Women’s participation in peace processes: a review of literature

Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms Among Polyvictimized Women in the Colombian Armed Conflict: The Mediating Role of Social Acknowledgment

“…Women are not only victims of armed conflicts, but also leaders and peacemakers. This implies not reducing the role of women to more traditional spheres of peace education but engaging in women peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding activities, although everyday interventions show us that women still do not systematically participate in decision making about reconstruction and peace negotiations (Jansen, 2006;Adjei, 2019). This aim must be achieved through the direct involvement of women, and women's organizations, victim of gender violence in armed conflict situations, but also through counseling and support from professionals well versed on the nuances of each context and situation.…”

“…This is not a situation limited to Colombia as has also been the case in countries, such as Afghanistan or Myanmar, in which persistent social structures that limit a women's presence in civil representation contexts have not been erased after the conflict (Zulver, 2021). As Adjei (2019) pointed out gender is often used as a rhetorical device to reinforce narratives to exclude women from the peace process.…”

Diplomacy and peace in fragile contexts

“…Conflict data gathered by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) in June 2020 suggests that the ceasefire call has had little effect on the overall level of violence worldwide. The most positive reactions were statements of support with no commitment to action, and in several contexts, including Iraq and Mozambique, violence has increased since late March (ACLED, 2020 [45]).…”

Women and Transitional Justice in Africa and Latin America

“…Significant works have been done to give a wider coverage to these gendered harms to the public, at both conceptual and empirical levels, for example the everyday experience of women in displacement and refugee camps that has created multiple forms of vulnerability and insecurity; the manifold ways poverty intersect with women's full participation in administration, judicial, and politics; the ways in which women's remembering experiences of violence is inextricably linked with their attempt at the public sphere (Okello and Hovil 2007;Stockwell 2014;Fiske and Shackel 2019), and yet women's participation in peace negotiation has remained an unfulfilled aspect in gender studies (UN Women 2015;Duncanson 2016;Shepherd 2016;Krause et al 2018;Adjei 2019). Notwithstanding the multifarious resolutions, energetic advocacy asserting women's indispensable impact in peace processes and peacebuilding, the reality leaves much to be desired; as women's participation remains conspicuously low; the number of female delegates in peace negotiations has been an average of 9% and a 4% rate of signatories in peace negotiations globally since the passage of UNSCR 1325 in 2000 (UN Women 2011).…”

“…Indeed, the broader assumptions, whether normative or utility-base of how women's participation in conflict prevention, peace negotiations, and post-conflict reconstruction would promote durable peace (Krause et al 2018;Anderson 2016;Myrttinen 2016;UNSG 2016;Stone 2014;Caprioli et al 2010;Boals 1973), have been based on the instrumental invocation, which portrays women as agentive subjects that can unearth the root causes of violence (Chinkin 2012;Adjei 2019). According to these arguments, the integration of women in these peace negotiations would not only legitimize an otherwise secretive, patriarchal, and elitist process that privileges perpetrators but that the likelihood of reaching a peace accord and its eventual and successful implementation is intricately linked with women's meaningful participation in these peace processes (O'Reilly et al 2015;Martin 2006).…”