NATO and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda:

Time to Bring It Home

Marriët Schuurman[*]

The year 2015 is a year of global reflection: celebrating the seventy years of the United Nations, the twenty years of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action for gender equality and women’s empowerment, the end year of the Millennium Development Goals, and the fifteenth anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325). Together, these milestones urge us to reflect on what difference these groundbreaking international institutions and collective efforts have actually made.

UNSCR 1325 is the landmark “No Women, No Peace” resolution, which recognizes that there can be no sustainable peace without equal inclusion of women and men alike. UNSCR 1325 sets a comprehensive agenda for mobilizing the power of women with a view of better and lasting peace and security. It is the mother resolution that was followed by six related resolutions in subsequent years, together setting the international framework for empowering women to take their rightful, active, and meaningful role in preventing and resolving conflicts, in restoring peace and security, and in building resilient and prosperous societies.

Looking back at fifteen years of implementing UNSCR 1325, the following questions arise: has the world indeed become a safer place for women and girls? Are women heard and have they gained their rightful place at the table when it comes to preventing and resolving conflict, rehabilitation and reconstruction, building resilient communities, and contributing to lasting peace and security?

My conclusion is that we have come far in norm setting, designing policies and plans, guidelines, and directives. Awareness is on the rise, gender expertise was augmented, tools have been developed to better integrate a gender perspective into our daily peace and security efforts. The devastating nature of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence is finally getting the attention it needs. Now is the time to implement, to deliver tangible results, on the ground and in real life. Translating principles into practice requires perseverance and above all political will and leadership. The main challenge ahead of us will be to keep the women, peace, and security agenda on the political agenda in a time when our security environment has drastically changed. When we are no longer mainly concerned with exporting peace and security but are also forced to rethink how we protect peace and security at home, in our own countries and region; how we defend the principles on which our peace and security is based: individual freedom, democracy, human rights, and rule of law; how we safeguard a Europe at peace, whole and free.

In this article I will highlight some of NATO’s major achievements in implementing its women, peace, and security policy, identify work ahead, and argue the relevance of the women, peace, and security agenda for better responding to the many new security challenges we face.

NATO’s Achievements and Best Practices: Groundwork in Place

One of NATO’s most remarkable achievements in implementing Resolution 1325 and related resolutions is the institutionalization of the agenda in its organization. The first NATO policy on women, peace, and security dates back to 2007, the same year in which the first “1325” National Action Plans came to light. NATO’s first Action Plan was drafted in 2010. A revised Policy and a new Action Plan were adopted in 2014 by NATO, Allies, EAPC partners and six global partners. In total, fifty-five nations signed off on the new NATO Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. In 2009, NATO’s two Strategic Commands—Allied Command Operations and Allied Command Transformation—issued a Directive (BI-SC Directive 40-1) on integrating UNSCR 1325 and the gender perspective into the NATO command structure. The Directive was updated in 2012.

The experiences gained from our operations, particularly in Afghanistan, have been instrumental in improving the integration of the gender perspective into NATO-led military operations. Following a request by Allied leaders at the 2012 Chicago Summit, an international team of independent experts on the subject assessed how current gender policies and plans have been implemented in NATO-led missions in Kosovo (KFOR) and Afghanistan (ISAF). Their findings can be read in a public Review that takes stock of efforts to date and offers recommendations for strengthening future work in this area.[1]

The Review finds that “significant progress” has been made in implementing the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security in NATO-led operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo, but says there remains “ample room for improvement.” [2] Areas of progress include the establishment of gender advisor positions within senior level military commands, the appointments of Gender Focal Points within different branches of KFOR and ISAF, and the use of gender enablers (such as the ISAF Female Engagement Teams). Recommendations include (1) the further deployment of female staff as well as male and female Gender Advisors; (2) the further integration of a gender perspective in military assessments, intelligence, planning, operations and reporting; and (3) the need to identify local women as important actors in our mission areas and consult with them on that basis.

Following the review, continued efforts have been made to integrate a gender perspective into planning documents, handbooks, and directives – mostly as part of the regular revision process of these documents, but occasionally for the specific purpose of integrating a gender perspective, as was the case with the Operational Plan for the Balkans. The planning process for the new Resolute Support Mission to Afghanistan demonstrates that gender is no longer an afterthought: a gender perspective was integrated from the political decision-making level down to the drafting of the operational plan for the mission and the troop generation process.

Gender expertise has been further increased and institutionalized. Specific gender training modules have been developed for all levels, for both pre-deployment training and advanced learning. In September 2014, a NATO Education and Training Plan for Gender in Military Operations was approved, which unifies and synchronizes gender education and training at all levels. The Nordic Centre for Gender in Military Operations (NCGM) was designated the NATO Department Head for Gender Training. As such, it is responsible for assuring the quality control, coherence, and coordination of gender training available to NATO and its Allies and Partners. The NCGM also provides Mobile Training Teams to respond flexibly to specific gender training needs of Partner Nations. In addition, NATO is developing a National Gender Training and Education Package to be released in June. This package will be openly available on the Internet and will serve as a handbook for Nations on available gender training, with a specific focus on pre-deployment training.

Gender is also integrated in the planning, execution, and evaluation of exercises. This year’s strategic level Crisis Management Exercise (CMX15), which tests decisionmaking at the highest strategic and political level, was the first at that level to employ an integrated gender perspective: the scenario included indicators that conflictrelated sexual violence takes place as a tactic of war, and tested how these indicators might influence strategic decision-making. Initial outcomes of the exercise are positive in this respect; a formal evaluation will be completed later this year.

Furthermore, a network of gender advisors and Gender Focal Points has been established throughout the entire organization—on both the civilian and military side—in all departments, units, and levels of command. This network aims to ensure that a gender perspective is integrated in the day-to-day work of all branches, with the gender advisors reporting directly to the highest civilian and military leadership (from commanders to the Secretary General), thus having direct influence on strategic decision-making.

The nomination in 2014 of a NATO Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security as a permanent NATO position is the latest contribution to further institutionalizing and securing gender expertise within NATO, particularly at the strategic level.

Work to Be Done: Equal Participation and “Gendered” Mindsets

Much has been achieved in laying the groundwork: the framework is in place and now is the time to start using it. The NATO Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security sets the course for this with two overarching objectives. Firstly, it aims to reduce barriers to the active and meaningful participation of women in the security institutions and operations of NATO, Allies, and Partners. Comparative data show that progress in including more women in our institutions has been modest, and mixed. Secondly, that Action Plan strives to integrate a gender perspective into the day-to-day security business. Beyond institutionalizing gender, we must now internalize it.

When it comes to improving the gender balance in NATO, over the past decade some progress has been made in increasing the percentage of participating women, particularly in leading positions. Currently, 37 % of the international staff is female and 21 % of the senior decision-makers are women. However, in the most recent years, progress has stagnated and in some areas even reversed, partly as a consequence of the downsizing and reduction of support staff. In an effort to increase the share of women overall and particularly the share of women in senior positions, diversity scorecards have been developed for each division as a tool to guide decision-making in recruitment processes. In addition, a mentoring program is underway to encourage and empower talented female professionals to move on to leadership positions.

To increase the share of female troops deployed in missions and operations, NATO depends on the Nations contributing troops. Currently, analytical work is being undertaken under the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme to compare data on women in armed forces, the gender policies of the Allies since 2000, and to identify best practices in improving the gender balance in national troops. The results of this project, developed by the Rey Juan Carlos University (Spain), the Australian Human Rights Commission, and the Australian Chief of Defense, will be presented in June this year. Preliminary results demonstrate that in the past fifteen years, all Allies have developed policies and legislation for female participation in armed forces, but that increase in participation remains slow: women’s representation in the Allied Forces has increased from 7.14 % (in 1999) to 10.6 % (in 2013). The participation of female troops in NATO-led operations during that time is only 6.7 % (2013). There are still certain positions in a number of Allied countries that remain closed to women: mostly combat positions, but also work in submarines or tanks. A “glass ceiling” continues to limit the possibility of women reaching top positions.

The study also identifies a number of best practices for improving women’s participation in the armed forces. These include strong leadership, commitment, targeted recruitment strategies, targeted strategies for retaining female officers, implementation of strong evidence-based measures to prevent sexual violence and harassment, gathering of accurate data on women’s representation and experiences in the military to inform leadership action, implementation of gender policies, and ensuring the transparency of the institutions. The final results of the study, along with its comparative data and lessons, will have the potential to reenergize national efforts and strategies to improve the gender balance in national troops and national contributions to operations.

As for integrating a gender perspective in everyday security work, this first and foremost requires a change of mindset. It is a process of change and transformation. Like all change processes, the key tools are education and training, building partnerships and coalitions of change both inside and outside the organization, and creating transparency and accountability through reporting and external scrutiny.

Priorities in the NATO 1325 Action Plan therefore include leadership training, integrating gender in core training and standard curricula, and making gender sensitivity part of the professionalism of all staff – not just the specialty and responsibility of individual gender experts. Within the timeframe of the Action Plan, some specific policy areas have been identified where a gender perspective should be integrated and strengthened: arms control, small arms and mine action, building integrity, counterterrorism, children and armed conflict, human trafficking, and the protection of civilians.

Intensifying cooperation with partners such as Nations, international organizations, and civil society is key also to encouraging and feeding change within our organization. The Women, Peace and Security Agenda has proven an important platform for deepening partnership and fostering awareness and learning. Gender is part of the different partnership tools that NATO has to offer: partnership programs, Trust Funds, and the Science for Peace and Security Programme are open to support gender related initiatives. Formalizing consultations with civil society through a civil society advisory board will be critical in enhancing accountability and oversight in the implementation of our commitments and allow for sharing experiences and tapping into the rich knowledge base civil society has to offer.

The Leadership Challenge: The Relevance of 1325 in Facing New Security Challenges

The Women, Peace and Security Agenda is an agenda of transformation, of change. It forces us to look at peace and security, worldwide and at home, in a more comprehensive and inclusive way. This transformation can only be achieved with committed leadership. The leadership commitment of NATO and its Allies is reflected in the Wales Summit Declaration: “We attach great importance to ensuring women’s full and active participation in the prevention, management, and resolution of conflicts, as well as in post-conflict efforts and cooperation. (…) Our on-going efforts to integrate gender perspectives into Alliance activities throughout NATO’s three core tasks will contribute to a more modern, ready, and responsive NATO.” [3] Indeed, this means integrating a gender perspective in all three core tasks of the Alliance: collective defense and cooperative security in addition to crisis management, operations, and missions.

However, the world around us is rapidly changing. Multiple new security threats present serious challenges to global leadership. Therefore, if we want to keep the women, peace, and security agenda in the focus of our political leadership in times of multiple threats directly affecting our own security, we must demonstrate its relevance in our efforts to find better responses to the threats we currently face. This will require a revitalization of efforts towards improving gender balance in our own security institutions as well as in those of our Partner Nations. It will also require integrating a gender perspective into other security policy areas such as hybrid warfare and extremist violence. This is not an easy task, but NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has repeatedly expressed the ambition to make this happen. Promoting gender equality will allow us to respond in a better and smarter manner to the many security challenges we face today. Gender equality is not optional, but fundamental for NATO: our Alliance is built on the historic lesson that our peace and security can only be based on the respect of our fundamental rights and freedoms – the very same fundamental principles that the Alliance is meant to defend and promote.

NATO aims to continue to lead by example and demonstrate in practice that it makes sense to apply a gender perspective to our day-to-day security needs. This is particularly so in times of increased insecurity and a rapidly changing security environment.

Conclusion: Bring It Home

Our main lessons learned, best practices, policies, and tools are linked to operations “out of area.” In particular, experiences with ISAF in Afghanistan and KFOR in Kosovo have taught us that it makes a difference to have more women in our forces and staff and to integrate a gender perspective into our analysis, planning, and execution of operations. It has given us better access to the local population, more popular support, better information, better situational awareness, and smarter interventions with less risks and better outcomes. It has enhanced our operational effectiveness. The presence of women in our forces has also served as an example for increasing the acceptance of public roles for women in professional life. It has allowed us to lead by example and to practice what we preach.

Looking ahead, we will have to sustain what has been achieved and learned, and apply it beyond our peace operations: we must bring the agenda home. In doing so, we must consider how equal participation and applying a gender lens to today’s security challenges will help us find better, smarter, more sustainable solutions to the challenges we face, and how to integrate a gender perspective also into our collective defense, because equal participation is part and parcel of the fundamental values on which our peace and security is built, and of the founding principles that NATO is meant to safeguard and promote. Because we are convinced that these values, diversity and inclusion, will make our societies stronger, more stable, and more resilient. Because we know that mixed teams perform better and are more creative. And creativity is what we need to respond to the many and complicated security challenges we face together. Because a safer world starts at home.

[*] Ambassador Marriët Schuurman is NATO’s Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security in the Office of the Secretary General.

[1] Helené Lackenbauer and Richard Langlais, eds., Review of the Practical Implications of UNSCR 1325 for the Conduct of NATO-led Operations and Missions (Stockholm: Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI), 2013), available at http://www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/pdf_2013_10/20131021_131023-UNSCR1325-review-final.pdf.

[2] Ibid., 4.

[3] Wales Summit Declaration, 5 September 2014, par. 90, available at http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_112964.htm.

Gender and the Security Sector: Towards a More Secure Future

Julie L. Arostegui, J.D. [*]

Introduction

The way we conduct war and peace is completely changed.

We need a more diverse core of soldiers.

Ine Erikson,

Minister of Defense of Norway [1]

In recent decades, the nature of war has changed dramatically. Internal conflicts are being waged by opposing armed groups, often divided along ideological or ethnic lines that increasingly target civilians and wreak havoc on society with severe physical, psychological, social, political, and economic consequences.

With the changed nature of conflict has come an increasing demand to consider its varied effects on women and girls, men and boys, and to address their specific needs before, during, and after conflict. There is also an increasing awareness of the importance of including women in peace and security processes. Women are 50 percent of the population and a critical part of society and, without them, real and sustainable peace cannot be achieved. They are not merely victims of conflict; they also play active roles as combatants, peace builders, politicians, and activists, and are often in the strongest position to bring about peace in their communities. Women around the world have emerged as voices of peace, mobilizing across communities and using their social roles and networks to mediate and mitigate violence. They have demanded attention to the complex issues of peace and peace building, and the needs of the communities involved, rather than to just cease-fires and power sharing.

The international community has responded with a framework for addressing women, peace, and security, which includes United Nations (UN) Security Council resolutions and binding international law. Regional bodies such as the European Union, NATO, and the African Union have also developed strong frameworks around gender equality and women’s rights in order to build sustainable peace, driven by advocacy by women’s groups and the experiences of conflict.

With these changes has also come a paradigm shift in the concept of security from one of state security to human security. Whereas traditionally security involved the protection of borders and state sovereignty, the modern concept of security addresses the security of individuals and communities. It broadens both the nature of security threats such as poverty, discrimination, gender-based violence, lack of democracy and marginalization, and the actors involved, including non-state actors and civil society. It means creating societies that can withstand instability and conflict. It is more than the absence of armed conflict; it is an environment where individuals can thrive.[2]

A security sector that is based in human security takes into account the differing needs of men, women, boys, and girls, and ensures that the full and equal participation of women addresses the needs of all of the population and helps to establish a more peaceful and secure society.

Integrating a gender perspective into the security sector is essential: 1) to abide by universally accepted human rights principles; 2) because when both men and women are involved in decision-making processes, there are better outcomes; and 3) using gender perspectives and mainstreaming increases operational effectiveness.

The Women, Peace and Security Framework

United Nations Security Council Resolutions and International Law

The civil wars that raged in the 1990s showed the world how conflict was transforming. The genocide in Rwanda and the rape camps of Bosnia proved that the nature of conflict and its ravaging effects on women needed to be addressed urgently. At the 1995 UN-sponsored Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, women from around the world came together and, for the first time, there was a concerted focus on women’s experience in war. This resulted in a dedicated chapter on Women and Armed Conflict in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. It was a turning point and a call to action for women. In the years that followed, a global network of women, especially those who had been affected by conflict, worked at local, national, and international levels to call for peace and security for women. In 2000, a global group of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) launched a worldwide appeal for the UN Security Council to formally recognize women’s rights, to promote their participation in all peace and security processes, and to protect them in times of conflict. With the support of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the governments of Bangladesh, Jamaica, Canada, and eventually the United Kingdom, women’s advocacy resulted in the Security Council’s passage of Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (2000).

UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 and its companion resolutions UNSCR 1820 (2008), UNSCR1888 (2009), UNSCR 1889 (2009), UNSCR 1960 (2010), UNSCR 2016 (2013), and UNSCR 2122 (2013) (collectively referred to herein as 1325, the 1325 framework, or women, peace, and security framework) provide an internationally-recognized legal framework for promoting gender equality in peace and security, ensuring the participation of women in all levels of decision-making, protecting women and girls from sexual and gender-based violence, improving the prevention of violence against women, and integrating gender perspectives in all processes. They stress the need for better security sector responses to the effects of modern conflict and address all aspects of peace and security processes including peace negotiations, peacekeeping, political participation, response to sexual violence in armed conflict, judicial and legal reform as well as security sector reform. Entry points for implementation in the security sector include national and regional security policies and action plans, women’s participation in security sector reform processes, defense reform, police reform, transitional justice, justice reform, and peacekeeping operations.

UNSCR 1325 calls at all times for all parties in conflict to respect all international law applicable to the rights and protection of women and girls. It incorporates binding international law on the rights and protection of women and children such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Geneva Conventions, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Rome Statute of the International Court, which criminalizes sexual violence in conflict, among other laws, such as the United Nations Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. It also specifically recognizes the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which is an agenda for gender equality and women’s empowerment that aims to remove all obstacles to women’s active participation in public and private life through a full and equal share in economic, social, cultural, and political decision-making.[3]

All UN Member States are bound by UNSCR 1325 and the international human rights treaties to which they are party. The Security Council itself has made clear, by passing six women, peace and security resolutions, that it is issuing a direct call to action to States, the UN itself, and to all parties involved in armed conflict.

Regional Policy Initiatives

In addition to the UN, regional bodies in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas have adopted treaties, laws, policies, and action plans in support of women, peace and security.

The African Union’s (AU) Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, known as the Maputo Protocol, guarantees comprehensive rights to women. Informed by the experiences of women in countries affected by conflict, it also contains specific provisions on the participation of women in peace processes and the protection of women in armed conflicts.

The International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) [4] has a strong, legally binding framework that specifically names and addresses the principles of 1325 on the protection and promotion of the rights of women and children as critical to peace and security. The ICGLR especially views sexual and gender-based violence as a priority, crosscutting issue affecting peace, security, development, and good governance. Its policy framework includes the Great Lakes Pact on Security, Stability and Development in the Great Lakes Region (2006), which includes ten protocols that are legally binding, several of which address issues of gender equality and sexual and gender-based violence.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) adopted a Conflict Prevention Framework in 2008 to serve as a strategic framework for improving conflict prevention and human security with a component on women, peace and security.

The European Union (EU) has developed a normative framework that includes the Council Conclusions on Promoting Gender Equality and Gender Mainstreaming in Crisis Management (2006); the 2008 Comprehensive approach to the EU implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820 [5] on women, peace and security and EU Council Secretariat operational paper “Implementation of UNSCR 1325 as reinforced by UNSCR 1820 in the context of ESDP (European Security and Defense Policy).” In July 2010 the Council adopted indicators to measure progress on the implementation of 1325 and 1820.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has an Action Plan for the Promotion of Gender Equality on 1325 (2004) and included elements of 1325 in its 2003 Strategy to Address Threats to Security and Stability in the Twenty-First Century. The Ministerial Council Decision No. 14/05 on Women in Conflict Prevention, Crisis Management and Post-Conflict Rehabilitation (2005) reinforces the Action Plan for the Promotion of Gender Equality and calls for measures related to implementation of 1325.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has established a policy framework on women, peace and security. After a series of recommendations from the Committee on Women in NATO Forces (now Committee on Gender Perspectives), in September 2009 it adopted a Directive on integrating UNSCR 1325 and Gender Perspectives in the NATO Command Structure Including Measures for Protection During Armed Conflict. This included the creation of gender advisors in all missions and pre-deployment training. The Secretary General established the position of Special Representative on Women, Peace and Security in 2012 to raise awareness, coordinate efforts, and enhance cooperation on the women, peace and security agenda. In April 2014 NATO released its revised Policy on Women, Peace and Security, developed with the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC). Afghanistan, Australia, Japan, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates also participated in its development. It builds on the previous NATO/ EAPC policy and on experiences and lessons learned from, in particular, cooperative security and NATO-led operations.

The Pacific Community’s Regional Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2012-2015 provides a framework at the regional level for Forum Members [6] and Pacific Territories to enhance women and young women’s leadership in conflict prevention and peace building, mainstream gender in security policy-making, and ensure women and girls’ human rights are protected in humanitarian crises, transitional contexts, and post-conflict situations.

The Organization of American States, while not having a normative framework specifically on women, peace and security, does have the InterAmerican Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Convention of Belem do Para) (1994).

National Action Plans

The UN and advocates have called for countries to create National Action Plans (NAPs) in order to address implementation of the 1325 framework. These are national policy documents that detail how government bodies and stakeholders tasked with security, foreign policy, development, and gender equality will actually carry out the 1325 principles both within their own countries and in their foreign policies during times of both peace and conflict. To date, 48 states have enacted NAPs and Afghanistan is preparing to launch its own.[7] Comprehensive NAPS establish a multi-sector strategy for implementation of the 1325 framework and assign specific responsibilities to government bodies, civil society organizations, private sector institutions, and development partners; cover the four pillars of 1325, which are participation, protection, prevention, and gender mainstreaming; provide for the coordination, follow-up, and evaluation of implementation activities; and include budget estimates for activities to be integrated into institutional plans of actions and budgets.

Security and Gender

When we undercut the contributions of one gender we do so at our on peril… denying ourselves half the talent, half the resources, half the potential of the population. And as we approach future challenges we must think rather than fight our way through, we need to be able to leverage all of the best thinking out there.

General Martin E. Dempsey

Chairman, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff [8]

Sex is the biological difference between men and women. Gender refers to the societal construction of roles, personality traits, and behaviors ascribed to them, as well as the different power relations between men and women. Gender mainstreaming recognizes the role of gender integration in peace and security, as well as the understanding of differences that policies and programs might have on men and women.[9] It means identifying the different insecurities facing men, women, girls, and boys and the way in which gender relation and power inequalities fuel insecurity. This understanding of gender leads to better policies and outcomes. It is key to the effectiveness and accountability of the security sector and necessary to comply with international and regional laws. Its ultimate goal is to promote gender equality in society by ensuring that both men and women are represented in all processes and that all programs integrate the human rights of all persons.

Men, women, boys, and girls have different experiences and different security needs. For example, in the United States more than 85 % of victims of gun homicide are male,[10] a statistic that is echoed throughout the world. On the other hand, approximately 95 % of victims of domestic violence are women.[11] Globally, at least 35 % of women have experienced intimate partner violence, up to 60 % in some countries.[12] In many countries, women are vulnerable to attack near water points, in agricultural areas and during elections.

Gender-based violence (GBV) is violence related to gender differences that result in unequal roles and power relations. It includes domestic violence, sexual assault, rape, human trafficking, and anti-gay violence. It is widespread in many countries due to cultural norms that perpetuate the subordination of women and vulnerable groups. It is one of the greatest threats to human security.

The medical, physical, and psychological effects of sexual and gender-based violence are enormous. Unwanted pregnancies, intentionally transmitted HIV/AIDS, permanent physical scarring, medical and emotional trauma, as well as stigma are all results of the sexual and physical violence perpetrated against women. In countries such as Uganda, where the clan system is strong, the community often shuns women who were abducted and impregnated by rebels, and their children are left without a clan. In countries that apply strict Sharia law, women are often punished or killed to “protect their honor.”

During war, civilians are most affected by violence and insecurity. Women, especially those heading households, are most vulnerable when public security diminishes and the security forces that exist become abusive. Corruption and impunity lead to many human rights abuses, and often result in sexual violence against women. After conflict, women continue to suffer spousal violence, sexual abuse, rape, physical assault and violence, and psychological abuse. Economic violence is often included under the rubric of GBV. This includes denial of access to food and property, husbands withholding resources for family care, inheritance disputes between a widow and her husband’s family over his property, as well as acute economic dependence of women on their husbands. Many women are unable to support themselves and are less able to escape violent relationships. Sexual violence has been a major factor in the spread of HIV/AIDS. Women who are HIV positive are also at a greater risk of becoming victims of domestic violence.[13]

GBV has a major effect not only on women but also on families and communities, and on national development. The effects of violence often keep girls out of school or prevent women from participating in the community or workplace.

Men and boys are also victims of GBV, and may face even greater barriers than women in reporting it and seeking justice.

Despite the prevalence of GBV and its threat to national and global security, security sector initiatives to address it are usually not prioritized and are underfunded. Gender sensitive security improves prevention and response to GBV by including women and training personnel on issues of gender and gender-based violence.

There is also a growing recognition of the need to address the particular experience of men and boys, both as victims and sources of insecurity. Increasingly groups are examining masculinity: the characteristics and behaviors expected of men and the way that they are socialized. This includes analyzing the factors that lead men to violence and the factors that help prevent it. Conditions such as male youth violence, gangs, and child abuse influence the way that men behave. Both inside and outside of armed conflict, gun culture is overwhelmingly associated with cultural norms of masculinity, including men as protectors and warriors.[14] Men themselves become victims of their own mentalities as they are most affected by gun violence. Military environments have perpetuated these notions of masculinity and war exacerbates them, leading to extreme violence. Nuclear weapons are also an emblem of strength and dominance.

In addition, a militarized society puts women more at risk. According to Reaching Critical Will, a program of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom:

Irresponsible transfers of weaponry, munitions, armaments, and related equipment across borders have resulted in acts of GBV perpetrated by both state and non-state actors. Thus in the recent negotiations of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), civil society organizations and like-minded governments worked together to ensure that the treaty included a legally-binding provision on preventing armed gender-based violence.[15]

Engaging Men [16]

Successful programs run by organizations such as CARE, Promundo, and the Rwanda Men’s Resource Centre (RWAMREC) in the region have programs targeted specifically at men that aim to deconstruct typical ideas of masculinity and educate men on gender equality and women’s rights. CARE works to involve men in joint strategies with their wives to manage resources and share domestic, parenting, and income earning roles. Role model families show their communities that they are living well because they have equality and peace in their homes. In several countries, including Rwanda, Promundo has carried out the  International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES), a comprehensive household questionnaire on men’s attitudes and practices—along with women’s opinions and reports of men’s practices—on a wide variety of topics related to gender equality, which has been used to inform programs to engage men in gender equality and GBV prevention, also in post-conflict settings. Promundo has also implemented a program that promotes men’s support of women’s economic empowerment. RWAMREC mobilizes men to change perceptions of masculinity and promote gender justice through programs of men-to-men education, community mobilization, radio programs, working with religious leaders, and through programs engaging men to support women in microfinance.

The ATT, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on April 2, 2013 and entered into force December 24, 2014, is the first international treaty to recognize the link between weapons and gender-based violence. Article 7(4) of the treaty obligates exporting state parties to take into account the risk of the conventional arms, ammunition, munitions, parts, or components under consideration being used to commit or facilitate acts of gender-based violence. States shall not be permitted to authorize the transfer where there is a risk of gender-based violence that would constitute a violation of international humanitarian law or international human rights law, undermine peace and security, or form part of transnational organized crime.

Men and women also have different access to resources such as land, money, education, healthcare, and political power, which can affect their individual security. In many countries women do not have equal rights to men to own land, have limited access to credit, face barriers to education and adequate healthcare, and are excluded or marginalized from political life, all of which make them more dependent and vulnerable.

Including both men and women in security policymaking is critical to policies that are comprehensive in their assessment of security threats and in their understanding of security providers, and thus provide more secure and stable environments. Dialogues with local groups might identify the need for specific initiatives such as installing more streetlights and enacting community policing to larger scale programs such as training police and military personnel on GBV prevention and response, implementing zero tolerance policies for sexual harassment and abuse, increasing female participation, and collaboration with civil society organizations.

A New Paradigm of Security

The world can never be at peace unless people have security in their daily lives. Future conflicts may often be within nations rather than between them – with their origins buried deep in growing socio-economic deprivation and disparities. The search for security in such a milieu lies in development, not in arms.

