WHY THE UNITED NATIONS NEEDS MORE FEMALE PEACEKEEPERS
12 May 2014 was a watershed moment in the
history of United Nations peacekeeping when Major General Kristin Lund of
Norway was appointed as the first female to serve as Force Commander in a
United Nations peacekeeping operation the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus.
An extensive history of achievement in a
male-dominated arena, Major General Lund has over 34 years of military
experience at national and international levels. In 1991 she was deployed
during Operation Desert Storm to Saudi Arabia and then in Afghanistan at the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF) Headquarters.
In 2009 she was promoted to the rank of Major
General and then Chief of Staff of the Norwegian Home Guard the first female
officer to be promoted to such positions. Her experience in the UN includes her
service with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon and the UN Protection Force in the
Former Yugoslavia.
Major General Lund’s appointment is the first
major acknowledgement of the implementation of the year 2000 UN Security
Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. That resolution
highlighted a shift in UN policy to engage more females in peacekeeping
operations around the world.
It affirmed the role of women in prevention
and resolution of conflicts, negotiations, peacekeeping, humanitarian responses
and post-conflict reconstruction. Further, it stressed the need to integrate a
gender perspective in these areas including peacekeeping operations.
According to Herve Ladsous, Head of UN Peacekeeping,
“Women can and must play a leading role in political participation, conflict
resolution and the transition from conflict to peace.”
Women’s roles in UN peacekeeping operations
span across police, military and civilian levels and women are playing a
greater role in UN peacekeeping operations than in the past. In 1993 only one
percent of all deployed uniformed personnel were women.
By 2012, women made up three percent of
military and 10 percent of police personnel in UN peacekeeping operations. Currently,
women account for almost 30 percent of the international civilians working in
peacekeeping and special protection missions.
However, this falls far short of gender
equality in peacekeeping missions. In a paper by the International Peace
Institute, Sahana Dharmapuri argues that the reason for this is threefold: the
lack of understanding among member states about Resolution 1325 and UN policy
on gender equality in peace operations; a gap in data and analysis about
women’s participation in national security institutions globally, and in UN
peacekeeping in particular; and the prevalence of social norms and biases that
perpetuate gender inequality within the security sector.
“Being a female, from my recent deployment in Afghanistan, I had access
to 100 percent of the population, not only 50 percent.”
(Major General Kristin Lund)
Unfortunately, debate regarding female
soldiers appears to be more on their role in combat rather than a focus on how
best to utilize the strengths of female officers in peacekeeping operations.
Yet, it appears there may be specific roles
that are better suited to female officers than their male counterparts. Major
General Lund has pointed out one important advantage that female peacekeepers
have: “Being a female, from my recent deployment in Afghanistan, I had access
to 100 percent of the population, not only 50 percent”.
Access to the local population becomes
particularly relevant when considering the current nature of conflicts in which
UN peacekeepers find themselves.
Most peacekeeping operations are mandated to
protect civilians under imminent threat of danger, yet in practice this is both
a daunting and immensely challenging task. Take for example, MONUSCO, the UN
mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
This mission has to protect civilians over a
territory the size of Western Europe from approximately 40 armed groups that
roam and often terrorize local populations.
For peacekeeping operations to be able to
better protect civilians, they need comprehensive intelligence gathering
capabilities, which, unfortunately, most missions are sorely lacking. Accurate
intelligence is vital for peacekeeping operations.
Mission leaders and Force Commanders need to
be able to map threats and identify armed groups and their leaders for
effective planning. They need to analyze their types, motivations, behaviours
and goals and understand the context in which these armed groups evolve and
operate.
One important way to gather this intelligence
is through information collected by human sources. In a peacekeeping operation
one source of this information is from local populations and local resistance
groups.
“Female peacekeepers can fill a gap by
providing women and children with a greater sense of security, but also by
being able to foster their trust and in the process gather valuable information
for the mission.”
Need to establish rapport with the local
population is therefore vital, not only for intelligence gathering, but also to
implement early warning systems, conduct capacity building and build trust.
However, as women and children are the main victims of violence in such
conflicts, particularly sexual violence, it is often difficult for male
soldiers to cross social and cultural boundaries required to build this trust.
This is where female peacekeepers can fill a
gap by providing women and children with a greater sense of security, but also
by being able to foster their trust and in the process gather valuable
information for the mission.
Studies conducted by the UN in support of
resolution 1325, from experience in operations in Cambodia, Kosovo, Timor
Leste, Afghanistan, Liberia and the DRC, demonstrated that female soldiers do
not face the same cultural restrictions as their male counterparts and are able
to gain information from women and children.
This ability to gain trust of local
populations should be considered a vital component of any peacekeeping
operation.
In fact, in Afghanistan, ‘Female Engagement
Teams’ were able to penetrate the conservative male-dominated society by
regularly interacting with local women, gaining their trust until they were
willing to share valuable information about areas where the Taliban were
recruiting.
In the DRC the UN actively employs unmanned
aerial vehicles as part of its intelligence gathering capabilities. The ability
to fully and accurately synthesize this information can only be done with
supported human intelligence.
With resource and budget constraints of
peacekeeping operations, the UN must look to use more effectively the
non-combatant elements of its mission. Better intelligence and improved trust
and credibility gained by female peacekeepers through interaction with the
local population helps to reduce conflict and confrontation.
Improved intelligence can also increase not
only a mission’s ability to protect civilians but also protect its own
personnel by using such knowledge to reduce peacekeepers’ exposure to ambushes
and other unconventional attacks by armed groups.
The UN has called for more female
peacekeepers to enhance the overall ‘holistic’ approach to current peacekeeping
operations. There is clearly more work to be done to integrate more female
peacekeepers into UN missions.
More skilled and trained female peacekeepers
can only be an asset to future peacekeeping operations. With the appointment of
the first-ever female force commander, perhaps a new generation of females will
be inspired to take on the extremely difficult and challenging role of
peacekeeping.
For Major General Lund her hope is that she
“can also be a female role model for other female officers to see that it is
possible”. More than possible one would
imagine.
