its implementation. We welcome the completion of the Secretary- General’s report on women, peace and security (S/2002/1154), which provides a thoughtful analysis of the challenges confronting women and girls during armed conflict and which offers a number of useful recommendations on ways the international community can help address them. We thank the Secretary-General for presenting this report to us personally and for sharing with us his goals for implementation of the report’s recommendations. The report and the study from which it is drawn provide documentation concerning women both as victims and as actors that cannot, in the twenty-first century, be ignored. We also thank Carolyn Hannan, Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women, which produced this report, and acknowledge Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women, whose parallel report will be released in the next few days. Since the adoption of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000), the United Nations, Member States and the international community have made significant progress in responding to the particular needs of women in times of conflict. The Council has recognized and supported the informal peace initiatives of women’s groups and networks. Additionally, establishment by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) of gender units and gender adviser positions in missions such as the United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor, the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone has made a difference on the ground in the lives of women and girls affected by armed conflict. We commend the efforts of DPKO, troop-contributing countries and Council members towards implementing resolution 1325 (2000). However, much more remains to be done. I know that we are in agreement that reports and discussions about the situation of women and girls in armed conflict are just a beginning. But reports provide the supporting data that the Secretary-General, the Council, the Secretariat and Member States contributing to peace operations can use to integrate gender perspectives into all peace-building, peacekeeping and peacemaking efforts. Reports can help us to determine the best way to achieve our goals in three specific areas: to improve the lives of women and girls who are victims of armed conflict; to ensure that women and girls who have been combatants are eligible for the same assistance as men; and finally, to involve women increasingly as actors, at the grass- roots level, in peacekeeping missions and at the planning and decision-making levels at United Nations Headquarters. My Government supports the Secretary-General’s recommendation set forth in the report that data collected in research, assessments and appraisals on peace operations be disaggregated by sex and age, and that specific data on the situation of women and girls be provided. That data will inform future planning and operations. But we should not ignore the wealth of data already available to us, which will enable us to begin the integration process now. We hope there will be an opportunity at a later date to discuss in depth some of the issues raised in the report and to begin to look at ways of prioritizing action on the various recommendations. For example, the United States would be interested in hearing the views of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations on its progress in mainstreaming gender perspectives in peacekeeping operations and on the challenges it faces in promoting more gender diversity among the peacekeeping operations staff. We enthusiastically support an increase in gender diversity in peacekeeping operations, and the appointment of more women as special representatives of the Secretary-General and as special envoys, and we have provided the names of qualified women candidates to the Secretary-General for that purpose. Finally, I will just note that my delegation always has questions regarding the budget implications of some of the report’s recommendations, which we will raise at the appropriate opportunity. Thank you again, Mr. President, for convening this important and timely meeting. We look forward to further discussion on the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000) in the future.

My delegation wishes to express its appreciation for the presence of the Secretary-General at this meeting. It is through his presence here that the report on women, peace and security is being brought before the Council. The report that is the basis of our work today is undoubtedly the subject upon which the Security Council will have to work in order to fulfil the provisions of resolution 1325 (2000). We also want to thank the Secretary General’s Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, Angela King, for having supervised the preparation of the study, and her staff and all the experts and bodies that contributed to the preparation of the document, including, in particular, international organizations and non-governmental organizations that took part in the Inter-Agency Task Force as observers. These two documents, together with the UNIFEM study by independent experts — which will be published shortly but whose recommendation have already been publicized — will serve as guidance in achieving the objectives of resolution 1325 (2000), which as the Secretary-General has noted, is a historic resolution. This research gives us a full and detailed picture of the strong impact, both physical and psychological, that armed conflicts have on the lives of women and girl children, one that we should all regard as intolerable. The documents also speak, inter alia, of the role of women in promoting and building peace, and of the importance of having the gender perspective systematically integrated into peacekeeping operations. At the same time, the documents present a number of specific measures to strengthen and speed up the achievement of the objectives and recommendations of resolution 1325 (2000). My delegation is of the view that it is important that Members of the United Nations, the United Nations system in its entirety, and civil society take into account the Secretary-General’s recommendations. We should embrace them and begin to put them into effect as soon as possible. The recommendations of the independent experts, which concur with or supplement those of the Secretary-General, are also valuable instruments that will enable us to achieve their objectives. Once we have begun to put these recommendations into practice, it will be necessary to carry out detailed, regular and frequent follow-up of the progress in fulfilling the objectives of resolution 1325 (2000). My delegation supports the recommendations of the Secretary-General and is ready to take an active part in the process of action and follow-up so that the objectives set in the resolution may be a central element in all the actions of the United Nations in the interests of peace and security. I wish to highlight some of the conclusions in the Secretary-General’s report which have caught the attention of my delegation in particular, some of which concur with what we stated at the Council’s meeting on the same item in July. The report affirms what had ready been stated in resolution 1325 (2000): the fact that women and children suffer from the effects of armed conflict in a different manner than men and boys, although, generally speaking, civilian populations are the hardest hit by current conflicts, in contrast to the aftermath suffered in earlier ages. Women and girls are the victims of all forms of violence, particularly sexual violence and exploitation. Much of this aggression, as the report indicates, enjoys the support of the high command of the combatant forces and of the regular armies. This is due to the fact that in most of today’s wars, women have effectively taken on a symbolic value as military objectives. Thus my delegation supports the recommendation of the Secretary-General that peace agreements under the aegis of the United Nations should rule out any possibility of amnesty for those committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, including gender-based crimes. In addition to highlighting the special vulnerability of women, the report recalls that women may also play an active role in conflict and at times are even responsible for acts of violence against other civilians. Women are often rejected by their communities of origin if they are associated with former combatants, irrespective of whether the association is a result of voluntary decision or of an imposition. Thus, women and girls need to be included in programmes of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration into civilian life, and that reintegration should be particularly stressed. It is important for such programmes to include measures to prevent violence within families, especially in families of former combatants, in view of the clear tendency for violence to be perpetuated or even intensified in post-conflict periods. One factor that increases the risk of domestic violence and violence against women in the post- conflict period is the proliferation of small arms. For this reason, women and girls often participate actively in arms collection programmes. The report also underlines the positive role that women play in the promotion of peace. The way in which they tend to be excluded from the formal peace processes and the reasons for that are circumstances that must change. One of the recommendations in the report to remedy this situation specifically involves the responsibility of the United Nations: that any peace agreement sponsored by the Organization should systematically and explicitly incorporate the gender perspective, both in terms of recognition of the way in which conflicts affect women and with respect to the role women play in peace processes and their specific needs in post-conflict phases. Another recommendation is to ensure the involvement of women in negotiations of peace agreements at national and international levels. One of the participants in the Arria-formula meeting that has been referred to here, held a few days ago, was very emphatic in that regard, noting that the United Nations simply should not promote the negotiation of any peace agreement which did not, from the start, include the full participation of women. Such participation must not be symbolic in nature. It is necessary for women and women’s organizations to be able to rely on advisory services and training so that they can have a real effect on the results of the negotiations. One positive factor is the fact that, as is noted in the report, international law and existing strategies and guidelines within United Nations entities provide a strong framework for addressing gender perspectives within the context of armed conflict and its aftermath. It is simply a matter of taking advantage of these instruments, expanding their impact and associating them continuously and systematically with Security Council resolution 1325 (2000). The report contains very specific recommendations about the phase of reconstruction and rehabilitation after a conflict. Among other aspects, it highlights the need to develop clear strategies and action plans on the incorporation of gender mainstreaming in rehabilitation and reconstruction programmes, which would need to include monitoring mechanisms. A fundamental factor in achieving sustainable and lasting peace is ensuring that attention to gender perspectives in economic reconstruction entails analysis of economic policy-making from a gender perspective, and increased participation for women in economic decision-making along with incorporating gender perspectives into all support for national budget processes, in line with the outcome of the International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Monterrey. My delegation would like to say that we have previously spoken in favour of enhancing the participation of women on all levels and in all aspects of peacekeeping operations, in particular at the decision-making level. Likewise we have voiced our support for setting up a focal point for gender at United Nations Headquarters, specifically within the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), along with the inclusion of gender specialists in peacekeeping missions. In that regard, we welcome the targets the Secretary-General will be setting for the appointment of women as his special representatives and special envoys, with the aim of achieving the overall target of 50 per cent by the year 2015. To ensure that the scale of the violations of the human rights of women and girls in conflicts is consistently recognized, the specific needs of women in conflict and post-conflict situations must be recognized and must receive the attention they deserve. We must ensure that women have a better level of participation in peace-building. In order to achieve all of this, it is essential for the United Nations to demonstrate leadership by systematically mainstreaming the gender perspective within the Organization itself. Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) and the report and the study which stemmed from it have the potential of arousing serious expectations in civil society, specifically among women who have been directly affected by conflicts. We have seen a clear example of this at last week’s Arria-formula meeting when Ms. Angelina Atyam, of northern Uganda, Chairperson of the Concerned Parents Association, asked us how that resolution and subsequent Council decisions could help end the violence committed against civilians in that region by the so-called Lord’s Resistance Army, which led to the abduction and disappearance of her daughter and of thousands of other boys and girls. Those hopes must not be betrayed. This represents a major challenge for the United Nations and its Member States, and is yet one more reason for us to work consistently towards achieving the objectives set forth in resolution 1325 (2000).