1994 Human Development Report [17]

Conflict is no longer merely about securing borders and maintaining sovereignty; it is also about human security. Nations cannot be secure if their people are not secure. Where there is inequality and discrimination, violence, poverty, lack of education, lack of economic opportunity, political oppression, and other destabilizing factors, there is a risk of conflict.

The human security approach broadens the scope of security analysis and policy from territorial security to the security of people.[18] It was introduced in 1994 by the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Human Development Report (HDR) and highlights two major components of human security: freedom from fear and freedom from want. It recognizes that states will not be able to achieve their major goals—including peace, human rights and democratization—without human security. The threats to human security are no longer just local or national, but rather global. Drugs, HIV/AIDS and other health epidemics, human trafficking, gender-based violence, poverty, environmental disasters, displacement of populations, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and violent extremism do not respect national borders. They affect the world.

In 2012 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on human security [19] that recognizes the links between development, human rights, and peace and security, stating that human security calls for people-centered, comprehensive, context-specific, and prevention-oriented responses that strengthen the protection and empowerment of all people and all communities.

For most people today, a feeling of insecurity arises more from worries about daily life. Job security, income security, health security, environmental security, and security from crime: these are the emerging concerns of human security all over the world.

A critical regional and global concern is the growing rise in violent extremism. A lack of personal security is an important element in this phenomenon. Extremist groups such as Da’esh (ISIS) have capitalized on recruitment methods that prey on individuals—people who have been marginalized and oppressed, and lack economic opportunities and hope—by distorting religious tenants, playing on religious and ethnic divides, and offering money, food, shelter, cell phones, protection, women, and glory in the afterlife.

An inclusive, accountable security sector that integrates gender can promote development, rule of law and good governance, strengthen human security, and reduce the risk of armed conflict. The creation of a professional security sector that is democratically accountable, well-managed, and responsive to the needs of all citizens leads to better provision of security and justice for all.

Effective security operations establish a safe and secure environment that is conducive to economic development, education and health care, and the growth of a vibrant civil society. These goals can only be achieved if women are as equally involved as men in shaping policies and programs.

Why Women?

UNSCR 1325 calls for an increase in the participation of women at all levels of decision making, including in national, regional and international institutions, and in peace operations as soldiers, police, and civilian personnel, as well as for women’s participation in mechanisms for the management and resolution of conflict. Around the world women have been agents of change, peacemakers and peace builders bringing perspectives to the table that address the root causes of insecurity. Women have a fundamental role to play in increasing the operational effectiveness of the security sector and establishing sustainable peace and security globally.

Women in Security Forces

Women in the security forces—military, police, paramilitary, and intelligence—can affect institutional and cultural change from the inside. Research in the U.S. and around the world shows that uniformed women are more likely than their male counterparts to de-escalate tensions and are less likely to use excessive force.[20] Their increased presence and leadership also tends to lessen the culture of sexual exploitation that is prevalent in many military and police forces. Therefore, it is important to have a strong presence of women, especially in leadership positions, to bring a gender perspective to discussions on security processes.

Increasing the number of women police officers also improves responses to crimes involving domestic and sexual violence, which are among the most prevalent crimes in both post-conflict and non-conflict affected societies. Afghanistan, Kosovo, Liberia, and Sierra Leone have established specialized police forces to address family violence.[21]

In many instances, especially where women have been part of liberation struggles, such as in Rwanda and Uganda, women have skills and understanding of issues that can benefit security institutions, especially with regard to forces’ relations with the community. It would therefore be valuable to recruit and support them in various areas of the sector.

Moreover, women security personnel are often more trusted by local communities, which perceive them as less threatening. A 2012 study by the Institute for Inclusive Security commissioned by NATO’s Committee on Gender Perspectives reported that interviewees in Congo and Chad were more accepting of European Union (EUFOR) patrols that included women, evidenced by fewer residents throwing stones at passing troops comprised of both men and women. They also observed that British units using Female Engagement Teams (FETS) were less frequently ambushed and experienced fewer improvised explosive devices (IED) attacks than male patrols.[22]

Some cultures limit women’s interaction with men outside of their families. Because female personnel are often uniquely able to communicate with women in the general community, police and military forces with female members can gain a more comprehensive picture of the entire community’s needs. They can learn about the nature and extent of threatening situations such as gang violence and recruitment, arms buildups, troop movement, discrimination and marginalization in communities, gender-based violence, human trafficking, intimidation and extortion by organized crime, and drug use in schools.

Female police, border guards, and military officers can also perform critical duties that may be difficult for men for cultural reasons, such as searching women at security checkpoints, searching for weapons by entering homes and talking to women, searching and interrogating women, and assisting survivors of sexual violence.

Many documented cases also illustrate that women are often better able to engage men. A 2009 study of five of NATO’s Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan found that negotiations conducted by female soldiers are more successful than those conducted by male soldiers, that informants in some places divulge more information to Western women than to Western men, and that it is often more appropriate for female soldiers to address issues related to women with local tribal leaders than for male soldiers to do so.[23]

Women in Government

Parliaments provide democratic oversight of the security sector. Women parliamentarians can play a key role in demanding accountability and transparency of the security sector, determining budgets and policies to ensure that military expenditures do not take resources from developmental issues, ensuring inclusive representation in security structures, and including public debate and dialogue on these issues.

In many countries, military laws discriminate against women, prohibiting them from combat and imposing barriers to advancement in rank. In 2000 the Israeli Parliament adopted an amendment to the Security Service Law drafted by women parliamentarians, which granted women equal rights to men to serve in any role in the military. In the United States, women lawmakers have been at the forefront of passing reforms in recent defense authorizations laws that address issues of sexual assault in the military.

Women parliamentarians have also been instrumental in many countries in passing legislation addressing human security as required by the women, peace and security framework and international law, such as legislation related to political participation, gender-based violence, family, children, land rights, education, health care, employment, citizenship and nationality, and refugee and internally displaced persons laws and policies.

In Rwanda, for example, in 1996 women parliamentarians formed the Rwanda Women Parliamentary Forum (FFRP), which was the first parliamentary caucus to reach across party lines and include Hutus and Tutsis at a critical time of healing after the genocide. It focused on issues of women’s security, passing laws on women’s rights to inherit property [24] and on gender-based violence. In Uganda, women parliamentarians have also been active in promoting legislation specifically related to obligations under the country’s National Action plan on UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820 and the Goma Declaration on Eradicating Sexual Violence and Ending Impunity in the Great Lakes Region (2008-2014). In 2010, Uganda adopted laws on domestic violence, female genital mutilation (FGM), trafficking in persons, and allowing Ugandan Courts to try crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide, including sexual violence as defined under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Women in ministries and high-level government positions can also influence security and defense policy and bring together women and men from the security sector, as well as engage civil society in dialogues and ensure that national policies related to security integrate gender perspectives.

Women in the Justice Sector

The increased participation of women in the justice sector as judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, paralegals, and court administrators strengthens the legitimacy of the judiciary and make courts more accessible to the communities they serve. In cases of gender-based violence, female victims may be more comfortable dealing with women lawyers and judges. Women also often promote principles of equality and nondiscrimination. Women’s lawyers groups, for instance, have been instrumental in assisting women, promoting gender equality and challenging discriminatory laws in countries around the world. The Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA-Uganda), for example, established legal aid clinics in Northern Uganda where clients pay only case registration fees and are assisted with mediation or, if necessary, court filings. This includes mobile clinics that go out to communities to register and, where possible, mediate cases. In other instances they engage in strategic litigation or public interest litigation, which involve cases brought on behalf of the public or a broad group of people alleging rights violations and seeking legal reform.

Women’s participation in transitional justice processes that seek to promote justice and reconciliation is an important factor in addressing human rights abuses after conflict. In countries such as Sierra Leone, East Timor, and South Africa, women have been involved in dialogues to establish truth commissions that are gender sensitive and inclusive, and address women’s needs.[25]

In countries where customary or local justice systems are prevalent, women have been instrumental in working with community and religious leaders to sensitize them to gender equality and women’s rights principles, applicable domestic laws, and regional and international instruments.

Women in Civil Society

The 1325 framework mandates that women’s civil society groups be consulted in peace and security processes in order to adequately address the needs of communities. Women in civil society play critical roles in building inclusive and sustainable security. They can serve as a link between the realities of community insecurities that men and women experience and the police and military forces as well as defense policymakers, parliamentarians, and others conducting oversight and implementation of security programs. Women help sensitize them to security issues and provide information about how programs and policies impact women and their families. Women and groups working on gender also provide important technical expertise. Increasing collaboration between security sector institutions and civil society organizations can help build capacity through training, research, and technical assistance on gender.

Women provide important knowledge about security issues within their communities. Because of their position and relationship in families and communities, they know what is going on. In performing their daily duties—caring for children, observing husbands and men in the community, traveling on foot to gather water or firewood—they often see and hear things that are happening in the community. They may be aware of weapons buildups, meetings of armed groups, and the recruitment of youth. They know when there are barriers to health care or education, or health risks within the community. They understand when their own security is at risk through limited mobility, discrimination, and gender-based violence.

Additionally, because women are typically perceived as being less threatening than men, they frequently have access that is denied to male leaders.[26] In Uganda, Betty Bigombe was the chief point person in talks between the Government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army headed by Joseph Kony. A member of the Ugandan Parliament, in 1998 she was tasked with seeking a peaceful end to the violent conflict in Northern Uganda. Bigombe reached out to Kony and initiated talks that brought the rebel leaders and government ministers face to face for the first time.[27] She was able to initiate contact with Kony by working through women associated with the LRA to build trust with his commanders. More recently, in countries like Somalia and Syria, women have been able to go between clans or through checkpoints to negotiate local ceasefire agreements to allow humanitarian aid to pass through and enable students to return to school.

Women’s civil society organizations also provide necessary services to victims in partnership with the security sector, such as shelter, legal advice, health care, and psychosocial services. For instance, the Rwanda Women Network has established several Polyclinics of Hope throughout Rwanda, adopting a holistic approach to the plight of women survivors of sexual and gender-based violence by addressing their health, psychosocial, shelter, and socio-economic needs in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide. Beneficiaries include current cases of sexual and gender-based violence, widows, orphaned and vulnerable children, and people living with HIV/AIDS. Women’s organizations also help implement security sector reform in their communities and have been important partners in programs of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of combatants into communities (DDR). In Liberia, the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET) stepped in when the UN system was overwhelmed. Because of their trust in local women, many combatants decided to disarm for them.[28]

Women also play a critical role in combating the current rise in political and religious extremism. In countries such as Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan women have been at the forefront of advocating for peace, reaching across political, ethnic, and religious divides to bring communities together and addressing the root social causes that are leading to a rise in violent extremism, such as poverty, marginalization, lack of opportunity, and insecurity. In addition, because of the influence they have within their families, in many instances they are able to keep their sons and husbands from joining extremist groups. Women are also working with communities, religious leaders, and militants to rewrite the narratives that are used by groups such as Da’esh and the Taliban, which distort Islam for their own purposes.

Integrating Gender into the Security Sector

Security sector reform (SSR) is necessary to promote peace and good governance, prevent conflict, and rebuild societies after conflict. The term “security sector reform” is most often used in post-conflict contexts. However, security sector reform also takes place in developing countries and countries in transition from authoritarian rule. It is also applicable to developed countries that need to change or improve policies and programs to ensure that women and gender perspectives are included in all of their diplomatic, development, and defense efforts. Security sector reform is about making the security sector more effective, accountable, transparent, and compliant with international standards on human rights, democracy, and governance.

Enacting reforms to integrate gender perspectives into the security sector through gender mainstreaming and equal participation are a critical part of security sector reform in all countries.

Three components make up the security sector: (1) groups with the authority and instruments to use force such as the military, police, paramilitary, and intelligence services; (2) institutions that monitor and manage the sector including parliament, government ministries, and civil society; and (3) structures responsible for maintaining the rule of law such as the judiciary, ministry of justice, prisons, human rights commissions, and local and traditional justice mechanisms.[29]

Example of Gender Integration: Genderforce Sweden

Sweden has shown success in incorporating gender-sensitive policies into its security reform. In 2003, the Swedish Armed Forces established a national project based on implementation of UNSCR 1325 called Genderforce, which facilitated a partnership of a range of Swedish groups from various sectors focusing not only on increasing women’s participation in security forces, but also on incorporating gender perspectives into security training, strategy, and operations.[30]

Partners included:

·          Swedish Armed Forces

·          Swedish Police

·          Swedish Rescue Services Agency

·          Kvinna till Kvinna (“Woman to Woman,” a women’s civil society organization)

·          Association of Military Officers in Sweden

·          Swedish Women’s Voluntary Defense Organization

The initiative consisted of eight projects to promote gender balance and integrate gender:

1.       Increasing female recruitment in partner organizations through altering recruitment methods.

2.       Carrying out a gender analysis of government policies and enacting changes to ensure that missions have clear directives on gender equality and participation of women, including working with local women’s organizations and assessing security threats to women.

3.       Conducting a study of civil-military relations in the field and making recommendations to improve cooperation.

4.       Developing a gender advisory training program in order to create a pool of gender advisors for international operations.

5.       Implementing a gender coaching program for twelve senior officials.

6.       Providing training for personnel in international operations on how to recognize signs of human trafficking.

7.       Developing gender training for the armed forces.

8.        Carrying out a study of best practices of including local women in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of military and humanitarian operations in order to integrate the findings into pre-deployment training.

There are four dimensions of security sector reform: political, institutional, economic, and societal.[31] Factors to be measured include: the number and percentage of women in the police and military forces and in the judiciary and court system, the number of staff trained on gender issues, the status of women within security personnel (in terms of pay, benefits, advancement potential, sexual harassment, etc.), the number and percentage of operations with gender advisors or focal points, the number of cases of sexual abuse by security personnel investigated and acted upon, mechanisms for oversight of the security sector both by the government and civil society, budget allocations that address the different needs of women, the number and percentage of women and girl combatants during conflict, and the number and percentage of women and girls in demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration (DDR) processes.[32]

Supporting Women in the Afghan National Security Forces

In the U.S., civil society groups working on gender and security have worked with members of Congress to include funding and support for the recruitment of women into the Afghan National Security Forces through defense authorization and appropriations bills.

In response to a recent New York Times article on the challenges confronting women in the police forces, Afghan activist Wazhma Frogh wrote:

Despite the cultural barriers, lack of services, and inadequate facilities, we still have over 3,000 women serving in the police force and Ministry of Interior. These women chose to become police officers despite the risks that this job entails. Women’s organizations, activists, and civil society have pushed for reforms and support mechanisms for the female police. The Ministry of Interior has its first Female Police Integration Strategy accompanied by a five-year implementation plan. We were behind the creation and development of the Strategy, and now we’re monitoring the implementation so that the challenges of female police are addressed at the highest level.

I want to thank the US Congress for allocating fifty million dollars to support the women in our country’s security forces. That financial support, together with continuous backing from the European Police Advisory Mission and international mentors, will take the Afghan National Police to a new level of competence.[33]

Political Reform

The political dimension is the principle of civilian control over military bodies, ensuring democratic processes and parliamentary and civil society oversight of the security sector. Security institutions should be transparent, respectful of the rule of law and human rights, and accountable to democratic civilian authority, such as parliament and the justice system. There should be a constitutional and legal framework for civilian oversight and management of the security sector. The defense forces must operate within the legal framework and be held accountable through democratic structures.

Parliaments play an essential role in the security sector in their legislative and oversight capacity. They approve budgets, review and implement related legislation, and shape national dialogue on security. Gender-responsive parliaments can ensure inclusive, needs-based security policies, strengthen the operational effectiveness of security sector institutions, and hold them accountable for equitable budgeting and gender responsive budgeting. Oversight must include initiatives to prevent, respond to and sanction human rights violations and gender-based violence including torture, sexual harassment, domestic violence, sexual assault, forced prostitution, and human trafficking in compliance with international human rights law, introducing and strengthening gender budget initiatives and conducting gender impact assessments of security policy, requesting sex disaggregated data on gender mainstreaming and the composition of security sector, monitoring peacekeeping missions, ensuring that women are included in peace processes and transitional justice, and reforming the judicial system and laws.

Gender responsive political reform related to security also requires the increased participation of women, gender experts, and women’s organizations in official oversight bodies and processes in line with international obligations under the women, peace and security framework. Women must be included in parliamentary committees on defense, foreign operations, and budgets. However, it is not enough just to have women there; they must have the capacity and knowledge to engage on the issues. It is also important to build the gender capacity of all parliamentarians, both men and women, to address gender issues. Establishing gender caucuses and working with civil society experts can help to support gender initiatives.

Civil society organizations including men and women must be consulted in order to ensure that policies and programs are adequately responding to the needs of all groups. Parliamentarians can ensure participatory national security processes through engaging in public debate and consultations and by holding hearings to facilitate civil society’s input, encouraging women’s organizations to participate in policy consultation processes, and making themselves available to hear concerns expressed by women’s organizations and constituents through town hall meetings and individual or group constituent meetings.

Similarly, government ministries involved in maintaining national security and oversight of the security sector, such as ministries of defense and national security councils, must include women and integrate gender perspectives. The gender capacity of security policymakers should be built through training, mentoring, and information sharing. Policymaking processes should include consultations with civil society at all levels to assess national and local security needs. Policies must include gender responsive monitoring and assessment. Ministries and executive offices should establish mechanisms for the participation of civil society. Initiatives should also be taken at the local level to ensure that community insecurities are addressed by municipal governments, local security sector institutions, and civil society.

Institutional Reform

Institutional reform involves the physical and technical transformation of security entities.

Physical transformation is defined as changing institutions to be diverse and reflect society, including through increased recruitment and retention of women in line with international obligations. Women have traditionally been extremely underrepresented in the security sector due to cultural norms that have generally regarded it as “men’s work.” Women who work in military and police forces may be discriminated against or shunned in conservative communities. They also often face inhospitable work environments that include inadequate or lack of separate facilities for women, discriminatory hiring practices, lesser benefits, minimal training, limited opportunities for advancement, little access to recruitment programs, and atmospheres of sexual harassment.

Efforts to ensure the equal participation of women should include measures to increase female recruitment, retention, and advancement in the security sector, human resource policies and practices that are gender responsive and family friendly to promote an environment conducive to employing women, review of recruitment and selection criteria to eliminate bias, outreach to women in communities for recruitment, provision of training, and establishing female staff associations.

Hungary successfully raised the number of women in its armed forces from 4.3 % in 2005 to 17.56 % in 2006. Its strategies to increase the recruitment, retention, and deployment of women include a Military Service Law that upholds the equal rights of men and women in the armed services, an Equal Opportunity Team and Equal Opportunity Plan created by human resources, a Committee on Women of the Hungarian Defense Forces that conducts research on the status of gender equality and makes recommendations for change, a network of women’s focal points established at unit level, and measures to improve resting and hygienic conditions in the units.[34]

Technical transformation involves the professionalization and modernization of forces, reorienting their focus, and teaching new skills such as respect for human rights and gender. Gender mainstreaming activities include establishing and improving policy frameworks to support gender equality and women’s empowerment in the work of the defense sector, enhancing staff capacity to apply a gender-sensitive approach to their work through gender awareness training, improving capacity to prevent and respond to gender-based violence through technical training on GBV, and initiatives to prevent, respond to, and punish GBV, preventing GBV perpetrated by defense sector personnel by providing sexual harassment training and establishing codes of conduct and mechanisms for the investigation and punishment of violations including gender focal points and gender advisors in forces and missions, establishing gender responsive policies and ensuring funding commitments for implementation through gender budgeting, training, and supporting reformed judicial and penal systems and ensuring transparency and accountability, and building the capacity of institutions and civil society organizations (CSOs).

The Defense Sector

The defense sector—including the armed forces, intelligence, relevant ministries of defense, executive offices, and military justice mechanisms—should be under civilian control, abide by principles of accountability and good governance, maintain an appropriate-sized force, be of representative composition in terms of gender, ethnicity, and other factors, be appropriately trained, and abide by international law.[35]

Today’s defense forces must also be equipped to deal with the realities of conflicts that include sexual and gender-based violence as a weapon of war, mass human rights violations and humanitarian crises, health epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, and sexual abuse and exploitation by defense sector personnel themselves. Incorporating principles of human rights, democracy, and gender in trainings, programs, and missions is essential in preparing forces to meet these challenges. In addition, due to the changed nature of conflict, national armed forces now spend less time and resources on protecting their own borders and more on international peacekeeping missions, which go beyond traditional security activities to tasks such as providing services to local communities, engaging in development projects, providing health services, rebuilding institutions, and ensuring free elections. Diversity and gender mainstreaming allows forces to better perform these tasks.[36]

Police Forces

Gender perspectives must also be integrated into police forces. Because police are responsible for the maintenance of public order, protection of people, and enforcement of the law, they must understand and be able to address all security threats facing the communities they serve, recognizing that men and women are affected by violence and discrimination in different ways.

Common challenges in policing include poor response rates to crimes, excessive use of force against particular groups, exclusion of particular groups within police institutions, misconduct and abuse of function, refusal to register complaints, poor investigation skills, lack of accountability, and lack of civilian trust.[37] Applying a gender perspective to all aspects of police operations helps improve effectiveness. In addition, because police officers respond to crimes including GBV, which is one of the most prevalent crimes and greatest threats to security in all parts of the world, they must be sensitized, trained and equipped with the necessary skills to deal with both female and male survivors and to carry out investigations in a sensitive and effective way.

Research has also shown that police operations are more effective at combating insurgencies and terrorism than military forces due to their presence in local communities, which better equips them to gather local intelligence and work with citizens to counter militant groups. However, for police forces to fill this role they must be adequately equipped, properly trained, and representative of the populations they are charged with protecting.[38]

Peacekeeping Operations

The 1325 framework mandates that the UN and Member States increase the number of women and incorporate gender perspectives into peacekeeping operations in order to promote gender equality and combat sexual and gender-based violence. Peacekeeping operations include serving troops and military observers, police personnel, international civilian personnel, local civilian personnel, and UN volunteers. The UN does not have its own military force, but rather depends on contributions from Member States. Currently 128 countries contribute military and police personnel to missions in 19 countries.[39]

In addition to maintaining peace and security, peacekeepers are increasingly charged with assisting in political processes, reforming judicial systems, training law enforcement and police forces, disarming and reintegrating former combatants, and supporting the return of internally displaced persons and refugees.

Multiple reports over the past fifteen years have evaluated efforts to implement UNSCR 1325 in peacekeeping operations.[40] Evaluation has included three broad areas of efforts to: 1) incorporate more female personnel into peace operations and more women in decision-making and peace processes overall; 2) improve investigation of cases of sexual violence and accountability for perpetrators; and 3) develop gender sensitivity in peacekeeping forces. All reports identify minimal improvements on the ground and highlight the overall failure of initiatives to achieve their goals.

As of February 2015, women comprised just fewer than 4 % of UN peacekeeping missions,[41] far short of any representative number.

Sexual exploitation in peacekeeping operations has been identified as a major problem. A UN report completed in 2005 by Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein found widespread sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeeping personnel. It made recommendations in four main areas of concern: current rules on standards of conduct, the investigative process, organization, managerial, and command responsibility, individual disciplinary, financial and criminal accountability.[42] That same year, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations established conduct and discipline units to uphold standards of conduct in UN missions.

In October 2014, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon announced a High Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations to consider a broad range of issues facing peace operations, including the changing nature of conflict, evolving mandates, good offices and peace building challenges, managerial and administrative arrangements, planning, partnerships, human rights and protection of civilians, uniformed capabilities for peacekeeping operations, and performance. It is expected to be presented to the General Assembly in September 2015.

Justice Sector

Integrating gender into the justice sector is critical. The 1325 framework stresses the need to end impunity and ensure access to justice for women in order to maintain peace and security. It is a recurrent theme throughout the resolutions, especially in relation to sexual violence. Most recently UNSCR 2106 (2013) stresses the need for justice sector reform and calls on States to undertake initiatives including legislative and policy reforms that address sexual violence, training in sexual and gender-based violence of justice and security sector professionals, and the inclusion of more women at professional levels in these sectors. It also calls for judicial proceedings that take into account the distinct needs and protection of survivors, family members and witnesses of sexual violence in armed conflict and post-conflict situations in order to ensure safe court environments for women to come forward and seek justice.

In order to comply with the principles of 1325 and international obligations relating to women’s participation in decision-making and to safeguard women’s interests and maintain security and stability, judiciaries must include women. Furthermore, judges, lawyers, and other court personnel must be adequately trained in gender equality and women’s rights principles, including international law.

“Transitional justice” refers to the set of judicial and non-judicial measures that are implemented in order to redress legacies of massive human rights abuses during a country’s transition from conflict or authoritarian rule. They address and heal divisions in society, provide justice to victims and accountability for perpetrators, create a historical record, and restore the rule of law and promote co-existence and sustainable peace.[43] Measures include criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations programs (that generally involve monetary or other compensation), and various kinds of institutional reforms – for instance reform of the judiciary, legal, police, penal, and military sectors to promote the rule of law and end human rights violations and systematic discrimination.[44] It can also consist of more community-based programs, run either by the government or by civil society groups, which promote peace and reconciliation. Transitional justice is an important part of the healing and reconstruction process. For women, this often means seeking justice for the sexual violence, displacement, and loss of property that they suffered during conflict, as well as reparations for such crimes and lack of access to social services and other entitlements due to discriminatory policies or practices. Integrating gender perspectives is an important part of the process.

Human rights institutions such as human rights commissions play an important role in promoting and protecting human rights principles and monitoring compliance with international standards. Duties of human rights commissions may include: receiving and investigating complaints of human rights violations, monitoring jails, prisons, and other places of detention, monitoring government compliance with international human rights treaties, sensitizing government institutions regarding international human rights treaties and integrating them into existing national law, submitting reports to relevant international human rights treaty monitoring bodies, publishing findings, submitting reports to parliaments on the state of human rights and freedoms in the country, establishing human rights educations programs, and raising public awareness of human rights and constitutional protections. In order to be effective and equitable, human rights commissions must be knowledgeable about international law related to women, peace, and security, sensitized to gender issues and equipped to address violations of women’s rights.[45]

The penal system is an important part of the justice sector, which ensures that the law is enforced. The differing needs of men, women, boys, and girls must be taken into account. Gender integrative measures should include appropriate laws and nondiscriminatory sentencing, effective oversight and monitoring, complaint mechanisms, adequate facilities for both men and women, protection from GBV, comprehensive health care for both men and women, including reproductive and maternal health care when necessary, proper recruitment and training of prison staff to ensure gender sensitivity, and access to civil society organizations that provide services and support to inmates. In many countries, human rights commissions play an important role in monitoring detention facilities.

Economic Reform

The economic dimension involves transparent public financial management of the security sector and gender sensitive budgeting. In many countries, the defense sector represents a large percentage of the national budget. In the U.S., defense spending constitutes 53 % of the president’s requested budget for fiscal year 2016.[46] Trailing a very distant second are education, labor, and social services at 8.6 %, with requests for other social, human, justice, international assistance, and environmental needs at even smaller proportions. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action recognizes that excessive military expenditures, including global military expenditures, arms trade and trafficking, and investments in arms production and acquisition have reduced the resources available for social development. It calls on governments to reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments to support women’s economic development and security. In order to foster human security and achieve long-term stability, governments should redirect spending to focus more on human, economic, and environmental needs such as education, health care, food security, and economic opportunity.

Additionally, in order to achieve human security at large, and gender equality in particular, funding must be attached to policy commitments. Gender budgeting for the defense sector must take into account to what degree men and women benefit from defense spending in programs providing security, in recruitment and conducive human resources policies, and for gender related activities such as training.

Societal Reform

Importantly for true and lasting change is the societal aspect of security sector reform, which includes changing social stereotypes and attitudes and collaborating with civil society to develop, implement, and monitor security policies and programs. This means transforming culture so that excluded groups such as women and religious minorities are included and making security forces and institutions sensitive to their needs. Gender mainstreaming policies and mechanisms in and of themselves are critical but insufficient. They will not work unless there are changes in the structural and institutional forces that bring about inequality in the first place. This means working not only with policy makers, but also with community leaders, including traditional, cultural, and religious leaders to sensitize them to gender issues. These individuals are also often the gateways to their communities and to changing perceptions at the local level.

The empowerment of women at the grassroots level is critical in operationalizing the women, peace, and security agenda in order to ensure that laws and policies relating to their rights actually reach them and make a difference in their lives. It is important to build grassroots structures for capacity-building on women’s rights and peace-building.

