YouSaid · the spoken record

Bahous

lines on the record: 412
first: 2016-10-19
most recent: 2023-11-22
sittings or episodes: 42
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

“Yet the women in Gaza feel completely abandoned. They hear that more humanitarian relief is coming but they can see that the trickle of aid does not meet the ocean of need. More than anything, they tell us that they want the violence to stop, and to stop now. For the sake of women and girls, I leave the Council with a call for a return to a genuine and purposeful commitment to a just peace.”
2023-11-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9484 (2023) · source
“Now more than ever, we must seek peace, and in doing so, we must recall that women remain the largest and most reliable constituency in that cause. And now more than ever, we must uphold the principles of justice and accountability for crimes committed, in order to stop the crimes that are ongoing and deter the commission of those that have yet to occur. I call for this truce to be extended to a ceasefire and for the remaining hostages to be released unconditionally. I call for an immediate end to the current siege, beginning with ensuring access to water. Let me end with a sentiment that we are hearing from women in Gaza. They note that the international community spends a significant amount of time reiterating numbers — numbers of people killed, numbers of children under the rubble, numbers of houses destroyed.”
2023-11-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9484 (2023) · source
“I also welcome the General Assembly resolution adopted on 27 October, calling for an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities (General Assembly resolution ES–10/21). I urge the Council to include the voices of Palestinian and Israeli women working for peace, to recognize their leadership and to call for their meaningful participation in any negotiation efforts. This crisis must be a wakeup call to our multilateral system. The world is looking to us to model its highest ideals, not to reflect its greatest failures. Now more than ever, we must be faithful to our Charter and to our shared humanity. Now more than ever, we must reject those who seek to sow hatred and division.”
2023-11-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9484 (2023) · source
“International justice mechanisms are actively resisted. The growing pushback against women and girls and their rights is gaining momentum. The Charter of the United Nations and our global norms are flagrantly ignored. And as we abandon the instruments of multilateralism, the volume of arms transfers and the market value of arms manufacturers skyrocket. I welcome the resolution adopted last week by the Security Council (resolution 2712 (2023)) and hope that that will only be the start of greater consensus in the Council to find a solution. I call for its immediate implementation. But that resolution, like the more than 100 resolutions adopted on the so-called Palestinian question since 1948, makes no reference to gender issues.”
2023-11-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9484 (2023) · source
“During my mission, I heard unequivocal calls time and again that we need an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. I also heard calls from partners across the region that the forced displacement or transfer of Palestinians from their land is a red line, and that we must ensure the protection of civilians and facilitate unhindered access to aid. I heard calls for an end to occupation and for concerted progress towards a peaceful two-State solution. I suspect that I am not unique in finding this one of the lowest moments for the international community and for peace and security that I can recall. But it is precisely at moments such as this that multilateralism is at its most important. This institution and others of the United Nations are where we come together to find peace. Our track record is varied.”
2023-11-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9484 (2023) · source
“As always, we will continue to work with our sister entities and through the broader Inter-Agency Standing Committee membership to ensure that the humanitarian response serves women and girls to the fullest. I thank our development partners for their support to us in implementing the plan, but much more funding is needed. I encourage all donors to increase their allocations, including to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which remains the only lifeline for thousands of Palestinians. UN-Women has met with and heard from Israeli women, who shared with us that they, and civil society organizations, are working to document gender-based atrocities, and they shared their hope for peace, with women — both Israelis and Palestinians — at the table.”
2023-11-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9484 (2023) · source
“We will support and work urgently with the Egyptian Red Crescent and the Jordanian Hashemite charity organization to advance the distribution of items identified by women in Gaza as priority needs. I commend the many female staff and volunteers of the Egyptian Red Crescent for their exceptional service in these challenging circumstances. I also welcome the establishment of a new Jordanian field hospital in Khan Younis, including, notably, female medical staff, such as doctors and nurses, for the first time. That is a significant milestone. We are providing flexible financial support to women’s organizations across the occupied Palestinian territory. The Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund has launched a new appeal to mobilize an additional $10 million. And we will support women’s leadership in the political space.”