First, Mr. President, I would like to thank you for convening this open meeting today on women and peace and security. I would also like to express the appreciation of my delegation to the Secretary-General for personally introducing his report (S/2002/1154) this afternoon. The representative of Denmark will shortly make a statement on behalf of the European Union, and Ireland, of course, fully associates itself with that statement. Resolution 1325 (2000) involved a two-fold dimension: the immense and disproportionate impact of armed conflict on women and girls, and also, crucially, as the Secretary-General emphasized in his remarks this afternoon, the central role women can and must play at the centre of efforts to resolve armed conflict. As Assistant Secretary-General Angela King said here last July (see S/PV.4589), sustainable peace and lasting security cannot be achieved without women’s empowerment and full involvement. This is central to the work of the United Nations. As the Secretary- General put it to the Council before the adoption of resolution 1325 (2000), while the United Nations was set up to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, the Charter also proclaims the equal rights of men and women, and we must live up to both challenges or we shall not succeed fully in either (see S/PV.4208, p. 2). My delegation believes that the Secretary- General’s report illustrates that this is one of the most important issues facing the entire international community today and that it must be at the forefront of our agenda. We are also grateful for the recommendations in the study coordinated by Assistant Secretary-General King as well as for the recommendations made by the independent experts commissioned by UNIFEM, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Elisabeth Rehn. They point the way forward. I would also add that my delegation fully agrees with the observations made by the Secretary-General in his report concerning the abuse of the human rights of women and girls and welcomes the recommendations he has made with a view to protecting those rights. There are several main issues involved in our discussion here today: that resolution 1325 (2000) provides a blueprint for action in recognition of the essential contribution of women to the maintenance and promotion of peace and security; that we have travelled some distance institutionally in implementing resolution 1325 (2000), but that we still have far to go; that progress depends on implementing change not only in New York at United Nations Headquarters but in conflict areas, in prevention of conflict, in rebuilding after conflict around the world; that, in implementing the provisions of resolution 1325 (2000) we are tackling fundamental issues not only of justice and equity, but also of effective policy if conflicts are to be prevented and war-torn societies are to be restored; and that this issue and how to make strong and rapid progress are among the greatest challenges facing the United Nations and the entire international community today. In fully agreeing with the Secretary-General’s recommendations, I would like to emphasize a number of points of particular importance to my delegation. First, the main challenge ahead is to ensure that the recommendations and guidelines contained in the Secretary-General’s report are implemented consistently, and to ensure that, where the United Nations system deals with peace-making, peacemaking, peacekeeping and peace-building, the gender perspectives are taken fully into account as a matter of course by the Departments centrally involved. My delegation believes that this is of central importance, and we welcome the recommendation in the report for explicitly incorporating gender mandates into all peacekeeping missions and provisions to systematically address this issue in all reports to the Security Council. Secondly, it is essential to ensure that the necessary financial and human resources are made available for gender mainstreaming, including the establishment of gender advisers or units in multidimensional peacekeeping operations and capacity-building activities. Gender advisors should be deployed at the outset of peace operations, including at the planning stages, and should be sufficiently senior to have an influence on the decision-making process. We recognize the progress that has been achieved in East Timor, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sierra Leone because of the presence of full-time gender advisers. Thirdly, my delegation believes that an increase in the number of women participating in the military, civilian and humanitarian components of missions, including at the highest level, would have an important impact on the effectiveness of each mission. We note the Secretary-General’s comments in the report about steps taken to increase the number of female staff in peace operations. We welcome the commitment the Secretary-General has given towards achieving greater gender equality in this area, while acknowledging the point he makes that Member States must also be active in this regard. Fourthly, it is equally important to ensure that gender issues are fully addressed in the transition from peacekeeping to peace-building, so that the promotion of equality and women’s rights is integrated into the peace-building phase, as well as during humanitarian operations and the reconstruction process. My delegation notes with satisfaction the Secretary- General’s recommendation concerning the importance of close consultations with women’s groups and networks. From the Mano River Union to Burundi, we have seen the crucial role that women’s groups play in conflict resolution. As the Secretary-General said earlier, the Security Council, in its missions to the Great Lakes region and elsewhere over the past year, have seen the value of this work first hand. The full involvement of women in negotiation of peace agreements is essential, as is the recognition of the particular needs of women and girls in the design and implementation of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programmes. On a national level, Ireland has been strongly supportive of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000), and we are anxious to see it fully implemented and taken forward. I might add that, from our own experiences of the peace process in Northern Ireland, we are fully aware of the immense contribution made by women’s civil society groups doing what the Secretary-General once referred to as the work of building bridges, not walls. We believe that the issues raised in the Secretary- General’s report are of the greatest importance. Accordingly, we believe that there should be continuous monitoring and evaluation of how different parts of the United Nations family are doing, and what steps could be taken to improve the system to ensure a fully consistent and coherent approach. Considerable progress has been made in the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000). A considerable distance still remains to be travelled. We in the Security Council, across the range of conflict and peacemaking issues, have no more urgent task.

Thank you, Mr. President, for having convened this important meeting, which is not just an opportunity of noting the second anniversary of resolution 1325 (2000), a historic resolution, but also a moment for us to discuss the Secretary-General’s report on women, peace and security. I would like to add my voice to those who thanked the Secretary-General for having introduced this important report. Personally, we would commend him on the preparation of this report, which is very detailed and comprehensive. I would also pay tribute to Ms. Angela King, Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Gender Issues and on the Advancement of Women, and all her team, in the preparation of the report, and also to Ms. Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). The presidency of the European Union, through the representative of Denmark, will shortly be making a detailed statement, and Bulgaria, an associate country of the European Union, associates itself with that statement. The report of the Secretary-General on women, peace and security, and the study on which it is based, is unique in the sense that it gives a systematic account of gender-specific activities in the context of peace and security. It highlights the fact that women and girls are disproportionately vulnerable in an armed conflict and represent the majority of the victims, as well as the majority of refugees and forceably displaced persons. They are vulnerable to all kinds of harassment, sexual violence in particular. At the same time, women have to undergo discrimination in violation of their fundamental rights. Given the magnitude of the impact of conflict on women and girls, the international community must address this question urgently. The report gives a thorough account of the difficulties that have to be faced in order to ensure gender equality in matters of peace and security. The report gives specific recommendations for actions to take to promote a programme focused on gender-specific approaches. Implementation of these recommendations is essential in order to achieve progress in this area. My delegation fully endorses the conclusions and recommendations set forth in the report. Bulgaria is aware of the special value of resolution 1325 (2000) and its special role in focusing attention on the substantial contribution that women can make in conflict settlement and in the maintenance and building of peace. This resolution is a model for the integration of appropriate steps, reflecting the consent of the international community to promote equality between the sexes in the area of peace and security. This is why it would be desirable for the Security Council to fully follow up resolution 1325 (2000) and its implementation, which so far has a long way to go. There has been some progress in the implementation of this resolution in specific measures in the peacekeeping area, in particular in Timor-Leste, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, we must acknowledge that the progress made in this area is mostly due to the presence of advisers on gender issues and the role of women. The Secretary-General has announced his firm intention to apply a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to the involvement of “blue helmets” in acts of sexual exploitation or other acts directed against women and girls. Bulgaria welcomes this initiative. However, the record of this resolution is not entirely satisfactory. Women and children are still the majority of civilian victims in armed conflict. The problem of eliminating all kinds of violence inflicted on women, combating the trafficking of women and children, the establishment of parity between women and men in disarmament, demobilization and reintegration activities, the return of refugees and displaced persons, as well as the involvement of women in the administration and in constitutional and electoral reform, are objectives that require effective action. We should also note that the knowledge acquired and experience gained in this field have not been built into the policies in the planning and execution processes of all peacekeeping operations in terms of humanitarian activities and reconstruction activities. The meetings organized with the representatives of non-governmental organizations according to the Arria formula have also contributed to the Council’s debates on peace processes. I take this opportunity to thank the delegation of Singapore, in particular Minister Christine Lee, for having organized the most recent debate according to the Arria formula. Those discussions have confirmed the necessity of increasing women’s multifaceted participation in peacekeeping operations, particularly at the highest level. The gender-specific approach should be incorporated into all mandates and peace plans in order to enhance their possibilities for success. We need to adopt appropriate mechanisms to ensure systematically that women participate in all stages of peace negotiations, particularly in planning, in decision- making and in the effective implementation of decisions at all levels. We look forward to the adoption and the upcoming publication by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations of multidimensional manuals on peacekeeping operations, which should include a specific chapter on gender parity, on the specific conduct of certain aspects of peacekeeping operations designed to promote gender parity, and on the follow- up and evolution of results. I am convinced that the work of this meeting will give additional impetus to the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000) and that the ideas formulated during this debate on the report of the Secretary- General will enable us to make future progress. I cannot conclude my statement without emphasizing the extremely important role of non- governmental organizations in the intellectual and political debate focused on the role of women in the area of peace and security. I should like to thank the Secretariat for cooperating with them in order to promote that noble cause.

