UN Secretary-General: Give women the opportunity to build peace in the world

According to IRNA, Antonio Guterres added at the Women, Peace and Security Summit on Thursday local time: “Women are peace builders, transformers and activists.” They are mediating and negotiating with armed groups and fighting for women’s rights and social cohesion in their communities.

“But often, women remain on the margins of formal peace processes and are largely removed from decision-making rooms,” he said.

“We can no longer remove half of humanity from international peace and security,” Guterres said. The power imbalance between men and women remains the most enduring inequality in the world.

He added that in Myanmar, where women have long been a force for peace – including in the civil disobedience movement – due to security concerns following the military coup, many women’s organizations were forced to close down. Many Myanmar women are now secretly pursuing their efforts.

“In Ethiopia, there are horrific reports of sexual violence being used as a weapon of war,” Guterres said. The UN Secretary-General added: “Despite courageous efforts, Yemeni women continue to be excluded from the overall political process by the parties involved.” The recent Yemeni government failed to nominate a single female minister, which is unprecedented in the last 20 years.

“In Afghanistan, girls and women are witnessing the rapid change in their rights that they have achieved in recent decades,” Guterres said. One of these rights is the deprivation of girls from sitting in classrooms.

“We must fight for women’s rights,” he said. We want to pursue the full and equal participation of women in every aspect of life. This includes peace processes and political developments. Last year, only 23 percent of UN representatives in the peace process were women.

He added: “For example, in Libya and Syria, we have seen that actions with bold goals, principles and comprehensive incentives can be an effective way to increase women’s participation in mediation and peace processes, and in Afghanistan, the United Nations to support and defend human rights.” Women and girls will continue to interact with interim Taliban officials.

“We need full gender equality, including through quotas, elections, security reforms, disarmament and justice systems,” Guterres said.