THE WPS AGENDA AND The ‘Refugee CRISIS’: MiSSING CONNECTIONS AND MISSED OPPOrtUNITIES IN EUROPE Aiko Holvikivi and Audrey Reeves 6/2017 + The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda has successfully constructed the figure of the conflict-affected woman as a subject worthy of attention, inclusion and protection on the part of the international community. This concern is especially palpable when she is physically present in a conflict zone. As the conflict-affected woman flees and seeks safety and security in Europe, however, she moves to the periphery of the area of concern of WPS policies and discourses. In this working paper, we demonstrate that forcibly displaced persons skirt the margins of the WPS agenda: refugees are present in WPS policies, but as the subjects of marginal and inconsistent concern. We interrogate the effects of this marginalisation, and suggest that including refugee questions in WPS policymaking and scholarship carries the potential to improve security provision for those who have fled to Europe, as well as to revive the transformative potential of the WPS agenda. The Women, Peace and Security agenda, of armed conflict. In so doing, the WPS men when, in a recent survey of the role of codified in United Nations Security Council agenda has successfully constructed the parliaments in advancing the WPS agenda Resolution 1325 (2000) and subsequently conflict-affected woman as a subject worthy in NATO member countries, only Turkey’s expanded through seven further Security of attention, inclusion and protection on parliament mentioned refugee protection as Council resolutions and a series of regional the part of the international community.3 part of its efforts to implement WPS.4 While and national action plans, establishes a this agenda has successfully established the platform from which to engage in a “radical Conflict-affected women who have been conflict-affected woman as a figure who reform of peace and security governance”.1 forcibly displaced, especially those on can no longer be ignored in the governance This agenda lends the Security Council’s the move to seek asylum in Europe, have of peace and security, it seems that this “symbolic capital”2 to feminist demands remained peripheral figures in this agenda. concern only extends to women who are for women’s participation in the governance Our attention was drawn to the marginality physically placed in geographic zones of of peace and security, their protection from of displaced women, and the gendered conflict. conflict-related violence and the prevention security concerns of refugee women and Aiko Holvikivi is a PhD candidate at the LSE Gender Institute and a researcher at the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security. Audrey Reeves is a teaching unit organiser in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol, where she recently was awarded her PhD. 1 Paul Kirby and Laura J. Shepherd, In this paper, we suggest that the WPS agenda extends to UN agencies, the Security Council, “Reintroducing Women, Peace and Security,” International Affairs 92 (2) (2016), 249. only rarely intersects with policy and research and conflict-affected parties, but not to UN 2 Diane Otto, “The Security Council’s Alliance discourses on refugees. We argue that this member states more generally. of Gender Legitimacy: The Symbolic separation of the two policy areas is politically Capital of Resolution 1325,” in Fault Lines of International Legitimacy, ed. Hilary produced and normatively problematic: the Despite the fact that concern for refugees Charlesworth and Jean-Marc Coicaud fact that the conflict-affected woman on the is limited to zones of conflict in the SCRs, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 263. move does not appear to enjoy the same some national action plans (NAPs) in 12 3 Sam Cook, “The ‘Woman-in- Conflict’ at the policy attention and discursive prioritisation European countries have expanded on these UN Security Council: A Subject of Practice,” is particularly troubling given that the number commitments. The majority of European NAPs International Affairs 92 (2) (2016): 353-72. of forcibly displaced persons is at a global make explicit mention of refugees.13 Some, 4 Audrey Reeves, “The Role of Parliaments in 5 Advancing the Women, Peace and Security historical high. We first examine the extent such as the UK NAP, mention refugees in Agenda in Nato Member Countries: A Survey to which the two areas overlap, with a view to conflict-affected areas, through provisions by the Nato Parliamentary Assembly,” (Geneva: DCAF, 2015), 20. demonstrate that this intersection is narrow, such as for “’safe spaces’ programming to 5 United Nations High Commissioner but could be productively broadened. Next, protect adolescent girls from violence in for Refugees, “Global Trends: Forced we engage in a brief exploration as to why conflict and post-conflict settings, including Displacement in 2015,” (Geneva: UNHCR, 2016). the separation persists. Finally, we discuss projects in refugee settings”.14 