It is also critical to engage men in order to change power structures and promote gender equality and peace within communities. Men generally control institutional, governmental, and community structures, and thus are important allies for women to gain access to power and decision-making. In addition, working with men at the grassroots level helps them understand the value of treating women as equals and changes perceptions and practices. Identifying males in the community who support women allows them to serve as role models to change family dynamics, sensitize their peers through an understanding of gender issues and women’s rights, and support the economic empowerment of women, which in the end improves the security of families and communities. Inclusive security is the only true path to sustainable peace and security.

[*] Julie L. Arostegui, J.D., is a lawyer and international human rights, gender and security expert with extensive experience in the rule of law, access to justice, peace building, combating gender-based violence, women’s political participation and security sector reform. She serves as an international advocate, advisor and trainer for the civil society, political, security and justice sectors. Julie currently leads the Women, Peace and Security Program at Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND’s), which empowers women politically both in the U.S. and abroad as leaders on critical issues of conflict prevention, peace building, violence against women, and national and global security.

[1] Address at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, Washington, D.C., 3 December 2014.

[2] Megan Bastick and Tobie Whitman, A Women’s Guide to Security Sector Reform (Washington, D.C.: The Institute for Inclusive Security and DCAF, 2013), 4.

[3] For more on Security Council Resolutions and International Law, see Julie L. Arostegui and Veronica Eragu Bichetero, Women, Peace and Security: Practical Guidance on Using Law to Empower Women in Post-Conflict Systems (Washington, D.C.: Women in International Security, 2014), available at http://wiisglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/WPS-Toolkit-Electronic.pdf.

[4] A sub-regional inter-governmental organization of the countries in the African Great Lakes Region composed of eleven member states: Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia.

[5] UNSCR 1820 deals specifically with sexual violence in conflict.

[6] The RAP covers all members of the Pacific Islands Forum: Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu as well as Pacific Territories.

[7] For a list of states and action plans, see PeaceWomen’s Action Plan Initiative, http://peacewomen.org/member-states.

[8] Department of Defense Implementation Guide for the U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security, September 2013.

[9] Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, “UNSCR 1325 – Conundrums and Opportunities,” International Interactions 39 (2013): 615–616, http://wiisglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/UNSCR-1325%E2%80%94Conundrums-and-Opportunities1.pdf.

[10] “Gun Homicide and Violent Crime,” Pew Research Center’s Social and Demographic Trends, accessed 27 March 2015.

[11] Shelby Quast, “Justice Reform and Gender,” in Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit, ed. Megan Bastick and Kristin Valasek (Geneva: DCAF, OSCE/ODIHR, UN-INSTRAW, 2008), 8.

[12] Claudia Garcia-Morena, et al., Multi-Country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence Against Women (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2005), xiii. World Health Organization Fact Sheet No. 239, Violence Against Women: Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Against Women, available at http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs239/en/, last modified November 2014.

[13] Arostegui and Bichetero, Women, Peace and Security, 44.

[14] Ray Acheson, “Money, Masculinities, and Militarism: Reaching Critical Will’s Work for Disarmament,” in Gender and Militarism: Analyzing the Links to Strategize for Peace (The Hague: Women Peacemakers Program (WPP), 2014), 15.

[15] “Gender and Disarmament,” Reaching Critical Will, available at www.reachingcriticalwill.org/resources/fact-sheets/critical-issues/4741-gender-and-disarmament (accessed 5 March 2015).

[16] Arostegui and Bichetero, Women, Peace and Security, 82.

[17] United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1994 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 1.

[18] Oscar A. Gómez and Des Gasper, Human Security: A Thematic Guidance Note for Regional and National Human Development Report Teams (United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report Office, 2013), available at http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/human_security_guidance_note_r-nhdrs.pdf.

[19] A./Res.66/290, 10 September 2012.

[20] Kristin Valasek, “Security Reform and Gender,” in Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit, 8.

[21] Megan Bastick, “ Integrating Gender in post-conflict security sector reform,” in Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit, 163, available at www.dcaf.ch/content/download/35609/526435/file/pp29.pdf.

[22] Tobie Whitman and Jacqueline O’Neill, Attention to gender increases security in operations; Examples from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (Washington, D.C.: The Institute for Inclusive Security, April 2012), 6, available at http://www.inclusivesecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/NATO-Report_8.pdf.

[23] Louise Olsson and Johan Tejpar, eds., Operational Effectiveness and UN Resolution 1325 – Practices and Lessons from Afghanistan (Stockholm: Swedish Defense Research Agency, 2009).

[24] In the aftermath of the genocide, which destroyed and scattered families, women’s right to inherit land was critical also because it had a direct impact on issues such as food production and security, the environment, settlement patterns and the livelihoods of families and children left behind.

[25] Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, et al., “Transitional Justice and Reconciliation,” in Inclusive Security, Sustainable Peace: A Toolkit for Advocacy and Action (London and Washington, D.C.: Hunt Alternatives Fund/The Initiative for Inclusive Security and International Alert, 2004), 9.

[26] “Why Women?,” http://www.inclusivesecurity.org/why-women (accessed 28 February 2015).

[27] Arostegui and Bichetero, Women, Peace and Security, 2, available at http://wiisglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/CASE-STUDIES.pdf.

[28] Bastick and Whitman, A Women’s Guide to Security Sector Reform, 8.

[29] Sanam Naraghi Anderlini and Camille Pampell Conaway, “Security Sector Reform,” in Inclusive Security, Sustainable Peace, 31.

[30] Charlotte Isaksson, “Genderforce: Why didn’t we do this before?,” Open Democracy, 29 November 2012, available at https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/charlotte-isaksson/genderforce-why-didnt-we-do-this-before.

[31] Anderlini and Conaway, “Security Sector Reform,” 32.

[32] Nicola Popovic, et al., Planning for Action on Women and Peace and Security: National-Level Implementation of Resolution 1325 (2000) (New York: United Nations, 2010), 47–48.

[33] Institute for Inclusive Security, “Network Member Responds to New York Times Article on Afghan Policewomen,” 5 March 2015, available at http://www.inclusivesecurity.org/network-member-responds-new-york-times-article-afghan-policewomen/.

[34] Cheryl Hendricks and Lauren Hutton, “Defence Reform and Gender,” in Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit, 13.

[35] Ibid., 1.

[36] Ibid., 3–4.

[37] Tara Denham, “Police Reform and Gender,” in Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit, 2–3.

[38] Allison Peters, “Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism in Pakistan: Why Policewomen Must Have a Role,” Policy brief (Institute for Inclusive Security, 31 March 2014), available at www.inclusivesecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/IIS-Pakistan-Memo-v5c-web.pdf.

[39] “About Us,” United Nations Peacekeeping, available at http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/about/.

[40] Official UN reports include Lakhdar Brahimi’s (2000), Prince Zeid’s (2005), and a “Ten-year Impact Study” (2010) on implementing UNSCR 1325 in peacekeeping.

[41] “Gender Statistics for the Month of February 2015,” UN Peacekeeping, http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/gender/2015gender/feb15.pdf, last modified 9 March 2015.

[42] A/59/710, 24 March 2005.

[43] Anderlini, et al., “Transitional Justice,” 1.

[44] “What is Transitional Justice?” International Center for Truth and Justice (ICTJ), http://ictj.org/about/transitional-justice.

[45] Arostegui and Bichetero, Women, Peace and Security, 64–65.

[46] The President’s budget request, submitted in February each year, must be approved by Congress annually through its appropriations process. For details on budget percentages, see Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND’s) Factsheet on the Federal Budget, February 2015, available at http://www.wand.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Budget-Pie-Fact-Sheet-FY2016-produced-Feb-2015.pdf.

What Role for the Security Sector? An SSR Approach

to Implementing the Women, Peace and Security Agenda

Aiko Holvikivi [*]

Introduction

The United Nations Security Council resolutions on “Women, Peace and Security” identify security sector reform (SSR) as a tool for their implementation.[1] Nonetheless, the resolutions are often seen as the purview of women’s organizations and the responsibility of ministries of foreign affairs, leaving the role of security sector institutions and their obligations for reform murky.[2] On the other hand, a body of literature oriented toward practitioners and policymakers charts out the rationale and practical tools for ensuring SSR interventions are gender responsive. This literature tends to view the women, peace and security resolutions as a tool for integrating gender perspectives in SSR interventions.[3] However, this literature’s ultimate goal remains the good governance of the security sector.

In this article, I seek to bridge this gap through an examination of the roles and responsibilities of the security sector in implementing the women, peace and security agenda.[4] More precisely, I examine the processes and principles associated with security sector reform, and argue that its technical components and ultimate objectives are key to the implementation of the women, peace and security agenda. In other words, I ask what SSR can bring to the women, peace and security agenda, rather than how the integration of gender furthers SSR.

As other contributions in this volume have already introduced the women, peace and security agenda, the following section focuses on the concept and key tenets of SSR and engages in a brief discussion on mainstreaming gender into SSR interventions. The analysis that follows is structured around the four pillars of the women, peace and security agenda, and examines what reform and good governance of the security sector can contribute to the realization of these goals. In other words, it identifies roles and responsibilities for the security sector in implementing this agenda. The final section summarizes how SSR is key to the implementation of the women, peace and security agenda, and how SSR approaches can complement its further development.

Understanding SSR

The elaboration of the concept of “security sector reform” [5] emanates from several developments in the international arena in the past three decades. The historical and political “building blocks” of the notion that reform of the security sector is fundamental to democratic governance include: the shift from a state-oriented to a people-oriented notion of security, often referred to as “human security”; the increasing recognition of linkages between security and development; and post-authoritarian transitions to democratic civil-military relations.[6] From these shifts in the international political and ideological landscape emerged the notion that reform aimed to ensure good governance of the security sector is paramount to stability and democratic governance.

While no universally accepted definition of security sector reform exists, the most widely used definition is found in the 2005 OECD DAC Guidelines on Security System Reform, which describe SSR as:

…the transformation of the ‘security system’—which includes all the actors, their roles, responsibilities and actions—working together to manage and operate the system in a manner that is more consistent with democratic norms and sound principles of good governance, and thus contributes to a well-functioning security framework.[7]

In other words, SSR strives for the twin objectives of establishing an effective and accountable security sector. It aims to balance effectiveness, efficiency, and affordability while ensuring accountability through democratic and civilian control of the security sector. Notably, this definition encompasses a wide range of interventions, which transcend a narrower focus often associated with training and equipping security forces found in stabilization missions.[8] In this definition, security actors refer to a broad range of security and oversight providers, including both formal and informal actors, ranging from statutory security forces like the police and armed forces to legislative oversight bodies like parliamentary committees, and from customary security and justice providers like traditional justice systems to civil society watchdogs. Furthermore, while usually associated with post-conflict or fragile states, it is worth noting that SSR interventions and the consolidation of good governance of the security sector can be undertaken in any context, including more developed states and established democracies.[9]

It follows logically that, in principle, the goals of gender equality are inherent to the principles of SSR and to the standards of governance it seeks to establish. In order to be accountable, the security sector must be accountable to the entire population – including both women and men. Moreover, security sector personnel must be held accountable for violations of the rights of civilians, including sexual and gender-based violence. To be effective, the security sector must address the security and justice needs of the entire population and the men, women, boys, and girls that comprise it. Effectiveness and efficiency both demand that the security sector invite and encourage equitable participation by women and men. Given the pervasiveness of gender inequality across the globe, and given that security institutions have historically been designed by and for men, particular attention must be given to gender dynamics and the promotion of the participation and protection of women in order to achieve equality and realize the principles of SSR.[10] Accordingly, it is widely acknowledged, though not uniformly implemented, that SSR interventions must include a gender perspective.[11]

A wealth of technical and practically-oriented literature on gender-responsive SSR has emerged in support of these efforts, largely in the form of policy guidance, handbooks, toolkits, checklists, and manuals.[12] This literature often presents the women, peace and security agenda as a tool for integrating gender considerations in SSR as a set of international norms that can be leveraged to argue for the integration of gender into SSR interventions.[13] However, relatively few resources exist discussing why SSR is crucial to the implementation of the themes of the women, peace and security agenda.[14] Such an undertaking is necessary as it demonstrates to the security sector its roles and responsibilities in implementing the women, peace and security resolutions, while demonstrating to civil society why the security sector must play a part in this undertaking.

SSR as a Tool for Implementing the Women, Peace and Security Resolutions

The commitments and principles outlined in the women, peace and security resolutions can be described as falling into four broad pillars: prevention, participation, protection, and relief and recovery.[15] In this section I examine these themes, noting what role the security sector plays in their implementation and analyzing what an SSR approach brings to their realization.

Prevention

Resolution 1325 affirms “the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts,” [16] while the UN Strategic Results Framework on Women, Peace and Security 2011-2020 identifies the goal of “prevention of conflict and all forms of violence against women and girls in conflict and post-conflict situations.” [17] Prevention of violence against women and girls is intricately linked to the goal of protection, and will be discussed in the sub-section on protection. For the purpose of this discussion, prevention will focus on the prevention of conflict.

As can be extrapolated from the political commitments outlined in Resolution 1325 and subsequent resolutions, the UN Strategic Results Framework identifies as key components of conflict prevention the use of early warning mechanisms that include gender-specific indicators and support to women’s conflict prevention efforts.[18] SSR interventions focus on accountability of the security sector and an SSR approach identifies civil society, including women’s groups, as exercising an informal oversight role in security sector governance. Accordingly, SSR efforts can further this aspect of the women, peace and security agenda by working with civil society and women’s groups to support their capacity to act as a watchdog that holds authorities accountable and informs early warning systems, or that facilitates dialogue between policymakers, security sector institutions, officials, and the population.[19]

Numerous examples point to the role of women’s organizations in gathering information and reporting on gender violence as an indicator of simmering intra-state conflict and the militarization of a politically tense situation. In the Philippines in the 1980s Gabriela, a broad coalition of women’s organizations, documented cases of rape contributing to an analysis of the low intensity conflict carried out by the Aquino administration against the leftist insurgent New People’s Army.[20] In a similar manner, Cynthia Enloe notes how, in “May 1998, a full year before most of the world was paying any attention to the escalating militarism in Kosovo, Belgrade’s women activists published a warning [of ongoing militarization and a prediction that] the outcome in today’s world is not likely to be a merely local conflict; it is likely to become an internationalized war.” [21] Such anecdotes highlight the value of SSR interventions in supporting civil society and women’s groups in making their voices heard and in contributing to an inclusive analysis of security threats.

A gender-responsive SSR approach can also support the development of a more comprehensive approach to women, peace and security. Some observers have stressed that a gender-inclusive approach to conflict prevention requires more than simply including women; it requires addressing the root causes of conflict, among which militarized gender norms are an important factor.[22] In other words, conflict prevention requires addressing normative frameworks that valorize aggression and violence as a desirable form of masculinity, and which rely on notions of femininity that depict women as vulnerable wives and mothers in need of protection from a hostile enemy.[23] Security sector institutions are by no means the only places in society where such norms are at work, but SSR and institutional reform can and should play a role in addressing institutional cultures in security sector institutions as a way of addressing these norms. In practice, such reform might include examining whether military/police recruitment, training, and job descriptions reward aggression and unnecessary violence by, for example, prioritizing physical strength over non-violent conflict resolution.

Multiple studies across several fields have documented how gendered institutional cultures affect the performance of an institution. Recently, ethnographic studies of gendered cultures in financial institutions have shed light on research finding that, in the 2008 financial crash in the United States, higher numbers of women in a companies’ management correlated inversely with the fall in share price, demonstrating the pitfalls of certain types of hyper-masculinized institutional cultures.[24] Closer to the field of SSR, Didier Fassin’s ethnographic study of urban policing in France similarly draws parallels between entry requirements into elite squads that privilege physical strength and aggression over non-physical policing skills, including knowledge of legal procedure on the one hand, and an increased propensity for the excessive use of force on the other. He notes that “[a]ll urban riots in France since the early 1980s … followed the death of youths in the context of interactions with the police, and more specifically, in the case of the most recent and most serious disturbances, with these special units.” [25] Addressing the gendered norms and ideals at work in security sector institutions is therefore an important part of increasing public accountability and mitigating the risk of conflict.

At the level of the system as a whole, SSR can also contribute to the implementation of the conflict prevention agenda in the broader women, peace and security agenda. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995) is commonly viewed as a precursor to the Security Council resolutions, and is referred to in all women, peace and security resolutions except for two (resolutions 1960 and 2106). The Beijing Platform for Action includes an aspect of conflict prevention that is not explicitly referred to in the somewhat narrower focus of the Security Council resolutions: it prioritizes demilitarization through reductions in military expenditure and the trade in arms.[26] An SSR approach to conflict resolution has the potential to support this form of conflict prevention: it aims to make the security sector effective, but also efficient and affordable. In other words, reductions in excessive military expenditure form a component of the work towards an efficient and affordable security sector.[27] An example of an SSR engagement that supports conflict prevention through reductions in military expenditure could comprise working with legislators, who approve budgets, to increase their capacity to assess and approve an adequate but proportionate allocation of funds, responding to national security priorities.[28]

For example, in the SSR (or security sector transformation) process in post-Apartheid South Africa, female parliamentarians demanded honesty and transparency when faced with arms trade deals that were conducted without public knowledge, and that were rife with allegations of corruption. Furthermore, women criticized the government for diverting funds to arms procurement instead of poverty alleviation, prompting one female parliamentarian to resign in protest.[29] In other words, female activists and legislators brought to the forefront the human security aspect of national security, emphasizing poverty alleviation and social concerns over arms procurement. SSR aims to further public accountability and proportionate military expenditure, foster the involvement of legislators, and ensure a space for an inclusive discussion, which are crucial to accurately determining national security priorities based on the needs and priorities of the population.

Participation

Resolution 1325 stresses “the importance of [the] equal participation and full involvement [of women] in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security.” [30] This goal can be understood as having a two-fold objective: promoting the participation of women in decision-making, as well as increasing the participation of women in the security sector, including among personnel deployed on UN peace support operations. The call for participation highlights the important recognition that, contrary to entrenched gender stereotypes, women are not only victims and innocent civilians in need of protection; they are also actors – they are political agents, community organizers, security providers, and combatants.

The language of the Security Council resolutions as regards the participation of women in decision-making has evolved and become more nuanced over thirteen years. While the early resolutions called for the participation of women in decision-making, the most recent, Resolution 2122 (2013), speaks of focusing “more attention on women’s leadership.” [31] It also recognizes a more diverse group of actors than a monolith of women, making specific reference to the need to include “socially and/or economically disadvantaged groups of women.” [32] The security sector has an important role to play in advancing women’s participation and leadership, not only through balanced representation in the ranks of security sector institutions, but also in overcoming common challenges to women’s full participation such as violence and intimidation faced by female political actors.

The Somali women’s peace movement provides an insight into the problems women face in participation and in reconciling multiple identities, such as those of ethnicity and gender. In what is commonly seen as a clan-based conflict involving Somalia’s five foremost clans, Somali women often find themselves torn, as they are regarded as belonging to both their father’s and husband’s clans. One leader of the women’s peace movement, Asha Hagi, commented: “This war was clan-based, and my husband and I are from two different clans. My husband’s clan saw me as a traitor; my clan of birth as an outsider.” [33] Faced with competing clan loyalties and shared experience of being denied a voice in negotiations and government, a network of Somali women’s organizations declared themselves “The Sixth Clan,” bridging ethnic divides and seeking political recognition as women.[34] However, an unstable security situation, intimidation, and lack of resources faced especially by female politicians have hampered their demand for political representation and inter-clan dialogue.[35] SSR interventions that target political processes and national security policymaking structures have the potential to foster more inclusive decision-making that includes the voices of (marginalized) women.[36]

The Security Council resolutions also heed the role of women in security sector institutions. Again, the language of the resolutions notes that specific technical aspects are required. Resolution 2106 not only calls for the participation of women in security and justice institutions, but also specifically notes “the inclusion of women at professional levels in these institutions.” [37] This call applies both to security sector institutions in a country affected by or emerging from conflict, as well as troop-contributing countries to UN peace operations. Institutional reform within an SSR framework is crucial for the meaningful (including at professional levels) participation of women. Improving the gender balance includes, but does not stop at, the targeted recruitment of women. Their meaningful participation also requires adequate training, as well as ensuring a healthy and non-discriminatory workplace in which they can realize their full potential. Institutional reform measures aimed at creating such a work environment may include introducing family-friendly human resources policies, establishing sexual harassment policies, training, and disciplinary mechanisms.

The multiple measures required to improve gender balance in the security sector are well illustrated in the case of the Sierra Leone Police (SLP). In 2011, the SLP undertook an institutional gender self-assessment process, which, among many other issue areas, examined efforts to improve the gender balance and remaining challenges in this regard. The study found several areas of concern, ranging from lack of sustained efforts to recruit female personnel to certain operational units, difficulties policewomen faced in reconciling family and professional life when posted away from their family home, and widespread resistance to an accelerated promotion scheme for female personnel.[38] Furthermore, the study revealed that despite a well-known policy on sexual harassment, this was still experienced by police personnel, hindering the meaningful participation of female staff in particular.[39] The case of the Sierra Leone Police illustrates the many levels of institutional reform required to further the participation of women at professional levels in the security sector.

Protection

The Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security stress the need “to take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse, and all other forms of violence in situations of armed conflict.” [40] The emphasis on the protection of women and girls in conflict situations reflects an understanding that civilians, especially women and children, account for the majority of those adversely affected by conflict.[41] Among these protection needs, sexual violence is a topic that has attracted high levels of policy and public attention in recent years.[42] Of the women, peace and security resolutions, four resolutions—1820, 1898, 1960 and 2106—specifically focus on conflict-related sexual violence. The topic has also attracted widespread public attention, including through a high-level global summit on the topic held in London in 2014.[43] A chronological reading of the resolutions highlights the need for an SSR approach to preventing and responding to sexual violence.

While Resolution 1325 (2000) calls for an end to impunity and prosecution of those responsible for war crimes, including sexual violence,[44] Resolution 1820 (2008) not only calls for a cessation of acts of sexual violence by parties to armed conflict, but also outlines specific measures for institutional reform to end sexual violence. These measures include developing and enforcing military disciplinary measures, training troops on the prohibition of sexual violence, and vetting armed and security forces for past crimes.[45] Resolution 1888 (2009) highlights the necessity of female military and police personnel in this response,[46] as well as the role played by civil society and traditional leaders.[47] It further expands on the comprehensive legal and judicial reforms required to bring perpetrators to justice and ensure that survivors have access to justice and are treated with dignity.[48] Resolution 2106 (2013) further elaborates on these requirements for security and justice reform. Resolution 2106 also extends the consideration of protection needs, insofar as it recognizes that men and boys may also experience sexual violence, and in recognizing the phenomenon of secondary victimization, mindful of the trauma experienced by those who have witnessed sexual violence committed against a family member.[49] In other words, the text of the resolutions has evolved from emphasizing the prohibition on sexual violence based on protection of women and calling for arresting and prosecuting perpetrators to an obligation to effect institutional and legal reform in the security and justice sectors.

It is worth noting that the resolutions use the umbrella term “sexual and gender-based violence.” Under this expression, they focus on sexual violence (and especially sexual violence perpetrated against women and girls), while remaining curiously silent on the issue of domestic violence and other forms of abuse which constitute gender-based violence.[50] Testimonies from refugee camps and communities emerging from conflict, from the Western Balkans to West Africa, indicate that domestic violence is a persistent problem with links to conflict and post-conflict trauma.[51] Nonetheless, the focus of the Security Council agenda remains somewhat narrowly focused on the question of sexual violence.

Recalling the principles of SSR outlined in the previous section, it becomes apparent that the resolutions’ call to prevent and respond to gender-based violence requires an SSR approach – requiring reform of both troop-contributing institutions in peacekeeping operations, as well as in conflict-affected areas. As the next section focuses primarily on troop-contributing countries, outlined here are several ways in which reform of the security sector in conflict-affected areas can help prevent and respond to gender-based violence. Efficiency and accountability require much more than peacekeepers catching perpetrators of mass rape and bringing them to the International Criminal Court. They require not only individual reactions, but also reforms in the security sector institutions, and call for a holistic, system-wide approach. Such reforms touch upon the police and armed forces and their institutional policies related to discipline and codes of conduct to prevent abuses by security sector personnel, as well as the development of standard operating procedures for responding to cases of gender-based violence. Both require training and capacity building. Prevention of and response to gender-based violence also has implications for staffing: staff must be vetted for human rights abuses, and the availability of trained female and male personnel must be ensured. In order to promote accountability and give survivors access to justice, justice institutions must have the capacity to respond and a national legal framework must be available to support them. Furthermore, a holistic approach involves informal or untraditional actors, civil society, including women’s groups, plays a role both in charting protection needs, providing security, and giving assistance to survivors. In contexts where traditional leaders or security and justice providers are influential, their cooperation and support is crucial to these efforts. The involvement of multiple actors, extending beyond the military and police, underlines the holistic approach that is characteristic of SSR.[52]

A recent study of domestic accountability mechanisms for gender-based violence in Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Uganda by the UC Berkeley School of Law highlighted the need for a cross-sectoral approach. In this study, Kim Thuy Seelinger notes difficulties related to investigation, prosecution, and adjudication of gender-based violence cases due to both victims’ unwillingness to report and the lack of capacities and resources in the responsible agencies to receive them. Seelinger notes that specialized agencies have been established in both police and justice systems—such as the Liberian National Police Women and Children Protection Unit and the country’s specialized court for victims of sexual and gender-based violence, Criminal Court E—but that lack of coordination between these agencies remains a problem.[53] In other words, SSR efforts that take a holistic approach to sector-wide reform are a key component to responding to gender-based violence.

Relief and Recovery

The women, peace and security resolutions mention several areas of relief and recovery efforts, which are pertinent to the agenda. These include the integration of gender perspectives in the design of refugee camps,[54] repatriation and reintegration,[55] disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration,[56] and humanitarian response.[57] Closely linked to these elements is the integration of gender perspectives in peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities.[58] Relief and recovery efforts are closely linked, but do not form a part of SSR per se.[59] However, this section argues that the effective integration of gender perspectives in relief and recovery efforts requires SSR in troop-contributing countries.

The reason SSR is required in troop-contributing countries, especially among militaries, stems from the changing nature of military operations. The armed forces are an organization designed to fight wars, but, as Annica Kronsell and Erika Svedberg note, “[w]hat seems new, and rather paradoxical, is that making war is increasingly associated with making peace ... The change is also associated with a reevaluation of the skills needed.” [60] This change can be conceptualized as requiring a two-fold reform in troop-contributing countries/institutions: ensuring the integration of gender perspectives into planning and conduct of new kinds of operations, and in ensuring internal or national accountability for the conduct of peacekeeping personnel.

The nature of peacekeeping missions requires military personnel to interact with the population in a gender-responsive manner. Accordingly, the reevaluation of the skills needed, mentioned by Kronsell and Svedberg, relates to the military often being called upon to undertake functions more closely related to policing. A number of practical manuals and guidance documents seek to better prepare military personnel for such tasks. For example, the 2010 UN guidelines for integrating a gender perspective in military peacekeeping note that “the military may be the first point of contact for victims of domestic violence, in situations where they are providing medical services” and further outline related protection tasks such as ensuring the safety of victims and respecting confidentiality.[61] While international actors such as UN agencies and NATO have been proactive in producing guidelines and training requirements, the integration of protection aspects into national pre-deployment training remains inconsistent. For example, NATO’s 2013 review of the implementation of Resolution 1325 pointed to “the general absence of pre-deployment training as a major detriment to gender mainstreaming.” [62] This suggests that in order to fulfill the obligations for gender-responsive relief and recovery outlined in the Security Council resolutions, troop-contributing nations must undertake reform of their militaries’ education and training frameworks in order to equip troops with the skills required.

