Peace Building
Women and children belong to the most vulnerable groups when it comes to war. They experience sever forms of violence, including sexualised gender based violence. Most often women and girls are double-traumatised as they do not only have to deal with the consequences of rape but are excluded by their families and communities because they are held responsible for the incident. Due to the fact that the honour of a man and a woman’s family is closely connected to the integrity of a woman’s sexuality, women are adjudged to have brought shame over their husbands and/or families. The guilt is being imputed to the woman rather than the perpetrator. As a result, women and girls have to care for themselves and their children without having any support by their families and communities.
Nonetheless, women are significantly involved in the re-construction process of post-war and post-conflict countries. Additionally, they often act as peacemakers within their families and communities. The UN Security Council Resolution 1325 from the year 2000 acknowledges women’s important role within the peace processes of post-war countries. The resolution demands that all UN member states integrate more women into the peace negations and security policy planning and confirms that sexualized gender based violence is a hindrance to a successful peace building process.
UN Resolution 1820 even goes a step further by acknowledging that sexualized gender based violence is used as a weapon of war and that the application thereof is a crime which can be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court as genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.
In March 2009 the human rights and politics department of medica mondiale started a three-year advocacy project called “Political Participation of Women and Girls in Afghanistan, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo”, which is funded by the European Commission. Tying in with the above mentioned resolutions the project aim at empowering women to participate in the peace processes and security policy planning of their countries. By means of capacity building instruments - trainings, advocacy activities and networking - the women involved shall be enabled to take an active role in decision making processes at civil society and state level regarding their access to human security and engagement in political processes.
medica mondiale is implementing this project together with the medica mondiale organisations in Afghanistan and Liberia and with its partner organization in the DRCongo, PAIF. The Brussles based research organization ISIS Europe, which works on conflict prevention, crisis management, peace building, arms control and disarmament, is involved as further project partner in the field of the project’s advocacy activities. The project management, which is implemented from the head office in Cologne, is supported by a project coordinator within every country, who is responsible for the successful implementation of the project activities on the ground.
The content of the project is structured in following three clusters: trainings, advocacy activities and network activities.
