Women

1
Womens Role in Peace Building

• Second Global NRN Conference
• Kathmandu, 7-9 October 2005

2
Introductions to this paper

• Based on personal activism and experience with
  Nagarik Aawaz
• On network knowledge/resource generated with
  women peace activists in the region and
  throughout the world
• Intended to initiate inquiry, stimulate
  discussions, and deepen reflections
• It has a focus on Nepals experience but draws
  from experience world-wide

3
Impact of conflict on women Nepal

• Compulsive internal or external displacement
• Increased child marriages
• Restrictions in mobility
• Increased workload
• Increased emotional and psychological trauma
• Increase in womens maternal mortality
• Increasing unemployment or livelihood options

4
Continued

• Increase in social, political and domestic
  violence
• Risks for sexual assault and/abuse from both
  sides
• Caught in the cross fire (having to cook/feed
  Maoists or work as carriers of letters/arms, and
  suffer suspicions from security forces)
• forced recruitment particularly of adolescent
  girls from the Dalit and disadvantaged
  communities
• situations of armed conflict allows for further
  exploitation and inhuman behaviour from those who
  take advantage of this situation

5
Impact of conflict on women South Asia

• increase in female-headed households through
  abandonment and desertion by men and/or deaths
• increased workload, health hazards, and stress
• increased violence, vulnerability to be
  trafficked, or tricked/forced into prostitution
• forced early marriages for girls or/and increased
  restrictions on mobility
• owing to the notion of purity battles can/have
  been fought over womens bodies

6
Continued...

• widows face loss of personal identity, social
  stigmatization, and ostrasization
• although mothers are glorified as bearers of
  sons/martyrs, they suffer psychologically and
  physically perceiving the killings to be futile

7
Impact of the conflict on women Global

• military bases are conducive for increased
  trafficking and prostitution
• crime and illegal trade increases
• domestic violence owing to use of drugs and
  alcohol in instable societies
• enforced restrictions in womens movement
  narrowing/limiting womens agency and education
  among other
• strengthens / increases warlords
• societal backlash on combatant women who need
  long term support for breaking away from their
  traditional roles

8
Continued...

• sexual abuse, violence and rape owing to the
  control over womens bodies
• rise of fundamentalism
• honour killing of women for tarnishing family
  honour or in anticipation of possible rape

9
Womens role in peace-building in Nepal

• Household
• Community level
• Case studies activist Shakti, agency WHR,
  network Shanti-malika
• Local level loose network and community groups
• Spontaneous uprising Dailekh

10
Challenges

• Since the state offers so little in the way of
  support to its citizens, the primary safety nets
  for Nepali people generally lie in the
  institutions of the family and the community.
  When these institutions are upset during times of
  conflict because of political divisions,
  displacement or migration, or disruption in
  traditional and cultural ways of life, there is
  very little else on which families can rely or
  fall back. In such situations, the question of
  responsibility towards conflict-affected widows,
  elderly, disabled/maimed, children, and orphans
  becomes very crucial and that burden rests
  primarily on women at the household and the
  community level.

11
Challenges

• Nepals dependency on development aid makes peace
  work challenging. There are many implications
  but to give an example, Maoists have time and
  again emphasized civil society to stay away from
  funds form the US government. Yet, resource
  sharing with them is often an implied necessity
  for being able to work at the level of the local
  communities. Also development and peace work is
  increasingly becoming theme directed and project
  led. This has made development work not only
  equated to jobs as in the past, but increasingly
  mercenary as well. This further fuels the
  conflict - inevitably deepening fissures of
  inequity and injustice.

12
Challenges

• Security risks at the personal and the
  organizational level
• Availability of funds (womens restricted
  mobility and limited voice is an added
  obstruction)
• lack of previous experience in doing this work
  (comparatively womens agency further lack
  analysis and experience in doing development work
  while peace work is relatively new)
• Recruiting/sustaining qualified staff (owing to
  more lucrative opportunities in the international
  agencies)
• Inadequate human resource capabilities (more
  challenging to find qualified women)

13
Continued..

• inadequate logistical infrastructure in terms of
  roads, services, and communications making access
  formidable even in times of peace,
• Maintaining an all around balance between the
  warring factions

14
To be mindful of..

• Erosion of trust makes trust-building critical in
  times of conflict
• confidence building measures must be a part of
  the process of all peace initiatives
• Balance must be maintained at all times
• Transparency and accountability is mandatory
• Peace-building is a very time/energy/resource
  consuming process
• Work demands creativity flexibility
• One cannot do this work and not deal with some
  level of relief support
• Human rights standards must be a necessary
  practice for warring factions

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Conclusions

• What then are the implications of womens
  exclusion from all peace processes?
• Can the Nepali State and the Maoists in their
  senior hierarchies afford to cut off their good
  arm?