PRESS CONFERENCE BY UNIFEM

Although women had been in the very vanguard of peace and reconciliation efforts, their role in peace-building had not been recognized, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.

"Once peace finds its place, the positions held by women are reclaimed by men, leaving women marginalized and sidelined", she said. 

Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf, a member of the team of independent experts organized by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) to assess the impact of war on women and women's role in peace-building, said October marked the  one-year anniversary of Security Council resolution 1325, the landmark resolution on women and peace and security.  That resolution called for documentation and action on the impact of armed conflict on women and the role of women in peace-building and followed Graca Machal's assessment of the impact of armed conflict on children.  She hoped the Council would note the progress made by the United Nations system in response to that resolution. 

Other members of the expert team included Elisabeth Rehn, the former Minister for Defence of Finland and Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Victoria Bittain, a senior foreign editor of the British newspaper, The Guardian.

Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf, a former assistant administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), added that the expert team had already conducted field visits to Cambodia, East Timor, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda.  Visits also were being planned for Latin America, including Guatemala and Colombia, and the Mano River States in Africa, including Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.  Ms. Rehn was currently in the Balkans and would visit Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia, Kosovo and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The assessments had found many common areas of concern in the various countries visited, Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf said, including sexual violence, prostitution and rape.  Many women were, in fact, purposely infected with HIV/AIDS, which had become a specific weapon of war.  Conflict had also resulted in an alarming number of orphans, widows and female-headed households with women heading about 86 per cent of households in some countries.  Trafficking of women had been found in two places.  While she hesitated calling any child "unwanted", many of the children who were the result of rape in situations of ethnic conflict had been rejected by both sides of the conflict. 

Women also suffered from severe psychological trauma, with many bearing psychological burdens for years after conflicts had ended, Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf said.  Conflict also affected women's economic security.  In wartime, women were expected to feed not only their children but also soldiers.  It was often impossible for women to find jobs, even long after war had ended.

The expert team hoped that its findings, which would be published in a report by the end of January, would challenge the world's deafening silence

regarding the situation of women, Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf continued.  The report would be pointed, forceful, and ring the consciousness not only of the United Nations system but also of world leaders, so that they could find the means to adopt policy measures at home and at all international fora.  Those measures, based upon the Security Council resolution, should address the long-standing deprivation that women faced generally in normal life, and increasingly, as a result of conflict.  Policies should give women a much larger role, consistent with the role they have played in bringing peace and security to their nations, and enable them to be a part of the processes of development and nation reconstruction.

Asked to comment on the role of women in Central American countries, Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf said the team had not yet visited that region.  A field visit would be made in early December.  While she did not wish to speak to the specifics of an area the team had not visited, she knew from personal experience that women played important roles in Central America.  The field visit would determine whether these roles were equal to men or consistent with their potential.

Where have women been able to maintain a role in post-conflict peace-building? a correspondent asked.  There was no place where women had a role consistent with the efforts they had made to promote peace.  There was however, some movement toward increasing the role of women.  In the recent elections in East Timor, for example, women had been elected to the National Assembly, representing some 28 per cent of the total number.  That was progress.  She would like to see women go beyond the target level of 30 per cent representation and assume strong leadership roles throughout in all realms of public life.

      In concluding remarks, Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf said she hoped that the Council would take note of the resolution it passed a year ago and that all parties would focus on the elements it contained.  She also hoped that the expert team report would urge the Council, the Secretary-General and the United Nations system as a whole to be strong in its resolve to promote the role of women and bring recognition commensurate with their contributions to peace building.  

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