The Security Council’s adoption of resolution 1325 (2000) on 31 October 2000 once again reaffirmed the great importance of the whole range of issues related to the contribution that women can make to the maintenance and strengthening of international peace and security, to the situation of women in times of conflict and to their participation in peacemaking and post-conflict settlements. One result of focusing so clearly on those issues was the report of the Secretary-General on women, peace and security (S/2002/1154). The report is comprehensive in scope and is thorough and analytical in content. Its practical import is reflected in the various tasks and recommendations it contains on how to achieve equality between men and women, in particular improving the protection of women and girls in times of armed conflict and integrating gender issues into the various aspects of peacekeeping operations. In order to look at what the United Nations could do in that area, we must look at the recommendations on allocating the necessary resources — including financial resources — for dealing with gender issues within the framework of peacekeeping mandates. We support the proposal to establish a senior gender adviser post within the framework of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. That will help to improve coordination with regard to such matters in United Nations peacekeeping activities. In addition, I should like to draw members’ attention to the several recommendations contained in Section III of the report, on the international legal framework for taking the gender factor into account in future ad hoc tribunals. We believe that the establishment of the International Criminal Court will obviate the need for future emergency tribunals. That is clearly confirmed in the Council’s approach of winding down the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in the near future. The gender factor is already duly taken into account in the work of the International Criminal Court. We must not forget that the measures taken through the United Nations are inadequate in themselves. We must also take into account the special needs of women and children in conflict situations, and that must happen not only in words, but in fact. Women must participate in all stages of conflict prevention and settlement and in post-conflict peace-building. A real contribution to resolving all those problems can be made by civil society, including non- governmental organizations, many of which have considerable experience in the entire spectrum of gender issues. No one would dispute that it is the particularly vulnerable sectors of the population — women, children, the elderly, the disabled, refugees, displaced persons — who suffer most during crisis situations and conflicts. But women and girls themselves can also be combatants and can take an active part in hostilities, and that is why excluding women from negotiations on a peace settlement or on establishing a post-conflict power structure is rather like a delayed-action mine: their exclusion could trigger new crisis situations. In conclusion, I should like to thank the Secretary-General and everyone else who participated in preparing the report. In addition, I should like to reaffirm our belief that women can play an important part in conflict prevention and settlement and in peace- building. To achieve that goal, we must try to ensure that they can participate equally and fully in measures aimed at the maintenance and strengthening of international peace and security by, inter alia, strengthening their role in decision-making with respect to conflict prevention and settlement.

I thank the Secretary-General for his presence at the opening of this meeting, but also, and above all, for his commitment to this great undertaking. Just one set of figures enables us to measure the scope of today’s debate. During the First World War, 80 per cent of those who died in combat were men — more specifically, soldiers and officers. In the conflicts ravaging the world today, 80 per cent of victims are civilians — more specifically, women and children. That is just to give us some idea of the importance of taking measures to remedy what is truly a scourge of our time. France fully associates itself with the statement to be made shortly by the Danish presidency of the European Union. In a few days — on 31 October, to be exact — the Council will adopt, at the initiative of the Council President, a statement recalling that the Council remains, more than ever, seized of the follow-up and implementation of the provisions contained in resolution 1325 (2000), adopted two years ago, concerning women, peace and security. In that presidential statement, the Council will focus on the specific areas that require its attention and action. We consider today’s debate appropriate for considering and defining together the guidelines for our action in the coming months. The attention that the Security Council gives to the protection of civilians in armed conflict stems wholly from its mandate in the area of peace and security. Of course, like the issue of the protection of children in armed conflict, the subject of women in armed conflict must be taken up in a spirit of cooperation among all the various bodies of the United Nations, as well as in a spirit of imagination, synthesis and consensus. Resolution 1325 (2000) sets forth three basic principles. The first is that women are not simply victims of armed conflict; they are, and must be, full- fledged actors in the process of resolving conflicts and rebuilding after them. Secondly, women are involved in the decisions and recommendations of the various competent bodies of the United Nations. There must, therefore, be more women in decision-making positions. Lastly, strategies aimed at conflict- prevention and strengthening peace must integrate the gender perspective in order to take into account the needs of women and to enable them to participate fully in decision-making at every level. Mr. Kofi Annan has invited us to take stock of the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000) two years after its adoption. Let us say right away that, as he forcefully pointed out in his report, much remains to be done. I would like to thank the Secretary-General for the 21 concrete and constructive actions he has suggested. In that regard, I would like to emphasize two points. First, when we look at conflicts we often observe that women’s roles are still viewed, too often, as essentially passive ones. We must instead emphasize participation by women at every turn. Participation was a key word in the Beijing Platform for Action. In a word, participation means that women should be able to act everywhere and under all circumstances. Women are the ones in the best position to define their priorities on the basis of their respective situations. Much progress has to be made in ensuring cooperation between the United Nations and actors on the ground. The Council should promote that cooperation by encouraging regular contacts between United Nations organs, on the one hand, and women’s organizations and networks in the field, on the other. That request is constantly made of us in fairly strong terms, as we were reminded by the non-governmental organizations in attendance at the Council meeting held last week under the Arria formula on the initiative of Ms. Christine Lee, who is here with us and whom I would like to thank. In that vein, allow me to cite two concrete examples. In Afghanistan the United Nations encouraged parties to the Bonn Agreement to include women in their delegations. That was real progress. We must move ahead in the same direction without letup. My second example is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. During the inter-Congolese dialogue held in Sun City, South Africa, a few months ago, every delegation included a significant number of representatives from women’s organizations. Again, that trend must be continued and strengthened. Peace cannot be built without the full and determinant involvement of women. Rebuilding societies emerging from armed conflicts and establishing new democratic forms of Government must be based on the active participation of women in political as well as, more broadly, public life. In that regard, I would like to suggest a few specific actions. First of all, specific measures must be implemented to include girl soldiers in disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programmes. The report of the Secretary-General correctly notes that girl soldiers do not currently benefit from DDR programmes. This is something of concern to me personally, as last year I organized a meeting that included girl soldiers. I was truly struck by what amounts to the virtual martyrdom of girl soldiers. I believe this is something we must follow very closely. Secondly, I believe that information about women and girls in armed conflict should be made available to the Council whenever we take up conflict situations such as the one in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or any other conflict of concern, and not just when we hold thematic debates such as today’s. I should now like to turn to the role of the United Nations itself. The United Nations must serve as an example. Having women participate in processes to re- establish peace must also mean systematically having women participate in every aspect of the Council’s peacekeeping operations. In that regard, I would like to pay tribute to the commitment of Under-Secretary- General Jean-Marie Guéhenno, who at every possible occasion has been promoting the establishment of gender-adviser posts in many United Nations missions. In that regard, I have a concrete proposal to make: why not therefore establish a gender adviser within the Department of Peacekeeping Operations? Doing so would make it possible systematically to include the gender dimension in every one of the 15 peacekeeping missions currently deployed. It would also make it possible to provide better training for the personnel being sent into the field, as well as to define operating standards and procedures in this area. In that connection, I would also like to mention an example of something that we in France welcomed. The Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees has prepared a code of conduct to combat any possible sexual abuse in refugee camps. That code should serve as a basis for similar commitments required of all personnel serving in peacekeeping operations. France hopes that today’s debate will be an opportunity for the Council to continue to think about how best to develop its strategies and recommendations when it considers how best to avoid the impact of armed conflict on women and how to strengthen women’s role in the rebuilding and strengthening of peace. It is also the hope of France that the provisions of resolution 1325 (2000) will in fact be implemented in every mission established by the Council.