In contrast, 6 At the time of writing, the WPS resolutions the political and normative implications of other NAPs make specific mention of refugees count: SCR 1325 (2000), SCR 1820 (2008), SCR leaving displaced women out of European and asylum seekers within the host country.15 1888 (2009), SCR 1889 (2009), SCR 1960 (2010), SCR 2106 (2013), SCR 2122 (2013), SCR 2242 WPS discussions. For example, the French NAP commits to (2015). For a summary of the resolutions, see Kirby and Shepherd, “Reintroducing Women, the objective: “Increase consideration of Peace and Security,” 251. issues linked to gender and violence against 7 Adopting the methodology developed in THE LIMITED ATTENTION women in asylum procedures.”16 While these a recent UNHCR study, we searched the OF WPS TO REFUGEES resolutions for 11 refugee-related terms: commitments are not consistently articulated asylum, displace(d/ment), IDP(s), migrant(s), in European NAPs, they nonetheless evidence migration, on the move, refuge(es), At the core of the WPS agenda sit eight stateless(ness), flee, border and returnee. the possibility of a broader interpretation of Gender Equality Unit/Division of International thematic United Nations Security Council the spirit of the SCRs – one that views conflict- Protection, “National Action Plans (NAPs) on UNSCRs on Women, Peace, and Security: resolutions (SCRs) on ‘Women, Peace and affectedness as attaching to people rather Extracts and Analysis of Text on Forced Security’.6 Forced displacement7 is mentioned than places.17 Displacement and Statelessness,” (Geneva: 8 UNHCR, 2016). in all but two of the resolutions. The SCRs 8 SCR 1888 (2009) and SCR 1960 (2010) make no place obligations on UN agencies to provide In sum, this overview of policy commitments mention of forced displacement. protection from sexual violence in UN- demonstrates that the WPS agenda does in 9 United Nations Security Council, Resolution managed refugee camps;9 on parties to fact offer scope for considering questions 1820, UN Doc. S/RES/1820, 19 June 2008. para 10. armed conflict to respect the humanitarian related to refugees who attempt to flee 10 10 United Nations Security Council, Resolution nature of refugee camps; and on the war and violence by undertaking a journey 1325, UN Doc. S/RES/1325, 31 October 2000. Security Council to consider violations of towards Europe. This promise is implied by the para 12; Resolution 1889, UN Doc. S/RES/1889, 5 October 2009. para 12. international humanitarian law, including Security Council Resolutions themselves, and 11 United Nations Security Council, Resolution forced displacement, when adopting developed further in some European national 2242, UN Doc. S/RES/2242, 13 October 2015. sanctions.11 In other words, the SCRs recognise action plans. However, while present, the para 6. forced displacement as a gendered security conflict-affected woman on the move remains concern, but only in the context of conflict- at the periphery of this agenda – refugee affected areas. Further, the scope of obligation questions are not consistently invoked in WPS discussions, and when they are, they are rarely at the centre of the agenda. The visibility of the + conflict-affected woman in policy documents Including refugee questions in WPS policymaking progressively decreases the further away she and scholarship carries the potential to improve moves from the zone of conflict. As she flees to Europe, she all but disappears into the security provision for those who have fled to Europe, horizon of what is understood to constitute as well as to revive the transformative potential of the core zone of the WPS agenda. the WPS agenda. 2 ERASING THE CONFLICT- AFFECTED WOMAN ON + THE MOVE: ENABLING Refugees are present in WPS policies, but as the subjects CONDITIONS of marginal and inconsistent concern. We contend that this invisibility of the conflict-affected woman on the move is not simply natural, but a discursive construction Considering this, we suggest that the key 12 For this paper, we examined the 28 European worth interrogating. Following strands of Union Member States and the EFTA states of reason that the conflict-affected woman Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. 18 poststructuralist feminist scholarship, we disappears from WPS agendas is that, once Out of these 32 countries, at the time of argue that the WPS agenda in Europe can writing, 20 have adopted NAPs. WILPF, she leaves the conflict zone, she is no longer “Member States,” http://peacewomen.org/ be understood as a discourse constructed a subject of ‘security initiatives’ undertaken member-states around a series of hierarchically ordered within what is understood as an insecure, 13 14 out of 20 NAPs examined make mention binary oppositions, particularly between a of refugees. The NAPs of the following warring and patriarchal ‘outside’. We argue, countries do not mention refugees at all: ‘peaceful inside’ in Europe, and a ‘conflicted therefore, that the limited application of the Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, outside’.