Another issue surrounding relief and recovery, and necessitating reform in troop-contributing countries, relates to the conduct of personnel engaged in peace support operations. The UN has been mired in scandals related to sexual exploitation and abuse committed by peacekeeping personnel since reports emerged in the 1990s of the involvement of members of the International Police Task Force (IPTF) in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the trafficking of women into sexual slavery. Despite the serious nature of these crimes, no IPTF officer was prosecuted, and the UN has been accused of trying to conceal the events.[63] While the UN has since adopted a zero-tolerance Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Policy and several preventative measures have been taken, the fact remains that the onus to prosecute and penalize such abuses rests on troop-contributing countries. In a damning report issued in the 2005, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, Permanent Representative of Jordan, advised the UN Secretary General that “[t]here is a widespread perception that peacekeeping personnel, whether military or civilian, who commit acts of sexual exploitation and abuse rarely if ever face disciplinary charges for such acts and, at most, suffer administrative consequences.” [64] In other words, reform of security institutions and accountability and justice mechanisms in troop-contributing countries is required in order to address the obligations of the women, peace and security resolutions.

Conclusion

This article makes no claims to covering all thematic aspects of the women, peace and security agenda, nor does its scope permit an exhaustive exploration of the ways in which SSR efforts support the implementation of its goals. However, it does aim to demonstrate more generally that reform of the security sector and its institutions—both in conflict-affected areas and in troop-contributing countries—is required for the implementation of the women, peace and security agenda. Through this exploration, the article provides some illustrative examples of the issues at stake and the ways in which SSR can contribute to addressing them. Examples have ranged from how working with women’s organizations and female politicians, reforming institutional cultures, reducing excessive military expenditure, applying a sector-wide approach to addressing sexual and gender-based violence, and capacity- and accountability-building with troop-contributing countries’ police and military can support the implementation of the women, peace and security agenda.

This discussion has also underscored a number of ways in which the women, peace and security agenda focus has narrowed over the years: primarily through the focus on women rather than gender, and the increasing focus on conflict-related sexual violence. Noting that the agenda has narrowed does not detract from the importance of addressing the needs and roles of women, nor does it belittle the necessity to improve prevention of and response to sexual violence. However, what is argued is that a renewed focus on gender and close attention to the reform of structures and institutions is better suited to address these concerns and the issues that underlie them. Examining how gender works in the context of peace and security points to some promising avenues in pursuing the women, peace and security agenda: it allows for the possibility of addressing pathological gender norms and inequalities, thereby reducing the likelihood of conflict and gender-related abuses. It also creates space for the examination of underlying gender norms that may also contribute to the victimization of men through sexual violence. Further, adopting a system-wide approach touches upon what should be the heart of the women, peace and security agenda. The women, peace and security agenda should not, as leading advocate and drafter of Resolution 1325 Sanam Anderlinin has argued, be about “making war safe for women.” [65] It should be about formulating an inclusive understanding of security and a gender-equal vision of peace.

[*] Aiko Holvikivi holds a Master’s degree in Political Science from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and an undergraduate degree in International Relations from the University of St Andrews. She currently works in the Gender and Security Programme of the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) and co-chairs the SSR Working Group of the Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes. Her work includes support to international institutions, research, and technical advisory and capacity-building projects on gender and SSR with NATO, UN Women, and national partners in the Western Balkans, Southern Caucasus and West and Southern Africa.

[1] For example, UN Security Council, S/RES/1820, 19 June 2008, par. 10; UN Security Council, S/RES/1888, 30 September 2009, par. 8, 17; UN Security Council, S/RES/2106, 24 June 2013, par. 16; and UN Security Council, S/RES/2122, 18 October 2013, par. 10.

[2] This perception stems from the key role played by the international women’s movement, along with the governments of Namibia, Bangladesh and Canada, in lobbying the Security Council to put the theme of women, peace and security on the agenda. Torunn L. Tryggestad, “Trick or Treat? The UN and Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security,” Global Governance 15 (2009), 540–541, http://journals.rienner.com/doi/abs/10.5555/ggov.2009.15.4.539 (accessed 18 March 2015).

[3] Eirin Mobekk, “Gender, Women and Security Sector Reform,” International Peacekeeping 17:2 (2010), 281.

[4] In this article, the “women, peace and security resolutions” refer to the Security Council Resolutions 1325 (2000), 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013). The term “women, peace, and security agenda” is used to signify a slightly broader agenda, including the resolutions, but also their precursor, the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

[5] Other terms used to refer to a similar concept include: security system reform, security and justice sector reform, security sector transformation, security sector reconstruction, security sector governance, etc.

[6] For a succinct overview, see Nicole Ball, “The Evolution of the Security Sector Reform Agenda,” in The Future of Security Sector Reform, ed. Mark Sedra (Ontario: CIGI, 2010), 154, available at https://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/the_future_of_security_sector_reform.pdf (accessed 16 March 2015).

[7] OECD, DAC Guidelines and Reference Series: Security System Reform and Governance (Paris: OECD, 2005), 20, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/19900988 (accessed 31 March 2015).

[8] Ann Fitz-Gerald, “Stabilization Operations and Post-Conflict Security Sector Reform: Strange Bedfellows or Close Allies?,” in The Future of Security Sector Reform, 154.

[9] Kristin Valasek, “Security Sector Reform and Gender,” in Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit, ed. Megan Bastick and Kristin Valasek (Geneva: DCAF, OSCE/ODIHR, UN-INSTRAW, 2008), 18.

[10] Heather Huhtanen and Veerle Triquet, Gender Equality and Good Security Sector Governance, SSR Backgrounder Series, ed. Fairlie Chappuis (Geneva: DCAF, 2015); Veerle Triquet and Callum Watson, Gender Equality and Security Sector Reform, SSR Backgrounder Series, ed. Fairlie Chappuis (Geneva: DCAF, 2015).

[11] Mobekk, “Gender, Women and Security Sector Reform,” 278; Jennifer Erin Salahub and Krista Nerland, “Just Add Gender? Challenges to Meaningful Integration of Gender in SSR Policy and Practice,” in The Future of Security Sector Reform, 154.

[12] See, for example: OECD DAC, “Section 9: Integrating Gender Awareness and Equality,” in OECD DAC Handbook on Security System Reform (Paris: OECD, 2009), www.oecd.org/social/gender-development/42168607.pdf (accessed 27 March 2015); UN SSR Task Force, Security Sector Reform Integrated Technical Guidance Notes (New York: UN, 2012), available at http://unssr.unlb.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=XM6t1lKwBaA%3d&tabid=145&mid=438 (accessed 27 March 2015); Bastick and Valasek, ed., Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit, 18.

[13] Salahub and Nerland, “Just Add Gender? Challenges to Meaningful Integration of Gender in SSR Policy and Practice,” 266.

[14] One of which includes Megan Bastick and Daniel de Torres, “Implementing the Women, Peace and Security Resolutions in Security Sector Reform,” in Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit, 18.

[15] Following the UN strategic results framework. United Nations, UN Strategic Results Framework on Women, Peace and Security 2011–2020 (New York: United Nations, 2011), available at www.un.org/womenwatch/ianwge/taskforces/wps/Strategic_Framework_2011-2020.pdf (accessed 19 March 2015).

[16] UN Security Council, S/RES/1325, 31 October 2000, preamble.

[17] UN, Strategic Results Framework.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Karen Barnes and Peter Albrecht, “Civil Society Oversight of the Security Sector and Gender,” in Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit, 18.

[20] Cynthia Enloe, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 126.

[21] Ibid.,150–1 .

[22] Saferworld, Saferworld Briefing: Reviving Conflict Prevention in 1325 (London: Saferworld, 2015), 3, available at http://www.saferworld.org.uk/resources/view-resource/890-reviving-conflict-prevention-in-1325 (accessed 19 March 2015).

[23] Laura Sjoberg, Gendering Global Conflict: Toward a Feminist Theory of War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 263–268.

[24] Cynthia Enloe, Seriously! Investigating Crashes and Crises as if Women Mattered (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), Kindle edition, 69.

[25] Didier Fassin, Enforcing Order: An Ethnography of Urban Policing (Cambridge: Polity, 2013), Kindle edition, Location 1680.

[26] Although the preambles of both of the 2013 resolutions (2106 and 2122) do acknowledge provisions in the Arms Trade Treaty, adopted by the General Assembly in the same year, that exporting states must take into account the risk of arms being used to commit or facilitate acts of gender-based violence. Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Beijing: UN, 1995), 59; Hannah Wright, “Beijing, 1325 and Beyond: Taking Women, Peace and Security Back to its Roots,” Saferworld, 31 October 2014, http://www.saferworld.org.uk/news-and-views/comment/151-beijing-1325-and-beyond-taking-women-peace-and-security-back-to-its-roots (accessed 9 March 2015).

[27] Rahel Kunz and Kristin Valasek, “Learning from Others’ Mistakes: Towards Participatory, Gender-sensitive SSR,” in Back to the Roots: Security Sector Reform and Development, ed. Albrecht Schnabel and Vanessa Farr (Geneva: DCAF, 2012), 115, available at www.dcaf.ch/Publications/Back-to-the-Roots-Security-Sector-Reform-and-Development (accessed 29 March 2015).

[28] Ilja Luciak, “Parliamentary Oversight of the Security Sector and Gender,” in Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit, 18.

[29] Ibid., 6.

[30] UN Security Council, S/RES/1325, 31 October 2000, preamble.

[31] Par. 1 (emphasis added).

[32] UNSCR 2122, par. 7(a).

[33] “Asha’s Story,” Peace Direct, http://www.peacedirect.org/us/peacebuilders/past-projects/somalia (accessed 29 March 2015).

[34] Sumie Nakaya, “Women and Gender Equality in Peacebuilding,” in Building Sustainable Peace, ed. Tom Keating and W. Andy Knight (New Delhi: Academic Foundation, 2006), 156.

[35] “Somalia: Somali Political Process under Threat: UN,” Horseed Media, 1 August 2012, available at http://horseedmedia.net/2012/08/01/somali-political-process-under-threat-un (accessed 29 March 2015).

[36] Peter Albrecht and Karen Barnes, “National Security Policy-making and Gender,” in Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit, 18.

[37] Par. 16 (c) (emphasis added).

[38] Aisha Fofana Ibrahim, The Integration of a Gender Perspective in the Sierra Leone Police (Geneva: DCAF, 2013), 27, available at http://dcaf.ch/Publications/The-Integration-of-a-Gender-Perspective-in-the-Sierra-Leone-Police (accessed 29 March 2015).

[39] Ibid., 41.

[40] UNSCR 1325, par. 10.

[41] Ibid., preamble.

[42] Maria Eriksson Baaz and Maria Stern, Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War? Perceptions, Prescriptions, Problems in the Congo and Beyond (London/New York: Zed Books in association with the Nordic Africa Institute, 2013), 60.

[43] For more information, see the Summit website, https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/sexual-violence-in-conflict (accessed 18 March 2015).

[44] Par. 11.

[45] Par. 3.

[46] Par. 17.

[47] Par. 15.

[48] Par. 6.

[49] Par. 16. See also Chris Dolan, “Has Patriarchy Been Stealing the Feminists’ Clothes? Conflict-Related Sexual Violence and UN Security Council Resolutions,” IDS Bulletin 45:1 (January 2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1759-5436.12071 (accessed 15 March 2015).

[50] Eriksson Baaz and Stern, Sexual Violence, 95.

[51] Enloe, Maneuvers, 147 and International Rescue Committee, Let Me Not Die Before My Time (New York: International Rescue Committee, 2012), 7, available at http://www.rescue.org/sites/default/files/resource-file/IRC_Report_DomVioWAfrica.pdf (accessed 1 April 2015).

[52] Maria Eriksson Baaz and Mats Utas, “Beyond ‘Gender and Stir’,” in Beyond ‘Gender and Stir’: Reflections on Gender and SSR in the Aftermath of African Conflicts, ed. Maria Eriksson Baaz and Mats Utas (Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute, 2012), 9, available at http://nai.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:570724/FULLTEXT01.pdf

(accessed 18 March 2015). For specific recommendations, see Bastick and de Torres, “Implementing.”

[53] Kim Thuy Seelinger, “Domestic Accountability for Sexual Violence: The Potential of Specialized Units in Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Uganda,” International Review of the Red Cross (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1816383115000090 (accessed 29 March 2015).

[54] UNSCR 1325, Par. 12.

[55] Ibid., Par. 8(a).

[56] Ibid., Par. 13.

[57] Ibid., Par. 14.

[58] Ibid., Par. 5.

[59] Bastick and de Torres, “Implementing,” 10.

[60] Annica Kronsell and Erika Svedberg, “Introduction,” in Making Gender, Making War: Violence, Military and Peacekeeping Practices, ed. Annica Kronsell and Erika Svedberg (New York/London: Routledge, 2012), Kindle edition, 2.

[61] UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and Department of Field Support, DPKO/DFS Guidelines: Integrating a Gender Perspective into the Work of the United Nations Military in Peacekeeping Operations (New York: UN DPKO/DFS, 2010), 31, 36.

[62] Helené Lackenbauer and Richard Langlais, ed., Review of the Practical Implementation of UNSCR 1325 for the Conduct of NATO-led Operations and Missions (Stockholm: Swedish Defence Research Agency FOI, 2013), 37, 61, available at http://www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/pdf_2013_10/20131021_131023-UNSCR1325-review-final.pdf (accessed 30 March 2015).

[63] Jennifer Murray, “Who Will Police the Peace-builders? The Failure to Establish Accountability for the Participation of United Nations Civilian Police in the Trafficking of Women in Post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Columbia Human Rights Law Review 34 (2002–2003), 505.

[64] HRH Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, A Comprehensive Strategy to Eliminate Future Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, UN A/59/710, Par. 66, available at http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/SE%20A%2059%20710.pdf (accessed 31 March 2015).

[65] Sanam Anderlini, “Resolution 1325 is a Starting Point,” Public Broadcasting Service, 5 November 2010, available at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/women-war-and-peace/features/essay-1325-is-a-starting-point/ (accessed 1 April 2015).

Begging the Question: What Would a Men, Peace and Security Agenda Look Like?

Callum Watson [*]

Introduction

The starting point for much of the scholarship examining gender in International Relations and security studies can be neatly summarized in a question that Cynthia Enloe asked in 1989, namely “Where are the women?” [1] The following decade was marked by several milestones in the inclusion of women in the international security agenda such as the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action produced at the Fourth World Conference for Women in 1995 and the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security in 2000. After fifteen years and six further resolutions, academics, practitioners, and policymakers alike have begun to ask a similar question, but this time of the gender equality and women’s empowerment agenda, namely “Where are the men?” In this article, I first examine the historical background of work conducted on men and masculinities in peace and security at the international level. Subsequently, I outline some of the reasons why a “Men, Peace and Security” agenda is yet to clearly develop in international policy circles. Finally, I offer some suggestions on what a Men, Peace and Security agenda would look like by mirroring the four pillars of the Women, Peace and Security framework, namely protection, prevention, participation, and relief and recovery.

We Can’t See the Forest for the Trees: Men as the Missing Gender

The great irony at the heart of the women, peace and security agenda is that what began as an attempt to consider gender relations as a cross-cutting theme in all matters of peace and security resulted in the creation of a new, high profile pigeonhole known as “women’s issues.” While issues such as sexual and domestic violence against women did reach the agenda as a serious security concern, men as perpetrators, secondary witnesses, and victims are notably absent from the discourse.[2] While the term “women’s issue” may at first appear as a way to give women who have been traditionally underrepresented a voice, it in fact places the burden of resolving these issues on oppressed women themselves. In this way, discussions on gender equality are kept off the mainstream peace and security agenda and the status quo can be maintained.

This situation is problematic for multiple reasons. First of all, there is little focus on bringing to justice those who actually perpetrate crimes and discriminate against women – many, but not all, of whom are men. Second, prevention becomes complicated as, if the people who pose a threat to women’s security are not defined, the responsibility falls on women to protect themselves, with victims potentially being blamed for “failures” in this regard. Third, the labeling of crimes such as rape as a “women’s issue” conceals the many male victims, as well as men and boys affected by the rape of relatives and others who are close to them. The psychological trauma of being forced to witness the rape of a family member , as well as the subsequent caregiving responsibilities this entails, has only recently been recognized internationally.[3] Finally, the role that men need to play in preventing and responding to these “women’s issues” is not defined. This means that those men who are currently engaged in activities aimed at overcoming gender inequality go unnoticed, those men who have the will but not the expertise go unsupported, and those men who have a legal responsibility to prevent and pursue cases of gender-based violence go unaccountable.

Men and Masculinities in NATO and Partnership for Peace Countries: A Brief History

Although dedicated men’s movements in the West began to proliferate towards the end of the late 1960s, men’s engagement in gender equality can be traced back at least as far as the nineteenth century.[4] Notable examples include British political philosopher and politician John Stuart Mill, who published an essay entitled The Subjection of Women in 1869, which he co-wrote with his wife, Harriot Taylor Mill, and also called for women’s suffrage during his term as a Member of Parliament in 1867.[5] Others who explored gender relations in their work include Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and Austrian psychoanalyst Alfred Adler.[6]

A wave of groups such as the National Organization of Men Against Sexism (NOMAS) in the United States began to form towards the end of the 1960s and mid-1970s.[7] The activities of these groups tended to focus on self-help and small group discussions on building non-sexist male identities. Today, there is a diversity of men’s groups (generally small), some maintaining the original model, but others more engaged in political activism on topics largely centered around fatherhood, men’s health, and boys’ education.[8] These issues have become the focus of International Men’s Day, which has been celebrated on November 19 since the 1990s. It seeks to promote positive male role models, improve gender relations, highlight discrimination, and celebrate men’s positive contributions to society.[9] Many of the non-governmental organizations focused on engaging men and boys in promoting gender equality are now members of the international MenEngage Alliance, which produced the Delhi Declaration and Call to Action at its second global symposium in 2014.[10]

In the Nordic region, studies specifically on men and masculinities in academia began to emerge in the early 1980s (drawing significantly on women’s studies and feminist theory), and began to impact policy circles by 1987 when the Nordic Council of Ministers launched a project on men and gender equality.[11] The study of men and masculinities has subsequently proliferated, especially to English-speaking countries. A major milestone in this field was the establishment of the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities at Stony Brook University in New York in 2013.[12] In the same year, Dr. Christopher Kilmartin taught the US military’s first ever courses in Men and Masculinity as a visiting professor at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado.[13]

The first mention of men as a social category in UN circles came in 1995 at the World Summit for Social Development, which highlighted the importance of the equal partnership between women and men in family life, care responsibilities, parenthood, and “responsible sexual and reproductive behaviour.” [14] This was swiftly followed by the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference of Women in September of the same year, which contained an explicit provision to “[e]ncourage men to participate fully in all actions towards equality.” It went on to encourage men to share in childcare and household responsibilities as well as to seek employment in the social sector.[15] Towards the end of the 1990s, staff at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) formed a working group on men and gender equality to address gender discrimination in UN programs.[16]

While the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action laid the groundwork for many of the provisions of the UN Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs) on Women, Peace and Security, the only mention of men in the first resolution (UNSCR 1325, passed in 2000) was to consider the different needs of female and male ex-combatants in disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration processes. It was only thirteen years later that further references to men were made in the preamble to Resolution 2106. This resolution cites the enlistment of men and boys as being central to long-term efforts to prevent sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict situations, which it went on to acknowledge could also affect men and boys.[17]

Despite the absence of language on men and masculinities in policy documents on women, peace and security, some UN agencies working on the ground have engaged in addressing the specific needs of men and boys in their programs. For example, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees published some guidance entitled “Working with Men and Boys Survivors of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Forced Displacement” in 2012.[18] However, such efforts have not been institutionalized as part of a consolidated agenda.

The Invisible Man

While the use of the word “gender” as being interchangeable with “women” is commonplace, a closer inspection highlights how the authors of some international documents have gone to absurd lengths to avoid mentioning men and boys. While the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women attributes this kind of violence to “unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of the full advancement of women,” it never goes as far as naming men as the predominant perpetrators of violence against women or the targets of violence prevention programs.[19] Similarly, while the Security Council expressed in Resolution 798 (1992) that it was “[a]ppaled by reports of the massive, organized and systematic detention and rape of women, in particular Muslim women, in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” [20] it refers to the victims of the sex-selective massacre of men and boys in Srebrenica as “civilians” even though the UN had successfully negotiated the deportation of all women and girls from the area.[21]

After the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it transpired that sexual violence in detention during the conflict had also affected men in large numbers. For example, a UN Population Fund report found that 80 % of male concentration camp victims in the Sarajevo Canton had been raped.[22] (Ironically, this report was entitled “The Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and Girls.”) Despite the fact that sexual violence against men in conflict has been documented in the ancient empires of Persia, Greece, and China, it is only as a result of the international community beginning to address sexual violence against women in conflict as a war crime that male victims of sexual violence have begun to be recognized.[23] It has subsequently been documented in conflicts in countries ranging from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to El Salvador, with the crimes committed by Coalition Forces at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq being one of the most high-profile examples.[24]

A recent example from Peru provides additional insight into why male victims of sexual violence in conflict are so often overlooked. The government-established Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was tasked with investigating atrocities committed during the “people’s war” between government forces and Shining Path guerrillas, found that 2 % of incidents of sexual violence involved a male victim. However, when an academic team subsequently reexamined the transcripts of victim testimonies and applied their own criteria, they found the figure to be 29 %. The two main reasons for this were that cases of sexual humiliation and male genital mutilation or electrocution were often either not defined by declarants or not coded by interviewers as sexual violence.[25]

Acknowledgement of Men and Masculinities in Gender, Peace and Security Discourses

The full realization of the women, peace and security agenda will not be possible without also engaging with men. This is because gender is a relational concept; social changes in the position of women will redefine their relationship with men, and the acceptance of this change will need to involve a shift in male gender norms, otherwise referred to as masculinities.

When undertaking this endeavor in the policy arena, we are immediately confronted with a challenge: how can we talk of male vulnerability when men are the dominant gender in society? To answer this question, it can be useful to look to similar discussions that took place in the feminist movement. “Women” became a social category because of shared experiences, but not necessarily because of a shared identity or any inherent shared vulnerabilities. Rather, discriminatory laws and social rules that placed all women in the same vulnerable situation (e.g., by not having the right to vote) underscored the necessity of alliance-building. Many of these alliances began to fall apart when the initial objective was achieved (e.g., universal suffrage) as distinctions in privilege or vulnerability based on the intersection between gender and other factors such as race, religion, and sexual orientation began to be exposed. Indeed, “third-wave” feminism is partly characterized as a response to the accusation that many women’s movements had their own internal power hierarchy based on factors such as race and social class. Some women, especially those who were not white or middle-class, alleged that dominant women in these organizations were fighting not for gender equality as such, but rather for an equal share in the privilege enjoyed by the male members of their social class and, by extension, an equal right to dominate others. Socialization tends to make us blind to our privilege – it is racial minorities who are reminded that they have a “race” in the same way that women are more aware of having a “gender.” [26] We can take several things from this analysis that assist us in our understanding of a men, peace and security agenda.

Firstly, the notion of “vulnerable groups” is a misnomer; people are placed into vulnerable situations by the dominant members of society. Secondly, gender is only useful as a unitary category insofar as all members of that gender are discriminated against in a similar way. A subtle shift in UNSCR 2122 occurred that acknowledges this point where women are concerned. Article 7 (a) “requests regular consultations with women’s organizations and women leaders, including socially and/or economically excluded groups of women” (emphasis added). This language recognizes the limitations of the unitary gender category of women and the need to consider the variations within it. When it comes to men, the need to break down the gender category into different masculinities is even more marked because men have had no collective experience of being universally oppressed by women. Thirdly, while men are not inherently more vulnerable, certain groups of men are placed into vulnerable situations because of their gender. The aforementioned Srebrenica example clearly demonstrates how Muslim men in Bosnia were placed into a vulnerable situation. This example also brings us to a fourth point, which I illustrate with a quote from bell hooks:

All men support and perpetuate sexism and sexist oppression in one form or another. Like women, men have been socialized into passively accepting sexist ideology. While they need not blame themselves for accepting sexism, they must assume responsibility for it … but there are ways in which they suffer as a result [of sexism]. This suffering should not be ignored.[27]

The men of Srebrenica died partly because of sexist assumptions that all men are potential fighters; the women were spared because of assumptions that women cannot fight. The blame for what happened in Srebrenica lies squarely with the Serb commanders who orchestrated it. However, we are all responsible for inadvertently perpetuating sexist stereotypes such as those that placed those Bosniak men in a vulnerable situation in July 1995. In different ways, these stereotypes put women at risk of violence by men, men at risk of violence usually but not always by other men, and, especially when men are not able to perform the roles that society expects of themselves, men at risk of self-harm. The responsibility of the international community to try to overcome these stereotypes is what constitutes the driving force behind the men, peace and security agenda.

The Flipside of the Four Pillars

The women, peace and security agenda is divided into a framework consisting of four pillars: prevention, participation, protection, and relief and recovery. This framework can also be used to broadly reflect the current work being undertaken with men and boys, as well as its likely future direction.

Prevention of Conflict and All Forms of Violence in Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations [28]

Conflict has a profound impact on gender roles. Forged by necessity, conflict can sometimes open the door for certain groups of women and men to perform roles from which they were excluded during peacetime, with women entering armaments factories in the World Wars as one of the better-known cases. We should not, however, assume this to be a form of emancipation (although it may ultimately be a contributing factor), but rather as the realignment of gender roles in accordance with military objectives. In conflict settings, it is often the case that non-violent masculinities are increasingly seen as unacceptable in society. In some cases, resisting recruitment may even carry a prison sentence; in others, the civilian identity of men is not taken seriously and hence they are not afforded the legal entitlements to protection to which they are entitled under legal instruments such as the Geneva Conventions.

It is an obvious but often overlooked point that recruitment into armed groups poses a significant security threat to men in conflict situations. The dichotomy that is often presented in rhetoric that men are the perpetrators of conflict-related violence (legitimate or otherwise) and that women are the vulnerable group overlooks the fact that in conflict, many members of armed groups are both perpetrators and victims of armed violence, and that membership of an armed group puts individuals into vulnerable situations.[29] It is exactly the invisibility of the male victim of violence that results in sexual violence against men in conflict going largely unrecognized, and that violence against women can make all of the victim’s family members secondary victims due to resulting psychological trauma and destruction of livelihoods. Indeed, the stigma of “becoming a woman” is one reason why sexual violence against men is used as a strategy in some conflict contexts.[30]

A further consequence of the narrowing of gender roles before, during, and after conflict is that those men who are unwilling or unable to conform to one of the few accepted model masculinities are at greater risk of violence. Sometimes they are specifically targeted by armed groups or political regimes. In other cases, they become the targets of those who are insecure of their own status and looking for a way to demonstrate their power by using violence against those who, through lack of protection, are placed in vulnerable situations. Sexual and gender minorities such as gay and transgender men often fall into this category, as do men from visible minorities.[31]

Work currently underway that could be categorized under the prevention pillar often focuses initially on attempting to safeguard the plurality of models of masculinity in a given society. This can include, for example, efforts to ensure that young men in particular are given opportunities to earn a living, and this way earn respect, as a means of discouraging them from seeking to prove (or employ) themselves by joining armed groups.[32] Other initiatives involve encouraging men to examine their relationship with violence as a group and creating space in public discourses for men to propose non-violent dispute resolution strategies without ridicule.

Further areas of work involve combating racism, homophobia, and other discriminatory attitudes in society that could eventually lead, or in the past may have led, to armed conflict. The goal is to reduce the number of men placed in vulnerable situations. In a similar vein, recognizing male victims of sexual violence on a par with other casualties of conflict, and providing access to medical services and legal remedies, goes some way to de-stigmatizing them.

What is clear in this pillar is that activities to support men can easily dovetail with the women, peace and security agenda. Encouraging a greater diversity of voices to speak up in order to fully understand how different groups of women, men, girls, and boys experience violence in conflict is the first step towards prevention. Giving women a voice to express views outside a single dominant narrative can also empower men to provide dissenting opinions. Furthermore, recognizing that women do not constitute a single vulnerable group, but in fact a collection of groups who are sometimes placed in vulnerable situations, can also help us understand the much more nuanced experience that men have of conflict as perpetrator-victims.

Equal Participation of Men and Women: Gender Equality is Promoted in Peace and Security Decision-making at National, Local, Regional, and International Levels [33]

When we look at gender, peace and security, we can see that women have historically been excluded from participating in discussions and activities related to security. Men, on the other hand, have notably been absent from those related to gender. To some extent, this is a consequence of self-selection – the internalization of gender roles meant that many women did not historically see security as something relevant to them, while men equally did not see gender as pertinent to them. Recent progress has been made on recognizing that everyone has different security concerns, so excluding women from the table means that the security needs of large parts of the population go unrecognized. Progress on including men in discussions relating to gender has been somewhat slower, perhaps because the process is a bit more complicated.