Let me begin by expressing my appreciation to the delegation of Cameroon for convening this open meeting and to the Secretary-General for personally introducing his report. Likewise, I wish to thank the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women for preparing the report and the United Nations Development Fund for Women for preparing the independent experts’ assessment. We are confident that the study and discussion of those documents will effectively contribute to improving the situation of women in the context of armed conflict and the promotion of a wider understanding of the need for their equal participation in all spheres of society. Colombia attaches great importance to the protection of women and the role they can and must play in conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peace- building activities. That is why we firmly supported resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security and have been participating in the group of friends with a view to its implementation and dissemination. The international community has recognized that peace is inextricably linked to equality of opportunity between women and men. However, despite the efforts made to implement the commitments contained in resolution 1325 (2000), it is clear that much more remains to be done. To that end, the 136 recommendations included in the two reports constitute a valuable contribution to what should be a global strategy towards our common goal of gender equality in relation to peace and security. Colombia believes that the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000) must be a process guided by goals to be met in the short, medium and long terms. We believe that, after a careful analysis of these recommendations, the next step should be to prepare a plan that prioritizes actions, establishes time frames and assigns responsibilities for implementing agreements. The members of the Council will reflect the views expressed in this debate and their first reaction to some of the recommendations in a presidential statement to be adopted on 31 October, the second anniversary of the adoption of resolution 1325 (2000). Moreover, Colombia believes it highly important that the efforts of the Council in this respect go hand in hand with the work being done by the General Assembly to implement and follow up on the commitments contained in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Outcome Document adopted at the special session on gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century, held in 2000. My delegation would now like to react to some of the issues contained in the reports. In the first place, we recognize the need to facilitate the active involvement of women in peace processes and in the larger context of decision-making in order to ensure that their needs are adequately covered in the social and political arrangements resulting from peace negotiations. We believe that the Council can play an important role in this regard by promoting the inclusion of clauses favouring their participation in peace agreements. We share the views of the Secretary-General emphasizing the important role of women's organizations and we welcome his intention to establish a database of gender specialists and women's groups and networks in countries and regions in conflict. The meetings with these groups held by members of the Council in their missions to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kosovo and Sierra Leone, as well as those held under the Arria formula, have contributed positive elements to the Council’s debates on peace processes. Secondly, I would like to refer to peacekeeping operations in order to reiterate the importance of integrating gender perspectives into the mandates of all missions, standard procedures, manuals and other guidance materials, as well as in the provision of gender-sensitive staff training. Colombia notes with appreciation the efforts made so far by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. We believe it necessary to ensure that such efforts be undertaken systematically through the creation of focal points with qualified personal, both within the Department and in the field. To that end, we highly value the experience of including gender advisers in several peacekeeping missions, such as those in Timor-Leste, Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sierra Leone. Likewise, Colombia strongly supports the Secretary-General’s policy of zero tolerance regarding abuses committed by peacekeepers and humanitarian personnel involved in the protection of and assistance to communities affected by armed conflict. Lastly, I wish to underline the importance of working through mechanisms that allow us to overcome the impunity of crimes committed against women and children, especially in the context of armed conflict. My delegation considers the strengthening of national legislation and capacity to penalize and redress all forms of violence against women to be fundamental to any attempt towards reconciliation. We believe that full support for all women and children survivors of such violence is an essential part of societies’ reconstruction process and should be included in aid programmes following conflict. On several occasions, my country has expressed its view that one of the more outstanding aspects of resolution 1325 (2000) is the important role played by civil society organizations, and especially by the many women’s organizations that contributed to the process leading to the adoption and implementation of the resolution and its provisions. My delegation is pleased to see that this has become an ongoing process and wishes to express its readiness to continue to work with the Secretary- General and Member States in the integration of gender equality into activities related to peace and security.

At the outset, I wish to thank the Secretary-General for personally introducing his report. I also wish to thank Ms. Angela King, Ms. Hannan and the relevant agencies of the United Nations for their efforts to advance the full participation of women in the cause of peacekeeping. We thank them for their efforts and for the valuable views they have put forward. The Chinese delegation welcomes and has carefully read the report submitted by the Secretary- General. It is very comprehensive and valuable. We attach great importance to the 21-point action plan drafted by the Secretary-General and are carefully studying them at this point. We also hope to engage in an in-depth exchange of views with all sides on its feasibility. China particularly welcomes the Secretary- General’s goal of attaining a 50-per cent appointment ratio for female special representatives and special envoys by 2015. China is also actively seeking suitable candidates. In any armed conflict, the most grievously harmed victims are women. We must therefore take all necessary measures to protect their rights and interests. We must also recognize that, in preventing conflicts, promoting reconciliation and rebuilding societies, women truly play an extremely important role. We should give full play to their advantages and potential. The international community has also reached a consensus on that and has adopted a series of international instruments to strengthen that. In recent years, the Security Council has deliberated on this matter on several occasions and has incorporated the gender perspective into specific peacekeeping operations’ mandates, such as in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Timor-Leste. When the Security Council sends missions to conflict areas like Sierra Leone and Kosovo for on-site observation, it also listens closely to the views and suggestions of local women’s organizations, which fully reveals the importance the Council attaches to that matter. At the same time, we believe that we can protect women’s rights and interests only through curbing conflicts, promoting development, reducing poverty, eliminating the root causes of strife and through development. Therefore, on one hand, we should give full consideration to a gender perspective in places where conflicts have already taken place, support the Secretary-General’s recommendations on implementing a policy of zero tolerance with respect to peacekeepers, maintain a database on gender specialists and women’s groups and networks in conflict countries and regions, give full play to the role of local women’s organizations, promote their participation in decision- making and pay close attention to the gender dimension in the process of disarmament and reintegration into society. We call on the parties concerned to start taking action to implement those recommendations. On the other hand, we should adopt effective measures to prevent and curb conflicts and, in that context, give full consideration to the gender perspective. To that end, China supports the Secretary- General’s recommendation concerning women’s participation in peace negotiations and in promoting reconciliation. We strongly appeal to the parties to a conflict to abide by international humanitarian law and to respect human rights. The Security Council should make further efforts to effectively prevent and curb conflicts and take all measures to prevent situations in which the achievements of the international community in protecting the rights and interests of women and giving full play to their role unravel because of the outbreak of a war or conflict. The Secretary-General’s report reflects the various aspects of women’s participation in the peace process. Truly meeting the special needs of women and giving full play to their unique role requires the concerted efforts of all sides. The best results can be achieved only when the United Nations agencies emphasize the overall advantages of such a course. In proceeding in its work, the Security Council should fully respect the work being done by the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and relevant agencies.

Thank you, Mr. President, for convening this meeting today. On behalf of my delegation, I wish to thank the Secretary-General for introducing personally the report on the results of the study on the impact of armed conflict on women and girls and on the role of women in peace-building and the gender dimensions of peace processes and conflict resolution. Our delegation found the observations very useful, and we support the recommendations fully. This week we mark the second anniversary of landmark resolution 1325 (2000). Indeed, much has been done to bring into focus the problems faced by millions of women and girls in armed conflicts throughout the world. However, despite increased attention to that issue, the daily lives of women and girls in armed conflict areas have not improved to the extent we would wish them to have. We have yet to see the full implementation of resolution 1325 (2000). We welcome the concrete and practical recommendations in the report before us. We would wish all of them to be implemented as quickly as possible, but, to be practical, perhaps the Council needs to prioritize them in such a way that we could implement those that would show immediate results. The increase in the participation of women in all aspects of peace operations, among international staff and particularly at the highest levels of decision- making, has been identified as a priority and should be implemented immediately. In that regard, the Secretary-General’s intention of setting concrete targets to appoint women as his special representatives and special envoys, with a view to gender parity by 2015, is praiseworthy. We hope that Member States will seize that opportunity and will submit nominations of qualified women for those posts. The Ad Hoc Working Group on Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Africa, which is currently looking into ways of enhancing the role of special representatives of the Secretary-General, has made a recommendation for the appointment of more women at that level. There is a need for more women in peacekeeping missions to act as role models. It is an undeniable fact that the presence of women in missions helps facilitate contact and foster confidence and trust among local women. Concrete examples can be seen in Timor- Leste, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where gender units and gender advisers of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor, the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo have contributed respectively to capacity- building among local women. The recruitment of officers with specific expertise in issues such as gender bias and sexual violence by the Civilian Police Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations is another positive step to be encouraged. Additionally, training of personnel of peacekeeping missions to develop awareness, commitment and capacity on the relevant gender perspectives needs reinforcement. We remain concerned at the limited availability of human and financial resources, both at Headquarters and in field missions, to effectively promote gender mainstreaming. We hope that necessary resources will soon be released to enable the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to fulfil its gender mainstreaming responsibilities in line with resolution 1325 (2000). We urge those responsible to take concrete action in that regard. In almost all States that have had armed conflict, women have been denied justice. Crimes against them have gone unrecorded. In many cases, increased violence against women has continued in post-conflict periods, be it at home, on the street or in camps. Those who have survived sexual violence do not talk about it because of fear of rejection by their family or community. They have often been humiliated, mocked and laughed at during their testimony in courts. They have nowhere to turn and are left struggling to recover and return to meaningful community life. We would like to draw attention here to the positive and important role played by non-governmental organizations by increasing awareness and helping to alleviate the miseries of women in such situations. With very few exceptions, those who have committed heinous crimes against women in wars have not been punished, nor have the women been granted redress. We need to put an end to this culture of impunity. My delegation strongly supports the recommendation of the Secretary-General to condemn all violations of the human rights of women and girls in situations of armed conflict and to ensure that amnesty provisions included in peace agreements exclude impunity from all war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, including gender-based crimes. Additionally, judicial and quasi-judicial mechanisms set up by the Council need to apply international legal standards in gender-sensitive matters. It is reported that the two ad hoc tribunals — the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) — have both been hampered by serious lapses and inconsistencies in the prosecution of crimes of sexual and gender violence. In a few cases, women have had to withdraw their complaints because the Tribunals failed to provide adequate support and protection, as required by the rules of the Tribunal. There is therefore an urgent need to ensure that the interests of all victims are properly protected. Central to any transition process is the need to take account of the different needs of women and men at all stages of the rebuilding of societies and of the importance of concrete mechanisms to ensure that all men and women enjoy freedom and participate equally in rehabilitation and reconstruction. There is a need for the implementation of quick- impact projects for women in countries emerging from conflicts that will ensure their early rehabilitation in cases where they have been subjected to severe abuse. Systematic attention should also be given to the incorporation of gender perspectives in economic reconstruction programmes and to the involvement of women in decision-making. They should also benefit directly from resources mobilized through multilateral and bilateral donors. Finally, words alone are not the solution to the problems of millions of women and girls in situations of armed conflict. The Council needs to be updated regularly on the progress made on the recommendations of the Secretary-General to alleviate the sufferings of these women and girls and to eliminate all discrimination against them.

