On Friday, October 25, the United Nations Department of Peace Operations (DPO) launched its report “Towards Equal Opportunities for Women in the Defense Sector” during Women, Peace and Security Week. United Nations Security 2024. Written by the Geneva Center for Security Sector Governance (DECAF), with input on subsequent versions from the DPO’s Office for Rule of Law and Security Institutions and other experts working at the UN , the report presents an investigation into the successes and obstacles to promoting the status of women. meaningful participation at all levels in defense sectors globally, and offers recommendations on next steps to achieve greater parity and inclusion.
The report includes seven “accelerators” for gender equality in defense, based on good practice, identified as follows (Department of Peace Operations 2024, p.8):
- Assess the barriers to women’s participation.
- Improve recruitment strategies to attract more women.
- Improve retention rates among women.
- Building a culture of diversity and inclusion.
- Fight discrimination, harassment and sexual abuse.
- Facilitate career development programs for women.
- Ensure equitable promotion for women in the military.
Feminists and gender scholars have long had a difficult relationship with the idea of integrating women into the defense sector. Women, Peace and Security (WPS) is supposed to be about peace and many feel that women’s collaboration with the military contradicts this idea. The inclusion of women does not fit with the antimilitarist, decolonialist, and peace activist positions that many scholars, activists, and practitioners take. Yet women, like all marginalized groups, have the human right to engage in all areas of politics and society and should be able to influence decision-making within the most powerful state institutions, including the defense and security, as well as in global governance. All marginalized groups should help shape their transformation. At a more practical level, diversifying the workforce in defense and security fields and in global governance institutions would help avoid the echo chambers that lead to narrow and often self-serving conceptions of peace, security and prosperity.
Yet, as many scholars observe, the processes of militarization embedded in FPS programs support a global “muscular neoliberal security order,” while also being dominated by white, racialized definitions of women/gender, security, and of peace. Mine and David Duriesmith’s research shows that gender-responsive security sector reform (SSR) and demilitarization, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programs that support post-conflict reconstruction are typically driven by a masculine logic that reinforces the power base of elite men within a given nation. the State, rather than establishing true equality and diversity in public sector decision-making in matters of defense and security. Meanwhile, WPS narratives used to promote women’s participation not only frequently essentialize women and ignore LGBTQ+ experiences (as well as the experiences and needs of many marginalized groups of men), but present the value of women as a gender-specific contribution, rather than a gender contribution. equality.
This difficult relationship is further challenged by the current geopolitical climate, characterized by a revision and intensification of the heavy-handed policies of the Cold War; a decline in multilateralism; an uptick in militarization (in 2023, global military spending was US$2.44 trillion, up from US$1.56 trillion a decade ago) and the continued prevalence of violent non-state actors, many of them are engaged in proxy wars. Meanwhile, elites and their predominantly male political leaders choose to use their defense sectors for murderous purposes, with the most obvious current examples being the civil war in Sudan; Russia’s illegal and aggressive invasion of Ukraine, the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza as well as illegal interventions in Lebanon, Syria and Iran.
At UN Women, Peace and Security Week events in New York last month, UN staff and diplomats ignored international politics and focused on depoliticized questions about the practical reasons for including women in defense. This reflects a willingness among UN staff to continue business as usual, but also a desire to escape the strong emotions and political tensions that are weakening Security Council business and seeping into increasingly in other committees and activities. This is why, at the launch of the “Women in Defense” report, representatives of the UN Secretary-General affirmed that the engagement of women was vital for security and global peace.
For those who support the normative reasons for more women in defense, the DPO report provides a new benchmark against which to assess future progress. However, the report’s findings by no means give an accurate picture of global trends: the report concedes that only 55 states (a third of UN member states with armed forces) responded to the survey, which had been sent repeatedly by the United Nations Human Rights Office. rule of law and security institutions, while in-depth interviews on good practices were conducted with only 18 Member States. The report notes that representation from all regions was achieved, but because the data collected was limited, it was not possible to assess regional trends against broader global trends. Some data is so small that it is difficult to know how representative it is of defense and security institutions. The report also states that women now make up 10% of the armed forces, although this figure is derived from a survey of only 21 countries (Department of Peace Operations, 2024, p. 33). These figures could have been very different if more Member States had responded to the survey.
Given these limitations, recommendation 18 of the report calls on Member States to “share information and good practices among themselves on equal opportunities for women in the defense sector”, via regional organizations, the Group informal meeting of Security Council experts on women, peace and defense. Security, the WPS Focal Point Network and Other Routes (Department of Peace Operations, 2024, p.64).
Yet this recommendation will not be implemented without defense sectors becoming more transparent – a difficult task, given the military’s sensitivity to sharing their gender data. Defense ministries around the world can escape public scrutiny because they lack data collection mechanisms (as in the case of the Central African Republic); because progress is slow, or because there is resistance at the upper echelons of leadership and therefore no real appetite to bring about true and lasting transformative change. In Rwanda, at the time I conducted my research, the Rwanda Defense Forces only shared data on combating conflict-related sexual violence and did not disclose statistics on recruitment, retention and rank of soldiers. women in the Gender Monitoring Bureau – the government body established to oversee the achievement of the 30% target of women in all institutions, in accordance with Rwanda’s constitution.
Similarly, in the UK there is currently no formal parliamentary oversight of equality for women and LGBTQ+ people in the UK armed forces. Only very recently has reporting to the House of Commons Defense Committee begun, following the damning findings of the Atherton Inquiry in 2021 and several high-profile employment tribunal cases relating to the racism and sexual abuse reported by the British media. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that women’s parliamentary oversight of defense initiatives, including budgetary oversight, accelerates gender mainstreaming.
Regular reports on gender data should also be made available free of charge. For example, the Indian Armed Forces, which now has two female generals for the first time in its history, publishes annual data on the Indian Ministry of Defense website. According to Lieutenant General Sadhna Saxena Nair, speaking at the high-profile event in New York, the initiative is largely due to India’s “robust democracy”, which led Parliament to ask the ministry of Defense real-time and open information. obtain gender data so that progress can be tracked and monitored more effectively. However, parliamentary oversight of “women in defense” initiatives should not be limited to the examination of gender-specific data. Security sector reform requires the continued engagement of civil society and should not be undertaken behind closed doors. Governments should rethink security more broadly to ensure that public concerns extend to concerns about human and ecological security, and that these are integrated into strategies and planning.
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