One of the challenges is that many fora for discussing gender equality have been constructed as safe spaces for those women who are usually silenced or spoken over to express their needs. All-male discussion groups have also existed for some time, albeit not on a large scale. There is evidence to suggest that they can be useful in providing men with non-judgmental spaces to discuss, for example, their relationship with violence as perpetrators and/or victims, as well as self-esteem issues caused by the insecurity of not fulfilling the expectations of society.[34] Some topics, however, require a coordinated response, such as engaging men in the prevention of violence and discrimination against women and engaging mothers in preventing the socialization of their sons into violent men.

The organizers of meetings on gender equality can be reluctant to reach out to men because it risks changing the dynamics of the meeting. Several studies have demonstrated that women talk less than men in meetings (partly as they are given less speaking time), are more likely to be interrupted, and are more frequently asked to substantiate their claims.[35] This can be particularly frustrating when the men who interrupt are new to the subject area and therefore not at the same level of expertise as the speaker. Nonetheless, this is a challenge that must be overcome by raising awareness, gender training, and skillful facilitation.

Another issue is the way in which some men feel attacked during these processes. These sentiments were at the heart of recent debates over the Twitter hashtag, “#NotAllMen,” which came to prominence after a male student attacked several people at a sorority house and then a number of other people in the town of Isla Vista, California. The killer explicitly referred to the attack as “The Day of Retribution,” with his stated motivation being “exacting revenge on women” and young couples because he had never succeeded in finding a girlfriend.[36] Discussions in response to these crimes led to several men objecting that “not all men” are like this. In this way, the conversation was sidetracked and attention shifted away from the concerns that women expressed, namely the often overlooked daily experience of sexism that women face, coupled with their fear that gender-based crimes such as these are not prevented and may not be taken seriously if they report them.[37] These discussions tend to result in the burden of protection falling on women, while it would be more effective for men to challenge other men who express discriminatory sentiments or display violent behaviors towards women.

One good practice that organizations working in this field have advocated is the naming of men in senior positions who publicly counter gender discrimination as gender equality champions.[38] In addition, gender and anti-sexual harassment training are now undertaken in some security institutions. Civil society organizations such as the White Ribbon Campaign also try to shape male gender norms by encouraging men to engage in role-modeling, better cross-gender communication in personal relationships, and in educating themselves about gender discrimination.[39] More recently, the UN’s HeForShe campaign has sought to foster greater social acceptance for men who express their support for gender equality and their solidarity with campaigns to end violence against women.[40] Finally, one of the calls by civil society organizations is for National Action Plans on the implementation of Resolution 1325 and other resolutions on women, peace and security to specify roles for men in greater detail.[41]

Protection and Promotion of Men and Boys’ Rights in Conflict-Affected Areas [42]

The protection pillar of the women, peace and security agenda is closely linked to the prevention pillar in that the work covers similar themes but from different angles, with the protection pillar focusing on safeguarding human rights. It is worth mentioning that a subset of men’s groups term themselves as men’s rights groups and work from the starting point that gender inequality has now swung in favor of women.[43] Many members of these groups feel disempowered and some have been victims of violence committed by women or of gender bias in court cases relating to the custody of their children, for example. Groups of this nature have existed since at least the nineteenth century, when concerns were raised about the idea of women’s suffrage.[44] These groups are counter-productive to supporting their male members on two levels.

Firstly, the argument that feminism, women’s rights, and women themselves are to blame for the predicament of their members is a misinterpretation. Gender inequality does restrict men and boys, but the emancipation of women, as well as trans people and other groups of men such as racial and ethnic minorities, indigenous people, and homosexuals, begins to create space for greater social acceptance of any man who expresses himself in a way that does not conform to the dominant norm. The barriers men face to reporting violence, especially sexual and domestic violence, are caused by these restrictive roles;[45] the challenging of gender stereotypes leveled at women automatically leads to conversations about those leveled at men.

Secondly, the men’s rights movement seems to focus its attention on confronting women while neglecting to provide support and services to its male members who are clearly in need. While this movement may provide a forum for men to vent frustration, it does not seem to lobby for changes that would improve their quality of life. A typical example is the demand for an equal number of places in shelters for male victims of domestic violence on the premise of providing an equal right to security. Groups working with male victims of domestic violence have found that most men would prefer either single-occupancy accommodation or, as many can afford to find alternative accommodation, improved security arrangements where they currently live.[46]

Returning to the hypothetical men, peace and security agenda, many of the human rights violations men face in conflict center, as mentioned earlier, on them not being recognized as civilians. In a more nuanced way, the failure of the state to provide security to its population [47]—or to parts of its population according to their race, geographical location, or perceived political affiliation, for example—can also force men to take on combatant roles for their own protection. (This, of course, affects women, too, but gender norms usually place greater pressure on men to enlist in armed groups or to take up arms.) In a similar vein, while education is always difficult in conflict contexts, the recruitment of child soldiers is a violation of boys’ (and girls’) right to education.

As previously mentioned, sexual violence is a crime that is widespread during conflict and providing medical care to survivors is a challenge for existing health infrastructure and international aid agencies. In some cases, however, healthcare facilities exist exclusively for female survivors, either because of a defined policy or because the stigma of accessing the healthcare system is too great for men.[48] There are also similar parallels when it comes to access to justice and even food aid, education, and credit facilities. To be clear, this is not a consequence of favoring women over men, but rather of the political dynamics at the international level. One rationalization for engaging in “just war” is for men to protect women. If one side commits rape against civilian women, it is easy to delegitimize them as rebel groups composed of “abnormal” soldiers, hence further justifying the presence of “legitimate” forces. In reality, all sides in war inflict violence on civilians, be it unintentional, deliberate or caused by the breakdown of discipline. Members of armed forces sometimes resent civilians who view them with disdain because their ranks are drawn from lower socio-economic classes, and their presence is perceived more as a threat than as a form of protection. By providing services to female victims of conflict-related rape, international aid agencies and NGOs are seen to be performing their protector roles; providing medical assistance for weapon-related injuries to women sends a contradictory message. Male civilian victims of sexual or other forms of conflict-related violence also do not fit easily into this logic and tend to go ignored.[49]

Good practices in providing services must again begin by recognizing that male civilians exist, recognizing their rights, and consulting with them to establish their primary human rights concerns. In the case of civilian men in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the main concerns were forced labor, forced recruitment, and mass killings. As for civilian women, it turned out that the most prominent human rights concerns centered on political participation, economic rights, and legal rights regarding property and inheritance. Gender bias in the international system, however, meant that donor funding instead tended to be earmarked for services targeted at rape victims. The rape of women in the Congo conflict was indeed widespread, but it occurred within the wider context of violence and poverty, and hence care for rape-related injuries was not most women’s top priority.[50]

Relief and Recovery

The fourth pillar of the women, peace and security agenda is most often applied to post-conflict processes such as peacebuilding and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR). Much of the work in this area therefore focuses on the transition of ex-combatants into civilian life, and again there are problems caused by a lack of understanding regarding male civilians. Relief and recovery is an area where it is important to recognize the diversity of different male identities that are present in post-conflict contexts. Conflicts are often fought predominantly by younger men in the interests of their older male commanders. Some may be recruited forcibly, but those who join voluntarily tend to have few viable economic options and believe a weapon is a means to command respect in society that they would not otherwise have. It then becomes particularly frustrating in post-conflict situations when these young people are demobilized and again find themselves in positions of powerlessness, while senior male political elites regain political control of the country and rule with their own cohort’s interests at the forefront.[51] This was particularly marked in the Arab Spring, whereby street protests were led by young people who were highly educated yet unemployed, unable to purchase a house of their own, and consequently unable to marry. Many youths took huge risks and were ultimately able to force a change of leadership in several countries, yet in all cases this resulted in replacing one older man with another, and gaining little in the way of increased representation.[52]

The relief and recovery pillar is also an area where the negative consequences of working only with women to address gender inequality are particularly evident. Internal displacement during conflict prevents men from performing traditional roles that would have earned them the respect of their peers. Men are usually displaced from their land and hence can no longer provide for their families through subsistence farming, raising livestock, or skilled labor. Hunting and gathering may be outlawed, impossible due to land mines, or may even be unnecessary if food is provided through aid agencies. Boys and adolescents may also face disruptions to their schooling, thus harming their prospects of a stable future. On top of this, lingering instability, violent crime, and conflict-related injuries may impede men from performing protection roles, or lead them to rearm.[53]

Women, on the other hand, are still able to perform the caregiving roles that earn them respect in society. In refugee camps they may be assisted in these tasks through free healthcare, food, and schooling for their families. In one case in Northern Uganda, men could not leave the camps for fear of arrest or abduction, so women performed agricultural roles alone, which, along with other economic activities such as brewing alcohol, provided them with a source of income. They were also given food aid directly by the camp administration in order to prevent men from selling the supplies to buy alcohol. Some men took on traditional feminine roles such as cleaning, which they found humiliating; others remained idle and developed alcoholism and drug addiction. Similar situations have been replicated in other contexts and resulted in spikes in domestic violence, high levels of sexual and other forms of physical violence outside the home, as well as self-harm and suicide. Evidently, these gender dynamics had severely negative effects on women (not forgetting that those engaged in economic activities faced the double burden of performing caregiving roles), as well as on men.[54]

It is clear from these experiences that more work must be done in promoting positive, non-violent masculinities in post-conflict settings. The starting point involves identifying the needs of men and boys. One often overlooked area is psychological support for post-conflict trauma and the stress of economic insecurity. In the absence of qualified practitioners, approaches often involve group therapy and life skills training.[55] Other activities have worked on changing attitudes so that men feel valued when they take on roles in post-conflict situations that were historically associated with women. These include working to support the economic activities of the female members of their family and promoting men’s involvement in household and caregiving tasks.[56]

Ultimately, many of the challenges that men and boys face in relief and recovery processes are a reflection of the initial drivers of conflict. One of the benefits of using gender as an analytical tool is that it highlights the need to further break down the gender categories according to other factors such as youth, age, race, religion, sexual orientation, and marital/parental status. It is usually the case that conflict creates changes in the strengths and vulnerabilities found in each of these categories and former members of particular armed groups may constitute a new social category that has specific needs. Certain groups of men are more resilient to the effects of conflict, but those who bear the brunt tend to face greater challenges in peacebuilding contexts. Ensuring that economic and political empowerment reaches different groups of men and boys, as well as women and girls, will be an important step towards improving interventions aimed at post-conflict relief and recovery.

Conclusion: Two Wheels Are Better Than One

It is uncertain whether a men, peace and security agenda will be articulated as such in the near future, not least because its implementation would not fall under the mandate of any existing UN agencies. Nevertheless, the achievement of the women, peace and security agenda will not be possible without engaging men and boys in each of its four pillars, including in donor and peacekeeper contributing countries. We have seen that conflict-related violence against women has an impact on men and vice versa. A reduction in conflict and violence can only be achieved through a coordinated effort involving both men and women, and by recognizing how violence, including sexual violence, affects both civilians and combatants of all genders. In a similar vein, women’s meaningful participation in security issues cannot be fully achieved without men’s meaningful participation in the promotion of gender equality. Successful protection of men and boys’ rights in conflict cannot be achieved unless gender stereotypes are overcome, particularly those that do not recognize men as civilians. Interventions aimed at improving the lives of women and girls in relief and recovery processes run the risk of placing the double burden of economic activity and caregiving roles on women, as well as violent backlashes from men, if masculinities are not considered. For these reasons, working with men and boys should not be seen as in competition with work supporting women and girls, but rather as reinforcing its objectives.

As demonstrated, the women, peace and security agenda is also essential to improving the lives of men. The two agendas can be reconciled by beginning to understand “men as men” and not as “default humans.” [57] In other words, it is necessary to move away from “gender-blind” approaches, whereby all humans are treated as having the same needs, towards fully “gender-sensitive” approaches that examine the different experiences women, men, gender minorities, girls, and boys have during and after conflicts. If this can be mainstreamed across all activities related to peace and security, the competition for funds will pale into insignificance as the gender dimensions of all activities will be taken into account as a matter of course. To close, as begun, with a Cynthia Enloe quote, “the personal is international” and “the international is personal.” [58] The personal relations between different groups of men and women, as well as the relations within these groups, are what shapes international peace and security. If all actors involved are not taken into account, we are doing it wrong.

[*] Callum Watson is a Project Officer for the Gender and Security in Eastern Europe Programme (Operations III) at DCAF, a Geneva-based international foundation working on security, development and the rule of law. In this role, he has served as a member of the Security Sector Reform Working Group of the Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes, largely focusing on teaching gender to the military. He has also published research on men and masculinities, specifically on male victims of sexual and domestic violence.

[1] Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Sense of International Politics (London: Pandora Press, Harper/Collins, 1989), 7.

[2] Gizeh Becerra, “From Absent Perpetrators to Engaging Men as ‘Allies’” (presentation given at a workshop entitled “Sexual Violence Against Men during Conflicts: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice,” Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, 26–27 February 2015).

[3] See, for example, UN Security Council Resolution 2106 (2013).

[4] Michael Flood, “Men’s Movement,” in International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities, ed. Michael Flood, Judith Kegan Gardiner, Bob Pease and Keith Pringle (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007), 418–422. Raewyn W. Connell, “The Role of Men and Boys in Achieving Gender Equality” (paper prepared for a UN Expert Group Meeting on “The role of men and boys in achieving gender equality,” Brasilia, Brazil, 21-24 October 2013), 7.

[5] John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and other writings, ed. Stefan Collini (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), x, xvii, xviii.

[6] Connell, “The Role of Men and Boys in Achieving Gender Equality,” 7.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Flood, “Men’s Movement,” 418–422.

[9] “IMD Background,” International Men’s Day, http://www.internationalmensday.com/international.html.

[10] MenEngage, “Men and Boys for Gender Justice: Delhi Declaration and Call to Action, 2014,” available at http://www.menengagedilli2014.net/delhi-declaration-and-call-to-action.html

.

[11] Øystein Gullvåg Holter, “Chapter 4: Masculinities in Context: On Peace Issues and Patriarchal Orders,” in Male Roles, Masculinities and Violence: A Culture of Peace Perspective, ed. Ingeborg Breines, Robert Connell and Ingrid Eide (Paris: UNESCO, 2000), 61; Gender Equality Creates Sustainable Societies, Nordic co-operation on gender equality 2011–2014 (Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers, 2011), 25.

[12] Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities, “Mission,” Stony Brook University, http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/csmm/mission.html.

[13] “Professor to teach gender studies courses at USAFA,” Air Force Times, 18 June 2013, available at http://archive.airforcetimes.com/article/20130618/EDU03/306180019/Professor-teach-gender-studies-courses-USAFA.

[14] Rita Schäfer, Men as Perpetrators and Victims of Armed Conflicts: Innovative Projects Aimed at Overcoming Male Violence (Vienna: VIDC – Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation, 2013), 20; United Nations, “Report of the World Summit for Social Development,” UN Document Number A/Conf. 166/9, Copenhagen, 6–12 March 1995, Commitment 5(g), 17.

[15] Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women, 15 September 1995, Annex I, art. 25; Ch. II, art. 107(e), 108(l); ch. 4 178(g).

[16] Schäfer, Men as Perpetrators and Victims of Armed Conflicts, 20.

[17] UN Security Council, Resolution 2106 (2013), UN document number S/RES/2106 (2013), 24 June 2013.

[18] UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “Working with Men and Boy Survivors of Sexual and Gender-based Violence in Forced Displacement,” July 2012, available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/5006aa262.html.

[19] UN General Assembly, “Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women,” UN Document Number A/RES/48/104, 20 December 1993.

[20] UN Security Council, Resolution 798 (1992), UN Document number S/RES/798 (1992).

[21] See UN Security Council, Resolution 1010 (1995), UN Document number S/RES/1010 (1995).

[22] United Nations Population Fund, The Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and Girls: A Consultative Meeting on Mainstreaming Gender in Areas of Conflict and Reconstruction (Bratislava, Slovakia, 13–15 November 2001), 64, available at http://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/impact_conflict_women.pdf.

[23] Sandesh Sivakumaran, “Sexual Violence Against Men in Armed Conflict,” The European Journal of International Law 18:2 (2007): 257.

[24] Ibid., 258, 266.

[25] Michele Leiby, “The Promise and Peril of Primary Documents: Documenting Wartime Sexual Violence in El Salvador and Peru,” in Understanding and Proving International Sex Crimes, ed. Morten Bergsmo, Alf Butenschøn Skre and Elisabeth J. Wood (Beijing: Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher, 2012), 343.

[26] Bell Hooks, “Men: Comrades in Struggle,” in Men’s Lives, ed. Michael S. Kimmel and Michael A. Messner (Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1995), 520–521.

[27] Ibid., 523.

[28] Adapted from Inter-Agency Task Force on Women, Peace and Security, UN Strategic Results Framework on Women, Peace and Security: 2011–2020, available at http://www.un.org/womenwatch/ianwge/taskforces/wps/Strategic_Framework_2011-2020.pdf.

[29] Pamela Scully, “Expanding the Concept of Gender-based Violence in Peacebuilding and Development,” Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 5:3 (2010): 29.

[30] Callum Watson, Preventing and Responding to Sexual and Domestic Violence against Men: A Guidance Note for Security Sector Institutions (Geneva: DCAF, 2014), 12, 27.

[31] Connell, “The Role of Men and Boys in Achieving Gender Equality,” 7.

[32] Joseph Vess, Gary Barker, Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini, and Alexa Hassink, “The Other Side of Gender: Men as Critical Agents of Change,” United States Institute of Peace Special Report 340, December 2013, 4.

[33] Adapted from UN Strategic Results Framework on Women.

[34] Cf. the One Man Can Campaign by Sonke Gender Justice Network in South Africa, http://www.genderjustice.org.za/community-education-and-mobilisation/one-man-can/, Promundo’s Program H that was developed in Brazil and subsequently rolled out elsewhere, http://promundoglobal.org/programs/program-h/, the Young Men Initiative coordinated by CARE and implemented by a variety of different NGOs in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Kosovo, http://www.youngmeninitiative.net/en and the Young Men’s Forum run by Youth Action in Northern Ireland, http://www.youthaction.org/dynamic/programmemain.aspx?Author=YM&pid=4&prog=95.

[35] See, for example, Tali Mendelberg, Christopher F. Karpowitz, and J. Baxter Oliphant, “Gender Inequality in Deliberation: Unpacking the Black Box of Interaction,” Perspectives on Politics 12:1 (March 2014): 18–44; Victoria L. Brescoll, “Who Takes the Floor and Why: Gender, Power, and Volubility in Organizations,” Administrative Science Quarterly 56:4 (December 2011): 622–641.

[36] Bill Brown, “Isla Vista Mass Murder, May 23, 2014, Investigative Summary,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, Santa Barbara, CA, 18 February 2015, 1, 44.

[37] Phil Plait, “#YesAllWomen,” Slate, 27 May 2014, http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/05/27/not_all_men_how_discussing_women_s_issues_gets_derailed.html.

[38] Gender Action for Peace and Security UK (GAPS), “Report on Involving Men in the Implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security,” event hosted by the Canadian High Commission, Canada House, London (UK), 13 March 2007, 2.

[39] “What You Can Do,” White Ribbon Campaign, available at http://www.whiteribbon.ca/what-you-can-do/.

[40] See http://www.heforshe.org/.

[41] See, for example, Gender Action for Peace and Security UK (GAPS), “Report on Involving Men,” 2.

[42] Adapted from UN Strategic Results Framework on Women.

[43] Flood, “Men’s Movement,” 420.

[44] Michael Kimmel and Amy Aronson, Men and Masculinities: A Social, Cultural and Historical Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004), 35–36.

[45] Watson, Preventing and Responding, 27.

[46] Ibid., 48.

[47] This would be a violation of Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, see http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/.

[48] Watson, Preventing and Responding, 18.

[49] Maria Eriksson Baaz and Maria Stern, Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War? Perceptions, Prescriptions, Problems in the Congo and Beyond (London: Zed Books, 2013), 28, 29, 32, 96, 99.

[50] Ibid., 98–9.

[51] Henri Myrttinen, Jana Naujoks and Judy El-Bushra, Re-thinking Gender in Peacebuilding (London: International Alert, March 2014), 10, 21, available at http://international-alert.org/sites/default/files/Gender_RethinkingGenderPeacebuilding_EN_2014.pdf.

[52] M. Chloe Mulderig, “An Uncertain Future: Youth Frustration and the Arab Spring,” The Pardee Papers, no. 16 (Boston University, April 2013), 11–19, 23, available at www.bu.edu/pardee/files/2013/04/Pardee-Paper-16.pdf.

[53] Chris Dolan, “Collapsing Masculinities and Weak States – A Case Study of Northern Uganda,” in Masculinity Matters: Men, Masculinities and Gender Relations in Development, ed. Frances Cleaver (London: Zed Books, 2003), 57–79.

[54] Refugee Law Project, Gender against Men (documentary), 21 May 2012, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJSl99HQYXc; LOGiCA and Promundo, “A Study of Gender, Masculinities and Reintegration of Former Combatants in Rwanda: Results from the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES),” Analytical Report, August 2014; Myrttinen, et al., Re-thinking Gender, 20; Gary Barker and Christine Ricardo, “Young Men and the Construction of Masculinity in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for HIV/AIDS, Conflict and Violence,” Social Development Papers: Conflict Prevention & Reconstruction, no. 26, June 2005.

[55] LOGiCA and Promundo, “A Study of Gender,” 55.

[56] “Engaging Men: The Journey Towards Gender Transformation,” Plan, 5 December 2014, available at http://www.planusa.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/3121970; Piotr Pawlak, Henny Slegh, and Gary Barker, Journeys of Transformation: A Training Manual for Engaging Men as Allies in Women’s Economic Empowerment (Kigali and Washington, DC: CARE International and Promundo-US, 2012).

[57] Myrttinen, et al., Re-thinking Gender, 12–13.

[58] Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases, 195–196.

The Bundeswehr and Female Soldiers: The Integration of Women into the Armed Forces (2000–2015)

Gerhard Kümmel [*]

Introduction

The turn of the new millennium represented a caesura for the Bundeswehr (German armed forces), because the composition of its personnel was to change quite dramatically following a decision by the European Court of Justice in January 2000, which demanded considerably more employment opportunities for women in the military as soldiers rather than solely in medical services as practiced before. In the years that followed, the number of female soldiers in the Bundeswehr increased from about 2 % to about 10 % by spring 2015.

The present article firstly outlines the history of women’s participation in the German armed forces up through today. Secondly, it summarizes the findings of the various empirical studies that the in-house research institute of the German Ministry of Defense (formerly the Bundeswehr Institute of Social Research (Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut der Bundeswehr, SOWI)) and the Center of Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr (Zentrum der Bundeswehr für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften, ZMSBw) have undertaken in this context. Lastly, these empirical findings are put into a theoretical context.

Prologue: The Bundeswehr Meets Tanja Kreil

Women have long been involved in German war efforts. During World War I, women worked in the German armaments industries and were recruited for medical, secretarial, administrative, and combat support functions. Towards the end of the war, 500 of them were trained for service in the field of communication. In World War II, the inclusion of women in the war went even further, despite the pre-modern gender role views of the National Socialists. A very substantial number of women, about 450,000, were recruited for the Wehrmacht Assistance Corps (Wehrmachthelferinnenkorps), and tens of thousands were even assigned combat functions. However, this was not officially acknowledged, as their service was interpreted as merely assistance.[1]

The recognition of women as official and regular soldiers was delayed until the Bundeswehr came into existence. The creation of the German armed forces, to be sure, was by no means something “natural” in the decade following the Second World War. In the end, Cold War turbulence in international relations in the late 1940s and early 1950s persuaded the Western powers to view the rearmament of West Germany in a different light. As a result, in the mid-1950s, the Bundeswehr was established.

At that time, few considered female soldiers to be an issue. Yet the Bundeswehr soon employed thousands of women as civilian employees in the Federal Armed Forces Administration in functions that in many of the world’s other militaries would be performed by people in uniform. It took another decade until the issue of women as regular soldiers began to be discussed in society and politics due to wide ranging democratization processes and significant socio-cultural and politico-cultural changes. Starting with the so-called student movement, various parts of German society turned into important social movements that called for political and societal participation. Among them were various women’s groups that criticized the patriarchally structured German society and sought emancipation and gender equality, as laid out in various UN documents. Accordingly, there were also demands for equal access and participation to professions that hitherto had been male-exclusive domains, and very soon the male-dominated soldierly profession and the Bundeswehr faced pressure from society that soon translated into the political sphere, putting the issue of women in the military on the agenda.[2]

In late 1973, the German government, at that time a coalition of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Liberal Party (FDP), responded to these societal concerns by establishing the enquête commission, Women and Society. One result of this was Minister of Defense Georg Leber (SPD) opening the Bundeswehr to women. Thus, in autumn 1975, the year the UN had declared Year of the Woman, the first five women entered the Bundeswehr, soon to be followed by others. They served in the medical service only. Here, the German armed forces had been confronted with substantial recruitment problems since the early 1970s, rising to a gap of 1,300 longer-service volunteers in officer ranks.[3] After some time, this access for women to military classifications and trades was extended to military bands because of the legal connection between medical service and military bands. The respective proposition reads that in the case of an emergency, the soldiers of the military bands are to be transferred to the medical service.

The discussion about extending female participation to new classifications gained renewed momentum in the early 1980s. In 1981, an independent Long-Term Commission analyzed the shifts and trends in West German demographics with an eye towards satisfying the Bundeswehr’s personnel needs. One year later, the Commission submitted a report that in one paragraph recommended considering extending voluntary service of women in the armed forces to non-combat functions. However, throughout the 1980s, no such political move was initiated. Nevertheless, the issue remained on the agenda of social and political debate and soon further steps were taken to augment the representation of women in the armed forces. Since the beginning of 1991, all careers of the medical and military musical service were made accessible to women; [4] in 1994, Verena von Weymarn became Surgeon General, the first female general in German military history.[5]

In the late 1990s, female soldiers made up about 1.2 % of all German soldiers. The number of women came close to sixty in the military bands and to 4,350 in the medical service, namely, approximately 400 medical officers, 700 medical officer candidates, 2,300 non-commissioned officers, two-hundred non-commissioned officer candidates, and one hundred in private ranks.[6] In addition, at that time close to 50,000 women worked as civilian employees either in the armed forces or in the Federal Armed Forces Administration.

This means that towards the end of the millennium women in the Bundeswehr were still confined to non-combat roles, i.e., to the medical service and military bands, whereas in other countries the integration of women had progressed further, sometimes substantially.[7] Although female soldiers were trained in the use of weapons, their utilization—except for cases of self-defense—was forbidden by Article 12a of the Basic Law, or constitution (Grundgesetz). This situation changed fundamentally at the turn of the century, in no small extent due to a woman named Tanja Kreil, who has been described by the media as embodying the male “nightmare of a woman with a gun in her hand” [8] and indicating the end of the rule of men.[9]

The story reads as follows: in 1996, the nineteen-year-old trained electrician, Tanja Kreil, applied for voluntary service in the area of maintenance, i.e., in a combat support function. Her application, however, was declined by the Bundeswehr, with reference to the aforementioned Article 12a of the Basic Law: women serving in combat functions and with weapons in their hands was against the law. Kreil did not accept this decision and went to the courts with the support of the German soldiers’ union-like association, the Bundeswehr Assocation (Deutscher Bundeswehr Verband).

Part of her charge was that her application was illegally rejected by the Bundeswehr because of her sex, using a gender-specific argument that men were allowed to enter positions involving the use of arms while women were not. The argument ran counter to a February 1976 European Union (EU) directive (Council Directive 76/207/EEC) requiring Member States to follow the principle of equality of treatment in the workplace, i.e., prohibiting discrimination in the workplace for reasons of gender. The Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgericht) in Hanover found it necessary to have this checked and, in mid-1998, decided to suspend the court proceedings and ask the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxemburg for an interpretation. Eventually, in January 2000, the ECJ ruled that the EU directive indeed applied also to the specific workplace of the armed forces, that it overrode the provisions of the German Law on Soldiers (Soldatengesetz) and German Regulations on Soldiers’ Careers (Soldatenlaufbahnverordnung), and that community law governed matters of defense.[10] Hence, the ECJ overruled the arguments of national sovereignty put forward by the German government.

