Youth-Led Gender Activism Towards Inclusive Peace-Building
The International Day of Peace, 2020 has been marked during unparalleled times. The Peace Day is a globally shared day for all humanity to commit to peace above all differences and to contribute to a culture of peace. This year, with the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, humanity has seen first-hand, the significance of peace and unity as the globe grapples with the common enemy that the pandemic has been. To this end, the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, called for a global cease-fire and urged states to stop the sickness of war and jointly fight against the disease that was threatening our civilization.
The theme for the International Peace Day of 2020, ‘Shaping Peace together’ was further informed by the need for the nations of the world to join hands in the quest for global peace and spread love and compassion amidst the horrors of the pandemic. In exploration of this theme of cooperation in peace-building, this article explores the role of youth-led gender activism in the inclusion of women and girls in global peace agendas using the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security as the yardsticks.
In the spirit of togetherness and inclusion, 2020 also denotes the 25th anniversary of the Fourth UN Conference on Women and the establishment of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the blueprint for the attainment of global legal equality for women. The Platform for Action flagged 12 key areas where urgent action was needed to ensure greater equality and opportunities for women and men, boys and girls. In recognizing that peace was inextricably linked to equality between women and men, the Platform for Action included women in armed conflicts among its focus areas. This sphere emphasized that women’s full involvement in all efforts for the prevention and resolution of armed conflicts was essential for the promotion and maintenance of peace and security.
To further this agenda, in 2000, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). UNSCR 13255 was the first ever resolution to address the impact of war on women and women’s contribution to conflict resolution and sustainable peace. It reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflict, peace negotiations, peace-building, peace-keeping, humanitarian response and in post-conflict reconstruction. The resolution also stresses the importance of women’s equal participation and full-involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security.
According to the United Nations Population Fund, there are 1.8 billion people between the ages of 10 and 24 years and over 600 million of them live in conflict-stricken areas. This represents the highest number of young people in history, majority of whom are young women. Given these demographics, it is therefore impractical to treat young people, especially young women, as beneficiaries instead of active participants of peace-building in their communities. The Youth, Peace, and Security Resolution 2050 by the United Nations Security Council was unanimously passed for this reason. The UNSCR 2050 affirms the positive role young men and women play in maintaining and promoting international peace and security and in building and advancing peace and security in their own countries. The document recognizes the role of young people in their ability to promote peace, transform conflicts and prevent violence. The resolution demands to give voice to young people in peace processes, urging governments, private and public entities, and civil society and institutions —including UN agencies— to provide both the tools and the necessary funding to transform the text into real policies and specific projects.
The intersection between youth, peace and security and women, peace, and security cannot be gainsaid. Young women are at the intersection of these two agendas and should therefore be actively engaged in the conversations surrounding peace-building, peace-negotiations, and peace-keeping. It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the role of young people in furthering gender activism. Young women have particularly been previously excluded as ‘youth’ has been translated as ‘young men’ in the context of war, conflicts, and peace-building. The World Youth Report revealed that the experiences of young men in conflict are strongly determined by gender, and more precisely, by how the rights, roles, responsibilities, and capabilities of females and males are defied within a particular social context. The narratives pushing this was the belief that young women have no agency to participate in conflict or post-conflict peace processes, to their detriment.
“…young women tend to disappear when it comes to theories on youth and violence, most likely because they are perceived as less of a threat. As a result, the way in which young women negotiate the trials of youth, and their capacities and rationale for violence (and for peace) are understudied.
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The state of affairs has given rise to a new generation of gender activists to counter these limiting beliefs that disproportionately close participation spaces for women in international peace and conflict. Young people have especially taken on the baton when it comes to gender activism as they realize the consequences of exclusion and discrimination in perpetuating conflict and preventing peace.
Consequently, in appreciation of this rise of momentum in young feminist advocacy, activism, and mobilization, the UN Women Youth and Gender Equality Strategy (2017) to create a roadmap for gender-inclusive agendas. In the same way, the African Union Strategy for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment was set up to create a guideline for the inclusion of women in peace and conflicts fora. Youth inclusion and leadership in gender activism towards more diverse engagement in peace-building is important given the linkages between gender and conflicts. Shaping peace together calls for intersectional, integrated and multilayered approaches in the manner in finding solutions so that all voices are heard and exclusions eliminated.
At The Youth Café, we believe that society is complex and its problems cannot be solved unilaterally. It therefore seeks to empower young men and women through intergenerational, intersectional, integrated and multilayered approaches so that no one group is overshadowed during problem-solving and decision-making. Youth-led gender activism in peace and security is one way in which The Youth Café endeavors to ensure that the voices of young women are not lost between those of young men and older women through one-sided approaches.
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By Karen Koech, Research and Business Development Associate at The Youth Cafe