Welcome remarks at the conference “The Impact of Armed Conflict on Women”

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Excellencies, friends,

It is good to be “home”, and it is a great pleasure for me stand before this distinguished audience and speak about two of the most important issues on our agenda: the struggle for peace and the struggle for equal rights for men and women.

Først av alt vil jeg si et par ord på norsk. Jeg vil gratulerere med dagen – og gi ros til den verdige og flotte kampanjen som nå pågår, som dere har laget, med plakatene og sterke fotografier tatt av Marcel Lelienhof, som bringer viktige budskap, på busser og trikker, og på Rådhusplassen – hvor vi også finner et ”ønsketre”, et sted hvor vi kan henge opp våre ønsker, bønner og drømmer. ’Alt er ikke lov i krig og kjærlighet’, som det så treffende står på plakatene. Det er regler i krig. Vi må holde fast ved det.

Foreign Minister Støre during his speech at the Red Cross conference. The Organization's president, Thorvald Stoltenberg in the middle. Photo: MFA

There’s a German proverb that goes like this: “A great war leaves the country with three armies – an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves.” 

Today, the 8th of May – Henry Dunant’s birthday and Liberation Day in Norway – there is only one thing to say – as Dunant showed us, as the stories from Solferino showed us – war is terrible. Always.

We know what liberation means. But today, there are still millions of people who do not. In our day and age, most wars are civil wars fuelled by ethnic conflict. These can be the worst kind of war. As PRIO has explained to us – and they know all about it.

The first victim of civil war is society itself. The very fabric of society is torn into pieces. Whatever progress had previously been made is swept away.

In wars today, civilians not only make up the majority of victims, they are also increasingly the targets. Seventy years ago, the town of Guernica was carpet bombed. This was in late April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso’s masterpiece, which depicts the agony, suffering and destruction caused by war, still moves us deeply today. Many of you have a reproduction of Guernica in your offices.

Women are more vulnerable than men when society collapses. From rape and displacement to the denial of the right to education, food and health care, women bear the largest share of the suffering. They carry the heaviest burden. As Bishop Emeritus of Oslo, Gunnar Stålsett said at the international conference on Women for Peace in Jakarta last week: “Women’s voices are critical to the needs of society, especially in processes of reconciliation.” They have been through it.

Even where there is no military conflict, violence against women is one of the most common forms of violence in the world.

And it gets worse in times of war. From Congo and Sudan to Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq, women are subject to violence and targeted by the parties to conflicts.

Women who speak out publicly in defence of women’s rights are threatened by more violence. Their voices become targets. The public space available to women shrinks in times of war.

Rape is increasingly used as a weapon of war. A 15 year old girl was abducted at night from her home in the north of Uganda by the Lords Resistance Army. This was her plea: “I would like you to convey a message for me. Please do your best to tell the world what is happening to us, the children, so that other children don’t have to experience such violence.”

Her story is not unique.

Women and girls are raped in Darfur when they go out to fetch firewood. In Liberia, over 40% of the women and girls surveyed have been victims of sexual violence. In Eastern Congo, more than 2 000 rapes of women and girls are reported every month. Girls and young women are particularly vulnerable both as child soldiers and in relation to other forms of abuse in armed conflict. It is unbelievable. Figures from refugee camps are daunting reading.

We all agree that the picture is bleak. And we all agree that what is happening is totally unacceptable.

We must work together to put an end to sexual violence. We must work to support the victims, and we must speak out. We must generate public awareness, in order to end impunity and to address the long-term impact on societies.

This is why we are gathered here at this conference. And this is why I am speaking to you on behalf of the Norwegian Government.

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Sexual abuse against women stems from deep-rooted prejudice, inequality and discrimination. And from the fact that it is indeed an effective weapon of war that humiliates and weakens.

When perpetrators go unpunished, they will strike again. Society’s wounds will not heal, and assaults on women will continue even after a country has emerged from conflict.

As the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, said: “Rendering justice to the victims is not only a moral imperative, but also a precondition for reconciliation and peace.”

The international criminal tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda have done groundbreaking work in defining systematic violence against women as crimes. Those responsible can thus be held accountable.

It is encouraging that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has begun to prosecute people suspected of such crimes in Darfur and Uganda. Under the ICC Statute, rape, sexual slavery, enforced sterilisation and all other forms of sexual violence of comparable gravity are considered war crimes. If they are committed in connection with widespread or systematic attacks on a civilian population, they are crimes against humanity.

Still, governments may refuse to surrender suspects for trial. Victims may be reluctant to come forward to testify – out of fear or lack of confidence in the legal system.

We have a long way to go.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone is an example of a new category of internationalised courts that has made progress in this area by working in parallel with a truth and reconciliation commission and a framework to protect victims.

I think this is the approach we must take.

We have to admit that gender justice is the exception rather than the rule.

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I am glad to see Elisabeth Rehn here today. As you all know, six years ago she produced a landmark report, together with Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, on women, war and peace around the world. The human rights violations they documented are still the reality for women and girls in today’s war-torn countries and regions.

Even though Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security is widely known now, implementation is slow and fragmented.

On 8 March 2006, we launched the Norwegian Action Plan for the Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325. Elisabeth was with us on that occasion as well.

Through this action plan, Norway is working for the increased participation and representation of women in local and international peacebuilding processes. We will intensify our efforts to safeguard women’s right to protection in conflict situations.

One major problem, even in our own system, is that men often expect women to take care of matters relating to women. Some men even consider resolution 1325 to be a “special interest” area that they need not take too seriously themselves.

They are very wrong.

