YouSaid · the spoken record

Asoka

lines on the record
14
first
2022-01-18
most recent
2022-01-18
sittings or episodes
1
sources
un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “We urge them to challenge those who believe it is not a woman’s place to question authority, speak out against abuse or defy power and patriarchy by responding that a woman’s place is exactly where she decides it should be — whether fighting for human rights, participating in a peace process, protesting on the streets or sitting in the Chamber with Council members.”

    2022-01-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8949 (2022) · source

  2. “The risks women face should in no way be used as an excuse to exclude them. To do so would be to let those who wish to silence them win. Instead, Member States and the United Nations must prioritize and actively support the participation and leadership of women in all aspects of peace and security. Today the Council has a choice. The members of the Security Council can show us, and indeed the international community, exactly where they stand. They can choose to support us by taking action, or they can continue to put our lives at risk by doing nothing.”

    2022-01-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8949 (2022) · source

  3. “It also means ensuring that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has the capacity to proactively carry out its work on reprisals so that the burden shifts from individuals who face attacks to the system with the capacity to protect them. All those protection measures must be developed in partnership with individuals at risk, whose views and needs must be at the heart of any response. All peace operations must be fully resourced and empowered to provide practical support to all defenders at risk. Lastly, we need a safe and enabling environment for civil society members. We must decriminalize their lives and work and enact legislation that protects their rights, in line with international human rights law. I would like to underline one final point.”

    2022-01-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8949 (2022) · source

  4. “It is therefore important to publicly support the work of human rights defenders, swiftly condemn all attacks against them, including in the Security Council, and use diplomatic channels to raise these issues with States that have committed reprisals. The Council must call on Secretary-General Guterres to ensure that all United Nations staff, especially the leadership of the United Nations, publicly champion the role of women human rights defenders and make sure that the United Nations provides all the necessary protection to those at risk and their families. That means providing rapid, flexible and targeted resources for women at risk and directly funding their organizations. It means establishing clear protocols for how the United Nations should respond to individual cases.”

    2022-01-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8949 (2022) · source

  5. “The Security Council has already called on Member States to enact measures to protect women civil society and to create an enabling environment for all those who defend human rights and advocate for peace. Yet in this very Chamber, members have failed to consider the price paid by the civil society briefers they invite. Silence is complicity. The Council cannot afford inaction if it is to fulfil its obligations under the women and peace and security agenda. We therefore call on all Member States, the leadership of the United Nations and Security Council members to stop the intimidation, attacks and reprisals against all human rights defenders, end impunity and ensure that all perpetrators are held accountable when such acts occur. The Council’s political support can keep an at- risk human rights defender alive.”

    2022-01-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8949 (2022) · source

  6. “They also need responsive institutions that they can contact directly in their hour of need. We discussed the challenges of their activism, the toll their work has taken on them and, most of all, their waning faith in the international community’s willingness to act on their concerns. Their clear message to the Council is that, while such protection measures can keep them safe temporarily, only genuine political support for their work can ensure their long-term security. If Council members are truly committed to ending attacks against women human rights defenders and peacebuilders, it is critical to address the root causes of conflict and gender inequality, not only their consequences.”

    2022-01-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8949 (2022) · source

  7. “Let us be clear — reprisals are designed to silence women human rights defenders and stop them from doing their work. Those risks are compounded for marginalized groups, such as LGBTQI+ activists and women with disabilities, and they affect not only individuals, but families, communities and civic space. Such repressive measures not only harm those who choose to speak out anyway but will also deter other advocates from doing their important work unless the Council puts a stop to it now. Last week we talked about what those women need to continue their work in the face of those challenges. They told us that they need funding to support urgent needs, such as personal security, relocation, increased security for their homes and offices and the payment of legal fees.”