2023-11-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9484 (2023) · source
“The work of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel is crucial. Gaza’s only two women’s shelters are now closed. Women-led organizations continue to operate in Gaza, although under severe constraints. Where they function, they are using their networks to source and distribute emergency items and to document and respond to protection concerns. I salute their courage and reiterate the need to ensure that they have whatever they need to continue their crucial work. UN-Women’s response plan for Gaza, working with partners including the World Food Programme, will in its initial phase cover food and cash assistance to 14,000 women-headed households — one third of all women-headed households in Gaza.”
2023-11-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9484 (2023) · source
“I reiterate my call from when I last spoke in the Chamber in October (see S/PV.9452), that every act of violence against women and girls, including sexual violence, is unequivocally condemned and must be fully investigated with the utmost priority. I am reassured that Special Representative of the Secretary-General Patten has activated the United Nations action network, which she chairs, to proactively share United Nations-sourced and verified information on incidents, patterns and trends of conflict-related sexual violence to aid all investigations. I am confident that there will ultimately be a reckoning for all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in this conflict.”
2023-11-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9484 (2023) · source
“It should shame us all that any mother, anywhere, has such a prayer. Before the current escalation, there were 650,000 women and girls in dire need of humanitarian assistance in Gaza. Now that estimate has increased to 1.1 million, including the nearly 800,000 women internally displaced. And while the situation of women and girls in Gaza rightly preoccupies us because of its immediacy and the overwhelming imperative to act, we are seeing an escalation in the West Bank, where demolitions of public infrastructure, the revocation of work permits, increased settler violence and detentions have had a significant impact on the lives and livelihoods of women. I am alarmed by the disturbing reports of gender- based and sexual violence.”
2023-11-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9484 (2023) · source
“Forty-five per cent of all housing units have been destroyed or damaged. Thousands more are injured, unable to find any medical support from a totally shattered health system. As many as 180 women are delivering babies every day without water, painkillers, anaesthesia for caesarean sections, electricity for incubators or medical supplies. Yet they continue care for their children, the sick and the elderly, mixing baby formula with contaminated water — when they find it — going without food so that their children can live another day and enduring multiple risks in severely overcrowded shelters. They have been robbed of their livelihoods, security and dignity. Women in Gaza have told us that they pray for peace, but that if peace does not come, they pray for a quick death, in their sleep, with their children in their arms.”
2023-11-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9484 (2023) · source
“Despite their knowledge of the dangers they faced, they did what they believed in until their final breath, whether in schools, hospitals or wherever they were needed. We carry their memories with us throughout this crisis and beyond. It has been 47 days since the 7 October attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people, many of them women and children, were killed. Each day that passes marks another 24 hours of unspeakable fear and uncertainty for the hostages, including women and girls, held by Hamas. I continue to call for their immediate and unconditional release. It has been 47 days since the more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza have been spending every moment fearing for their lives, mourning their dead and living under conditions that would break every single one of us. Thousands of women in Gaza have lost their homes.”
2023-11-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9484 (2023) · source
“Before 7 October, 67 per cent of all civilians killed in the occupied Palestinian territory in the past 15 years were men, and less than 14 per cent were women and girls. Since that date, that percentage has been reversed. Not only is the number of civilians killed since 7 October twice that of the past 15 years combined, now 67 per cent of the more than 14,000 people killed in Gaza are estimated to be women and children. That is two mothers killed every hour, and seven women killed every two hours. We mourn them all. We also mourn the more than 100 United Nations colleagues who have died in just a month of this crisis. They served the mandate of our United Nations and the principles we have sworn to uphold, and they paid the ultimate price for it.”
2023-11-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9484 (2023) · source
“I welcome the news that 50 hostages, all women and children, will be released in return for the release of 150 Palestinian women and children, and a much-needed humanitarian pause. I thank the Governments of Egypt, Qatar and the United States of America for facilitating that agreement. I hope that this is the beginning of a permanent truce and lasting relief for the people of Gaza and all the hostages held by Hamas. We have witnessed six rounds of violence in Gaza in the past 15 years. Yet the ferocity and destruction that the Gazan people are being forced to endure under our watch has reached an intensity we have never seen before. I have been consistent in my briefings to the Council, in reminding the Council that women and girls are paying the highest price of conflicts.”