Let me put this clearly: We aim to make Norway’s foreign policy more gender sensitive. The plight of women in war, and the role of women in peace processes and peacebuilding, is not a “special interest”. It is a main priority. We expect everyone involved, men and women, to grasp that point.

We will also hold our partners accountable. This includes the multilateral organisations where we are a member and contributor, the development banks, bilateral partners and NGOs that receive public funding.

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Now, Dr Helga Hernes has increased our knowledge and raised awareness through her tireless efforts throughout her career as an academic, as a politician and as a diplomat. Helga has pointed out that in modern war, and in internal and ethnic conflicts, women are abandoned, nothing less. They have to provide for their families and are more exposed to violence than men. In short, it is well-documented that the long-term consequences of modern wars are disproportionately suffered by women and children.

This pattern is most clearly visible among internally displaced persons. Inside countries. The majority of people in refugee camps are women and children. The main responsibility for children is often left to women, and many become single breadwinners. Large numbers of internally displaced persons and other civilians are at risk of violence and abuse.

So, how can we then improve the gender sensitivity of humanitarian relief efforts? This is the question we have to ask ourselves.
 
Despite everything we now know about the need for gender-sensitive humanitarian efforts, more concrete and concerted action is needed. The resolution 1325 action plan is a step in the right direction.

The Norwegian Government will continue to cooperate closely with Norwegian NGOs, many of which – including the Norwegian Red Cross – have worked to increase the visibility of this issue. The Ministry requires that all humanitarian initiatives that receive public support include a gender perspective. In their plans, execution and evaluation processes.

We also cooperate closely with UN agencies. Norway supports a pool of gender experts at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). We worked actively to support the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) when that agency established the position of a special gender expert at the High Commissioner’s office.

We have helped establish a dedicated gender adviser position in the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), and we have emphasised gender-related activities in individual peace operations.

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Friends,

In most cases, armed conflict reduces the public space for women’s active participation in political, economic and social life.

This is a fact that we must not forget. Peacemaking is not just an exercise involving combatants, it must involve the other half of society, the other part, all of society, it must include women.

Norway is working along several dimensions to increase the participation and representation of women in peace processes.

Peace processes benefit from the involvement of women. This goes without saying.

The involvement of women strengthens the implementation of peace agreements. It ensures broader support for changes that will affect people’s everyday lives.

We need to promote women’s participation both because women have an equal right to be involved, and because their inputs add value to all decisions.

We face a number of psychological, historical and traditional barriers to the inclusion of women in peace processes. There is little doubt that women are underrepresented at the highest levels of military and political hierarchies in many conflict areas.

But we must ask: who holds the key to peace? Are those who make war also most suited to make peace? Are those who deconstruct the ones most suited to reconstruct?

Sometimes they are the only ones who can make peace, but they are rarely the best suited to do so.

We need to strive for a better gender balance between negotiators in the peace processes where we are involved. This may be a minor contribution but it is a visible one.

We must intensify our efforts to ensure a more even gender balance between our own participants in peace and reconciliation processes. As facilitator we are not in a position to force parties to increase their proportion of women in their negotiating delegations.

However, we do have a responsibility to continuously remind the parties of the importance of this gender perspective.

Norway supports local women’s groups in conflict areas around the world, where we are involved. There are numerous examples of women coming together across dividing lines created by war to find ways to put an end to violence and to work for peace.

The international community has an important role to play in providing economic, political and logistical assistance for these efforts.

Norway has, for example, supported the establishment of an international women’s commission to promote peace in Israel and the Palestinian Territory. I meet frequently with this commission. Its purpose is to draw on the voices and perspectives of women who experience the conflict in their daily lives, and to hold all parties accountable for fulfilling their obligations to include women in the negotiation process.

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So let us agree, dear friends, that there is a “fourth army”. I mentioned earlier the three armies that remain after war. There is a fourth – one that is not included in the German proverb: the army of women struggling to keep society together, struggling to rebuild society, struggling to resolve the conflict, to take care of their families.

These women may have gone unnoticed before, but the existence of “the fourth army” is increasingly taken as a point of departure when new international mechanisms are established, such as the UN Peacebuilding Commission – another, new instrument.

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We must not forget that progress is being made. It is vital to say this: we must not lose hope or our faith in humanity.

In the past year, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became the first woman head of state in Africa, and Liberia adopted an anti-rape law.

Women in Sierra Leone pushed for laws on human trafficking, inheritance and property rights. In many countries, new laws and regulations were implemented to promote gender equality.

There is global recognition that gender equality is key to human development and to human security.

Rape has been recognised as a weapon of war and a crime against humanity. Women’s human rights have gained a place on every major international agenda. But of course – as always – there it is often a long way from agenda to action.

What is needed now is a strong gender entity within the UN system that can bring the system together to promote strategies and practices.

This was one of the main recommendations of the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on UN System-wide Coherence, which was co-chaired by Prime Minister Stoltenberg. Streamlining and consolidating three of the UN’s existing gender institutions as a UN gender equality and women’s empowerment programme, will make the UN better equipped to mobilise forces of change at the global level and inspire enhanced results at the country level.

We have done this on a smaller scale in my own Ministry, by establishing a dedicated gender unit to follow up our action plans and make sure they are implemented.

I can assure you that Norway will continue to be at the forefront of efforts to protect and assist women in armed conflict. We will continue to promote gender equality as part of our international as well as our domestic policy.

“The fourth army” will have our support.

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Now, I look forward to continued excellent cooperation with the research community and NGOs in Norway. And I would like to thank and congratulate the Norwegian Red Cross and the International Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO) for taking the initiative for this conference – and for the campaign they are now running in the media to influence public opinion in Norway.                         

Thank you.