The Role of Women in Promoting Peace and Development
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Nicklas Svensson (ed.) The Role of Women in Promoting Peace and Development Proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference on the Horn of Africa Lund, Sweden, September 23– 24 2011 Somalia international rehabilitation Centre (SIRC) and lund horn of afriCa forum (LUHAF) department of EconomiC hiStory, lund univerSity Copyright © the Authors 2012 Graphic Design Ilgot Liljedahl Typesetting Ilgot Liljedahl Produktion Media-Tryck Printed by Media-Tryck, Lund University, Lund, Sweden 2012 ISBN 91-7267-344-3 Publisher and Distribution Media-Tryck Lund University Box 117 SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden Fax 046-222 38 83 • E-post [email protected] • www.lu.se/media-tryck Table of Contents Acknowledgements 5 Introduction 7 Gillian Nilsson & Nicklas Svensson Opening remarks 11 Yakoub Abdi Aden Opening Statement 17 Annika Annerby Jansson part i The implementation of UNSCRs 1325 and 1820 in the Horn of Africa 21 EC’s Perspective on the Role of Women in Peace building and Development in Africa 23 Jeremy Lester Somali TFG’s Statement on the Role of Women in Peacebuilding and Development in Africa 27 Mariam Aweis Jama Status and Review of Progress of Lack Thereof the Implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 in the Horn of Africa 29 Fatima Ahmed The Role of Puntland Women in Peace 37 Asha Gelle Dirie Status of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1820 in the Horn of Africa 45 Addei Sidi Nur part ii Gender equality: Women’s rights and participation in decision making 53 The Role of Women in Post-Conflict Transformation in the Horn of Africa: A Case Study of Eritrea♣ 55 Daniel R. Mekonnen* and Mirjam van Reisen** Gender, Violent Conflict, Peace and Development in the Horn of Africa 75 Gaim Kibreab Statement on the role of Women in promoting Peace and Development in the Horn of Africa 93 Bodil Ceballos Domesticating UN Resolution 1325 and 1820 to Promote Gender Equality in War-torn Somalia 97 Shukria Dini and Khadija Osoble The Somali minorities and what Somali Women Rights Defenders can do 111 Martin Hill Gender Mainstreaming in Purchasing in the Humanitarian Context 119 Gyöngyi Kovácsa,b, Ala Pazirandeha, Peter Tathamc Economic Empowerment of Women 125 Almaz Negash part iii The Women’s needs in armed and violent conflicts in the Horn of Africa 129 UNPOS’ Perspective on the Role of Women in Peace building and Development in Africa 131 Chantal Ekambi Caught between War and its Aftermath: The Experience of Internally Displaced Women in Sudan 137 Amira Awad Osman The Assessment and Mapping of Initiatives on Women Protection and Livelihood Support in South Darfur 149 Nagla Mohamed Bashir, Abass Y. Aletegani & Mohamed Ahamad Nour Gender & Transitional Justice: An Empirical Study on Somalia 161 Fowsia Abdulkadir & Rahma Abdulkadir Sitaat as Part of Somali Women’s Everyday Religion: Peace-making and Religious Emotions 179 Marja Tiilikainen A Gendered Perspective on the Impact of the Conflict in the Horn of Africa 193 Cawo M. Abdi A Changing Transformation of Gender in Somalia: Women’s Struggle and Survival in Patriarchal Society 201 Mohamed Haji (Ingiriis) Somali Women’s Political Struggle in Post Civil War Somalia 227 Yasmeen Maxamuud Contributors 239 Acknowledgements Somalia International Rehabilitation Centre (SIRC) expresses its profound thanks to the institutions and organisations that have sponsored the 2011 Horn of Africa conference, namely: the City of Lund, Lund University, Folke Bernadotte Academy, Forum Syd/Sida, ABF Lund, Folkuniversitetet in Lund, Stockholm Policy Group, United Nations Association in Lund, COSPE - Cooperazione Per Lo Sviluppo dei Paesi Emergenti in Nairobi Kenya, IIDA – Women Development Organisation in Nairobi Kenya, and UNDP in Nairobi, Kenya. We thank too all scholars, civics, practitioners, diplomats, government representa- tives and politicians, who made valuable contributions to the conference by present- ing valuable papers and statements, participating in valuable panel debates, moderat- ing conference workshops. We must stress our thanks to Prof. Arne Ardeberg, Prof. Benny Carlsson, Prof. Ole Elgström, Dr. Ulf Dahre from Lund University who have contributed a lot to the success of the Horn of Africa conferences. Special gratitude is due to the European Commission, the United Nations and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for their constant valuable input to the confer- ence. We also profoundly thank the partners of the Horn of Africa conference or- ganisations in Lund, namely the Sudanese Association, the Eritrea Association, the Ethiopian Association, and the Djibouti Association, who played a vital role in the great successes of the conference. We would like to thank the Mayor of the City of Lund, the Honourable Mrs Annika Annerby, for giving a warm welcoming and opening speech and warm recep- tions to all Horn of Africa conference guests. Special thanks to Count Pietersen, who has always very proficiently and efficiently chaired the Horn of Africa conferences with his co-chairs, Engineer Ishael Siroiney and Khadija