2023-11-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9484 (2023) · source
“Ms. Bahous: Allow me to thank you, Ambassador Zhang Jun, for your remarkable efforts during China’s presidency to maintain focus on the situation in Gaza. And thank you to Ambassador Nusseibeh and Ambassador Frazier for calling for this meeting, and to the members of the Security Council, for this opportunity to brief the Council about the humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territory. I just returned last night from Egypt and Jordan. There, I met with government representatives, civil society partners, humanitarian workers and volunteers, all working tirelessly to respond to the suffering of the Gazan people and end the crisis. I commend their efforts to ensure humanitarian aid gets to those in need.”
2023-11-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9484 (2023) · source
“In conclusion, I join the presidency in honouring the memory of Brazilian activist Bertha Lutz, the most prominent advocate for women’s rights among the signatories to the Charter of the United Nations. The women’s movement owes her a debt of gratitude. As we speak, around the world and across its crises and conflicts, women continue to risk their lives. They are caring for those around them, trying to carry their families, communities and nations to peace. We can no longer fail to offer them the best support. They are showing us what to do, and I commend their example, as I commend the Secretary-General’s report to the Council as motivation, inspiration and a source of determination for change.”
2023-10-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9452 (2023) · source
“First, we must set ambitious and measurable targets for women’s direct and meaningful participation on delegations and negotiating teams. Secondly, we must nominate and appoint women as lead mediators and as mediation experts and make gender balance and the inclusion of gender expertise a norm for mediation teams. Thirdly, we must earmark a minimum 15 per cent of funds on mediation support to women’s participation. Fourthly, we must track and publicly report in real time on the number and percentage of women directly participating in these peace processes. Fifthly, we must ensure that gender equality and women’s human rights are a central part of peace agreements.”
2023-10-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9452 (2023) · source
“It is in that light that the Secretary-General’s report calls on Governments to take additional measures to help women human rights defenders to facilitate the evacuation and relocation of those at immediate risk and set out strategies for long-term support in exile. I am pleased to share that the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund introduced a window for women human rights defenders in 2022 and was able to support 214 women and their 553 dependants within a few months of operation. We need more such action. Let me highlight five transformative actions so that today’s open debate is a milestone, not just a reiteration. I call on all those countries and organizations that support mediation and peace negotiations to take these to heart and to do so with urgency.”
2023-10-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9452 (2023) · source
“We need to put gender equality at the heart of resource allocation. Bilateral aid to support gender equality in conflict-affected countries declined in 2021, as we just heard from the Secretary-General. The percentage dedicated to gender equality as a principal objective plateaued at 6 per cent, despite promises to dedicate 15 per cent or more. This failure to finance comes at a time when the ability to reach women and girls, or even employ women in humanitarian delivery, has been challenged in countries such as Afghanistan and Yemen, placing the international community in a cruel dilemma as it seeks to adhere to our humanitarian principles.”
2023-10-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9452 (2023) · source
“However, as peace operations are withdrawn, the United Nations capacity to monitor and protect women’s rights becomes more limited. We need women’s leadership now. Yet, in conflict- affected countries, only 23 per cent of parliamentarians and 20 per cent of ministers are women, both below the global average. I suggest that that is no coincidence. We can increase those numbers with quotas and by tackling political violence against women and gender-based hate speech, both of which are on the rise. We need women to be safe. The growing number of reparations for survivors of sexual violence and the emerging recognition of gender persecution in national and international courts are positive. Yet the thousands of human rights violations reported in United Nations documents annually still vastly outnumber the successful cases of gender justice.”
2023-10-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9452 (2023) · source
“Those examples must be replicated at the national level. In this report, the United Nations commits to an initial minimum target of women as one third of participants in mediation and peace processes and reaffirms the target of parity in political and electoral processes. We should acknowledge that women’s participation in peacekeeping has increased. This past year, peace operations advanced many achievements. They set up mobile courts to convict perpetrators of gender- based violence in conflict-affected settings; deployed female engagement teams to learn about the situation of women and girls in the most remote areas; helped release and rehabilitate hundreds of women and girls abducted by armed groups; included women in many local peace initiatives and relocated women human rights defenders. Those examples should inspire us.”