This means that the steps taken to open the Bundeswehr to women do not stem from genuinely political initiatives as they may superficially seem, but rather from a court ruling that required the political sphere to take action.[11] As a consequence, for the German armed forces the new millennium began with a dramatic change – the prospect of including women in the military on a much larger scale than before. To complicate things further, this departure from the status quo was part of a larger picture of reform, restructuring, and profound changes, either already underway or impending. Its main objective was for the Bundeswehr to develop a “new profile of capabilities” as laid down by then-Minister of Defense Rudolf Scharping in his so-called Cornerstones Memorandum.[12]

The Research Project

Even prior to and especially following the ruling of the ECJ, there was a lively and controversial debate on the topic of women’s inclusion in the military both within the armed forces themselves and within German society and academia at large. An essential reason for this was the vagueness of the ruling, as it only demanded that Germany open more classifications and trades than before without defining the scope and extent of this broader inclusion in detail. Therefore, one of the main issues discussed was the depth or degree of integration, and thus the question of whether certain areas, classifications, or trades should be denied to women, or whether the Bundeswehr should be completely open. In order to tackle this question in particular, and to implement integration in practice in general, the Ministry of Defense established an intra-ministerial steering group and asked its in-house research institute, the Bundeswehr Institute of Social Research (SOWI), to scientifically aid and support this process.

First Recommendations from a Review of the Literature (January/February 2000)

In a first step, a survey of the international literature was undertaken, which led to several recommendations.[13] In mid-February 2000, the researchers turned against the idea of defining off-limits areas, and instead advocated predominantly unrestricted access for women to the military. The Ministry of Defense eventually agreed with this option and, thus, the organization and implementation of this political decision began. Starting in January 2001, women became eligible to enter all military classifications and trades beyond those hitherto already open to them. Later, according to the group of researchers, integration was to be based on the principle of voluntariness: women would enter the military services voluntarily and would not be subject to conscription, as still was the case for men at that time. Also, integration was not to be grounded on the idea of affirmative action, but on the principle of equality of treatment. Thus, there was to be a gender-free or gender-neutral assessment of those who applied for military service, and everyone would have to pass the criteria for the requested position irrespective of their sex. Lastly, the researchers recommended the introduction of a gender training program.

Surveying Male Soldiers (April 2000)

In addition to this, an empirical research project focusing on male soldiers was commissioned by the SOWI during the implementation stage of the further integration of women.[14] Its main objectives were to gather information on the attitudes and perceptions of the male soldiers regarding the inclusion of women int the military; to find out whether male soldiers had reservations about female soldiers; to single out, if possible, in which areas, classifications, and trades these reservations were more pronounced than in others; and to identify soldiers or groups of soldiers that displayed more reservations than others. The questionnaire was sent to about 3,300 male soldiers in April 2000, when the political decision on the extent of integration was still pending. Almost 2,650 questionnaires were returned.

The data presented in Figure 1, showing the pattern of responses given by male soldiers, reveal mixed feelings and ambivalence. In the analysis, this ambivalence in attitudes consists of a mixture (1) of skepticism/reservations concerning change and curios-

Source: SOWI Male Soldiers Survey 2000

Figure 1: Male Soldiers’ Attitudes towards the Integration of Women

into the Bundeswehr (2000); Percent “Agree.”

ity about the future; (2) of classical/traditional prejudices against women and understanding combined with sympathy for the new or modern role of women in society; and (3) of fears of rising competition with women in the workplace and respect for the capabilities and the performance of women.

In detail, about 70 % of the respondents thought that integrating women would buy the armed forces prestige and legitimacy within German society, thus improving civil-military relations in Germany, which would support the process of women’s emancipation. On the scope of integration, 3/4 of respondents supported an integration of women that transcended the long-practiced restriction of women to the medical service and military bands. Even comprehensive inclusion, without any restrictions in terms of classifications and trades closed to women, was supported by a slight majority.

At the same time, however, the data reveal that there were soldiers who viewed women in the military as a matter of principle and were strictly opposed to any measures and policies taken to include women in the military (15 %). 27 % of the respondents preferred to uphold the status quo.

As regards gender images, the soldiers’ responses indicate the persistence of traditional images concerning the role of women in society and vis-à-vis men. In this vein, in some segments of the sample, biologically-based perceptions and stereotypes came to the fore. Close to 1/3 of the soldiers deemed women unsuitable for the challenging life in the field, and more than 2/5 found women unsuitable for positions demanding high levels of physical fitness. Socio-cultural arguments could also be inferred. Almost 45 % could not imagine themselves being defended by a female soldier with a gun in her hand, and 1/4 perceived women as the ones needing protection. Clearly, the classic gender-role ascriptions—the man as the protector and the woman as the protected—were still adhered to by a significant number of male soldiers. However, traditional gender images also left women a place in which they were thought to have a comparative advantage over men. Thus, 2/3 of the respondents held the communicative (and thus deescalating) skills ascribed to women in high esteem, in particular with regard to military operations other than war.[15]

Moreover, there were areas in which an erosion of traditional gender images could be inferred. No less than 77 % of those surveyed found women suitable for positions as military superiors. A similar number, more than 3/4 of the respondents, claimed to not have any problems imagining female participation in their own unit. In addition, about 70 % of respondents did not expect any disadvantage or hindrance to the realization of military missions due to the integration of women. In a similar vein, more than 60 % did not anticipate any losses in combat power due to the presence of female soldiers. About 75 % expected the tone (the way of speaking) in the German armed forces to change following an increase in the number of female soldiers.

On the negative side, more than 65 % firmly believed that, in general, there would be more problems in their specific workplace once women were there. Also, roughly 84 % anticipated an increase in the number of problems related to sexuality. Furthermore, the data showed a certain uneasiness, if not fear, among male soldiers not only about increasing competition in the workplace as a result of the inclusion of women, but also about the possibility that male soldiers would be put at a disadvantage (reverse discrimination). More than 1/5 of the men openly argued that women in the Bundeswehr would take away jobs from men. Thus, they explicitly stressed the necessity of equality of treatment. An overwhelming majority of 86 % demanded that no preferential treatment be given to women on the grounds of their sex.

The analysis subsequently set out to find out whether certain groups of soldiers were more opposed to integrating women than others. The findings were very interesting and, at times, surprising. According to the data, men in the army harbored more reservations against women than those in the navy and air force. When comparing rank groups, officers showed fewer reservations than non-commissioned officers and rank and file soldiers. Yet, contrary to what might have been expected, younger men up to twenty-nine years of age were less inclined to laud the integration of women than men aged thirty and older. Also, shorter- and longer-service volunteers displayed more skepticism than career service members. The same applies to members of combat forces compared to those in non-combat areas. Lastly, men in the medical services showed much greater resistance towards the integration of women than men in all the other services, which runs against the well-known socio-psychological argument of the contact hypothesis.

Based on these empirical findings, the researchers recommended the introduction of what was called gender or integration training into military education and socialization. All the more so since not only the German police and German Border Guard (Bundesgrenzschutz), but also the armed forces from Scandinavian countries, Austria, Canada, and the United States, had devised and implemented similar programs in the past with positive results. The response to this advice was encouraging and the Zentrum Innere Führung (“Internal Leadership Center”) in Koblenz was asked to devise a curriculum for such a program. This came into practice in November 2000, namely in courses for military leaders and trainers coming from military units in which the military education and training of servicewomen was to begin in January 2001. The objectives of the curriculum were defined as (a) improving men’s acceptance of women; (b) developing an atmosphere of mutual trust, tolerance, and camaraderie between men and women; (c) bringing the relevant legal provisions to the men’s attention; and (d) building and strengthening men’s confidence in behavior towards women. This was thought to be achieved by following the principle of multiplication, i.e., these courses were organized centrally for a core group of soldiers that were deemed multipliers – who would pass their newly-gained knowledge on to the various subordinate military levels and soldiers. In other words, the integration training operated with the notion of a trickle-down or cascade effect. The concrete material contents of the curriculum centered on five different areas. One dimension was legal, in which the participants were familiarized with the legal provisions valid from then on. Here, particular attention was given to sensitization regarding the issues of sexual harassment and sexual violence. The next dimension focused on the general or average physiological differences between men and women, pointing to a special need for focused physical training programs for women. The third addressed general psychological differences between the sexes, in particular different response and coping strategies of the sexes towards stress, and discussed prevailing traditional gender images. In the fourth dimension, differences in communicative behavior (direct versus non-direct styles of communication) were taught to the participants. The final dimension involved motivational aspects.[16]

In the meantime, in the summer of 2000, the first job interviews and aptitude tests were conducted with female applicants. Simultaneously, steps that most parties involved deemed necessary were taken to revise the German constitution. At the end of October and in early December 2000 respectively, the German parliamentary bodies, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, with 2/3 majorities, voted for the revision of the aforementioned Article 12a of the Basic Law. Following this, and starting in January 2001, practical and unrestricted integration began and women entered the Bundeswehr, usually in bi-monthly cohorts, in trades hitherto precluded for women. This opened the door for another module of commissioned empirical research in this field.

Surveying the Class of 2001

The research findings and the widespread assumption in the Bundeswehr and German Ministry of Defense that the German armed forces would change quite dramatically due to the full-scale and thorough integration of women persuaded the Defense Ministry to commission an evaluative research project by the SOWI. Thus, the women who entered the Bundeswehr in 2001 were surveyed in the first few weeks of their military career in order to capture an initial, early picture of their attitudes and perceptions, which could later on be compared to the attitudes and perceptions displayed after serving in the military significantly longer.[17]

The survey of the class of 2001 firstly aimed to sketch a profile of the “typical” female soldier and identify potential, perceived, or real problems with the integration process. The questionnaire was sent to some 2,740 women in the first few weeks of their basic training and more than 40 % responded. This profiling of the “typical” female soldier revealed that, on average, women were 21 years old and about 7/10 came from villages and small towns. Women from the new Bundesländer (federal states) were clearly overrepresented when compared to their representation in the general population. Indeed, 44 % were raised in the territory of the former German Democratic Republic. Although only 11 % were unemployed prior to their military career, this may be explained by pointing to the more intense economic problems of these areas when compared to the old Bundesländer and to the much greater social experience of working women. This disproportionally high number of women coming from the East was also reflected in religious—or rather non-religious—affiliations, as the group that did not adhere to any religion had over time become the largest one. More than 60 % had a secondary school diploma (Realschulabschluss), and another 25 % had a high school diploma (Abitur). Close to half of the women had a lasting relationship with a boyfriend or were married; only 4 % already had children. Almost all servicewomen reported having had a positive role model, as their mothers had worked in the past or were still working.

More than 60 % were non-commissioned officers, while about 28 % chose officers’ careers. In most cases servicewomen, both officers and non-commissioned officers, opted for quite “traditional” occupational slots in administrative, logistical, and maintenance functions. Nevertheless, some 17 % and 19 % percent respectively joined the combat and combat support forces. The army received the bulk of the incoming servicewomen. Their motivations to join the military were basically circumscribed by three dimensions: (a) comradeship, i.e., some longing for community; (b) general occupational characteristics like job security, good salaries, and reasonable career prospects; and (c) specific characteristics of the soldierly profession such as adventurism and testing one’s physical and mental limits.

In addition to the class of 2001, the questionnaire, for comparative reasons, was also sent to female soldiers who had been soldiers prior to 2000, as well as to male soldiers. Attitudinal congruence emerged regarding the basic principle that would guide the integration process. Overwhelming majorities of more than 80 % of both sexes wanted integration to be based on the principle of equality of treatment and equal opportunity. Much the same can be said, although at a somewhat lower level, for the presumption that female integration into the military advances the cause of women and furthers emancipation. Apart from this, the data analysis rendered two areas that were or could be problematic in the future course of integration.

The first problem resonated with the social side of integration as distinct from the technical side of integration. When it comes to military life, in everyday situations as well as in the context of concrete missions, considerable difference and variation in the attitudes and perceptions between the sexes was found. Whereas overwhelming majorities of both men and women could easily imagine cooperating well with the women in their own unit, and about double the number of men than women anticipated an increase of problems in everyday military life; life in the military was expected to become more complex and difficult in the future. Moreover, every fifth male soldier had some reservations in regard to women in leadership functions. Not surprisingly, the percentage of women who argued the same was five times less. In a similar vein, with integration, much more men than women expected increasing difficulties related to sexuality. Here, only half of the women agreed to this point, while more than 4/5 men did so.

Source: SOWI Integration Survey 2001

Figure 2: Attitudes of Male and Female Soldiers towards the Integration of Women

into the Bundeswehr (2001); Percent “Agree.”

With regard to military effectiveness, 43 % of male soldiers deemed women unfit for physically demanding classifications and trades; this percentage was more than double than that of the women. This skepticism points to a rather widespread perception that combat, actual fighting, is a male business. Similarly, more than 3/5 of men anticipated some damaging effects of female integration on military combat capabilities. Interestingly, this is somewhat qualified, with only 30 % of men stating that following female integration, the Bundeswehr would no longer be able to fulfill its military tasks. By contrast, 9/10 of the women did not expect this to happen, and were thus confident in the military capabilities of women. The same percentage of women also thought that women were perfectly suited for military missions other than war, i.e., the de-escalation of conflict situations, due to their presumably better developed social skills.

These data not only show that fighting was still predominantly considered a male business, but also provide evidence that soldierly interaction was perceived to become more difficult and strenuous once men did not have to deal with other men only, but had to include women in the equation.

The second field where problems were either already present or were expected is circumscribed by the notion of “greedy institutions.” [18] This term denotes both the family/ partner on the one hand, and the military on the other, as forces that pull the individual soldier in opposite directions; he or she is, so to speak, torn between these two demanding institutions. Harmonizing them, making them compatible, was perceived as a legitimate problem. One indicator of this compatibility problem was found in the much less pronounced enthusiasm or approval for the decision of the females to join the military on the part of the servicewomen’s male partners. Whereas 80 % of fathers and 74 % of mothers, sisters, and brothers of servicewomen were reported to have viewed positively the decision of their daughters/sisters to voluntarily join the armed forces, only 47 % of partners were equally positive or enthusiastic. Another indicator that corroborated the centrality of this problem is mentioned in Figure 3. Speaking of perceived difficulties and problems in their military career, the demanding criteria of physical fitness were followed by partnership problems and difficulties in harmonizing one’s family life with one’s occupational life.

A third, and final, indicator was found in the coincidence of (a) the notable majority of about 60 % that even in this early stage were determined to stay in the military much longer than their contract ran; (b) the preference and desire for long-term work; and (c) the 75 % majority that wanted to have children later on in their life. Interestingly, and also quite surprisingly, the topic of sexual harassment/sexual violence ranked comparatively low when it came to difficulties, but also to doubts, fears, and apprehensions. Sexist language and sexual harassment were named by just 8 % of female soldiers when they were asked about apprehensions they might have with regard to their being female in a

Source: SOWI Integration Survey (2001)

Figure 3: Anticipated Difficulties and Problems by Female Soldiers (2001);

Percent “Agree.”

previously predominantly male environment. Indeed, the perception of servicewomen at the beginning of their military career was that the Bundeswehr provided a rather secure occupational context in this regard. What worried them more was unfair behavior by their male and female comrades and superiors, each ranging between 13–18 %, and unfair behavior by female comrades, which was mentioned by 18 %, which ranked at the top of the list.

These data were proof that the incoming servicewomen were highly motivated to prevail in this hitherto male-exclusive occupational field, and did not cultivate unrealistic expectations about their life in the military. They entered the social space of the military well-informed. Nevertheless, some doubts did remain on their side, but, generally speaking, at a relatively low intensity level. Yet the analysis revealed considerable potential for future trouble. Here, it was the harmonization of occupational and family demands on the one hand, and the notable differences and gaps in attitudes of men and women that may translate into behavior in the social interaction of men and women in the Bundeswehr on the other, that must be mentioned.

This interpretation is strengthened by notable changes in the attitudes of male soldiers between 2000 and 2002. Indeed, a comparison of the data from the survey of male soldiers in 2000 with those of the SOWI’s general armed forces survey of 2002 shows that the skepticism with regard to the physical and military capabilities of women and to military effectiveness had become more pronounced in the meantime.

Sources: SOWI Male Soldiers Survey 2000; SOWI Soldiers Survey 2002

Figure 4: Male Soldiers Attitudes towards the Integration of Women (2000 – 2002);

Percent “Agree.”

Thus, the researchers argued that problems would probably emerge only over the middle- and long-term, paradoxically in the course of a “normalization process.” This pointed to the necessity of continued efforts in managing gender relations in the Bundeswehr, of structurally and persistently establishing gender mainstreaming training programs within the organization. The social integration of female soldiers was to be perceived as a permanent effort. Establishing, maintaining, and promoting the social integration of servicewomen was a constant challenge requiring persistent attention. The recommendation, then, was to pay increased attention to the social side of integration, as well as to somehow accommodate both “greedy institutions,” i.e., the family and the military. In this regard, steps thus far undetermined were added to the discussion, namely: (1) the introduction of part-time working schemes and childcare policies in the Bundeswehr; (2) the creation of a surplus pool of personnel that would compensate for maternity and family leave; and (3) the “permanentization” and intensification of gender mainstreaming programs.

The Ministry of Defense did take up some of these recommendations. It established, in a pilot project, twelve so-called family care centers all over Germany, which include various types of childcare ranging from childcare throughout the Bundeswehr itself to childcare in cooperation with local institutions and companies. Further on, Zentrum Innere Führung’s gender training program was modified and subsequently referred to the manual, Acting as Partners (Partnerschaftlich handeln), of the Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung, which was adapted to the military.[19] This program followed a more decentralized approach and thus brought gender and integration training to military training and education institutions. The program was launched in 2003.[20] From then on, it was no longer a separate section in military education, but was to become a basic element of military education. Last, but not least, the Bundeswehr began debating the options and possibilities of making working hours more flexible and implemented a gender mainstreaming program in cooperation with the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs.[21] Here, the debate focused on adapting the civilian Law on Mainstreaming (Bundesgleichstellungsgesetz) to the military sphere, which was eventually accomplished and put into practice in 2005. This Law on Mainstreaming in the Military (Soldatengleichstellungsdurchsetzungsgesetz) takes a recruitment and human resources perspective and tries to improve the attractiveness of the Bundeswehr as an employer by various means that aid the work-life balance and prevent discrimination against women.[22] In this vein, for example, it allows for part-time work and telecommuting in the military for family reasons, and calls for the election of Mainstreaming Commissioners (Gleichstellungsbeauftragte). Furthermore, it aims to double the percentage of women in the military from 23 % in the medical services to 50 %, and from some 6 % on average in the non-medical services to 15 %. Though affirmative action measures were consciously left aside, one instrument to achieve this is to employ positive discrimination of female service members in cases in which the male and the female applicant for a military position show equal performance. In this situation, the Ministry of Defense commissioned a further study on gender integration in the German armed forces.

The Integration Climate in 2005 and in 2011

Following this, the SOWI research project was resumed and another research module started that aimed at evaluating the integration climate in the Bundeswehr, first in 2005 and then in 2011.[23]

The first study in 2005 again used a questionnaire that was sent to more than 5,300 male and female soldiers.[24] The data showed a continuingly high willingness of female soldiers to meet the performance of male soldiers and to successfully integrate into the military. They usually followed a policy of adapting to the military organizational culture that they found, and which was defined by men. Accordingly, the data revealed phenomena of “women-prejudiced-against-women,” [25] i.e., female soldiers took over the reservations and the stereotypes of male soldiers towards women in the military.

More important for the purposes at hand, however, are the data for the male soldiers. When comparing men’s attitudes and opinions as they came up in this study with those of male soldiers in the study of the year 2000 (see Figure 5), there were clear signs of a more positive attitude towards the integration of women that can be inferred from responses to a number of items. Most importantly, in 2005 about 2/3 of the men agreed to the unrestricted access of women to the Bundeswehr, compared to about 50 % in 2000. In addition, the percentage of men who viewed female superiors critically was eight per-

Source: SOWI Male Soldiers’ Survey 2000; SOWI Integration Survey 2005

Figure 5: Male Soldiers’ Attitudes (2000–2005); Percent “Agree.”

cent points less than before. Also, considerably less male soldiers than before thought that female soldiers would take away their jobs. Instructive also is that the percentage of those men who feared that the German armed forces could not meet their military missions was cut by half.

Yet, the study revealed findings that gave reason for concern. The data showed that men and women differed in basic attitudes and norms. In general, compared to female soldiers, male soldiers adhered to a more negative general image of human beings, showed more patriotism, and were more inclined to advocate an active foreign policy for Germany and to use military means and military force. Next, with regard to some items, there was no change between 2000 and 2005. For example, the percentage of men who deem women physically incapable for the military remained almost the same. In addition, the susceptibility of men to violations of gender justice increased, which was largely due to the Law of Mainstreaming in the Military. At the same time, about 28 % of male soldiers explicitly viewed the performance of female soldiers as worse than that of men, and between 1/5–1/4 of men stated they did not have confidence in female soldiers in military missions abroad. Lastly, almost 4 % of women reported having been the object of attempted or perpetrated sexual violence and rape.

Given these findings, the study argued for the resumption of specific gender training in order to tackle the issues that turned out to be problematic and, in the end, to uphold the military readiness, performance, and effectiveness of the Bundeswehr.

In 2011, ten years after the unrestricted opening of the German armed forces to women, questionnaires were sent to 8,500 women, i.e., every second female service member at the time, and to 6,000 men. Responses came in from some 3,000 female and close to 1,800 male soldiers.[26]

According to the data, there were some problems that both male and female soldiers identified. Both men and women reported a decreasing attractiveness of the Bundeswehr as an employer. In this regard also, both sexes perceived striking a balance between work and life as a Bundeswehr soldier to be very difficult. Apart from that, the study proved sexual harassment to be a continuing phenomenon in the military, with 3 % of the female soldiers reporting having been sexually assaulted and raped in the Bundeswehr. Nevertheless, female soldiers showed a robust willingness to perform well as soldiers. Some other findings even pointed towards improvement of the integration climate in the Bundeswehr. In this vein, for example, the percentage of men who expected an increase of problems in military everyday life decreased from 61 % in 2005 to 55 % in 2011. Furthermore, one could observe some tendencies towards mental and attitudinal congruence between men and women, which may further integration. While in 2005 45 % of women advocated an active foreign policy for Germany, by 2011 this increased to 57 %. Also, in 2011, more women viewed the use of military force to advance national interests to be necessary in some cases (65 %) than in 2005 (50 %). In addition, between 2005 and 2011, the confidence of female soldiers in their own capabilities and performance had grown quite considerably.

Source: SOWI Integration Survey 2005, SOWI Integration Survey 2011; *: SOWI Soldiers Survey 2003,

SOWI Integration Survey 2011

Figure 6: Male Soldiers’ Attitudes (2005 – 2011); Percent “Agree.”

Overall, however, the data clearly point to a strain on the integration climate in the Bundeswehr on the side of male soldiers between 2005 and 2011. This is illustrated by the men’s responses to quite a few items. Some of the most important ones are as follows: in 2005, 28 % of the male service members perceived women as unsuited for the demanding life in the field; in 2011, this percentage was 34 %. Compared to 44 % of men who in 2005 deemed women unable to serve in physically demanding functions, more than every second man argued so in 2011 (52 %). In addition, the skepticism of men with regard to women in positions as military superiors had become more nuanced between 2005 (15 %) and 2011 (22 %). At the same time, the number of men who perceived a positive discrimination of women violating the principle of equality of treatment increased between 2005 and 2011. More men thought that the performance of women was rated too positively by military superiors (51 % compared to 39 %), that women had better career perspectives (62 % compared to 53 %), and that military superiors treated female soldiers in a better way (33 % compared to 15 %). Also, there were more men in 2011 compared to 2005 who perceived a loss of military effectiveness, and who thought that the Bundeswehr had undergone a negative development due to women’s integration. There were also less men who trusted female soldiers with regard to military missions abroad, and who thought it possible to work well with women. Lastly, as a general impression, the number of men who thought that integration would require much further effort more than doubled from 22 % in 2005 to 48 % in 2011.

The basic finding of this research, the strain of the integration climate on the side of male soldiers, was explained by the fact that the Bundeswehr had paid less attention to the issue of integrating women into the armed forces for quite some time, and that other things ranked higher on the agenda – such as the suspension of conscription and, in particular, the military missions abroad, foremost the mission in Afghanistan. Given this finding, the study advocated resuming the gender integration program and making it visible on its own.

The study was released for publication after Ursula von der Leyen became the first female Minister of Defense in German history in December 2013 and was presented to the public in late January 2014. This was clearly a sign of renewed attention to this issue and of renewed resolve to do something to improve the situation. Thus, in July 2014, the study was broadly discussed during a high-ranking symposium at the Führungsakademie in Hamburg, including a keynote speech by the Minister of Defense. Here, the findings of the study were put into context and compared to the gender situation in different institutions, such as businesses, the Federal Police, and the armed forces of other countries. Following this symposium, Zentrum Innere Führung was asked to establish working groups on certain topics. This is already well under way and it is expected that these working groups may come up with concrete proposals on how to improve the integration climate in the Bundeswehr by the end of 2015.

Conclusion

By way of concluding the present article, the author aims to present the empirical findings in a theoretical perspective. There are several avenues to do this. Those presented as follows are based on a gender and neo-institutionalist approach.

With regard to gender, it can safely be said that the gender system in Germany as well as in modern societies in general is subject to change. In the analysis of Norbert Elias, this is part of what he calls an “emancipatory trend.” [27] Hence, the overall direction seems to point to full-scale equality of women vis-à-vis men both in formal and in real terms. Nevertheless, this process might be neither one-dimensional nor smooth, thus constituting the need for more, and more comprehensive, research. The question then is whether and to what extent the German armed forces are involved in and affected by these processes. The empirical studies presented above point to an affirmative answer, i.e., the Bundeswehr cannot distance itself from developments going on in the greater society. Nevertheless, it may be too far-fetched to hypothesize or assume civil-military congruence in this regard.[28]

The attitudes of German male soldiers towards the integration of women presented above clearly indicate the necessity to speak of masculinity in terms of masculinities.[29] Quite a few men display modern conceptions of a man’s and a woman’s role in society. Yet, resistance can also be observed and, as a reaction to the perceived shifting gender order, a renewed emphasis on traditional gender images. Hence, focusing on men, one may distinguish four different types: traditional men, insecure men, pragmatic men, and new men.[30] Those men cultivating reservations against the integration of women into the armed forces may be grouped on the basis of the two different sources that guide their thinking and nourish their reservations.

The first type or group may be called the traditionalists. Their images of the military, the soldier, of men and women, and of the division of labor among the sexes within society are the classical, traditional ones. The preference for denying women access to the military and for confining them to certain classifications and trades is thus based on the binary construction of men and women, which, inter alia, ascribes to males the roles of fighting, killing, and protecting, while females are ascribed the roles of caring, being protected, and giving birth to and bringing up children; thus, male aggressiveness is juxtaposed with female peacefulness.[31] In this sense, it may be inferred that the military in general (and the Bundeswehr, also) may be particularly attractive to men who deem the military as a place where the world is still in balance, i.e., where the traditional gender system is still valid. Yet traditionalist thinking is not the only source of reservations, nor is it necessarily the predominant one.

A second type or group may be referred to as the status inconsistents. They perceive women as a socio-economic threat because of the increasing competition in the workplace due to the presence of female soldiers. This perception is based on the grounds that their socioeconomic and professional situation, and hence their future, is insecure. In addition, they fear that they themselves will be discriminated against and that women will be given preferential treatment. In their view, it is they who are put at a disadvantage, and not the women. The status inconsistents can typically be found among the younger and contract soldiers, i.e., the shorter- and longer-service volunteers. Here, indeed, the socio-economic, workplace-related competition from women is much more real than for career service members. Male soldiers in the medical services who had already been working with women prior to the ECJ ruling showed surprisingly strong reservations. It could have been assumed that gender relations in the medical service, i.e., in an area where the integration of women into the military had a substantial history, were, or in the meantime have become smooth. However, once the fact that women in the medical service were exempt from guard duty in the past—a task that had to be done by male soldiers in the medical service—is taken into account, it becomes clear that the reservations of men had some real substance, and that there was a subjective feeling of having not been treated equally, along with a sense that justice in gender relations was not assured in the workplace.[32] Because of this suspicion of or belief in reverse discrimination, they explicitly pointed to the necessity of equality of treatment of men and women in the armed forces.

