Ni'matu Shehu
1 October 2007
Abuja — The Federal Ministry of Women Affairs has inaugurated an inter-ministerial task force on gender and peacekeeping in order to make women participate actively in peace processes as peace makers, peace builders, peacekeepers and negotiators in conflict-torn countries.
Women Affairs Minister, Hajia Saudatu Usman Bungudu, who inaugurated the task force in Abuja Friday said the inauguration became necessary after the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 recognised the disproportionate effect of conflict on women and the South Africa strategy workshop organised by the UN Department of' Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO); the Commonwealth Secretariat, as well as the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD).
While discussing the essence of women's participation in peace building, Hajiya Bungudu said that empirical evidence and research revealed that women in uniform are role models for many young women, particularly those who have been subjected to abuse and gender-based violence, including sexual violence by militias. These women, she said, do not trust men in uniform any more.
"It is clear that women are making tremendous contributions to the successful implementation of complex peacekeeping mandates and, therefore, an obvious need for an increase in their numbers in peacekeeping', she said.
The Minister acknowledged that very little systematic action is being taken to increase the number of women in the deployment in peacekeeping operations, and urged the members of the task force to "use their expertise and experience to explore opportunities for enhancing the role of government representatives responsible for gender and Women's Affairs (otherwise known as national machineries for women) as well as women constituencies to influence and inform national policy formulation processes guiding participation in peacekeeping operations; influence admission of females into the only nation's military university; the Nigerian Defence Academy; support the increased recruitment of women into the military and police services, and support the design and delivery of gender-sensitive pre-deployment training to prospective peace keepers."
In his address the representative of the Chief of Staff of the Nigerian Army, Brigadier General Abdul Malik Jubril, said the Nigerian Army has been deploying women to peace keeping operations for quite sometime now but the need to increase their number is dependent on the role they are expected to play in such operations. He however added that the taskforce would have to identify additional roles they envisage women to play.
He said that there are some limitations women face in peace keeping operations. If there are not too many combatant activities in the operation area, then women can participate in peace building, particularly as it regards to welfare of children, women and the elderly.
On the possibility of engaging them in combat roles, he said if women are trained in NDA as combatants then they could play such roles.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2007 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