2023-10-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9452 (2023) · source
“It should alarm us that, 23 years after the adoption of resolution 1325 (2000), we lack an up-to-date, full, transparent, and public accounting of women’s representation in peace talks. Even in broad-based national dialogues, where inclusion should be paramount and parity achievable, women’s representation fell below 40 per cent, on average, and in some cases, was much lower. Only a third of the 18 peace agreements negotiated in 2022 included provisions on women or gender equality. The report provides examples of what works, particularly at the local level, where women led successful cross-line negotiations to secure access to water and humanitarian aid, brokered the release of political prisoners, prevented and resolved tribal conflicts and mediated local ceasefires and a halt to violations against civilians.”
2023-10-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9452 (2023) · source
“It shares a picture of decline in several countries in the political space for women to participate in decision-making on peace and security — a decline at the very moment when women’s leadership is needed most. Among the five United Nations-led or co-led peace processes in 2022, for example, women’s representation stood at only 16 per cent — compared to 19 per cent in 2021 and 23 per cent in 2020. In peace processes led by Member States or other organizations, women were also almost completely absent. That includes in Ethiopia, Kosovo, the Sudan, Myanmar and Libya. Colombia remains a positive exception, as women reached near parity in the new rounds of negotiations.”
2023-10-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9452 (2023) · source
“That return is best served by heeding and creating space for the voices of women. Our focus on the Middle East emphasizes once more the imperative for collective, multilateral action for peace that the Council represents. It has never been more urgent. We will hear later today from Ms. Hala Al-Karib, who will remind us of the crisis in the Sudan and of women’s plight there. Her testimony must be heard. Many women in the Sudan and elsewhere, tell us that they feel forgotten and unheard, as conflicts are being displaced from the front pages by new conflicts elsewhere. The report before us highlights the Secretary- General’s call for a critical transformation in women’s meaningful participation in peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding over the course of this decade.”
2023-10-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9452 (2023) · source
“UN-Women estimates that, to date, that has resulted in more than 1,100 new female-headed households and has displaced more than 690,000 women and girls from their homes, leaving them at greater risk of violence. But let me be clear — every act of violence against women and girls, including sexual violence, is unequivocally condemned, irrespective of the nationality, identity, race or religion of the victims. We echo all calls for the unconditional release of all hostages, the protection of all civilians, a humanitarian ceasefire and immediate, unrestricted and sustained humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza. In addition, there must be accountability for all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law and a return to negotiations for a lasting peace for both the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.”
2023-10-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9452 (2023) · source
“We meet at a time when the impact of conflict on women and girls has never been starker, and the price we collectively pay through spurning women’s leadership has never been more obvious, as millions upon millions suffer the consequences of the wars of men. As we meet, the Middle East is witnessing a dramatic escalation of violence. To date, more than 1,400 Israelis have been killed by the horrific attacks by Hamas, many of whom are women and children, and an estimated 200 remain as hostages, many of whom are women. And Gaza has been under devastating, relentless bombardment, killing more than 6,000 people, a majority — 67 per cent — of whom are women and children.”
2023-10-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9452 (2023) · source
“Ms. Bahous: It is an honour to present the Secretary-General’s annual report on women and peace and security (S/2023/725) to the Security Council. I do so with anguish at the price being paid by women and girls for the alarming spread of conflict, the continued growth of military budgets and the rise of authoritarianism. I do so knowing too well that while horrors and cruelties are being visited on humankind, women and girls remain largely excluded from the ability to make decisions, whether about war and peace, the future of their countries or even about their own bodies. And I do so still hopeful and determined, because the global women’s rights movement is never deterred by setbacks, because it only gains adherents and courage with each injustice and because it remains the largest and most reliable constituency for peace.”
