GAT Inaugural Conference Press Release, 6 December 2012
The Gender Advisory Team (GAT) in cooperation with the PRIO Cyprus Centre launched a new report today summarizing far-reaching recommendations to integrate a gender perspective within the Cyprus peace process. Officials, scholars and activists from Cyprus, Norway, Turkey, Greece, Iraq, Croatia, the United Kingdom, and Israel were in Nicosia to launch the report and share experiences from the region.
Entitled “Women’s Peace: Recommendations of the Gender Advisory Team on Implementing UNSCR 1325 Provisions on Women, Peace and Security,” the report presents publicly for the first time the results of a three year effort undertaken by GAT, in dialogue with the negotiating teams, UNFICYP and the UN Good Offices mission in Cyprus.
The effort sets out to address obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 1325 mandating that parties in peace negotiations ensure the representation of women and incorporate provisions for gender equality within agreements. As noted by Elisabeth Wallas of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway, who outlined her country’s global efforts on women, peace and security: “increasing women’s representation at the peace table is not enough. The outcome must meet the need and priorities of the entire population.”
Cyprus has fallen short on both counts, but is not alone in this, considering that only 4 of 14 UN co-led processes included women in the negotiating teams. “Peace work is also the work of women. Acknowledging that women’s needs are different and additional to men’s means that gender rights cannot come after the process of state building. For this reason, GAT works at the intersection of gender and peace, and the integration of high-level politics and everyday needs,” explained GAT member and PRIO Researcher Olga Demetriou.
Speakers outlined the range of challenges that continue to stymie progress on the role of women in public life, many of which resonate across the region: patriarchal structures and attitudes, nationalism, militarism, religious fundamentalism, vulnerability of women’s groups, and impunity for sexual violence and other war crimes.
The report focuses on the key chapters under negotiation, power-sharing and governance, economy, citizenship and property, and will form the basis of an expanded advocacy agenda for gender equality in Cyprus. One sign of progress is that the two Leaders have appointed Gender Focal Points in their negotiating teams, both of whom were also on hand to launch the report.
The report can be downloaded from: http://www.prio.org/News/Item/?x=1679.