Assignment 08
Resolution 1325 in essence provided a seat at the table for women and women’s rights issues on the global level. It brought women, from their issues to their skills and work for human rights into direct conversation with the UN Security Council. What’s so interesting about the Resolution is that it added women to the conversation in terms of both what women needed, and protections for women and girls but also what women were doing to help other women, and all other people as far as human rights, including what women who were providing aid needed to be protected and succeed. The key is involving women into the decision making on what women need. The Resolution was born out of many things, but particularly built momentum coming out of the Women and Armed Conflict Caucus, so it was never just about the more subtle issues in women’s rights but always centered in violent wartime violations of women and human rights.
I think the work that was put in by the NGO Working Group not only to introduce the ideas that became Resolution 1325, and to have it passed, but to implement it, to ensure that there was ongoing work to implement the Resolution’s tenants is so impressive and it speaks to the possible issues. One major one being something we’ve discussed in class, and that’s the idea that the UN is all talk. It’s fine to pass a resolution and it’s another to put effort as well as money into making that resolution a reality. A great answer to some of those issues was the creation by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom of the Peace Women Project, to create a resource to encourage cohesion and the spread of information through various women’s groups and efforts, as groups fought for different rights. It’s a reminder of Grewal and her ideas about the issues of a united women’s movement because of our separate experiences and needs.
I do think the passing of the Resolution and the continued work of implementation is important. Even just certain aspects of it, like sensitivity training for aid workers can make a world of difference in the lives of women and girls in war-torn areas. To me, having women involved in peace efforts and in the aid and treatment of women is such basic logic, but that might be part of my acceptance of human rights rhetoric. It just seems logical though. I think excluding women from leadership in those areas, and even from helping as far as aid in general is only further damaging to populations that are already undergoing trauma.
