. . WOMEN’S EQUALITY . .

An article by Tharanga Yakupitiyage, Inter Press Service (reprinted by permission)

Improving access to public spaces, and making them safe for women and girls, increases equity, combats discrimination and promotes inclusion, said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during a High-Level Discussion on “Public Spaces for All.”

The meeting coincided with World Habitat Day, which is observed annually on the first Monday of October.

It brought together top UN officials, private sector representatives, academics, and civil society members to discuss the state of the world’s towns and cities, the right to adequate shelter, and the importance of public spaces.

In Ban’s address, he remarked: “High-quality public spaces encourage people to communicate and collaborate with each other, and to participate in public life.”

“Public spaces can also provide basic services, enhance connectivity, spawn economic activity and raise property values while generating municipal revenue,” he continued.

The Executive Director of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) Joan Clos echoed the UN Chief’s comments.

“These spaces shape the cultural identity of an area, are part of its unique character and provide a sense of place for local communities,” Clos stated.

Clos also warned that when public spaces are inadequate, poorly designed or privatized, a polarized city with high social tensions, crime and violence will result.

Deputy Executive Director of UN Women Lakshmi Puri particularly pointed to violence against women and girls in public spaces as a major challenge.

“If violence in the private domain is now widely recognized as a human rights violation, violence against women and girls, especially sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence, in public spaces remains a largely neglected issue, with few laws or policies in place to prevent and address it,” Puri said.

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Protecting women and girls against violence, Is progress being made?

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UN Women has found that women in urban areas are twice as likely as men to experience violence, especially in developing countries. Moreover, 25-100 percent of women and girls around the world have experienced some form of sexual violence in public spaces in their lifetime.

Similarly, according to Gallup data from surveys in 143 countries in 2011, men are more likely than women to say they feel safe walking alone at night in their communities.

In Australia, research conducted by the Australia Institute in 2015 found that 87% of women were verbally or physically attacked while walking down the street.

In Ecuador, a study by UN Women in 2011 found that 68% of women had experience some form of sexual harassment and sexual violence in public spaces.

Puri noted how such violence limits women and girls’ movement, participation in education, access to essential services, and negatively impacts their health and well-being.

She highlighted the role of public spaces in promoting and achieving gender equality.

“Urban spaces are the most important theaters for the working out of the gender equality and women’s empowerment project,” Puri remarked.

Ban also noted the importance of deliberate and careful collaboration with local authorities, residents, and other actors to create successful public spaces.

World leaders are set to meet and define a new housing and urban agenda under the post-2015 development framework at Third UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, or Habitat III.

The conference will address the challenges of urbanization and opportunities it offers to implement the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and its targets.

One such target is 11.7 which aims to provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, particularly for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities.

However, Puri noted that no target exists to measure safety in public spaces for women and girls in the SDGs.

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

. WOMEN’S EQUALITY .

Nora Happel, Inter Press Service (reprinted by permission)

This October will mark the 15th anniversary of the adoption of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325. The landmark resolution on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) recognises not only the disproportionate impact armed conflict has on women, but also the lack of women’s involvement in conflict resolution and peace-making.

Liberian National Police Officer Lois Dolo provides security at the third annual commemoration of the Global Open Day on Women, Peace and Security in Liberia. Credit: UN Photo/Staton Winter

It calls for the full and equal participation of women in conflict prevention, peace negotiations, humanitarian response and post-conflict reconstruction and urges member states to incorporate a gender perspective in all areas of peace-building and to take measures to protect women from sexual violence in armed conflict.

Since its passage, 1325 has been followed by six additional resolutions (1820, 1888, 1889, 1960, 2106 and 2122).

But despite all these commitments on paper, actual implementation of the WPS agenda in the real world continues to lag, according to humanitarian workers and activists.

Data by the U.N. and NATO show that women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by armed conflict.

Before the Second World War, combatants made up 90 percent of casualties in wars. Today most casualties are civilians, especially women and children. Hence, as formulated in a 2013 NATO review, whereas men wage the war, it is mostly women and children who suffer from it.

Kang Kyung-wha Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), who spoke at a recent lecture series on WPS, cited as example the situation of women and girls on the border between Nigeria and Niger, where the average girl is married by 14 and has two children by age 18.

Secondary education for girls is almost non-existent in this area and risks of violence, sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking are particularly high, she said.

“Thus marginalised and disempowered, [these women and girls] are unlikely to play any part in building stable communities and participate in the socio-economic development of their societies and countries,” Kang said.

“Despite 1325 and the successor resolutions…women and girls continue to be routinely excluded from decision-making processes in humanitarian responses as well as in peace-negotiations and peace-building initiatives.”

High expectations are placed on the World Humanitarian Summit, scheduled to take place in May 2016 in Istanbul. Activists hope that the summit will help turn the numerous rhetorical commitments into concrete actions.

Marcy Hersh, Senior Advocacy Officer at Women’s Refugee Commission, who also spoke on the panel, told IPS: “Women and girls are gravely implicated in peace and security issues around the world, and therefore, they must be a part of the processes that will lead to their protection.”

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UN Resolution 1325, does it make a difference?

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“The key challenges in protecting women and children in emergencies, and ensuring women are able to participate in these processes, is not related to knowing what needs to happen…We need a commitment to do it. We need to see leadership and accountability in the international community for these issues.”

“If humanitarian leadership, through whatever mechanisms, can finally collectively step up to the plate and provoke the behavioral change necessary to ensure humanitarian action works with and for women and girls, we will have undertaken bold, transformative work.”

Another challenge in making the women, peace and security agenda a reality is linked to psychological resistance and rigid adherence to the traditional status quo. Gender-related issues tend to be handled with kid gloves due to “cultural sensitivity”, according to Kang Kyung-wha.

“But you can’t hide behind culture,” Kang said.

Also, women activists continue to face misogyny and skepticism in their communities and at the national level. Christine Ahn, co-founder of the Korea Policy Institute and former Senior Policy Analyst at the Global Fund for Women, told IPS that often enough the involvement of women in peace-keeping processes seems inconceivable to some of the men in power who hold key positions in international relations and foreign policy.

“They are calling us naive, dupes, fatuitous. Criticism is very veiled of course, we are in the 21st century. But even if it is a very subtle way in which our efforts are discounted, it is, in fact, patriarchy in its fullest form.”

Christine Ahn spoke at the second event of the lecture series at the United Nations. She is one of the 30 women who, in May 2015, participated in the Crossing of the De-Militarised Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea as part of a one-week long journey with North and South Korean women.

The project aimed at fostering civil society contacts between women in North and South Korea and promoting peace and reconciliation between the countries.

The symbolic act for peace at one of the world’s most militarised borders can be seen as a practical example of Security Council resolution 1325.

Ahn told IPS: “We will use resolution 1325 when we advocate that both of Korean women are able to meet because under each government’s national security laws they are not allowed to meet with the other – as it is considered meeting with the enemy.”

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)