Department of Peacekeeping Operations
Background
The mission of the Department of Peace Operations (DPO) in the United Nations Secretariat is to plan, prepare, manage and direct United Nations peacekeeping operations so that they can effectively fulfil their mandates under the overall authority of the Security Council and General Assembly, and under the command vested in the Secretary-General. DPO is a member of UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict. DPO provides political and executive direction to UN peace operations around the world and maintains contact with the Security Council, troop and financial contributors, and parties to the conflict in the implementation of Security Council mandates. Within the purview of mandates of the respective missions, with due reference to relevant Security Council resolutions, DPO works to prevent and respond to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV).
Areas of Focus
Towards implementing its specific mandates on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), DPO works to address all forms of sexual and gender-based violence against women, including sexual exploitation and abuse by civilian and uniformed peacekeeping personnel.
As each functional unit of peacekeeping has direct responsibility for supporting prevention and response to sexual and gender-based violence, activities are mission and mandate specific. The women, peace and security architecture in the Missions represented through the presence of gender units, senior gender advisors, senior women protection advisors, gender advisors in uniform and the gender focal persons across the various functions and components of the peacekeeping missions facilitate the implementation of WPS mandate and address sexual and gender-based violence through partnerships with a variety of actors, including women’s civil society organizations and networks, host governments, regional bodies and other United Nations entities . Specific focus areas for addressing SGBV include investing in gendered conflict analysis to identify risks, vulnerabilities and drivers of SGBV, identifying and implementing targeted actions in planning and implementing of protection of civilian strategies and community violence reduction programmes that identify particular risks and threats faced by women, contributing to strengthening institutional response mechanisms/referral pathways for SGBV survivors, providing targeted awareness raising, trainings and context specific guidance to address SGBV risks faced by women and girls and contribute to establishing gender responsive national security and justice mechanisms, including legal frameworks to address SGBV.
In missions with a CRSV mandate, Women’s Protection Advisers , engage in a dialogue with parties to the conflict to elicit formal commitments from their leaders on preventing and addressing CRSV in accordance with their international obligations.
Peacekeeping missions raise awareness on Sexual and Gender Based Violence through events/media campaigns during the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence.
Missions also worked to strengthen women’s participation in building a protective environment. In Central Africa Republic. 46.5% of the early warning mechanisms supported by MINUSCA compromised at least 30 per cent women; in Mali and Darfur, CRSV survivor networks were established; in Abyei UNISFA enhanced its early warning system by partnering with Abyei Women’s Association in identifying gender-specific triggers and events that have the potential to escalate the local conflict; in Darfur, Sudan, the 54 women-led protection networks established by UNAMID serve as unique examples of how women have helped prevent conflicts and contribute to building a protective environment. MINUSCA’s support included formation of 16 women’s situation rooms and a hotline to strengthen women’s protection during election. In DRC, MONUSCO supported women’s organizations to map security threats and hot spots for women and girls, which informed the interventions of security and defence forces and other protection actors.
Through public communications and reporting, peacekeeping operations contributed to raising awareness on conflict-related sexual violence and promoting prevention and the condemnation of harmful stigmatizing attitudes towards victims/survivors. For instance, in South Sudan, UNMISS and OHCHR published a joint public report on access to health for sexual violence survivors that increased attention to the lack of access to sexual and reproductive health. UNMISS and the Government subsequently launched a joint nationwide campaign against stigmatization of sexual violence survivors, which remains one of the key barriers to accessing healthcare. In Mali, for the International Day on the Elimination Against Sexual Violence in Conflict on 19 June 2020, the MINUSMA SRSG joined voices with heads of UN agencies, government representatives and diplomatic missions to publicly condemn CRSV on social media. During the 16 Days of Activism Campaign against Gender-Based Violence, the Deputy SRSG-Political Affairs took part in a live radio debate on the Mission’s efforts to eradicate CRSV.
Gender units invest in targeted SGBV prevention activities that include prevention against VAW across the Missions through targeted capacity strengthening training, implementing gender analysis to identify enablers of SGBV; invest in community based early warning mechanisms and inclusion of specific SGBV indicators and reporting benchmarks across all functions to identify timely identification of SGBV risks; and establish partnerships with women civil society organisations to collectively develop strategies for an enabling environment that prevents and mitigates SGBV
In March 2017 DPKO produces a range of communication materials in line with the new gender policy have been developed to provide coherence and consistent advocacy on SGBV prevention.
DDR/CVR teams across 5 peacekeeping missions (MONUSCO, MINUSCA, MINUSMA, UNAMID and MINUJUSTH ) missions have designed and implemented a series of Community Violence Reduction (CVR) projects, aimed at preventing and reducing violence at the community level in both ongoing and post-conflict scenarios. While interventions target a wide set of actors (e.g. members of armed groups, youth at-risk and community members), these initiates particularly improve security conditions for vulnerable groups, including women and children. Moreover, by ensuring their participation, CVR projects serve to mobilize and empower women within their communities and, as a result, contribute to the constitution of a protective environment.
Gender-specific mine action programming: UNMAS makes every effort to ensure that its mine action programming is tailored according to specific cultures and gender of the beneficiaries. In some settings, this means women conducting single-gender risk education sessions (e.g. in Iraq in 2017).
Recruitment of women in mine action programming: Research in Colombia and Lebanon indicates that women employed in mine action (which is traditionally male -dominated) increase their voice and influence in their communities: http://www.gmap.ch/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/final-report-ARS-2016.pdf