2023-10-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9452 (2023) · source
“She told the Council what Afghan women told me when I was on mission to Afghanistan in January, and what the Afghan women I met here at the General Assembly across all my engagements this past week have echoed — that if members do not defend women’s rights here, they have no credibility to do so anywhere else. Zubaida Akbar was right. The world is watching. In some places it is watching to condemn, but in others it is watching to emulate, as other countries and parties to conflict seek to mimic the violations that the Taliban have inflicted on women. The multilateral system is being tested. We must not be found wanting.”
2023-09-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9423 (2023) · source
“That must be the primary lens through which we understand what is going on and what we must do. Thirdly, we ask the Council to lend its full support to an intergovernmental process to explicitly codify gender apartheid in international law. The tools that the international community has at its disposal were not created to respond to mass, State-sponsored gender oppression. This systematic and planned assault on women’s rights is foundational to the Taliban’s vision of State and society, and it must be named, defined and proscribed in our global norms so that we can respond appropriately. On International Women’s Day this year, members invited a brave Afghan activist, Zubaida Akbar, to their deliberations (see S/PV.9277).”
2023-09-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9423 (2023) · source
“I leave the Council with three final recommendations. First, we recommend that the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1988 (2011) convene a dedicated meeting on the role the Committee can play in responding to violations of women’s rights in Afghanistan, including hearing from Afghan women and women’s rights experts directly, updating the listing criteria and using all the tools at the Committee’s disposal. Secondly, we must consider the messages we send when we frame the situation in Afghanistan purely or exclusively as a humanitarian crisis, which it is not. It is an economic crisis, a mental-health crisis a development crisis and much more. And the thread that connects those different facets is the underlying women’s-rights crisis.”
2023-09-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9423 (2023) · source
“Our job is to hear and support them, including by finding spaces for them to meet with the de facto authorities, including women in our delegations when we meet with the de facto authorities, and using all of the tools in our toolbox to bring them out of the dark. It also means putting money behind organizations led by and assisting Afghan women and women- run businesses. Seventy-seven per cent of women’s organizations did not receive funding in 2022. That is something we cannot accept. Just as Afghan women act with courage and creativity, opening clandestine schools and having girls wearing boys’ clothes to access education, donors too can find innovative ways to reach women and girls, including through online platforms, radio, cash assistance and scholarships and safe migration alternatives.”
2023-09-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9423 (2023) · source
“The negotiations for the Doha agreement, in 2020, excluded Afghan women and did not contain a single reference to, or safeguard for, women’s rights. Those failures were part of what brought us to where we are today. The past is full of examples of neglecting or ignoring women; the present is filled with the consequences. The future must therefore be focused on listening to, investing in, and supporting women, as well as including them. Women in Afghanistan will lead the change they need. They will find ways of speaking out, educating themselves, generating income and helping others. They have done that before, and they will do it again.”
2023-09-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9423 (2023) · source
“It is estimated that women’s employment has dropped by 25 per cent since the Taliban’s takeover, compared to 7 per cent for men — and those estimates predate the many bans enacted since the end of 2022, which have barred tens of thousands of women from working in non-governmental organizations and the United Nations, and the forthcoming loss of more than 60,000 jobs that will come with the shutdown of beauty salons. Those decrees are costing Afghanistan approximately $1 billion per year, a sum that will only increase. We must chart a way forward together, guided by women’s voices and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations. We have ignored those voices too often in the past. Afghan women were excluded from 80 per cent of peace negotiations from 2005 to 2020.”
2023-09-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9423 (2023) · source
“The last time the Security Council met on Afghanistan (see S/PV.9354), it was reported that there were more than 50 edicts and decrees restricting women’s rights. More have been added since. The number of families living in poverty has nearly doubled in two years. More than two-thirds of people in Afghanistan require humanitarian assistance to survive. Twenty million face acute hunger, the majority of whom are women and girls, and the cost of the food basket has gone up. Household debt has increased sixfold. The Taliban’s attacks on women’s rights exacerbate the situation, pushing women out of jobs and opportunities to generate income and out of the education they need to be part of Afghanistan’s future.”
