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Quota for women in Guatemala peace mission to the UN in Haiti  
(photo
UN  Marco Dormino)

UN Call for more Women as Peacekeepers

Job opportunity and promotion of gender equality are the objectives of the international body.

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While Swiss parliament is divided about sending Swiss military operations as peacekeepers for the UN, the agency wants to increase the number of women police officers for such missions.

Currently the police only account for 8% of the UN forces, and the goal is that by 2014 it will be 20%, said Andrew Hughes, Police Adviser to the UN, in reporting the agency's call to recruit more female police officers.

According to the official, the call to recruit more women at the UN will have a positive effect at the level of employment policies in the member nations of the organisation. “This effort will also encourage the growth of female police personnel in all countries”, he said.

Combating Gender Violence

Moreover, the advisor of the police force attached to the UN, Ann-Marie Orler, said that increasing the number of women working in peacekeeping operations for the United Nations “is an urgent need”.

In her view, more women police officers will effectively promote the help and protection to women against the growing use of sexual abuse, which is often used as a weapon in armed conflict. It is also a matter of “equal participation of women police officers at all levels of the United Nations”, he added.

According to officials, they may assume a greater role in reporting sex crimes “without being limited to, an area in which women police can remove barriers to facilitate research on gender violence”, he said.   "While confronting violence against women and children, of course, is a responsibility of all officers, both men and women, but women are increasing the value of peacekeeping missions and improving relations with local people”.

Seven Missions in the World

Ann-Marie Orler announced the launching of seven new missions of peacekeeping in East Timor, Liberia, Kosovo, southern Sudan, Haiti, Burundi and Sierra Leone, which sent specialist units to investigate and help victims of gender and sexual violence.

“We can do better if we have more women police officers. However, we depend on Member States to designate them. The UN, therefore, strongly encourages troop-contributing countries to establish a policy on gender equality”.

 In the immediate future the UN needs for qualified female staff for the French peacekeeping missions in Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Chad and Ivory Coast.

Countries that contribute more female peacekeepers for UN operations are Nigeria, India, South Africa, Ghana, Zambia, Cameroon, Nepal, Philippines, Ivory Coast and Canada.

In the case of Switzerland, the women who do voluntary military service are in a minority, despite the fact that last year their number increased. As to sending Swiss soldiers to peacekeeping missions abroad, the issue remains the subject of parliamentary debate between advocates of neutrality at all costs and whose who favour a form of “active diplomacy”.

Swisslatin / UN press (19.08.2009)

 
 
 
 
 

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