In empirical reality these two types may very well overlap. Nevertheless, distinguishing between them analytically is important because underlying them are two different sources motivating the negative attitudes towards the ongoing inclusion of women into the armed forces, which in turn necessitates a broader approach in managing this issue and therefore different tactics in dealing with these attitudes. The two types identified, the traditionalist and the status inconsistent, resonate with the findings of socio-psychological research on stereotypes. Negative attitudes towards women—just like those towards ethnic or racial minorities—may be seen as stereotypes and prejudices following the classical definition by Gordon Allport.[33] Several decades ago, stereotypes and prejudices against women were more openly expressed. This situation has changed remarkably because of the observed significant shifts in the socio-economic, socio-cultural, and politico-cultural spheres.[34] In general, living conditions, education, and job opportunities for women have improved substantially in recent decades; also, socio- and politico-culturally, in many societies women are increasingly considered equal to men. This points to the formation of perceptions in society that are based on images of egalitarianism.[35] Nevertheless, it is hardly possible to argue that gender-based discrimination in the workplace and in society at large has been completely eliminated in modern societies. Rather, discrimination against women can be observed when examining the division of labor in the families and in the ratio of women working in the top echelons of business, politics, and academia.

However, in the recent past, the phenomenology of these discriminating attitudes towards women has changed. Open, manifest expressions of prejudices against women have become less visible, whereas subtle forms have increasingly shaped the gender landscape. In the literature on sexism at least two forms of sexism are distinguished: (1) traditional sexism characterized by an emphasis on differences between the sexes, a belief in the inferiority of women compared to men, an adherence to classical gender roles, and a strong opposition towards women assuming non-traditional roles; and (2) modern sexism consisting of denying the persistence of discrimination against women, criticizing the economic and political demands of women, and strongly opposing any affirmative action measures on behalf of women.[36]

In addition to this, the empirical findings of the research on the integration of women into the Bundeswehr corroborate Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s concept of tokenism. This concept refers to Georg Simmel’s work on the implications of the number of members of a smaller group within a larger group for social interaction, and has already been developed in the 1970s. Her organization-sociological study, “Men and Women of the Corporation,” is considered the classical reference to her concept.[37] The meaning of the word “token” is “sign,” and implies that the members of a minority group within the larger dominant group are not considered individuals, but representatives and symbols of the minority group at large. This severely impacts their status and role within the larger group. Kanter speaks of “tokens” if the smaller social category differs from the larger group in a central criterion and makes up less than 15 % of all the members of the group.[38] In the present case, this central criterion is biological sex, which places women as a minority group in the larger group of the military organization, which is dominated by men. This, then, applies to most militaries in the world, as there are few countries in which female soldiers constitute more than 15 % of the military.

In essence, then, for Kanter the social interactions between the members of the minority and the dominant group are a function of the percentage ratio of the two groups in a given organization, implying that the negative interaction effects for the minority group decrease as the share of the minority group members increases.[39] Her prediction is that with a minority group of up to 15 % (“skewed group”) of the overall group, social interactions between the members of the minority and the majority group are the most problematic. Here, the most intense integration problems will occur. As Kanter writes, the “form of a group with a skewed distribution of social types generates certain perceptions of the tokens by the dominants. These perceptions determine the interaction dynamics between tokens and dominants and create the pressures dominants impose on tokens.” [40]

Three aspects come into play here, which lead to specific interaction dynamics. First, there is visibility. This implies that the term token indicates that members of the minority group can easily be identified as belonging to the minority group, and they are also perceived as symbols of the minority group, which puts them in the position of being attentively and critically observed by the dominants, which Kanter refers to as “overobservation.” [41] In practice, this means that the “poor” performance of a female soldier is not considered to be poor the performance of an individual female soldier, but rather signals the poor performance of all female soldiers, i.e., of the minority group at large.[42] This puts enormous pressure on the members of the minority group to perform well.

Second, assimilation refers to processes and effects persuading tokens to act as the dominants expect them to. Thus, they agree to stereotypical female role definitions and prescriptions ascribed to the social category of women by the dominant male group. This also implies that, as a general rule, women do not challenge the organizational culture in the military that has been shaped by men. Rather, they take over and assimilate to the present organizational culture.

Third, polarization means that tokens become the object of strategies of division by the dominant group. Confronted with the hitherto largely unknown presence of women in the military, male soldiers heighten the boundaries of the dominant organizational culture, stress differences instead of similarities, and try to establish a certain distance towards the tokens. Usually, this leads to the marginalization and isolation of the tokens. Sexual harassment is one such polarization strategy.

Although there is some empirical evidence that Kanter’s mathematical and linear approach is imperfect,[43] others have corroborated her findings.[44] The present empirical findings, in turn, can very well be contextualized within Kanter’s concept of tokenism.

Lastly, the present empirical findings can be placed within organization theory. Organization theory suggests that there is a tendency towards homogeneity in organizations leading towards institutional isomorphism; that is, in this case, over time military organizations will become increasingly alike with regard to the role of women in the military. In their work, Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell explore the “startling homogeneity of organizational forms and practices.” [45] To this end, they highlight that “in the initial stages of their life cycles, organizational fields display considerable diversity in approach and form.” Yet, “once a field becomes well established (…), there is an inexorable push towards homogenization.”

Furthermore, in the case of the German armed forces, such institutional isomorphism is furthered by the organizational pressure that comes from the membership of Germany in NATO. Indeed, NATO members share central values and are culturally, economically, and politically quite similar: all democracies, all market economies, all fairly open societies, all part of a special in-group communication within NATO. There is a close military cooperation among NATO countries and a NATO-wide transnational military and organizational culture.[46] This generates socialization and convergence effects across NATO Member States and their militaries. Taken together, these theoretical considerations suggest that female integration into the militaries of NATO countries would look quite similar.

In addition, one may assume that such pressure towards institutional isomorphism does not only come from military organizations, but also from other organizations and institutions. In particular, one may think of the military as a state institution, i.e., the armed forces are contextualized by society in the ensemble of other state institutions. In these institutions, gender mainstreaming is well underway and sometimes further developed than in the military. This urges the military to also take the path of gender mainstreaming. Furthermore, since state institutions, and thus also the Bundeswehr, are in need of societal legitimacy, they are requested and feel obliged to follow the (perceived) expectations of society. Very much the same effect is being exerted by the fact that the military competes with civilian employers in the labor market in order to meet its human resources and recruitment needs. Therefore, the armed forces must closely observe and sometimes follow practices in the business world, for instance with regard to job opportunities for women and work-life balance in order to remain an attractive employer.

The empirical reality with regard to the integration of women into the armed forces reveals that although some trend towards institutional isomorphism does exist, there is no such thing as complete homogeneity. Rather, there is considerable variance to be observed. Sometimes, the militaries of the world respond to societal expectations and to societal legitimacy needs by establishing well-known rationality facades that merely feign or only partly respond to and follow these expectations. With regard to the present case, the integration of women into the Bundeswehr, we may well close by arguing that the litmus test for such institutions is currently underway.

[*] Dr. Gerhard Kümmel, born in 1964, is a Senior Researcher at the Bundeswehr Center of Military History and Social Research (ZMSBw), Zeppelinstrasse 127/128, 14471 Potsdam, Germany. He can be reached at gerhardkuemmel@bundeswehr.org.

[1] Franz W. Seidler, Frauen zu den Waffen? Marketenderinnen, Helferinnen, Soldatinnen, Second Edition (Bonn: Bernard & Graefe, 1998).

[2] Swantje Kraake, Frauen zur Bundeswehr. Analyse und Verlauf einer Diskussion (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1992); Astrid Albrecht-Heide and Utemaria Bujewski-Crawford, Frauen – Krieg – Militär. Images und Phantasien (Tübingen: Verein für Friedenspädagogik, 1991); Martina Fischer, Entmilitarisierung durch Streitkräftereform? Trends zu Freiwilligenarmeen und zur Einbindung von Frauen ins Militär (Bonn: Arbeitsstelle Friedenstexte, 1997).

[3] Seidler, Frauen, 223, 225.

[4] See also the findings of Ingrid Anker, Ekkehard Lippert and Ingrid Welcker, Soldatinnen in der Bundeswehr. Kennzeichen des sozialen Wandels, SOWI-Report 59 (Munich: SOWI, 1993); Paul Klein and Werner Kriesel, Männliche und weibliche Bewerber für die Laufbahn der Sanitätsoffiziere der Bundeswehr – Ein empirischer Vergleich (Munich: Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut, 1993); Hanne Isabell Schaffer, Konkurrenz unter Frauen. Arbeitsbeziehungen von weiblichen Beschäftigten bei der Bundeswehr (Munich: Sozialwissenschaft-liches Institut, 1994).

[5] Seidler, Frauen, 227.

[6] German Ministry of Defense, Frauen in der Bundeswehr. Zahlenspiegel (Dezember 1999) (Bonn: German Ministry of Defense, 1999) (in German).

[7] Ekkehard Lippert and Tjarck Rössler, Mädchen unter Waffen? Gesellschafts- und sozialpolitische Aspekte weiblicher Soldaten, SOWI-Report 20 (Munich: SOWI, 1980); Joseph L. Soeters and Jan van der Meulen, eds., Managing Diversity in the Armed Forces. Experiences from Nine Countries (Tilburg: Tilburg University Press, 1999); Gerhard Kümmel, ed., Women in the Armed Forces of the World: Recent Trends and Explanations, Current Sociology (London: Sage, 2002); Helena Carreiras, Gender and the Military: Women in the Armed Forces of Western Democracies (London: Routledge, 2006).

[8] Petra Kipphoff, “Die Berufung der Frau. Warum das Gewehr bei uns Männersache ist,” Die Zeit, 20 January 2000, 39.

[9] Anne Zielke, “Der Körper des Gegners. Frauen dürfen an die Waffen: Endet damit die Männerherrschaft?” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 17 January 2000, 14.

[10] “EU-Recht erlaubt Frauen Dienst mit der Waffe. Der Europäische Gerichtshof widerspricht in seinem Urteil zum Tätigkeitsfeld von Soldatinnen in der Bundeswehr den deutschen Bestimmungen,” Frankfurter Rundschau, 12 January 2000, 10.

[11] See also Constanze Stelzenmüller, “Berufsverbot vor Gericht. Zwingen Europas Richter die Bundeswehr, Frauen an die Waffen zu lassen?,” Die Zeit, 5 January 2000, 6.

[12] German Minister of Defense, Die Bundeswehr – sicher ins 21. Jahrhundert. Eckpfeiler für eine Erneuerung von Grund auf (Bonn: German Ministry of Defense, 2000).

[13] Gerhard Kümmel, Paul Klein, and Klaus Lohmann, Zwischen Differenz und Gleichheit. Die Öffnung der Bundeswehr für Frauen, SOWI-Report 69 (Strausberg: SOWI, 2000).

[14] Gerhard Kümmel and Heiko Biehl, Warum nicht? Die ambivalente Sicht männlicher Soldaten auf die weitere Öffnung der Bundeswehr für Frauen, SOWI-Report 71 (Strausberg: SOWI, 2001).

[15] On the changing roles of the military, see Gerhard Kümmel, “A Soldier Is a Soldier Is a Soldier!? The Military and Its Soldiers in an Era of Globalization,” in Handbook of the Sociology of the Military, ed. Giuseppe Caforio (New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2003), 417–433. In this context it is interesting to observe that the British military has tried to recruit women precisely on the basis of their specific‚ “female” competences, see Ronald Reng, “Weiblichkeit als Waffe. Das britische Verteidigungsministerium wirbt um Frauen,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 12 January 2000, 13.

[16] Zentrum Innere Führung, Maßnahmen zur Integration von Frauen in die Streitkräfte im Bereich der Aus- und Weiterbildung (Koblenz: Zentrum Innere Führung, 2000); Zentrum Innere Führung, Frauen in den Streitkräften. Ausbildung Integration, Working Paper 2 (Koblenz: Zentrum Innere Führung, 2000).

[17] Gerhard Kümmel and Ines-Jacqueline Werkner, eds., Soldat, weiblich, Jahrgang 2001. Sozialwissenschaftliche Begleituntersuchungen zur Integration von Frauen in die Bundeswehr – Erste Befunde (Strausberg: SOWI, 2003).

[18] Mady Wechsler Segal, “Toward a Theory of Women in the Armed Forces: Applications to the Future,” in Armed Forces at the Dawn of the Third Millenium. SOWI-Forum International 16, ed. Jürgen Kuhlmann and David R. Segal (Munich: SOWI, 1994), 347–368; Mady Wechsler Segal, “Gender and the Military,” in Handbook of the Sociology of Gender, ed. Janet Saltzmann Chafetz (New York: Kluwer/Plenum, 1999), 563–581.

[19] Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung, ed., Partnerschaftlich handeln: Mitarbeiterorientierte Personalpolitik in der Ausbildung. Ein Bausteinmanual für TrainerInnnen und AusbilderInnen (Cologne: Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung, 2001).

[20] For an evaluation of the program see Michael Hahn and Cornelia Helferrich, Gender-Fragen in männlich dominierten Organisationen. Erfahrungen mit der Fortbildung “Partnerschaftlich Handeln” bei der Bundeswehr (Cologne: Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung, 2007).

[21] Michael Meuser and Claudia Neusüß, Gender Mainstreaming. Konzepte, Handlungsfelder, Instrumente (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2004).

[22] Maja Apelt, Cordula Dittmer, and Anne Mangold, “Die Bundeswehr auf dem Weg zur Gleichstellung der Geschlechter?,” in Frauen im Militär. Empirische Befunde und Perspektiven zur Integration von Frauen in die Streitkräfte, ed. Jens-Rainer Ahrens, et al. (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2005), 123.

[23] Gerhard Kümmel, Truppenbild mit Dame. Eine sozialwissenschaftliche Begleituntersuchung zur Integration von Frauen in die Bundeswehr, SOWI Report 81 (Strausberg: SOWI, 2008); Id., Truppenbild ohne Dame? Eine sozialwissenschaftliche Begleituntersuchung zum aktuellen Stand der Integration von Frauen in die Bundeswehr, Research Report (Potsdam: Zentrum für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr, 2014).

[24] Kümmel, Truppenbild mit Dame.

[25] Rosabeth Moss Kanter, “Some Effects of Proportions on Group Life: Skewed Sex Ratios and Responses to Token Women,” American Journal of Sociology 82:5 (1977): 980; see also Bettina Heintz, Eva Nadai and Regula Fischer, Ungleich unter Gleichen. Studien zur geschlechtsspezifischen Segregation des Arbeitsmarktes (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1997), 44.

[26] Kümmel, Truppenbild ohne Dame.

[27] Norbert Elias, Studien über die Deutschen. Machtkämpfe und Habitusentwicklung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989), 33–37.

[28] Hanne Isabell Schaffer, Lebenskonzepte und Zeiterfahrungen junger Männer. Zur Bedeutung gewandelter Lebensvorstellungen für die Bundeswehr (Munich: SOWI, 1992).

[29] Robert W. Connell, Der gemachte Mann. Konstruktion und Krise von Männlichkeiten (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 1999); Michael Meuser, Geschlecht und Männlichkeit. Soziologische Theorie und kulturelle Deutungsmuster (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 1998).

[30] Paul M. Zulehner and Rainer Volz, Männer im Aufbruch. Wie Deutschlands Männer sich selbst und wie Frauen sie sehen. Ein Forschungsbericht, 3rd ed. (Ostfildern: Schwabenverlag, 1999); Therese Steffen, ed., Masculinities – Maskulinitäten. Mythos – Realität – Repräsentation – Rollendruck (Stuttgart – Weimar: J.B. Metzler, 2002).

[31] Margarete Mitscherlich, Die friedfertige Frau. Eine psychoanalytische Untersuchung zur Aggression der Geschlechter (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1985); Jean Bethke Elshtain, Women and War (New York: Basic Books, 1987); Tordis Batscheider, Friedensforschung und Geschlechterverhältnis. Zur Begründung feministischer Fragestellungen in der kritischen Friedensforschung (Marburg: BdWi-Verlag, 1993); Karen O. Dunivin, “Military Culture: Change and Continuity,” Armed Forces & Society 20:4 (1994): 531–547; Ruth Seifert, Militär, Kultur, Identität. Individualisierung, Geschlechterverhältnisse und die soziale Konstruktion des Soldaten (Bremen: Edition Temmen, 1996); Meuser, Geschlecht.

[32] Hans Werner Bierhoff, Ronald L. Cohen, and Jerald Greenberg, eds., Justice in Social Relations (New York – London: Plenum, 1986).

[33] Gordon W. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1954).

[34] Ronald Inglehart, Kultureller Umbruch. Wertwandel in der westlichen Welt (Frankfurt am Main – New York: Campus, 1989); Bernard Schäfers and Wolfgang Zapf, eds., Handwörterbuch zur Gesellschaft Deutschlands (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 1998).

[35] Janet T. Spence and Eugene D. Hahn, “The Attitudes Toward Women Scale and Attitudes Change in College Students,” Psychology of Women Quarterly 21 (1997): 17–34; Jean M. Twenge, “Attitudes Toward Women, 1970-1995: A Meta-Analysis,” Psychology of Women Quarterly 21 (1997): 35–51.

[36] Francine Tougas, et al., “Neosexism: Plus Ca Change, Plus C’est Pareil,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 21:8 (1995): 842–849; Janet K. Swim and Laurie L. Cohen, “Overt, Covert, and Subtle Sexism. A Comparison Between the Attitudes Toward Women and Modern Sexism Scales,” Psychology of Women Quarterly 21 (1997): 103–118; Thomas Eckes and Iris Six-Materna, “Leugnung von Diskriminierung: Eine Skala zur Erfassung des modernen Sexismus,” Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie 29:3 (1998): 224–238; Anke Schmermund, “Gründe für die Unterrepräsentanz von Frauen in Führungspositionen und die Notwendigkeit von Frauenförderung. Die Bewertung einer Personalentscheidung auf Führungsebene in Abhängigkeit vom Geschlecht der urteilenden und der sich bewerbenden Personen” (diploma thesis, department of psychology, Philipps-University Marburg, 1998).

[37] Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation (New York: Basic Books, 1977).

[38] Ibid., 208.

[39] Rosabeth Moss Kanter, “Some Effects of Proportions on Group Life: Skewed Sex Ratios and Responses to Token Women,” in Women and Symbolic Interaction, ed. Mary J. Deegan and Michael Hill (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1987), 297.

[40] Kanter, Men and Women, 282 f.

[41] Ibid., 210.

[42] Christine Cnossen, “Frauen in Kampftruppen: Ein Beispiel für ‘Tokenisierung’,” in Soziale Konstruktionen – Militär und Geschlechterverhältnis, ed. Christine Eifler and Ruth Seifert (Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 1999), 240.

[43] See, e.g., Scott J. South, Charles W. Bonjean, William T. Markham, and Judy Corder, “Social structure and intergroup interaction: men and women of the federal bureaucracy,” American Sociological Review 47 (1982): 587–99; Nina Toren and Vered Kraus, “The effects of minority size on women’s position in academia,” Social Forces 65 (1987): 1090–1100; Janice D. Yoder, “Rethinking tokenism: Looking beyond numbers,” Gender and Society 5:2 (1991): 178–192; Jutta Allmendinger and J. Richard Hackman, “Akzeptanz oder Abwehr? Die Integration von Frauen in professionelle Organisationen,” Kölner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 46:2 (1994): 238–258; Heintz et al., Ungleich, op. cit.

[44] See Eve Spangler, Marsha A. Gordon, and Ronald M. Pipkin, “Token Women: An Empircal Test of Kanter’s Hypothesis,” American Journal of Sociology 84:1 (July 1978): 160–70; see also Birgit Riegraf, Geschlecht und Mikropolitik. Das Beispiel betrieblicher Gleichstellung. Opladen (1996).

[45] Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields,” American Sociological Review 48:2 (1983): 148.

[46] Joseph L. Soeters, “Value Orientations in Military Academies: A Thirteen Country Study,” Armed Forces & Society 24:1 (1997): 24.

Gender Mainstreaming of the Security Sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina: From the Policy Papers to Reality

Ankica Tomić [*]

It is not enough to have knowledge, one must also apply it.

It is not enough to have wishes, one must also act.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Introduction

Gender mainstreaming [1] of the security sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) twenty years ago was perceived as a “foreign” syntagma and proved very difficult to translate into the three official languages (Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian). The challenge was not only translation but also the transposition of that concept into reality. The link between the concept of gender mainstreaming and security sector tasks and responsibilities was a new topic for BiH society as well as globally. As a post-conflict country, in the last twenty years Bosnia and Herzegovina has gone through reforms in different areas such as police, intelligence, justice, etc. Those reforms were intensified in the period from 2003 until 2008 in the framework of the BiH integration process into the European Union and NATO. At that time, neither the BiH political elite nor representatives of the international community were aware of the benefits of the integration of the gender concept in those nor in other reforms in the country. It was women’s organizations that started familiarizing the BiH public with the importance of including and applying the concept of gender in security sector reforms, namely to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (UNSCR 1325).[2] They first gained financial support from the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and other UN organizations in order to implement different programs and projects. Those efforts, commitments, and the influence of these women’s organizations led to the government at all levels in Bosnia and Herzegovina establishing in 2003 official gender mechanisms such as the Gender Center of Government of Federation, the Gender Center of Government of Republic Srpska and, in 2004, the Gender Equality Agency at the national level. Their establishment came at a crucial moment for the institutionalization of gender mainstreaming in all areas of public and private life in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Only a few years after those gender mechanisms were established they were applied in the drafting of two strategic documents, the Gender Action Plan (GAP) [3] for the period 2006-2013 and an Action Plan for the implementation of UNSCR 1325 in Bosnia and Herzegovina (AP 1325) [4] for a period of three years (2010-2013). Those two documents were not imposed or drafted externally, which was the case with many other documents in Bosnia and Herzegovina from that period. They were produced by the representatives of BiH institutions together with the representatives of NGOs according to local priorities and needs, an important precondition for local ownership and sustainability of the whole process. Because of this, many were hopeful that enacting these documents would have a real and positive effect on the lives of men, women, and children throughout the country.

In this article I first give a brief overview of the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina before those national policy documents were adopted and of the post-adoption period. Second, my intention is to analyze the reasons why the adoption of AP 1325 was perceived as a big success in the country as well as the region and at a global level. Third, because I was personally involved in the implementation of the first AP 1325 on behalf of the Ministry of Security and in the drafting of the second AP 1325, my focus will be on the achievements of the Ministry of Security in the implementation process of AP 1325 as well as my personal experience with gender mainstreaming of the security sector in BiH. Finally, in my conclusion I examine the main lessons learned, current challenges, and present my personal view of how the envisaged goals from the documents can bring meaningful and real change to the daily lives of all people in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Period Before AP 1325: The Role of Civil Society and International Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Between 2005 and 2007, or almost five years before the implementation of UNSCR 1325, women’s advocacy groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina relied on raising awareness through public and media presentations to demonstrate the importance of their implementation in the country. The parallel approach of women’s organizations and other CSOs brought the topics of UNSCR resolutions to the attention of both the media and the public. They were active in advocating for greater participation of women in decision-making, especially encouraging women to participate in the development of policies and programs in different areas. Supported by international organizations, women’s groups conducted several trainings and workshops with the aim of integrating human rights topics and gender equality into everyday life, both public and private. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s civil society, especially women’s organizations, were crucial to putting women’s rights and gender issues on the political and institutional agenda of BiH authorities and media, as well as the international community.

Together with civil society, different UN agencies such as UNIFEM-UN Women and UNDP Sarajevo have supported the implementation of UNSCR 1325 through a variety of projects aiming to increase sensibility for a gender perspective in the security and defense sectors in order to respond to women’s needs and develop appropriate mechanisms and tools for gender equality. For example, since 2005 UNIFEM has supported the implementation of UNSCR 1325 in the Western Balkans at both national and regional levels through the project “Women Building Peace and Human Security.” In cooperation with various partners, such as state mechanisms for gender equality, army and police forces, civil society, and international organizations in the region, the project supported gender mainstreaming strategies in the security and public sector, advocacy for monitoring, and evaluation of the implementation of UNSCR 1325. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, UNIFEM established partnership with Žene Ženama (a local NGO, “Women for Women”) to support the implementation of UNSHR 1325. The importance of the findings of the project demonstrated a further need for joint efforts of both governmental and non-governmental institutions with international organizations in order to raise awareness about gender equality principles in the security and defense sectors nationally and internationally.

For the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, gender was also a new topic pushed into the public debate by women’s organizations. Their aim was to find allies to support their efforts to make the implementation of UNSCR 1325 a priority agenda item for BiH institutions.

International organizations and missions, such as the European Union Police Mission (EUPM), had two tasks with the UNSCR 1325: to incorporate its contents into their mandates in Bosnia and Herzegovina while also following the internal guidelines on gender dimensions. In monitoring, mentoring, and advising law-enforcement agencies (LEAs), the EUPM was tasked with establishing a sustainable, multi-ethnic, and professional police service in Bosnia and Herzegovina that was in compliance with international standards of democratic policing. For this purpose, EUPM assisted BiH LEAs in developing efficient and effective police services that reflect the society by taking into account the gender, ethnicity, administrative, and economic situation. EUPM also promoted police practices sensitive to gender-equality and gender-balance issues. EUPM also introduced within its internal structure the position of Gender Advisor to deal with gender equality and human rights issues. EUPM also established a special body for gender issues (Gender Coordination Board).

The role of the international community in BiH needs to be further clarified when it comes to addressing gender inequality within the framework of their mandates to assist Bosnia and Herzegovina on its path to NATO and EU integration. The international community has generally not prioritized rectifying violations of women’s rights or the lack of women at negotiating tables on different reform initiatives such as defense, police, judiciary, or constitutional reform. These negotiations remain closed to women and to general public opinion. The Office of the High Representative (OHR) is the most glaring example of this lack of accountability for including gender in both their initiatives in the security sector as well as other reforms in BiH. Nowadays, the international community has become more institutionalized and interested in integrating gender issues into internal governance structures and decision-making processes. They also react more frequently to human rights violations and discrimination. This shift from a perception that gender issues are “less important” to being seen as “extremely important” when it comes to the activities of international organizations and missions has ensured that governmental institutions started paying attention to UNSCR 1325.[5]

Like many other countries in the region, NGOs were the primary force in advocating for UNSCR 1325 in BiH prior to the adoption of AP 1325 in 2010. Women’s organizations throughout the Balkans initiated discussions about gender-based violence as a weapon during the war. They worked across ethnic lines and took an active role in leading efforts for reconciliation, peace, and stability and used different methods to convince the government bodies and international community in BiH to talk about the main commitments made in UNSCR 1325. They refused to accept the dismissal of the female perspective in negotiations on the security sector and other reforms, and would not accept that the security and defense sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina were seen as “male business.” Until 2008, most women in the police and military worked in administrative positions.[6] Meanwhile, the international community failed to raise the gender perspective as an important topic that should be integral to any legislation, policy, program, project, or activity from which both men and women benefit equally.

The First AP Adopted in 2010

Goals

The first Bosnia and Herzegovina Action Plan for the implementation of UNSCR 1325 was adopted on July 27, 2010, on the tenth anniversary of the adoption of UNSCR 1325. The AP was drafted by an inter-agency group comprised of representatives from the Gender Equality Agency, entity gender centers and Ministries of Interior, the BiH Demining Centre, NGOs, and the BiH ministries of security, defense, foreign affairs, and finance and treasury. The AP represents a comprehensive strategy document for the integration of gender mainstreaming in the security and defense sectors. It is perceived as a “home-made product” because it was created by BiH institutions supported by local NGOs. BiH’s Agency for Gender Equality [7] developed the AP 1325 in 2009 through a year-long series of consultations with relevant government and civil society actors. The Action Plan has eight goals:

·         Increase the number of women in decision-making positions

·         Increase the number of women in the BiH police and armed forces

·         Increase the number of women in peacekeeping operations and integrate the gender perspective in pre-deployment trainings

·         Demining

·         Curb human trafficking

·         Provide assistance to female war victims

·         Provide training on gender issues to public servants, police, military, prosecutors, judges, etc.

·         Promote co-operation of governmental, non-governmental, and international organizations within the country as well as in the region and on a wider international level.

