Resumen de Women in peacekeeping: challenges ahead and adopted measures
The study of the role of women in the maintenance of international peace and security has attracted the interest of the academic community over the last few years. However, it has been too long for the awareness on this issue to be raised.
This chapter aims to address this issue from a dual point of view, both from the perpective of women as a relevant subject in peacekeeping operations and in peace processes, as well as a specific object of protection within the referred matter.
First of all, women have been expressly recognized by the international community as active agents of peace -after UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000)- following a long process of influence by various civil society organizations. Currently, most peace agreements include gender-specific provisions and recognize the crucial role that women play as peace builders. Thus, the "Women, Peace and Security" agenda has been consolidated in recent years, since the active inclusion of women in a peace process increases its chandces of a full and enduring success. Furthermore, this dimension has also reached the national scope, as many Member States are implementing their own action plans and strategies. In short, this means achieving the necessary active empowerment of women in preventive diplomacy, negotiation of peaceful settlements, peacekeeping and post-conflict peace building.
Secondly, this chapter will also examine how the United Nations, through its various mechanisms -such as peacekeeping operations- has recognized that a specific role of such mechanisms is to provide special protection to women (and girls) as victims of sexual and gender-based violence in armed conflicts, especially when they are part of vulnerable groups such as indigenous groups, refugees, displaced persons, etc. In this regard, security personnel are being trained to fight against this type of crime.
From a more comprehensive perspective, this kind of violence is nothing more than an exacerbation of a structural problem of intimidation and mass discrimination suffered by women within their own national societies, even in times of peace.
In order to carry out this research, we will focus on the peacekeeping system within the framework of the United Nations, and we will undertake a systematic analysis of the various relevant international instruments, such as relevan conventions, the UN Security Council Resolutions on the subject, and other recent mechanisms. Particularly, the relationship between them, their systematization and complementarity, as well as the advanced role played by civil society regarding this issue will be studied (namely the one played by some organizations, such as the UN Women).