2023-09-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9423 (2023) · source
“Women in Afghanistan continue to demand that the international community provide spaces for them to speak directly with the de facto authorities, that international actors do not meet with the Taliban without women in their own delegations and that international actors continue to use all means at their disposal to leverage and pressure for change, including the use of sanctions, without exceptions for travel, and the issue of non-recognition. Forty-six per cent of women consulted think that recognition should not happen under any circumstances, and 50 per cent think that it should be granted only after the Taliban end rights violations related to women’s education, employment and participation in inclusive Government.”
2023-09-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9423 (2023) · source
“With those continued restrictions we see, among other things, increases in child marriage and child labour. Thirdly, while a year ago, improving safety and security, especially for working women, was the second most pressing priority, it is replaced today by mental-health concerns. As the percentage of women employed continues to drop, 90 per cent of young women respondents report bad or very bad mental health, and suicide and suicidal ideation is everywhere. They tell us that they are prisoners living in darkness, confined to their homes, without hope or future. As Special Representative Otunbayeva has said, they tell us that their elimination from public life is like a continuous fear of violent death.”
2023-09-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9423 (2023) · source
“That is driven by increased poverty, a decrease in women’s financial contributions, the Taliban’s imposition of hyperpatriarchal gender norms and women’s growing isolation. In our consultations, only 22 per cent of women reported meeting with women outside of their immediate family at least once a week, and a majority reported worsened relations with other members of their families and communities. That jeopardizes women’s mental health and increases the risk of gender-based violence. Secondly, women tell us that, in addition to facing an ever-growing list of restrictions on their lives, those restrictions are being enforced more frequently and more severely, including by male family members, as the Taliban hold them accountable to enforce their decrees.”
2023-09-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9423 (2023) · source
“This past quarter, women told us, once again, that access to education remains their highest priority. More than four out of five young women and girls who should be studying are out of school. The lifetime impact of that cannot be underestimated, not only for the women and girls who are not in school, but also their families and communities. While many of the demands of women living inside Afghanistan have remained unchanged, there are three marked shifts that demand our urgent attention. First, women’s influence on decision-making has shrunk dramatically, and not just at the national and provincial level. At the community, extended- family and household levels, women are seeing their decision-making spaces and authority severely curtailed, with space around household decision-making shrinking the most.”
2023-09-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9423 (2023) · source
“Ms. Bahous: Since the Taliban took over Kabul more than two years ago, the Security Council adopted several resolutions condemning the many forms of repression directed at Afghan women and girls. It has also heard directly from 13 Afghan women, the majority of whom spoke to the Chamber from exile, where too many are forced to be. Their message to the Council on what Afghan women want, wherever they are, is what women everywhere want — the right to live free and equal lives with dignity and respect. Over the past year, UN-Women has collaborated with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and the International Organization for Migration to regularly consult Afghan women inside the country and to try to put women at the centre of international decision-making, as required by our women and peace and security agenda.”
2023-09-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9423 (2023) · source
“I urge one and all to reinforce this message, both in the Security Council and as partners of the Central African Republic.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“And yet it is one of the reasons we keep going through cycles of violence and instability, and addressing it is one of our best hopes for a future for the country. In the coming months, the constitutional referendum and the local elections are more likely to be peaceful under the following four conditions — that women activists can speak their mind freely, that women’s organizations have the resources to build peace and social cohesion in their communities and mitigate tensions, that women candidates can run for office without threats and harassment and that international partners work together with the Government and civil society in the country in order to ensure that upcoming milestones contribute to peace rather than risk further instability.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“Just one third of rape survivors are able to access clinical management within 72 hours, and the list goes on. The many brave women who want to shape the future of their country must be given the space and the resources to do so. We must all do our part to create that space. We are at a critical juncture for women’s participation, with a constitutional referendum and elections that could result in instability and violence again. While much can be said about the resurgence of attacks by armed groups, ethnic conflict, the spillover effects of the crisis in the Sudan and the regional and global dynamics at play in the Central African Republic, the extreme underrepresentation of women in all decision-making is rarely mentioned or addressed.