UN Women: Women’s Involvement in Peace Talks, Intersectionality and Religion

Written by Oya Darici

The promotion of gender equality, women’s empowerment, and sustainable development have been the United Nations (UN) Women’s priorities since the organization’s establishment. The changing nature of the feminist movement has resulted in the emergence of “modern” issues such as the absence of women in the political sphere, the lack of intersectionality, and little to no acknowledgement on the relationship between religion and women’s rights. UN Women understands that through advocacy, collaboration, and open discussion the barriers preventing the achievement of full human rights for women can be broken down. I argue that without a definition and appropriate ‘framing’ of an issue, it is impossible to identify an ongoing issue, thus resolving it efficiently. Therefore, using empirical research to highlight an issue is essential in the process of achieving gender equality. I aim to analyze three key emerging issues that UN Women focuses on: the crucial role of women in peace and security, the importance of intersectionality when evaluating women’s issues, and how religion and women’s rights intersect.

In this post, first, I will argue that women’s involvement in peace talks are crucial for long lasting peace and more specifically, the inclusion of local women. Secondly, I will analyze the term “intersectionality” and discuss how race and gender are not the only layers of discrimation. To this end, this post highlights people’s gender identity or expression and sexual rights and argues that LGBTQ+ populations and their rights were the last ones to get recognized by the global community. Lastly, I discuss women’s rights and religion where in which I outlive the New Enlightenment, Morrocan women’s reform efforts and its overall relation to CEDAW.

Women, Peace and Security

The UN has played a great role in identifying and promoting women’s political participation in the international sphere. The discussion on women, peace and security was formalized institutionally in 2000 with the UN Security Resolution 1325. This resolution was based on the idea that peace was directly connected to equality between men and women (Mlambo-Ngcuka 2017, 179). In her article, the Executive Director of UN Women, Mlambo-Ngcuka, highlights that since 2000, incorporating women into solutions for security challenges has become a global norm and a priority for peace (2017, 179). In 2015, the Security Council adopted Resolution 2242 which focused on the need for women peacekeepers and senior leaders in every step of decision making. With UN Women’s involvement, women’s participation in peace talks has increased in recent years. This is crucial in the peacemaking process, since women’s participation in peace agreements might be positively correlated to effectiveness of the agreements (Mlambo-Ngcuka 2017, 181).

Doubt’s about women’s global leadership continue to be a setback — especially in high conflict zones (Mlambo-Ngcuka 2017, 181). In response to this, UN Women followed a new strategy in Syria and established “Women’s Advisory Boards” made up of local women representatives (UN Women 2016). I argue that the key players in international and local peace talks in Syria and Syrian women because they have first-hand, practical knowledge about issues that may have arisen. Their inclusion in peace talks provide a new perspective to the conversation which not only promotes gender equality but also seeds sustainable peace. Therefore, UN Women’s decision to include local women in peace talks is conducive to their socio economic prosperity.

Besides local involvements, women’s involvement on high diplomatic channels also calls for collaboration with men since the majority of the seats today are occupied by men. To this end, UN Women started a campaign targeting men and boys (from household to workspace to policy-makers) called HeForShe (Mlambo-Ngcuka 2017, 181). In March 2020, HeForShe launched a new initiative under the hashtag “#YearofMaleAllyship.” This initiative encourages male allies to dismantle gender norms while supporting equality (HeForShe Campaign n.d.). Thus far, this campaign was supported by 3.3 million people including heads of state, leading business persons and universities (HeForShe Campaign n.d.). I argue that HeForShe is one of the most important and successful campaigns held by UN Women. It underscored that everyone can be, and should be feminists, regardless of gender. Moreover, HerForShe showcased collaboration among policy-makers, civil society and media and highlighted the possible positive outcomes of collaboration and solidarity. Having said that, it is crucial to include everyone, from different races, genders, socio-economic status and sexual orientation to all international conversations. Therefore, the concept of intersectionality plays a great role in UN Women’s work.

Intersectionality and UN Women

A few years after Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” to define the overlapping discrimination black women experience, the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women incorporated this idea into an inclusive framework (Crenshaw 2016, 08:41). This was a historic moment and a critical step towards true equality because all the dimensions of prejudice must be acknowledged. Therefore, African American Women’s Caucus highlighted not only the gender and race aspects, but also class, religion, language or ability (Greene 2015, 164). For instance, the final Platform of Action research noted that refugee women, indigenous women and women in poverty are more likely to be targets of domestic violence (Greene 2015, 164). These researches and results, combined with the Caucus’ arguments once again highlighted the importance of defining intersectionality and how institutions and policy-makers must acknowledge all the unique factors that affect women’s experiences in society.

