Explainer: Women's role in peacebuilding
Defence Cabinet Secretary Monicah Juma during a celebration to mark the International Women's Day at the Kenya School of Government (KSG) on March 8, 2021 under the theme "Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a Covid-19 world".
What you need to know:
- The Sessional Paper No. 5 of 2014 on National Peacebuilding and Conflict Management provides for a 30 per cent gender rule in composition of the County Peace Committees.
- Women are pivotal in ending these threats if well equipped.
Inclusion of women in peace and security processes is a commitment Kenya has made, the country being a signatory to the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325.
The Sessional Paper No. 5 of 2014 on National Peacebuilding and Conflict Management provides for a 30 per cent gender rule in composition of the County Peace Committees.
As indicated in the 2nd Kenya National Action Plan (2020–24) on implementation of Resolution 1325, launched on May 27, 2020, in 2019, women constituted 29 per cent of 4,505 committee members. This is equivalent to 1,300 women against 3,205 men, which equals a 71 per cent representation.
The plan enshrines government’s commitment to inclusion of women in strategising measures to address gender-based violence (GBV), climate change, human trafficking and forced migration and humanitarian disasters such as droughts, fires, floods, terrorism, and diseases.
Resolution 1325 calls on countries to be deliberate on involving women in peace and security processes, namely negotiations and reconciliations.
During the launch, then Cabinet Secretary for Defence Dr Monica Juma was categorical that women’s participation in security and peacebuilding in the fast-changing scene of global threats could not be underestimated.
She noted the growing portfolio of what she termed soft lethal threats, which she disputed would be tackled “with defence capabilities as we know them”.
She identified the soft lethal threats as “radicalisation that happen with children in our homes and schools and safe spaces, cybersecurity, human trafficking and violence in the context of fragility, for instance, Covid-19”.
Women are pivotal in ending these threats if well equipped, she said.
The training of women to counter the emerging threats, however, has to be done cautiously to avoid advancing patriarchal orders in the defence system, she warned.
“We need to change the nature of capability required to secure our society. There is a need to cautiously increase the pool of women in peace and defence security sector,” she stated.