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“They are rarely invited to provide meaningful input in decision-making processes, and initiatives targeting women rarely feed into the formal peace process. There is a vibrant civil society in the Central African Republic, yet women report that for them the civic space is closing. The conflict and the humanitarian emergency have exacerbated many issues that disproportionately affect women and girls and that have a direct bearing on their ability to participate fully, equally and meaningfully in their communities. We need their voices and their agency, yet they risk harassment, including from armed groups, if they speak up or collaborate with the Government or the United Nations. More broadly, gender-based violence is on the rise, strongly correlated with arms proliferation.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“As in many other countries, women in the Central African Republic are very active in the work of building peace, mediating conflicts at the local level and protecting their communities, often at their own risk and expense. In many cases, they overcome sexual violence, conflict-related psychological trauma or the loss of a husband to care for the growing numbers of orphans and take on new roles as breadwinners, amid acute food insecurity. Nearly one in two households in the Central African Republic is now headed by a woman. On the whole, we are falling short of our commitments and of the aspirations of women in the Central African Republic. Several of the women invited here from civil society have told the Council that women are often engaged only in consultations in the margins or when missions from external actors visit the country.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“In a study that UN- Women conducted last year, we found that 43 per cent of women candidates were victims of physical violence during their campaigns. They were threatened by armed groups or even kidnapped. Women voters were refused entry into voting centres or turned back because they lacked birth certificates. Some mechanisms did make a difference, though. The United Nations set up hotlines and situation rooms for women across the country. In one case, a woman candidate who was being threatened by armed men called the hotline to relay her location with the sound of gunfire in the background. The peacekeepers closest to her location were swiftly mobilized, and the armed men left. Today she is a member of Parliament. Let us all applaud her.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“Perhaps the most positive example of women’s representation is the Truth, Justice, Reparation and Reconciliation Commission, with five women among its 11 members, including the President. However, two years after its launch, it still lacks the financial resources to get off the ground. And in several of the key committees dealing with peace and security issues, such as disarmament, demobilization and reintegration and security-sector reform, women’s representation is marginal or non-existent. In the 2021 elections, in spite of the parity law, the percentage of women in the National Assembly increased only modestly, from 8 to 12 per cent. There are clear indications why that is so. Of the more than 1,500 candidates, only 15 per cent were women. Party lists were validated and accepted, despite the fact that they failed to meet the quota.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“It is their inadequate implementation, enforcement and funding that is failing the women of the Central African Republic. When the Political Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in the Central African Republic was signed in 2019, only eight of the 78 delegates representing the different parties were women, and only one of the 14 signatories. All 11 of the facilitators designated by the African Union were men. There are currently no women in the monitoring mechanism of the Luanda road map. The numbers are not much better in national dialogues. In the Bangui Forum in 2015, women constituted only 20 per cent of the 800 participants. In the 2022 republican dialogue, only 17 per cent of the 450 participants were women.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“The Government’s first national action plan on women and peace and security was adopted in 2014, and it is working on the third iteration of that plan. Those are remarkable efforts that should be applauded and recognized. I also commend the Council’s efforts to ensure that its resolutions on the Central African Republic encompass clear directives on women and peace and security, including for the mandates of both the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic and the Committee established pursuant to resolution 2127 (2013) concerning the Central African Republic. And yet women continue to be extremely marginalized in decision-making in general and in peace processes in particular. As in many other countries on the Security Council’s agenda, there is no lack of norms or plans.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“Ms. Bahous: At the outset, I would like to recognize World Refugee Day today, as well as all who are forced to flee their homes as a result of conflict, instability and climate change, especially women and girls, who are disproportionately affected. We honour all refugees today. We honour their courage, strength and resilience. One of the most repeated phrases in this Chamber in recent years has been “women’s full, equal and meaningful participation”. I want to focus on that today in the context of the Central African Republic, ahead of the constitutional referendum and the first local elections since 1988. Women in the Central African Republic have had a parity law and a 35 per cent quota in all decision-making bodies since 2016, and that remains in effect until 2027.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“That means being much more intentional about funding or engaging with new groups, especially with young women. Let me assure members that UN-Women is ready to work with them in finding that change of direction and forging a new path forward. I am grateful to the Government of Mozambique for convening us now to set new goals and make purposeful and effective plans before it is too late.”
2023-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9276 (2023) · source