    2022-01-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8949 (2022) · source

  8. “The number and severity of reprisals and intimidation against anyone engaging with the United Nations has exponentially increased in recent years. Approximately a third of the women we have supported in briefing the Security Council since 2018 have faced intimidation or reprisals, and approximately 67 per cent of those cases were perpetrated by State actors. That is just the tip of the iceberg. The United Nations has publicly documented only a fraction of such cases directly associated with the Security Council. Many have not been reported at all, out of fear of further reprisals or a complete lack of confidence that anything would happen as a result of the reporting. The gap in information means that policy responses fail to take into account the basic facts on the ground that could well determine whether or not a woman lives or dies.”

    2022-01-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8949 (2022) · source

  9. “We have had to relocate multiple women after they briefed the Security Council, some of whom have yet to return to their homes. In one recent case, an individual was abducted the day after a Security Council briefing. We feared that they had been tortured or were dead. For months, we dropped all of our other work to focus on that case until they were released. We asked several Member States and United Nations agencies for help but received little. It taught us a difficult lesson — nobody, other than our own civil society colleagues, was willing to help an individual who had faced reprisal for having cooperated with the United Nations system. That is unacceptable. Our experience reflects a pattern.”

    2022-01-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8949 (2022) · source

  10. “The women leaders with whom we work have faced intimidation, threats and reprisals directly related to their engagement with the Council. They have been censored, threatened and harmed. They have been told to be silent on issues integral to our work, such as gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health and rights, because those were considered incompatible with so-called cultural or religious values. Their laptops have been confiscated, and their phones and bank accounts hacked. They have been arbitrarily detained by security forces following their briefings. They have been accused of being spies for foreign Governments. They have been subjected to smear campaigns and defamation. They have faced intimidation right before sitting in this chair.”

    2022-01-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8949 (2022) · source

  11. “Reprisals against individuals who brief in this very Chamber are a symptom of global trends — the closing of civic space, the erosion of human rights norms and the increasingly misogynistic and militarized environments in which they live and work today. Our coalition has worked to ensure that conflict- affected communities are heard by policymakers. We welcomed the adoption of resolution 2242 (2015), which enabled more women in civil society to share their expertise directly with the Council. Yet, as the number of briefers has increased, so have the repercussions for speaking up. That is a perfect illustration of the threats facing all women who seek to engage actively in peace and political processes — the topic of today’s debate. The more women assert their rights, the greater the backlash.”

    2022-01-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8949 (2022) · source

  12. “That should not be the case anywhere. It should not be the case in Afghanistan, where women leaders and activists have worked for peace and equal rights for decades and currently live in fear of being targeted by the Taliban, even as they continue to bravely demonstrate in the streets. It should not be the case in Myanmar, where women and LGBTQI+ activists who led protests against the coup d’état are being targeted by the military. They are detained, tortured and sexually abused for standing up for human rights and democracy. It should not be the case in any of the other situations on the Security Council’s agenda. It should not be the case here in the Security Council.”

    2022-01-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8949 (2022) · source

  13. “Many of them have addressed Council members in this Chamber, and many have paid the price for doing so. It is their voices that members are hearing today, and they are asking them for help. There would be no women and peace and security agenda without civil society, particularly the women who are living and working through the daily realities of war. Their views and active participation are central to achieving our collective goal of peace and security, but that participation comes at a cost that we should not be asking anyone to pay. We observed in our open letter to the Security Council of October 2021 that to be a woman or a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or intersex (LGBTQI+) person in many parts of the world, particularly in conflict, means having to choose between fighting for your rights or fighting for your life.”

    2022-01-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8949 (2022) · source

  14. “Ms. Asoka: I thank members of the Security Council for the opportunity to brief them today. I am Kaavya Asoka, and I represent the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security, a civil society coalition of 18 international non-governmental organizations that, for more than 20 years, have worked to promote women’s rights and their full, equal and meaningful participation in peace and security. In preparation for today’s meeting, we spoke last week with our civil society colleagues from Afghanistan, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Libya, Myanmar, South Sudan, the Sudan, Syria and Yemen — women who deliver critical services to their communities, who broker ceasefires and participate in peace processes and who have dedicated their lives to the relentless pursuit of peace, justice and human rights.”

    2022-01-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8949 (2022) · source