UN Panel offers renewed hope for Women in Great Lakes Region

A five member high-level panel together with a broad cross-section of civil society, UN agencies and member states gathered this week at the Trusteeship Council Chamber at the UN Headquarters in New York, to explore ways to empower and enhance women’s role in building peace in the Great Lakes region.

The panel also discussed ways to stop the impunity of law enforcement officials and militia who use rape as a weapon especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The discussion came less than a week after Kyung-wha Kang, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator in the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs visited the region to keep a global spotlight on the complex and protracted humanitarian emergency in the DRC

Moderated by Ambassador Anne Anderson – Ireland’s Permanent Representative to the UN, the panel expressed renewed hope of potential and opportunity that could materialize out of a UN brokered peace security and cooperation framework agreement – signed in February at the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia by eleven Heads of States and representatives.

Ambassador Anderson emphasized, “The time for women empowerment as peace builders in the region has arrived.  The framework has generated a sense that something of real significance is on the way and it is imperative that the momentum and dynamism for peace is sustain.”

She also said “crucial questions” may arise about the role that women can play in encouraging the necessary political change, the possibility of women driving or leading such political change, about how radical and ambitious such change needs to be and how the international community can best assist such efforts.

The panel also featured Mary Robinson – Special Envoy for the region (who served as president of Ireland (1990–97) and as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights;  Lina Zedriga Waru Abuku a women’s civil society leader from Uganda; Sierra Leonean born Zainab Hawa Bangura, UN Special Representative for Sexual Violence in Conflict.

A statement issued by the panel’s coordinator Leah Sullivan of the Ireland Mission to the UN, states the event demonstrated the Government’s support for Mary Robinson’s work as Special Envoy for the Great Lakes region. It also provided a platform for Robinson’s first address to a UN audience in New York since her appointment in March.

Addressing the panel, Special Envoy Bangura was steadfast in her argument that though it is not a new phenomenon, conflict related sexual violence is “one of the most devastating forms of violence against women and girls,” insisting that rape is just as much a weapon of war as any bullet or bomb.

Mrs. Bangura and other panelists say in addition to more funding to help provide aid to victims, the empowerment of women and victims of rape in the Great Lakes region heavily relies on increased participation of women at all levels of decision-making including in mechanisms for the prevention, management and resolution of conflict; in peace negotiations and in peace operations.

By Dennis Kabatto

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