The UN Security Council’s approval of Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security in 2000 marked a turning point in the adoption of the gender perspective in the international peace and security agenda. The resolution recognises the specific and disproportionate impacts of armed conflicts on women and girls while also confirming the decisive role that women can and should play in conflict prevention and resolution, peace negotiations and all areas related to peacebuilding. Along these lines, the resolution underlines the importance of women’s equal participation in all activities related to the maintenance and promotion of peace and security and establishes a political and legal framework for women around the world to claim a space to make their voice heard in these spheres for first time.
The implementation of the women, peace and security agenda seems particularly important in a context such as that of Palestine, where women face multiple forms of violence as a result of the policies of the Israeli occupation and a long-lasting conflict that involves countless human rights violations against the Palestinian population, with specific and disproportionate consequences for women and girls. This is a context in which it is essential to take women’s voices into account to address key issues related to peace and security. In this scenario, how has the gender, peace and security agenda been applied in Palestine? What are the main achievements and persisting challenges for its implementation? This guide aims to offer an approach to the situation of the gender, peace and security agenda in Palestine, addressing issues such as its reception and implementation in the Palestinian context, the development of the National Action Plan for the Implementation of Resolution 1325 and the persisting challenges to and limits on the implementation of the agenda, especially with regard to the meaningful participation of women in peace negotiations and efforts towards intra-Palestinian reconciliation..
Report in English here. This publication is available in Arabic, Spanish, English and Catalan.
Author: Pamela Urrutia ArestizábalOctober 2019
Escola de Cultura de Pau – Associació Hèlia
This guide is the companion to another report entitled Occupation, conflict, and patriarchy: impacts on Palestinian women. Both publications have been issued as part of the project “Involving the entire community in the fight against sexist violence and the guarantee of sexual and reproductive rights of Palestinian women in Hebron, Qalqilia and Tubas (West Bank, Palestine)”, led by Associació HÈLIA and funded by the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation (ACCD).