Osoble, PhD Candidate. We would like to thank Nicklas Svensson of the Stockholm Policy Goup for edit- ing the proceedings of the 2011 Horn of Africa conference and Gillian Nilsson for proof-reading the proceedings of the conference. We would like to thank the Department of Sociology and the Department of Economic History of Lund University for printing the proceedings of the confer- ence. Finally, we thank everybody who participated in the conference and contributed to the causes of gender equality, the promotion of democracy, human rights, the rule of law, peace, security and development in the Horn of Africa region. Abdillahi Jama, Horn of Africa conference Coordinator Somalia International Rehabilitation Centre (SIRC) Lund, Sweden www.sirclund.se E-mail: [email protected] [email protected] Introduction Gillian Nilsson & Nicklas Svensson The 10th annual SIRC/LuHAF conference on the Horn of Africa focused on the role of women in promoting peace and development, and set out to • Raise awareness of women’s needs and situation in the Horn of Africa. • Raise awareness of Horn of African governments' social service expenditures. • Raise awareness of UNSCR 1325 and 1820 in a Horn of African context. • Promote the inclusion of Horn of African women in the decision-making po- sitions in their respective governments, as well as in regional and international organizations. • Promote women's (memberships) positions in governmental decision-making in- stitutions. • Promote the participation of Horn of African women in conflict prevention and resolution processes. • Promote networking between Horn of African women’s peace organizations, and other stakeholders. • Promote maintenance and protection of the due process of law and constitution- alism in the Horn of Africa. With a purpose to draw attention to the role of women in political and peace proc- esses at national and local levels in the Horn of Africa, the conference aimed to tackle issues often overlooked in the current context of conflicts in the Horn of Africa. SIRC organised for the first time in the past ten years a conference that solely focused on women’s role in peace and development in the Horn of Africa. It turned out to be one of the most appreciated conferences at many different levels by the participants. More than 190 participants took actively part in the discussions in and outside of the conference facilities during three days. Representatives from parliaments, ministries and government agencies, as well as from the United Nations, academia, civil society organisations, think tanks and journalists spanning across many countries in Africa, Europe and North America visited the conference. The participants engaged in many different ways throughout the conference. They provided statements, presented research articles and debated in workshops and panel discussions. The conference engaged many leading global and local women organisations and leaders. They were critically important to the success of the con- ference. Women ministers from the Horn of Africa and other prominent women leaders raised the level of professionalism and commitment to meet some of the objectives of the conference. The discussions elucidated the need for awareness raising about the UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820 amongst women at the local level in the Horn of Africa. There is a general need to reach out to women to inform and educate them about the resolutions, and enable them to play active roles in local and national political and peace processes. It especially concerns women in Somalia to see them a formative change agents in setting a peacebuilding agenda in Somalia, as women were in the Djibouti peace process. Consequently, the resolutions have been trans- lated into Somali language. The representative for UNPOS, Mr Christian Manahl, considered that despite the drought and the continuing violence, Somalia has at the present moment the best chance for 20 years of achieving peace. The major challenge now was to support the TFG, which is working closely with the UN office in Mogadishu. It is impor- tant that the EU continues to give economic support, despite the economic crisis in Europe. The Minister of Labour and Family Affairs in Somaliland, Ms Ilhan Mohamed Jama, told the conference that in Somaliland women are starting to take places in government at regional and national levels. The question of Reserved Seats and Quotas for women was taken up by several speakers. Speakers also bore witness to how Somali women, despite years of conflict and now drought, have seized new space, are taking many initiatives and showing a new resourcefulness and resilience. An important question that speakers returned to several times was the necessity of making a gender awareness analysis, leading to changes of attitudes and a new socialisation of men and women. Oppression and crimes against women occur not only in times of war, but are deeply embedded in traditional Somali society and sim- ply intensified in conflict situations. Dr Markus Böckenförde of the German Development Institute gave very concrete advice on points to be considered when writing a new constitution based on gender equality.