The AP 1325 drafters developed a very comprehensive and ambitious document encompassing all important messages and commitments from UNSCR 1325, with two particularities specific to Bosnia and Herzegovina as the consequences of the conflict. These gender perspectives are, namely, demanding action [8] and assistance to female war victims. This is one of the first action plans to encompass indicators for monitoring and evaluating progress. In order to adequately monitor the implementation of the Action Plan, on June 26, 2011 the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina established the Coordination Board for Monitoring the Implementation of the Action Plan on UNSCR 1325 for the duration of the Action Plan. This model of monitoring of AP implementation was recognized in the country and the region as an example of best practice, of shared commitment to implementation, and how many stakeholders under effective leadership can have remarkable achievements in a short period.

The First AP Adopted in 2010: Implementation

The Implementation of AP 1325 began on the 10th anniversary of UNSCR 1325. By 2010, more attention was paid to women as well as peace and security agendas nationally and globally. During 2010, UNSCR 1325 and its implementation in Bosnia and Herzegovina became a very important task for BiH institutions, the international community, and civil society. In that year the issues of women’s rights and integration of the gender perspective were again the focus of BiH institutions at all levels.

Amendments to the Law on Gender Equality in Bosnia and Herzegovina (adopted in 2003) initiated by the Gender Equality Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina resulted in provisions, definitions, and terms used in the Law on Gender Equality being redefined and further harmonized with the international standards. Article 20, paragraph 2 of the law explains that equal representation on the basis of gender means at least 40 % of both men and women. The Action Plan stipulates gender equality across all sectors in BiH and is being embedded into the different parliaments, laws, and bylaws at all levels by the Committee on Gender Equality. Along with the Gender Equality Agency, Coordination Board, and NGOs they have organized different events for the parliamentarians in order to familiarize them with the obligations regarding gender mainstreaming in all areas of public and private life in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The AP 1325 is described “as a platform for realizing meaningful impact on issues of women, peace and security.” [9]

The First AP Adopted in 2010: Implementation within the Security Sector

The Ministry of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina was an important stakeholder in the drafting and implementation of the first and second AP 1325. After the adoption of the first AP in 2010, the Ministry of Security started to organize different events promoting AP 1325 in BiH at various levels of government. Its focus was on the necessity of closer cooperation and coordination of all responsible institutions in its implementation. The Minister of Security of BiH supported all actions and measures aimed to streamline the gender perspective within the framework of responsibilities of the Ministry.

The Ministry of Security also initiated inter-sector cooperation with the Ministry of Defense of Bosnia and Herzegovina in developing a gender awareness course, “Utility of Gender in Peace Support Operations.” The course aims to increase awareness and provide conceptual understanding of gender issues in the security and defense sector. It places a particular focus on PSO and how in order to be successful, missions must communicate with the women they are tasked to protect. Thus, it is essential that female police officers, soldiers, and civilian staff be involved in operations planning, conducting, and evaluation. The course covers the following topics:

·         Gender National Action Plans

·         Gender and Security Sector Reform in BiH

·         NATO/UN Perspective on Gender

·         Identity, Stereotypes, and Prejudices

·         Contemporary Armed Conflict: Human Terrain and the Role of Women in Peacekeeping

·         Value of Women in Military and Police Units in Peacekeeping

·         Role of Gender Advisors

·         Civil Defense/NGO Coordination

·         Protection of Civilians

·         Gender Response to Change Management

·         A Personal Perspective from the Mission.

The second course, which includes gender dimensions, is a peacekeeping predeployment course for BiH police officers entitled “CIV POL Course.” It is accredited by the UN and prepared and conducted fully in line with UN standards. Both courses are offered to representatives from the region.

The Ministry of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina was the first institution in BiH to undertake affirmative action to encourage women participation in all trainings, educational programs, and peacekeeping. It implemented positive measures to encourage women to apply for and participate in peacekeeping missions, which led to an increase in the percentage of women in peacekeeping missions to twenty percent. This percentage was a desirable percentage of the United Nations until 2014.[10] According to UN statistics, in 2010 10 % of UN police were female. As of January 2015, the overall number of peacekeepers under the umbrella of the UN was 4,016, out of which 707 were female, or 17.6 %. The top priority for the UN police is to increase the number of female police in peacekeeping as well as to encourage the recruitment of women in domestic police services. Bosnia and Herzegovina stands at the top of the list of female police contributors to UN peacekeeping operations. In all current missions in South Sudan, Cyprus, and Liberia women are in decision-making positions. The Minister of Security appointed female police officers as commanders and deputy commanders of the BiH contingent.

Table 1: Participation of female police officers from Bosnia and Herzegovina

in peacekeeping missions from 2000–2013.

UN Peacekeeping missions

Total number

of police officers

Number

of female members (%)

Cyprus (UNFICYP)

28

4 (14.28 %)

Liberia (UNMIL)

74

10 (13.51 %)

South Sudan (UNMISS)

54

9 (16.66 %)

Sudan (UNMIS)  [11]

19

4 (21.05 %)

East Timor (UNMISET) [12]

21

1 (4.76 %)

Haiti (MINUSTAH)

12

3 (25 %)

Table 2: Current representation of female police officers of Bosnia

and Herzegovina in UN peacekeeping operations.

UN Peacekeeping missions

Total number

of police officers

Number

of female members (%)

Cyprus (UNFICYP)

8

1 (13.75  %)

Liberia (UNMIL)

10

3 (30.30  %)

South Sudan (UNMISS)

29

7 (17.24  %)

The Prestigious UN Award for the Ministry of Security

The willingness and commitment of the Ministry of Security to translate the policy papers’ goals and activities into concrete actions and measures were recognized and acknowledged by various local and international organizations. These efforts contributed to the visibility and presence of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the world stage as a country whose Ministry received the UN Award for Excellency in Promoting and Implementing UN Resolutions on Women, Peace and Security.

The Ministry of Security of BiH won the 2012 United Nations Public Service Award in the category of “Promoting Gender Responsive Delivery of Public Services” for the initiative, “Public Participation in Peace Processes – the UNSCR 1325 in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Women, Peace and Security.”

Žene Ženama nominated the Ministry of Security for the UN Award as the institution that had made the most significant effort to include more women in the security sector. According to the NGO, “the Ministry has undertaken concrete measures to incorporate the principles of gender equality and gender mainstreaming in its legal and institutional framework.” [13] Those activities were aligned with UNSCR 1325 and the AP for UNSCR 1325 implementation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Ministry of Security gained recognition for the promotion and inclusion of women in UN peacekeeping operations, as well as for its contributions to peace-building in different post-conflict areas where BiH female and male police officers have been deployed under the umbrella of the United Nations. The UN letter sent to the Ministry of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina states, “The outstanding success of your institution has demonstrated excellence in serving the public interest. We are confident that you have contributed significantly to public administration in your country.” [14] The 2012 award ceremony was particularly significant as it marked the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the UN Public Service Day and Ceremony.[15]

As stated in the video prepared by the Ministry of Security for the Awards Ceremony in the UN General Assembly:

The Ministry of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina remains fully committed to all its obligations pursuant to the Action Plan of the Council of Ministers for the implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1325 – Women, Peace and Security. This award was a great honor and recognition for both Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Ministry of Security of their work and efforts, but also an obligation to continue and persist on this way in the future.[16]

In recent years, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s institutions have worked very hard to integrate the gender perspective into their legal and institutional frameworks, making Bosnia and Herzegovina the very first country in the region to recognize the importance of implementing UNSCR 1325. Bosnia and Herzegovina was one of nine European countries and twenty-six UN members, as well as the first post-conflict country, to adopt an Action Plan to implement UNSCR 1325.[17] Considering that UNSCR 1325 requires that women participate equally in conflict resolution, post-conflict processes, peace negotiations, and peace missions, its adoption is of historic importance at the international level as well as nationally and locally.[18] The adoption of the AP 1325 by the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina (state-level government) in 2010 was perceived as a remarkable step forward in the context of achieving a consensus on women, peace, and security-related issues at all levels of authority. Furthermore, it is remarkable for the support from different NGOs and international organizations within Bosnia and Herzegovina, resulting in a more collaborative and coordinated system. UNSCR 1325 and other related resolutions motivated all domestic and international stakeholders to work together to reach the ultimate goal – full implementation of AP 1325. This inclusive model of collaboration and cooperation of all societal actors with the support of the international community could be applied to other areas in which a major challenge is to find the common voice and approach in translating policy visions, goals, and objectives into reality. This is especially complex in an administrative structure such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the different and often opposing perceptions of political leaders must be taken into account. According to the former Chairman of the BiH Parliamentary Committee for Gender Equality, Niko Lozanćić, “AP 1325 implementation is an exceptional example of what is possible when ministries and agencies want to work together. You show us all what is indeed possible in this impossible country.” [19]

The Second Action Plan (2014–2107)

The commitment of BiH institutions to integrate the gender perspective into all aspects of public and private life will continue in the future thanks to the adoption of the second generation of GAP (2013–2017) and of AP 1325 (2014–2017). This is again a positive and encouraging signal of their readiness to take seriously the inclusion of gender mainstreaming concepts in all public sectors and for all segments of society.

The second AP was adopted on July 8, 2014 by the Council of Ministers of BiH. Before the second AP1325 was drafted, the Institute for Inclusive Security from Washington conducted an independent evaluation. The Agency for Gender Equality requested an assessment from “Resolution to Act,” a new initiative of the Institute for Inclusive Security that supports countries creating or implementing National Action Plans and similar strategies.

The assessment confirms that the BiH AP 1325 is, in many ways, a global model. This is because the Action Plan’s “goals fit within existing government mandates on peace and security, maximizing the skills of experienced personnel and promoting cooperation across government sectors. Second, thanks to Agency for Gender Equality leadership, the AP1325 is widely seen as an organic national strategy rather than an international obligation.” [20]

In accordance with recommendations from the assessment of implementation of the first Action Plan, the new Action Plan was drafted for the period 2014-2017. In order to make implementation of the new AP more effective, eight goals from the former AP 1325 were grouped into three basic categories in compliance with UN Resolution 1325: equal participation, prevention, and protection. In the new AP 135 there are three strategic objectives:

1. Increased participation of women in decision-making, in the army, police, and peacekeeping missions

2. Increased level of human security

3.       Improved conditions and access to the implementation of UNSCR 1325 AP.

This ensured clearer definition of strategic and midterm objectives and, expected results, while also formulating concrete, result-oriented activities. In this way, the system of establishing indicators for monitoring the Action Plan were simplified, as was the system of collecting data necessary for making annual reports about the implementation of the plan. In the second AP 1325, a new concept was introduced: the concept of human security. That concept is based on the fact that security does not just mean protection of the state or institution, but also individuals or groups from the threats they face daily. The human security approach opened the door to introducing gender equality principles and gender perspectives into the security sector from the national to the local level. This concept enabled the localization of the 1325 agenda, another particularity of the second BiH AP 1325. Thus, the priorities and responsibilities for the implementation of AP 1325 are transferred to the local level, where people can feel and witness the benefits of a holistic approach to the security needs of every person taking the gender perspective into account. The AP 1325 is used as a platform for realizing meaningful change, because the local plans of municipalities focus on addressing women’s most pressing daily security concerns. The local plans gather all relevant governmental and non-governmental actors who can contribute to the improvement of all aspects of human security, as well as prioritize the career development of female police officers in relation to their recruitment, advancement, and retention within local police administrations.

One very important goal of the second AP 1325 is to promote further cooperation with CSOs [21] within the country, while also enhancing regional and international cooperation by exchanging know-how and best practices, as well as establishing regional professional networks.

The second AP 1325 is a promising document, too. Its full implementation will depend on many factors, such as strong commitment and support from political leaders and management in all institutions responsible for prioritizing and creating preconditions for meaningful change. The full implementation will be directly linked with the budget they allocate for AP 1325. Civil society is involved in monitoring and evaluation of the Action Plan in the future as well. If civil society continues to advocate for the focus to be on human security as well for a greater role for women in all aspects of security, foreign policy governance, and conflict resolution, the second AP 1325 has a greater chance of becoming part of a deeper and broader transformation of BiH society.

Lessons Learned, Challenges

Lessons Learned

The most important lesson learned is the fundamental importance of including women and their organizations in the process of security sector reform. Its aim should be to create a security sector that is more accountable to addressing women’s security needs. Women and their civic organizations, as well as organizations dealing with gender rights, are important participants in the establishment of safe and secure environments at the local level. This is because of their assistance to victims of gender-based violence, connections with security institutions, and contribution to work aimed at eliminating insecurity through peaceful resolution and prevention of conflict. These organizations often collect or have access to information about the security situation at the local level, as well as the needs of local women and accountability gaps in terms of security, and can serve as a liaison between local communities and the key actors in the field of security.

Particularly noticeable is the increase in the number of female police officers in BiH peacekeeping missions and a growing interest among both the leadership within the military and the police to appoint gender focal points to serve the aim of strengthening accountability, efficiency, and respect for human rights and the rule of law, as well as ensuring the greater inclusion of women in defense and security. Gender focal points within security and defense establishments serve as excellent tools for gender awareness and demonstrate the transformative changes of police and military culture into one in which women feel welcomed. This is a lesson from the security and defense sectors that can be applied to other institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina that are obliged to integrate the gender perspective into their legal and institutional framework.

Progress has also been made in the protection of women and girls from violence and discrimination. According to the assessment presented in the publication Women, Peace and Security in the Western Balkans, “social attention has been increasingly focusing on social reaction to these challenges, which does not mean that they have been resolved, have ‘disappeared’ or do not exist at all. Incoherent social responses to violence and discrimination are understood as ‘protection,’ including laws, policies and measures aimed at achieving ‘security,’ but failing to benefit the welfare and well-being of various groups of vulnerable people, especially women. Adoption of this concept of ‘protection’ is not sufficient for a complete social reaction and state intervention which could lead to a practical reaction to solve the problem of violence and discrimination.” [22] All those “unsolved issues” are to be properly addressed in the second GAP and the second AP 1325 for the period of the next few years.

Another lesson learned is linked to the monitoring and support mechanisms for the implementation of the obligations from the AP. This is headed by the Coordination Board, and considered “one of the most successful examples of an AP coordinating body to-date.” [23] The Coordination Board is a cross-dimensional governmental body that consists of twenty members, including civil society representatives from thirteen different institutions. Coordination Board members, through their work on women, peace, and security agendas, contributed to the enhancement of inter-sectorial cooperation and coordination. However, it is very important to point out that it is not easy to coordinate a large group of people who have different backgrounds, knowledge, skills, and formal positions within their institutions. What became obvious was that the formal positions of the members in government bodies were crucial for putting the 1325 topics on the priority list in their institutions.

Another significant lesson learned is related to the active and synchronized role of the international community in guiding, directing, and supporting the positive examples and practices of BiH institutions. Whenever the international community in BiH spoke with one voice and was consistent in its approach to an issue in the country, it was much easier to achieve common goals. In this regard, the implementation of AP 1325 could be seen as the best practice of that principle.

Challenges

BiH institutions, as opposed to others in the region, did not face financial challenges to implement the AP, given that most activities in the first phases of AP 1325 implementation were financed by international organizations such as UN Women, UNDP, NATO, OSCE, EUPM, DCAF, etc. The crucial financial instrument for the sustainability and implementation of AP 1325 was FIGAP, the multi-stakeholder fund [24] that supported the Gender Action Plan from 2009-2013. It was a good model of initial donor support for the AP implementation, but should not be a model for the future implementation of the second AP 1325.

In order to achieve local ownership, at least a certain percentage of funding for the Action Plan’s implementation should be provided by national budgets. In order to effectively mainstream gender, government bodies should develop the capacity for gender-sensitive budgeting by analyzing the impact of budget allocation on women, men, girls, and boys. If governments do not include the goals of AP 1325 in their regular, mid-term, and long-term plans and fail to allocate at least some resources for their realization, the sustainability of the whole process could be seriously threatened in the near future.

The obligation of all institutions at all levels in Bosnia and Herzegovina was to undertake the necessary actions in order to harmonize legislation in accordance with the law on gender equality in BiH. That law is legally binding for both the public and private sector. There are some good examples of successful harmonization, but overall the process of harmonizing regulations, rules, and procedures within the security and defense sectors has been inconsistent and uneven. Other challenges to ensuring that women’s human rights, taken into consideration in the design of services offered by police and military, are the strong patriarchal culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina, traditional prejudices, gender-based violence and domestic violence, and a lack of women in the political life of the country.

Gender and security are no longer unknown topics in BiH institutions and public debates. However, women make up the majority in institutions that deal mostly with gender mainstreaming, and this topic is still seen as a purely “female issue.” Men who work professionally on gender topics like gender focal points often face stereotypical and patriarchal judgement. To reduce and eliminate every kind of stereotypic behavior takes a long time. It is a long-lasting process because stereotypes are so embedded in the “cultural brain” that people often perpetuate them unwittingly.

BiH has made significant progress in promoting the inclusion of women in the security sector (army and police), but political participation of women at all levels has been declining since 1998, which is very worrying. This is happening at a time when policymakers and government institutions are relatively open to the systemic and sustainable integration of gender perspective into all sectors of society.

Conclusion

The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.

Albert Einstein

In the past several years, BiH has devoted special attention to achieving gender equality in all areas of public life, especially in the security and defense sectors. A comprehensive, participatory, and coordinated approach of governmental and non-governmental institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with support from various international organizations, have made remarkable progress with regard to the implementation of the GAP and AP 1325. There is hope that the second generation of the two documents will again encourage and unite all relevant actors in Bosnia and Herzegovina to work together on making gender visible, tangible, and applicable in our daily personal and professional life: “Gender equality must become lived reality.” [25]

Should the government wish to fully implement the UNSCR 1325 (and all related resolutions) and reach the ultimate goal of peaceful and bias-free societies, it should explicitly accept only zero-tolerance policies on discrimination in all areas. Interpreting the meaning and value of UNSCR 1325 should be done permanently in all segments of private and professional life and should be aimed at all citizens. Education and training on gender equality should be integrated into the education system onwards from the pre-education level, as well as in the curricula of academies and centers for training judges, police officers, military, parliamentarians, public servants, etc. The goals of UNSCR 1325 (and subsequent Resolutions on Women, Peace and Security) are certainly feasible, but only an inclusive approach by the society as a whole will make a difference. More women must be included in decision-making and security institutions if BiH is to be successful in meeting the security challenges of this century. The inclusion of a greater number of women in decision-making positions within the management structure of the security sector should be a priority of top decision-makers.

In addition, the human security concept should be a focal point, rather than traditional understandings of security as militant, repressive, and tied solely to the ultimate protection of the state and its integrity, territory and sovereignty. One must recall the 1994 Report on Human Development, which defines human security as “safety from constant threats of hunger, crime, corruption, repression, etc. It also means protection from sudden and hurtful disruption in the patterns of our daily lives – whether in our homes, our jobs, in our communities or in our environment.” Security forces in a country should be capable of ensuring safety for all people. They should also ensure equal access to services for both men and women.

It is true that Bosnia and Herzegovina has made important progress in recent years in streamlining the gender dimension in its legal and institutional frameworks with regard to the security, justice, and defense sectors. This should continue further while keeping in mind equal benefits for men, women, boys, and girls from all policies, programs, plans, actions, etc. Bosnia and Herzegovina should also continue serving as an example in Southeastern Europe, inspiring others to ensure that existing documents and structures reflect the needs, concerns, and experiences of both sexes. The second AP 1325 should contribute to lasting security, peace, and prosperity for all and eliminate any kind of discrimination and violation of human rights.

Political will is a precondition for the implementation of any reforms, as reforms are primarily contingent upon the readiness and consensus of political leaders. The political elite in BiH should stop putting “vital ethnicity interest” as a priority above all others. They should instead create equal opportunities for all citizens in the overall development of the country.

Regional cooperation and coordination of all relevant actors, including the institutional cooperation of the respective parliaments, governments, ministries, and agencies is one of the top priorities of the second Action Plan for implementing the UNSCR 1325 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, one must always be aware of the fact that the family is the starting point for achieving the long-lasting goal of reaching gender equality in all spheres of private and public life. There is an expression in the local languages: “Na mladima svijet ostaje,” or in English, “The world belongs to the youth.” What I would add is that we should teach the youth to think outside of limitations and gender boxes and to respect every human being. Only then can there be hope for a better future for everyone, regardless of race, sex, religion, ethnicity, language, etc. These are preconditions for the efficient translation of the policy papers’ goals into reality. According to research published by the Clingendael Institute, “Gender equality is a public good. It is not a loss for men, neither a victory for women. Societies where men and women, boys and girls have equal rights and opportunities are more stable societies.” [26] It is hugely beneficial for both genders, as well as for our families, our communities, and the country.

[*] Ankica Tomić, M.Sc. is President of the G.C. Marshall Center Alumni Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ms Tonic has spent the last 15 years working on international relationships within both the Ministry of Interior of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Ministry of Security. She personally contributed to the implementation of the initiative, “Public Participation in Peace Processes – the UNSCR 1325 in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Women, Peace and Security,” for which the Ministry of Security of BiH won the 2012 United Nations Public Service Award in the category of “Promoting Gender Responsive Delivery of Public Services.” She co-chairs the Coordination Board of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina for monitoring the implementation of UNSCR 1325. She also teaches gender-related topics to military and police audiences at the Peace Support Operations Training Centre (PSOTC) in Sarajevo. She is currently working on her PhD thesis, “Gender Mainstreaming in the Policies of Defense and Police Systems in Euro Atlantic Countries,” at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Sarajevo. Ms. Tomić holds a Master in International Relations and National Security from the University of Zagreb in Croatia.

[1] Gender mainstreaming is defined as a strategy for achieving gender equality by assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies, and programs in all areas at all levels, in order to assure that concerns and experiences of women and men are taken into consideration in the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of policies and programs in all political, economic and societal spheres. This leads to equal benefits for women and men without supporting inequality. This definition is used in the “Action Plan for Implementation of UNSCR 1325 in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the period 2014-2017,” 26, available at http://www.inclusivesecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/BiH-NAP-ENG.pdf.

[2] UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) “Women, Peace and Security,” adopted on 31 October 2000, is the first Security Council Resolution that underlines the importance of the role and equal participation of women when it comes to prevention and resolution of conflicts and building sustainable peace. It calls upon Member States to ensure greater participation of women in decision-making at all levels as a prerequisite for greater inclusion of a gender perspective in the sectors of defense and security, and greater protection and respect of the human rights of women and girls, in armed conflicts, and in the process of achieving peace and security.” Cf. BiH Action Plan 1325 (2014–2017).

[3] Gender Equality Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, “Gender Action Plan of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2013-2017,” Official Gazette of Bosnia and Herzegovina 98/13 (2013). “The Gender Action Plan (GAP) is a strategic document that includes goals, programs, and measures for the achievement of gender equality in all spheres of social life, both public and private. It provides guidelines for making annual operative plans at entity, cantonal and local levels. GAP follows priorities at all levels of power in Bosnia and Herzegovina, building on the previous GAP of 2006-2011 and other relevant strategic documents, as well as documents of the Council of Europe, European Union, and United Nations”; cf. BiH Action Plan 1325 (2014–2017). The official version of GAP is available at http://arsbih.gov.ba/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/GAP_BIH_ENGLISH.pdf.

[4] “Action plan for implementation of UNSCR 1325 in Bosnia and Herzegovina” [sic]: this is the official title of the document in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in contrast with other countries that use the title, “National Action Plan.”

[5] Gorana Radovanovic and Sonja Stojanovic Gajic, Women, Peace and Security in the Western Balkans (Belgrade: Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, 2013), 67–68, available at http://www.bezbednost.org/upload/document/assessment_report_[web].pdf

[6] Almost all decision-making positions were occupied by men. Only the Deputy Minister of Defense was a woman.

[7] The Agency’s mandate includes developing national policies to promote gender equality, preparing annual reports on the status of gender issues in BiH, and evaluating laws and by-laws adopted by the government with a gender lens. It was established in 2004.

[8] The objective is to reduce the risks of mines in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the focus on the particular impact on women.

[9] Assessment report on Inclusive Security, 9. The independent assessment of the Implementation of the first AP 1325 was made by the Institute for Inclusive Security from Washington in response to the request of the Gender Equality Agency of BIH. The report is an internal document of the Agency of Gender Equality of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[10] http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/resources/statistics/gender.shtml; accessed on March 3, 2015.

[11] Equipment and personnel from this mission have meanwhile been transferred to the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA).

[12] There are no longer any BiH police officers in the peacekeeping missions in East Timor and Haiti.

[13] Statement from letter of the NGO, “Žene Ženama,” which nominated the Ministry of Security for the UN award.

[14] Citation from the official letter send to the Ministry of Security from United Nations on the occasion of the receiving the Award in the “Promoting Gender Responsible Delivery of Public Service Category.”

[15] June 23 was proclaimed a Public Service Day by UN General Assembly Resolution 57/277 for the purpose of celebrating the value and virtue of the service to the community at the local, national, and global level and presenting public sector institutions with awards for contributions made to enhancing the role, prestige, and visibility of the public service.

[16] Quote from the video prepared by the Ministry of Security for the Awards Ceremony in the UN General Assembly.

[17] Since 2000, forty-three countries have developed National Action Plans (NAPs).

[18] The complex, multi-layered political and administrative structure of the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina includes two entities (the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic Srpska and the Brčko District and twenty ten cantons).

[19] Citation from the independent assessment of the Implementation of the first AP 1325, which was made by the Institute for Inclusive Security from Washington according to the request of the Gender Equality Agency of BIH. The report is an internal document of the Agency of Gender Equality of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[20] Quote from the assessment report of the Institute for Inclusive Security, 7.

[21] In the summer of 2014 the Coordination Board for the implementation of the AP1325 signed a Memorandum of Understanding with thirteen civil society organizations for collaboration on the AP, the only partnership of its kind in the country.

[22] Radovanovic and Gajic, Women, Peace and Security, 73.

[23] Quote from the assessment report of Institute for Inclusive Security, 13.

[24] Funds in amount of EUR 3.5 million provided by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), and the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) were allocated directly by the Agency for Gender Equality and supervised by a joint management body consisting of representatives of donors and BiH government institutions.

[25] Michelle Bachelle, President of Chile since March 11, 2014.

[26] Rosan Smits, “A gender perspective in peacekeeping missions: discussing guidelines” (Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations, 2010), available at http://www.clingendael.nl/sites/default/files/20101124_CRU_workingpaper_rsmits.pdf, a shorter version is available here: http://www.wo-men.nl/cms/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Gender_sensitive_peacekeeping.pdf (accessed on 23 February 2015).

Table of Contents

NATO and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda: Time to Bring It Home

Marriët Schuurman*

NATO’s Achievements and Best Practices: Groundwork in Place

Work to Be Done: Equal Participation and “Gendered” Mindsets

The Leadership Challenge: The Relevance of 1325 in Facing New Security Challenges

Conclusion: Bring It Home

Gender and the Security Sector: Towards a More Secure Future

Julie L. Arostegui, J.D. *

Introduction

The Women, Peace and Security Framework

United Nations Security Council Resolutions and International Law

Regional Policy Initiatives

National Action Plans

Security and Gender

A New Paradigm of Security

Why Women?

Integrating Gender into the Security Sector

Political Reform

Institutional Reform

Economic Reform

Societal Reform

What Role for the Security Sector? An SSR Approach to Implementing the Women, Peace and Security Agenda

Aiko Holvikivi *

Introduction

Understanding SSR

SSR as a Tool for Implementing the Women, Peace and Security Resolutions

Prevention

Participation

Protection

Relief and Recovery

Conclusion

Begging the Question: What Would a Men, Peace and Security Agenda Look Like?

Callum Watson *

Introduction

We Can’t See the Forest for the Trees: Men as the Missing Gender

Men and Masculinities in NATO and Partnership for Peace Countries: A Brief History

The Invisible Man

Acknowledgement of Men and Masculinities in Gender, Peace and Security Discourses

The Flipside of the Four Pillars

Prevention of Conflict and All Forms of Violence in Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations [28]

Equal Participation of Men and Women: Gender Equality is Promoted in Peace and Security Decision-making at National, Local, Regional, and International Levels [33]

Protection and Promotion of Men and Boys’ Rights in Conflict-Affected Areas [42]

Relief and Recovery

Conclusion: Two Wheels Are Better Than One

The Bundeswehr and Female Soldiers: The Integration of Women into the Armed Forces (2000–2015)

Gerhard Kümmel *

The Research Project

Gender Mainstreaming of the Security Sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina: From the Policy Papers to Reality

Ankica Tomić *

The First AP Adopted in 2010

Lessons Learned, Challenges