Mr. President, on behalf of my delegation, I should like to thank you for convening this public debate, which deals with an extremely important and topical issue: women and peace and security. I should like also to pay tribute to the Secretary-General and to thank him for his excellent report and for his statement. The various conferences on women — in Mexico in 1975, in Nairobi in 1985, in Beijing in 1995 — and the Windhoek Declaration and Plan of Action of 2000 provided the basis for our resolution 1325 (2000). That resolution deals with the impact of armed conflict on women and girls, their role in conflict prevention and resolution, and their contribution to peace-building. The resolution calls on the various players to shoulder their responsibilities for implementing the recommendations relating to gender issues in general and to the situation of women in armed conflict in particular. Recently, in this very Chamber, as a prelude to this meeting, we held a public debate on follow-up to resolution 1325 (2000). At that meeting, Ms. Heyzer ended her statement by telling us of a message from a 13-year-old girl who had been kidnapped in northern Uganda by the Lord’s Resistance Army. She said: “I want to go to school. I want to rebuild my life. How can you help me?” (S/PV.4589, p. 8) At our meeting today, we must be able to find an answer to that question. That is why my delegation is pleased that the report takes account of such important factors as socio-cultural considerations; protecting women and girls from armed conflict; their participation in peace processes, including in disarmament, demobilization and reintegration; and gender equality. This is an indication of the importance that the international community attaches to the suffering of women and girls in armed conflict and of its resolve to end that suffering. We endorse the recommendations in the report, and we would like also to emphasize that the new intra- State nature of conflicts has given rise, inter alia, to problems relating to the proliferation of small arms and light weapons and to the failure to respect international humanitarian law and human rights. In this context, my delegation believes that the following aspects must be thoroughly studied: prevention, education, health, coordination and cooperation, women and girl soldiers, and socio- economic considerations. It is our hope that the forthcoming meeting on women and small arms and the conference to be held in Chile in November on women in peacekeeping operations will provide useful outcomes. We welcome the coordination within the United Nations system as part of the follow-up to resolution 1325 (2000), and we believe that there should also be coordination between the organizations concerned and the various actors. My country is ready to make its contribution on the basis of the experience we have acquired on the ground through the Guinean branch of the Network of African Women Ministers and Parliamentarians (REFAMP), supported by the Mano River Union Women’s Network. We also encourage the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Special Adviser on Gender Issues in their efforts to prepare a guide on the multidimensional aspects of peacekeeping operations. We hope that the guide, once completed, will be made available to Member States. I should like to point out also that the end of war does not mean the restoration of peace. Once peace has been restored, it must be strengthened if it is to be lasting. That means that adequate financial resources have to be made available and decisive action taken by the international community. In this connection, we welcome the fact that last year the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) earmarked $14 million for the question of women and peace and security. Lastly, I think that we can draw inspiration from the ideas voiced here so that we can work more effectively to find a solution to the ills that afflict women, who are our daughters — including that young Ugandan girl — our sisters, our wives, our mothers and our grandmothers. Sir Jeremy Greenstock (United Kingdom): The representative of Denmark will speak later on behalf of the European Union, and my delegation endorses what she will say. I would just like to make a few additional observations in my national capacity. I would like to begin by thanking the Secretary- General for his excellent report on the follow-up to resolution 1325 (2000), which we passed almost exactly two years ago, and also for his pointed introduction to this debate. The report sets out the problems very well and is very clear in its recommendations. We can support them all. I also express warm appreciation for the excellent work of the Secretariat in this area, and I share the praise bestowed by previous speakers on the efforts of Angela King and Carolyn Hannan in particular. The Secretary-General’s report is concise and well focused and correctly emphasizes what needs to be done to implement the provisions of resolution 1325 (2000) and to ultimately ensure that all stages of conflict management are more effective. Before I turn to it in detail, I should like to make a couple of general points. First, it is important to remember that women are not solely victims of war. They also make tremendous contributions to conflict resolution, conflict management and peace-building. They can of course be combatants themselves. While the Secretary-General’s report is right to place emphasis on women in need of protection during conflict, we should also see them as potential participants, particularly in peace processes. For example, in our own national experience, women’s groups in Northern Ireland play an ongoing important role in the peace process. Secondly, following on from that, non- governmental organizations in civil society are important players in promoting peace and reconstruction and in protecting women’s rights. We are pleased to see that the Secretary-General’s report emphasizes regular grass-roots contacts. Such contacts need to be flexible; in some circumstances women in areas of armed conflict are not organized in any formal or identifiable way. The report draws out many important points, and I would like to provide five examples. We strongly support the recognition that promoting gender equality is not just women’s responsibility. We agree that reconstruction efforts have to be based on human rights principles and non-discrimination. We support an increase in the number of programmes to meet the needs of child soldiers, specifically girl soldiers. And we support the objective of a 50-50 gender balance in all areas of peace operations by 2015. We believe that the creation of a database of gender specialists would be a helpful development. Our focus in the Council, however, as most of us have said, needs now to be on the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000), to which the Secretary- General’s report is a very useful contribution. The Council’s work is of course part of a wider strategy. Gender mainstreaming has an essential part to play in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Conflict management — and that is the context of our debate today — is crucial to the implementation of those Goals. Let us look at the facts. In conflict areas, women make an important but often unrecognized contribution as peace educators, both in their households and in the wider community. Refugee and displaced women often display remarkable endurance and resourcefulness and can contribute positively to post-conflict reconstruction and peacekeeping operations. They need to be involved more fully in decisions that effect them and their community. They perform generally better than men in the control and management of economic resources — for example, credit schemes — and of natural resources, such as land and water. This is fundamental to the success of a society in the post-conflict phase. The United Nations system needs to move quickly to enable women to contribute effectively to the reconstruction or rehabilitation process. The monitoring of human rights should be included in the mandates of peacekeeping operations, few of which make any specific reference to women and girls. Personnel in peacekeeping operations should be trained on the gender perspective before deployment — an aspect on which the United Kingdom is working with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Respect for women, and an absence of impunity for those who do not show such respect, must be ubiquitous, both inside and outside the United Nations system. One element that is not brought out in the report is the need to place United Nations work on women, peace and security within the broader humanitarian framework. The Security Council has in the past delivered key messages on the protection of civilians in armed conflict and on children affected by armed conflict. It is essential to construct working links between all of those areas. We would like to see the United Nations system operating in cross-cutting ways that integrate this work into programmes on the ground. We will return to these same themes next month when the Council discusses the Secretary- General’s report on the protection of civilians. I would like to make one last point. It is essential for gender mainstreaming within the United Nations system to be taken up by the operators and agencies concerned, drawing on the support of the expert gender bodies. Progress on gender will not be made unless all parts of the United Nations system assume responsibility for leading in their own areas on matters relating to gender. Work has already begun on a presidential statement to follow up the Secretary-General’s report. This must take gender mainstreaming forward, and not content itself with recycling analysis, however good such analysis may be. The Council has to implement resolution 1325 (2000) and the Secretary-General’s recommendations in its regular work, until we know that a gender perspective is properly integrated into all of our relevant work. For that purpose, and to introduce a touch of accountability into our procedures, I wonder whether, each year as we apportion jobs among members of the Council, we should not ask one delegation to oversee the implementation of our agreed decisions on gender mainstreaming, working with the appropriate parts of the Secretariat to achieve it, because whenever women are disadvantaged in conflict, we owe them some results.

