Refugee Women as Agents for Peace

Nov 3, 2020 | The Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation
Online

20 years ago, the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 was adopted - with the main aims of strengthening women’s participation in peace and security governance; ensuring their protection; enabling their recovery from conflict-related and gender-based violence; and contributing to the prevention of armed conflict. In addition, UNSCR 1325 demands gender awareness in conflict analysis and peacebuilding. A number of resolutions, and national and regional action plans followed, which together form the UN Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. 

Great effort has been put into the realisation of this WPS agenda - by international organisations, the EU, state actors, international NGOs, and feminist networks. One significant group however has been widely ignored in the discourse, action plans and implementation of this agenda, namely forcibly displaced, conflict-affected women and girls who have sought asylum in Europe. 

In general, European actors tend to look at conflict regions outside the EU and their immediate neighbouring countries to analyse, demand and implement the participation and protection of women. Yet, do we also acknowledge refugee and asylum-seeking women as experts in conflict analysis and peacebuilding? Do we demand and guarantee sufficient, adequate relief and recovery mechanisms for conflict-affected women and girls? And do we understand that this participation, relief and recovery and protection of refugee women and girls within the EU forms an essential part of the WPS agenda? 

The Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation (VIDC) has been working on the UN Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda, as well as on diaspora engagement over many years. We took this year’s 20th anniversary of the UNSCR 1325 as an occasion to draw attention to the connection between these two policy areas: the WPS agenda and forced migration to Europe.

For the VIDC, Barbara Kühhas, expert in gender, peace and development, and Marie-Luise Möller, lawyer specialized in asylum and immigration law, conducted a study analysing the gaps in the implementation of the WPS agenda in Austria with regards to the rights and living conditions of refugee and asylum-seeking women. 

Who: The Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation 

Where: Online

When: 03 December 2020   Time: 05:00 PM CET