Randi Solhjell
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Tøm alle filtreFemale Bodies and Masculine Norms: Challenging Gender Discourses and the Implementation of Resolution 1325 in Peace Operations in Africa
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (2000) was hailed as a pioneering step in acknowledging the varied roles of women in conflict and promoting their participation in peace processes and in peacebuilding. This report takes a critical look at the inclusion and exclusion of Res. 1325 in peace operations in Africa. It focuses on the meaning and importance of gender perspectives in these operations rather than “women’s perspectives.” Peace operations in Africa are clearly male-dominated, with on average 3% women in uniform (police and military), and about 17% women among the civilian staff. However, simply adding more women to peace operations is not sufficient in itself. Such an approach is based on essentialist assumptions of women and men and their assumed “innate potentials.” The report moves on to discuss some more qualitative aspects of gender perspectives in these operations: gender mainstreaming and gender units. The author examines, inter alia, the effects of equating “gender” with “women,” and the challenges involved in creating separate units to implement gender perspectives. Further, the report identifies and discusses the gender perspective at the core of many of these operations: one of militarized masculinity and state restoration. Recognizing the existence of these masculine discourses within such institutions (army and other state-building aspects), combined with the dilemmas of insecurity in the operative context, is central to analyzing and understanding the bottlenecks to gender mainstreaming and gender-sensitive approaches. Gender mainstreaming and implementation of Res. 1325 will remain at the rhetorical level unless major changes are made to the masculine, militarized architecture of peace operations.
Gender-sensitive protection and the responsibility to prevent: lessons from Chad
"Gendered Military Operations? Military Missions in Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo"
The Civilian Capacities Initiative and Gender-Responsive Peace-building: An Inclusive Approach?
Gender perspectives in UN peacekeeping innovations? The case of MONUSCO in the eastern democratic Republic of Congo
The UN Operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) has experienced some military victories, as exemplified by the recent defeat of the M23 rebel group. MONUSCO has also instigated some crucial innovative measures aimed at improving its peacekeeping and protection practices. This policy brief examines three such innovations – the Community Liaison Assistants (CLAs), Community Alert Networks (CANs) and Joint Protection Teams (JPTs) in South Kivu province – with a critical discussion of some challenges of gender mainstreaming in these approaches and potential measures. The findings indicate that several areas need further attention in order to improve gender mainstreaming at the local and mission level. First, it is essential to draw on the experience of the CLAs for internal gender training within the mission at the civilian as well as military level. The CLAs have excellent skills in understanding local communities, and their knowledge is important for improving gender perspectives at the mission level. Secondly, experiences with these community-targeted innovations could be used to improve cooperation between UN sections on gender perspectives, where it seems to be low levels of institutional cooperation. It is important to address the gendered roles within communities that obstruct or enable the possibilities of security changes, not least the passivity of men who now rarely leave their homes and their stakeholder roles as formal and traditional representatives. One could say that Congolese men are unable to fulfill their masculine roles as breadwinners and heads of household. Moreover, there is a need to address the gap between what gender issues entail and how this affects the regular liaison work and reporting mechanisms of CLAs and JPTs. A focus on gender issues does not mean working also with women, but rather working with the entire society and understanding how actors and their institutions are informed and reproduced by gender relations in society, and in turn how these relations facilitate or obstruct the desired outcomes.