Almost two years ago, the Security Council passed the landmark resolution 1325 (2000) unanimously. I would like to thank you, Mr. President, for having convened this open meeting for us to review what we have done to implement resolution 1325 (2000). I would also like to thank the Secretary-General for being present earlier today to introduce his report. The report which we have before us is an excellent and very comprehensive one, with many recommendations that we can support. For example, we support the Secretary-General’s proposals for gender advisers and gender units in peacekeeping operations, and for women to be included in the negotiation of peace agreements. Our appreciation goes also to Ms. Carolyn Hannan, of the Division for the Advancement of Women, and to Ms. Noeleen Heyzer, of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), for their efforts on this issue. At an earlier meeting on conflict, peacekeeping and gender in July this year, we said that we were ignoring an invisible elephant of scepticism among Member States by our failure to incorporate a gender perspective into peace and security issues. We also said that we needed to show that what we were doing was not an abstract exercise, but one which would have an impact on real lives. In this regard, instead of reiterating the points made by many of our colleagues with regard to the Secretary-General’s recommendations, we thought that it might be useful to mention how Singapore has been trying to play its part on this issue, including through the Arria-formula meeting on women, peace and security that we chaired last Wednesday, 23 October. Since there is no formal mechanism whereby the information shared at the Arria-formula meeting can be transmitted to the Council, we feel that we need to share some of what was said at the meeting, so that the public record of this debate will be a testimony of what was transmitted to us. We hope that, by putting on record what was said, these accounts will be remembered when the topic of women, peace and security is raised again. At that meeting, we heard poignant and passionate statements from women who had been personally affected by the conflict. For example, we heard a direct account of how women had been affected by the conflict in Burundi and how they had played a part in the Arusha Peace Accords. We also heard about the Lord’s Resistance Army attacks on camps for refugees and internally displaced persons in northern Uganda and the sexual and gender-based violence that was often inflicted during such attacks. Fortunately, one point which emerged from the Arria-formula meeting is that the Security Council is clearly fully committed to implementing resolution 1325 (2000). But we are barraged by recommendations from all sides — some presented by the Secretary- General through his report, some by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in its soon- to-be-released independent assessment and, lastly, some by non-governmental organizations through their materials. A cursory glance at the documents will show that many of the recommendations are similar and can be amalgamated and clustered. At the Arria-formula meeting, some members therefore felt that there was a need to prioritize. The Security Council needs the help of relevant agencies to reorganize and integrate the recommendations. But more important, the relevant agencies need to prioritize what needs to be done first. We simply cannot do everything at once. For example, at the Arria-formula meeting, a representative from the non-governmental organization (NGO) Working Group on Women, Peace and Security felt that the key priority was for a gender unit to be set up at Headquarters and for all peacekeeping operations to have a gender adviser. This is all well and good, but merely saying it will not make it so. The NGO Working Group, UNIFEM, the Department for the Advancement of Women and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) will need to sit down and work out the possible terms of reference for the gender unit and the advisers. One of the UNIFEM experts, Ms. Elisabeth Rehn, also reminded us that we will have to bear in mind that the gender adviser should be of sufficiently high rank to have direct access to the Special Representatives of the Secretary-General. And of course, we will need to find the funding to ensure that adequate resources are provided for those offices. Unless we can decide what our first step should be and map out clearly the route to take toward fully implementing resolution 1325 (2000), we are likely to go around in circles. What is urgently needed, as our Colombian colleague mentioned at the Arria-formula meeting — and as Ambassador Valdivieso reminded us again today — is a timeline or a programme of action for the effective implementation of resolution 1325 (2000). In that regard, Singapore would be happy to work with Cameroon and our other colleagues on the planned presidential statement to provide for concrete initial steps that could be taken.

Norway aligns itself with the statement to be given by Austria on behalf of the Human Security Network later in this debate. Allow me, however, at this stage to make the following remarks in my national capacity. Resolution 1325 (2000), which was adopted two years ago, has put the gender issue on the agenda of the Council in a new way. It has provided us with an instrument to ensure the full and equal participation of women at all levels of decision-making and of the implementation of peace processes, including conflict prevention and resolution and post-conflict reconstruction. Moreover, the resolution has contributed significantly to ensuring that gender issues are systematically taken into account when conflict and peace efforts are being considered by the United Nations system as a whole. There is, however, still a long way to go before the strategy of gender mainstreaming can be said to be fully reflected in these activities. We welcome the recent report of the Secretary- General (S/2002/1154), in which he highlights the findings of the groundbreaking study by his Special Adviser on Gender Issues. The study convincingly demonstrates that the linkages between gender equality and peace are pervasive and powerful. Its main conclusion is that sustainable peace and lasting security cannot be achieved without women’s empowerment and full involvement. The progress we have made so far on gender issues related to peace and security makes it abundantly clear how much we will gain by further intensifying our efforts. Our point of departure is that women have a pivotal role to play in the prevention and peaceful resolution of conflicts and in post-conflict peace-building. Yet women are systematically kept at a distance from the very processes that stand to gain from their participation. Our main concern is how to ensure that women do indeed exercise their right to participate in shaping and securing the peaceful development of the communities in which they live. Our goal is that gender issues take their rightful place in Council affairs and thereby become part and parcel of our efforts to promote international peace and security. Our task is to give new impetus to the important work being done to mainstream a gender perspective in peace operations. Women are a resource that should be included at all levels of peace planning and peacemaking. We must ensure that gender-specific aspects of peace operations are reflected in reports to the Security Council. All too often, reports submitted to the Council do not include a gender perspective. Moreover, in peace operations the Council must ensure that international humanitarian and human rights law is fully implemented. That would ensure the protection of the rights of women and girls during and after conflicts. The low level of participation of women in leading positions in United Nations peacekeeping operations should be addressed. Efforts should be made to identify and to promote women candidates both in peace missions and as special representatives of the Secretary-General. The establishment of a gender focal point in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations has been debated in the General Assembly’s Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee) and in the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations on numerous occasions. We are hopeful that the proposal will finally be approved by the Assembly’s Fifth Committee at the end of this year. Finally, peacekeeping personnel need to be trained in the fields of protection, human rights and the special needs of women and children in conflict situations. In line with this, Norway has argued for a strategy of zero tolerance in relation to sexual exploitation of women by peacekeeping personnel. The Security Council is the primary global body for promoting international peace and security. As such, we would like to see it become more involved in bringing together peace and security, on the one hand, and development cooperation, humanitarian assistance and the promotion of human rights, on the other. Gender issues have a bearing on both peace and development, and women are an asset in the promotion of both. By focusing on women and peace in a broader contextual framework, the Council could assume an even more efficient role in addressing the interlinked scourges of war, poverty and suffering around the world. We have every reason to give women a greater role in decision-making in connection with conflict prevention and resolution. Not only do women have a legitimate role to play in peace processes, but, in our experience, their full participation makes a significant contribution to the general maintenance and promotion of peace. That is one reason why Norway argued strongly in favour of active participation by women in the peace talks on Afghanistan. Norway stands fully behind the recommendations of the Secretary-General’s report on women, peace and security. We note with particular satisfaction that the focus is more and more explicitly being put on women as active players in promoting peace and security, rather than merely as victims of conflict. It is imperative that the Security Council actively follow up the actions proposed by the Secretary- General in response to resolution 1325 (2000). In this regard we are pleased to note that the proposed actions include practical and detailed mechanisms to ensure accountability for gender mainstreaming.