The 1995 Beijing Conference also fostered discussion on sexual rights and discrimination, however, it was mostly left out of the text (Perez 2014, 146). It was not until 2003, when the government of Brazil shed light upon the dicrimination LGBTQ+ populations face, that this issue started to be discussed on a global scale (Perez 2014, 146). This also added the LGBTQ+ perspective to the global discussion of intersectionality. The debates continued to grow over time, and in five years, sixty-seven countries supported the 2008 Declaration (Perez 2014, 146) . Although the introduction of people’s gender identity or expression and sexual rights to the UN framework was late, it has become a globally-recognized critical issue. This is crucial because more marginalized people are now able to fight for their rights. Furthermore, experiences of sexual, racial and/or gender minorities, such as black trans women, gained a “frame” — which meant that their rights will no longer be disregarded.

It is crucial to mention how women’s role in peace, security and inclusion questions are connected to intersectionality as well. Perez provided her readers with an interesting observation: when women occupied more seats in the Office for UNHCR, discussion of gender identity or expression and sexual rights escalated (Perez 2014, 146). This not only encourages the discussion of intersectional concerns but is also a sign of how the increased involvement of women in negotiations can pave the road for more genuine equality. As mentioned in the previous section, Mlambo-Ngcuka argued that women’s participation in international peace and human rights conversations is necessary to achieve equality. Therefore, observations provided in Perez’s article supports Mlambo-Ngcuka’s argument. It is also important to mention that, it is not only LGBTQ+ populations but also women of faith (religious women), face double discrimination. Their perspectives are often disregarded, therefore, including religion in human rights conversation in the UN is crucial.

Religion, Women’s Rights and UN Women

Reconciling religion with women’s rights has been an important subject of discussion since Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) of 1979. Even CEDAW, however, had some downfalls regarding religion and culture. Although some scholars argue that modernity can only be achieved through secular reforms, women in the modern world refuse to have to decide between gender equality and religious liberty (Sunder 2011, 10). Especially in Muslim countries, Article 161 (concerning marriage and family relations) has been rejected since it clashes with Sharia law (Sunder 2011, 8). However, through what Sunder calls “the New Enlightenment”, Morroccan feminists were able to push reform not by rejecting Islamic law in favour of CEDAW, but by decade-long internal Muslim discussions on reform and renovation. Therefore, Sunder concluded that women desire to pursue justice, not only outside but “within religious community, as well as outside it” (Sunder 2011, 3). Hence, the emergence of New Enlightenment — which requires one to recognize religion as compatible with women’s rights rather than “sphere of unfreedom” (Sunder 2011, 4) Although it is not mentioned in Sunder’s piece, I believe that Zainab al-Ghazali is a great example of an activist who incorporated feminism into religion. Al-Ghazali founded Muslim Women’s Assosiation in Egypt as she believed that a true understanding of Islam is a key to achieve gender equality (Brown 2001, 32). This is important because inclusion of religion in human rights discussions help one move away from Western thought of modernity (often secularism) and explore different feminist movements from different backgrounds.

In her article, Mlambo-Ngcuka emphasized how civil society (including religious actors) are also a key actor for UN Women (2017, 184). In 2017, UN Women introduced a new strategy called “The Role of Religion in Advancing Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment” (UN Women 2017). This platform aims to promote a religious discourse that “positions women at the centre of the narrative, and recognizes their fundamental human rights, their contributions, role and agency as well as their particular needs” (UN Women 2017). This is crucial for the implementation of the gender equality agenda, not only in the Global North, but also in the Global South as UN Women is preparing to include more voices from different religions and meet the exact needs of more women.

Conclusion

As Kimberle Crenshaw argues “It’s the framing issue…When there is no name for the problem, you can’t solve it” (Crenshaw 2016, 08:41). The UN, especially UN Women, is crucial in this regard because not only do they identify and “frame” the problem but they also pave the way to achieve gender equality through intersectional discourse and affirmative action. One of the issues I covered was the women’s lack of participation in international peace talks. I underscored that the inclusion of women, in both the global North and South is necessary to achieve long-lasting peace. Then, I discussed the importance of intersectionality, not only race and gender, but also class, ability, immigration status, and sexual orientation. The framing issue is relevant to this topic because with the recognition of discrimintion against the LGBTQ+ community, the experiences of people who identify with multiple marginalized identities have been acknowledged and addressed through theoretical propositions and political action. Lastly, I discuss women’s rights and religion where I discussed the New Enlightenment (Perez 2014, 146). It is important to keep in mind that religious freedoms are also a part of the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, and women should be given the opportunity to incorporate feminism into their religions. To this end, UN Women underscored the role of religion and is working towards empowering women to re-discover a sense of agency.

Overall, through research, international conferences, and collaboration, UN Women has sought to promote and encourage gender equality around the world. Although there is a long way to achieve full gender equality, UN Women has identified and “framed ‘’ crucial issues that women face around the world which brought policy-makers closer to resolve aforementioned issues. Furthermore, seeing that UN Women is dedicated to shift from practising bureaucratic universalism and include local women’s needs and ideas in their programs, “Planet 50–50” is a challenging but an achievable goal.