I will now make a statement in my capacity as the representative of Cameroon. I wish to first thank the Secretary-General, who came this afternoon to personally introduce his report on the impact of armed conflict on women and girls, as well as on the role of women in peace-building. In doing this, he confirmed, if that were necessary, his firm commitment and determination to help eradicate the causes of conflicts and their consequences for the most vulnerable civilian populations, particularly women and children. I also wish to pay a well deserved tribute to Ms. Angela King, Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, and to Ms. Noeleen Heyzer, Director of UNIFEM, for their major contribution to the preparation of this instructive and thorough report. In addition, I would like to pay tribute to Ms. Carolyn Hannan, who is present with us at this discussion. The Beijing Declaration and Plan of Action quite correctly underscored that the consequences of armed conflicts and other conflicts were among the major concerns for women in today’s world. The Security Council reaffirmed the role of women in the peace processes at the celebration of International Women’s Day on 8 March 2000. It was along these lines that for the first time it devoted its work to the consideration of the question of women, peace and security. In doing so, it clearly highlighted the specific situation of women and girls in the context of the protection of civilians in armed conflicts. On 31 October 2000, the Council unanimously adopted resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security. The goal of that resolution was, and remains, to ensure that women and girls in conflict situations are protected and that those committing acts of violence against them in conflict situations are prosecuted, and that women may, on equal footing, occupy their proper place when it comes to taking decisions on questions of peace and security. The Government of Cameroon fully endorses this important objective, which is fully in line with the efforts it has made on the national level to provide protection for women and girls in situations of armed conflict. I note here that this dynamic programme for the advancement of women in a broad range of activities associated with peace and security is backed by a collection of normative texts. Cameroon has acceded to the four 1949 Geneva Conventions, which deal with the protection of victims of war and of women and girls in situations of armed conflict, and to most instruments relating to human rights. It is also a signatory of the statute that created the International Criminal Court and is preparing to ratify it. We are therefore genuinely pleased to welcome the report of the Secretary-General in document S/2002/1154. The recommendations therein take stock of the strategies to be implemented to promote partnership between women and men in order to enhance the effectiveness of the multidimensional peacekeeping operations. Cameroon and the Central African region have played an active part in the preparation of the proposals in this report. On the initiative of UNIFEM, and in conjunction with the United Nations Standing Advisory Committee on Security Questions in Central Africa, a regional consultation on the topic “Parity and Development: participation of women in Central Africa” was held in Douala from 22 to 30 May 2002. It provided an opportunity for regional actors, women and civil society in particular, to make forceful suggestion about ways and means of promoting implementation of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000). The work done at Douala resulted in the adoption of a regional plan of action for which follow-up will be provided by a group comprised of representatives of Governments and civil society. That plan of action identifies a set of problems that underlie conflicts in the region and their consequences for women, consequences associated with, among other things, their marginalization, the unlawful circulation of weapons, and failure to comply with relevant national and international legal instruments. The Douala plan of action advocates a number of measures that if implemented would significantly improve the situation of women vis-à-vis peace and security. It proposes, among other things, that consciousness-raising campaigns be organized to combat impunity; that the networks of Central African women be reactivated in order to engage in activities to promote peace in the countries of the sub-region; that a study be carried out on traditional conflict management practices; that the weapons-for-development programme be implemented; that a dialogue be organized with men in uniform and militia personnel; and that peaceful demonstrations be organized in favour of peace and security. Before I conclude, I wish to commend the Arria- formula meeting of 23 October 2002 on the question of women, peace and security, which made it possible to hear some particularly moving testimony concerning the situation actually experienced in the field by some of the participants. That meeting was also an opportunity for us to engage in a profound process of thinking along with civil society about ways of enhancing the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000). The role played by women in conflict prevention, in encouraging reconciliation and helping to rebuild what, alas, is destroyed by conflicts has been very clearly described. The Arria-formula meeting, skillfully chaired by Minister Lee, produced a number of recommendations relating, among other things, to the incorporation of gender specific measures in the mandates of peacekeeping missions, and the real participation of women in peace negotiations. All of these measures converged to a great extent with those presented in the report of the Secretary-General which my delegation supports unreservedly. I am convinced that were these measures to be implemented, they would lead to genuine advancement for women and greater appreciation of their role, and thus, to their full and complete involvement in the promotion of peace and security. I now resume my functions as President of the Council. I give the floor to His Excellency Mr. Ivan Šimonović, President of the Economic and Social Council. Mr. Šimonović: Let me first congratulate you, Sir, for organizing this debate and thank you for inviting me to participate. Those of us who have lived it know the terrible impact of war. While women and girls endure the same trauma as the rest of the population, they are also targets of specific forms of violence and abuse including sexual violence and exploitation. Moreover, their needs and their potential for contributions have generally tended to be at the margins of efforts to prevent armed conflict or to restore peace and rebuild economies and societies. The considerations of the Security Council on the subject of women, peace and security two years ago resulted in Security Council resolution 1325 (2000), a landmark in the recognition of the importance of women’s full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance of peace and security. The need to increase women’s role in conflict management, peacekeeping and post-conflict peace-building was also clearly recognized. The study, report and recommendations of the Secretary-General called for in resolution 1325, and now before the Security Council, constitute a very important step forward, with significant analysis and proposals for action. While resolution 1325 addressed the vital matter of economic, social and human rights concerns from the perspective of the Security Council, the present report on women, peace and security addresses those issues in a holistic manner offering a much broader perspective. We in the Economic and Social Council have also been eagerly waiting to see the report of the study that will, in my opinion, require action from Member States, the United Nations system and civil society. I would like to commend the participatory process of the preparation of the Secretary-General’s study on women, peace and security and its able coordination by Ms. Angela King, the Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women. I would also like to thank Ms. Carolyn Hannan for her important contribution. It is my understanding that the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)’s study on the same issues (embargoed until 31 October 2002) envisaged by its Executive Director, Ms. Noeleen Heyzer, and prepared by independent experts, will provide additional complementary information and recommendations for action. This past July, the Economic and Social Council adopted resolution 2002/23, on mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes in the United Nations system. The Council called for action at all levels by Member States and all other actors of the United Nations system, and decided to intensify its efforts to ensure that gender mainstreaming is an integral part of all activities in its work and that of its subsidiary bodies. This builds upon agreed conclusions adopted by the Economic and Social Council in 1997, and it is a clear outcome of the decision to establish a regular sub-item on the subject in the work of the Economic and Social Council. In resolution 2002/23 the Economic and Social Council identified several key elements for progress in gender mainstreaming that resonate well in today’s deliberations. These include, first, identifying gender equality as an essential element for the realization of sustainable development at large, as it is an issue that cuts across areas of policy; secondly, stressing the need to include women in planning, decision-making, and implementation processes at all levels; thirdly, emphasizing the link between human rights and gender equality; fourthly, recognizing that men and women are often affected differently by political, economic, social and environmental factors, and that policies need to address this; and fifthly, calling for sex-differentiated data and indicators as essential elements for accurate analysis. It is true that in recent years the understanding of and commitment to gender equality and gender mainstreaming has increased significantly. However, many persistent constraints remain, including conceptual confusion, inadequate understanding of the linkages in different areas of work, and gaps in capacity to address the necessary issues once identified. The report and recommendations before us today on women, peace and security, make a great contribution by clarifying major findings, challenges and actions that are necessary in this important area. As stated by the Secretary-General, “Sustainable peace will not be achieved without the full and equal participation of women and men” (S/2002/1154, para. 68). I can assure you that the deliberations today in the Security Council will be of particular concern to the Economic and Social Council as well. Relevant findings on women, peace and security, among others, represent a valuable guideline for the Council’s newly established ad hoc advisory group on Guinea-Bissau. Peace and security, and economic and social affairs, are not just linked. It is important that we realize that they are different sides of the same coin, and that on this coin there is the face of a woman.

The next speaker is the representative of Denmark. I invite her to take a seat at the Council table and to make her statement.

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe associated with the European Union — Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia — and the associated countries Cyprus, Malta and Turkey, as well as the European Free Trade Association country member of the European Economic Area Iceland, align themselves with this statement. We appreciate that this important issue is once again on the agenda of the Security Council and welcome the Report of the Secretary-General on women, peace and security. In the statement to the Security Council on 25 July 2002 I presented the European Union views with regard to conflict, peacekeeping and gender. Based on this, I then provided some practical proposals for consideration in the study on women, peace and security. The report of the Secretary-General in front of us today highlights the major findings of the study and it would therefore be appropriate for me to offer some comments on this report. Allow me first of all to congratulate the Secretary-General and his staff on an excellent report. The 21 action points provide some very practical recommendations that are possible to implement. Once implemented, the action points will ensure important progress towards the full and equal participation of women and men in all stages of conflict resolution, peacekeeping, peace-building and reconstruction processes. The European Union (EU) is a firm supporter of human rights for all, and welcomes and fully agrees with the recommendations of the Secretary-General regarding the human rights of women and girls. Allow me to bring forward four mainly positive points from the report that the European Union believes should be highlighted in today’s meeting, and one less positive point. First, the European Union supports the proposal to fully integrate gender perspectives in the planning, the mandates and all the phases of peace processes. This will require appropriate tools, such as guidelines and training programmes. In that regard, the European Union is happy to note, that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) is developing concrete tools to help mainstream gender perspectives into the daily work of all mission components. With that in mind, the European Union looks forward to receiving the long- awaited handbook on multidimensional peacekeeping operations, with a chapter on gender mainstreaming. Secondly, we would like to reiterate our support for the establishment of gender offices or focal points in all field missions and for their being provided with the necessary support. That support would also mean proper back-stopping in DPKO, with the establishment of a focal point on gender issues, as has been recommended by the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations. We would, therefore, urge the Secretary-General to take the necessary steps to ensure the establishment of this gender capacity in DPKO. Thirdly, we regret the continued lack of gender balance in all aspects of peace operations, but we note with appreciation that the Secretary-General will make an even more determined effort to increase the appointment of women at the Special Representative and Deputy Special Representative levels. The States members of the European Union will continue to provide the Secretary-General with qualified female candidates to serve in such positions. Fourthly and finally, the findings of the report with regard to the inclusion of women, girls and child soldiers in disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programmes are important lessons learned. They need to be considered carefully in all future missions where DDR programmes are to be developed and implemented. In the view of the European Union, there is one less positive point in the report. That is the lack of reference to the Secretary-General’s bulletin on observance by United Nations forces of international humanitarian law (ST/SGB/1999/13). That bulletin includes some valid gender paragraphs, and we believe that all United Nations-mandated military operations should operate in accordance with the bulletin. At the Council’s meeting in July, I provided information on an EU-Latin American conference on women in peace operations. The conference is to take place in Chile in early November and will include key players from Latin American and EU countries. The report of the Secretary-General and the considerations of the Security Council will undoubtedly be the subject of extensive discussions, with a focus on the implementation part of the report. This leads me to my final point. We will all be looking for guidance on the way forward in the report of the Secretary-General and in the recommendations of the Security Council. But the full and equal participation of women in peace processes is the responsibility of many more — that is, the Member States, the United Nations system, non-governmental organizations, civil society and others. The European Union and its member States look forward to doing our part. We hope that the Security Council will carefully consider the recommendations made by the Secretary-General to protect women in crisis situations and to enhance their role in peace processes.

Before I give the floor to the next speaker, I wish to inform Council members that it is my intention to suspend the meeting at 6 p.m. The next speaker on my list is the representative of Liechtenstein. I invite him to take a seat at the Council table and to make his statement.

As a strong supporter of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000), we welcome the study and report (S/2002/1154) on women, peace, and security undertaken pursuant to that resolution. We also look forward to the independent experts’ assessment of the impact of armed conflict on women and of women’s role in peace-building, an important supplement to the Secretary-General’s efforts. We welcome what we perceive as a common thread running throughout the recommendations of the study — that is, the emphasis on the necessity for women actively to participate in all political, judicial, economic, military and other decision-making processes at the local, national and international levels. Effective peacemaking, peacekeeping and peace- building, as well as post-conflict reconstruction and the effective delivery of humanitarian assistance, are impossible without the active participation of women, who are both disproportionally affected by armed conflict and disproportionately uninvolved in decisions related to armed conflict. While it is important to sensitize everyone — men and women alike — to gender issues relating to armed conflict, and while men are also capable of adopting gender-based approaches to peace and security, it remains a fact that decision- making will continue to be paternalistic and, what is more, ineffective if decisions are made on behalf of women instead of with their active involvement. Against that background, we are particularly pleased that the study on women, peace and security calls on the international community to identify women’s informal peace-building initiatives, to provide technical and financial support and to establish mechanisms to channel the outcome of such initiatives into formal peace processes, including Track II negotiations. We believe this constitutes a pragmatic and useful approach to help integrate women’s expertise in the formidable task of creating peace. For several years, Liechtenstein has supported efforts to bring about a change in the dramatic under- representation of women as special representatives and special envoys. We are therefore please that the study before us gives due attention to this matter, which is indeed of utmost importance, and we hope that speedy progress can be achieved in this area, obviously with the help of Member States. As far as the participation of women is concerned, women as special representatives and envoys can have a major catalytic effect, and their appointment to such posts must therefore be a high priority. The Secretary-General’s study clearly identifies the need for international legal action to combat violence against women, particularly in situations of armed conflict. The ad hoc tribunals established by the Security Council have greatly aided the creation of such an international legal framework. We believe that the International Criminal Court (ICC), as the cornerstone of this emerging international effort to fight impunity, will accelerate the progress made in combating violence against women. The Rome Statute and its supplemental documents contain detailed provisions criminalizing gender-based and sexual violence committed in the context of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide. While individual cases before the ICC that apply the relevant provisions of the Rome Statute will be instrumental in providing redress to victims and in advancing the law at the international level, perhaps even more important are the ongoing efforts to implement the definitions of those crimes in domestic legislation and to apply them in domestic courts. Such efforts are encouraged by the legal and political incentives that the ICC provides for States to investigate and prosecute such crimes themselves. That makes the speedy ratification of the Statute by the largest possible number of States a necessity. No one, regardless of his or her motivation, status or nationality, can be allowed to enjoy impunity for the commission of crimes of sexual or gender-based violence. Liechtenstein has consistently supported efforts to end impunity, and we have been particularly committed to ensuring that a gender-based approach is taken in the administration of international justice. Of the utmost importance is the participation of women at the highest level of judicial administration, as judges, prosecutors and other court officials. We are particularly pleased that the Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court has adopted a procedure implementing the requirement of the Rome Statute that States take into account the need for fair representation of women and men when judges are elected. We would like to take this opportunity to call on States to ensure that an adequate number of female candidates are nominated for the first election of judges to be held by the Assembly of States Parties, in February. We are committed to the idea that the advancement of the rights of women is inextricably linked to the advancement of peace and security. Resolution 1325 (2000) has given the international community an additional tool to put that idea into practice, supplementing essential legal instruments such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol, the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols and the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its supplementary Protocols, as well as the Rome Statute. Thus, it is clear that the standards have been set and that we all now face the task of applying those standards and thus of ensuring their implementation.

The next speaker inscribed on my list is the representative of Fiji. I invite him to take a seat at the Council table and to make his statement.

I have the honour to address the Council on this very important topic on behalf of the Pacific Islands Forum group: Australia, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and my own country, Fiji, as well as Palau. The study on Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) and the relevant reports of the Secretary- General reinforce our experiences of the gender dimensions of conflict. In particular, they confirm facts about women and girls as the principal and most vulnerable victims of conflict, most notably sexual violence. They also make clear that we can no longer ignore the contributions of women and girls to all stages of conflict resolution, peacemaking, peacekeeping and reconstruction processes. As the landscape of conflict has shifted largely to intra-State settings, the psychological impact of conflict has been intensified by the perception of the State as the perpetrator, which renders it unable to defend or to protect its citizens. This new aspect of multilateralism, which has emerged in recent decades, demands appropriate interventions. Women in our region have a long history of active interest in sustainable peace, which continues today, as shown by the study, which documents well the successful intermediary role played by women during the conflict in Bougainville, one of the United Nations success stories in peace-building. In that connection, the peace initiatives of the Leitana Nehan Women’s Development Agency were recognized by the 2000 United Nations Development Fund for Women’s Millennium Peace Prize for Women. Similarly, women in Fiji and in the Solomon Islands have played their traditional roles as peacemakers during times of crises in their respective countries. Regionally, a growing network of women’s groups and of informal activities is supporting peace efforts in our region. Our group appreciates the current need to transfer those informal activities to the formal arena of peace- building, negotiation and decision-making in conflict prevention, in early-warning mechanisms and in peace processes. Only then can changes in gender roles at the micro level be accompanied by corresponding changes in political or organizational influence. The reported success in East Timor’s nascent political and peace- building processes is encouraging, as is the political commitment of the international community to resolution 1325 (2000). With appropriate interventions, equitable social relations in post-conflict societies that are conducive to peace-building and to conflict prevention may finally materialize. We welcome the Secretary-General’s recommendations under this item, and we support his annual review with regard to resolution 1325 (2000) as an opportunity to profile and build on the positive initiatives and results of women’s involvement in peace and security processes. Through that process, we hope to see positive and constructive progress in implementing the important recommendations in the Secretary-General’s current report (S/2002/1154). For its part, the United Nations needs to realize its own goals for the advancement of the status of women in the United Nations system and thus to lead by example. In that connection, we note with satisfaction the Secretary-General’s commitment to set concrete targets for the appointment of women as Special Representatives and Special Envoys in order to promote peacekeeping, preventive diplomacy, peace- building and peacemaking. The experience in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations since July 2001 is that the full value of a database of gender specialists database depends on the practical support of Member States.

I intend now to suspend the meeting until 11 a.m. tomorrow, Tuesday, 29 October 2002.