{"id":53007,"date":"2020-01-20T13:25:39","date_gmt":"2020-01-20T02:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=53007"},"modified":"2020-01-20T13:25:39","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T02:25:39","slug":"operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/","title":{"rendered":"Operational challenges for the women, peace and security agenda in South Sudan"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Experience in the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) highlights many of the operational challenges in implementing the UN\u2019s agenda of women, peace and security (WPS). As I reflected on my recent UNMISS deployment as a military gender adviser, two critical aspects came to the fore: the UN\u2019s credibility challenge in advocating for women\u2019s participation in peacebuilding, and the tensions between fulfilling a mandate to protect civilians and supporting the implementation of a peace agreement that increases the risks to women and girls.<\/p>\n

South Sudan became independent in 2011, following the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended 20\u00a0years of civil war in Sudan. UNMISS was then established to succeed the UN Mission in Sudan, but in 2013 violence quickly re-emerged between the Sudan Peoples\u2019 Liberation Movement, led by President Salva Kiir and comprising mainly ethnic Dinka fighters, and the Sudan Peoples\u2019 Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO), led by former vice president Riek Machar and with mainly Nuer fighters. A power-sharing peace agreement was signed in August 2015 but failed when heavy fighting broke out again in July 2016 in the capital, Juba.<\/p>\n

The 2015 agreement was revitalised in September 2018. It provided for a quota of 35% women\u2019s participation in the implementation committees and was signed by Amer Manyok Deng as the representative of the women\u2019s bloc. The quota reflects \u2018the importance of [women\u2019s] equal participation and full involvement\u2019 in peacebuilding and \u2018the need to increase their role in decision-making\u2019, which was stressed in UN Security Council resolution 1325 (2000). Implementation of the quota has been slow, although Angelina Teny, for the SPLM-IO, chaired the Defence and Security Committee from late 2018.<\/p>\n

UNMISS\u2019s mandate gives it four main tasks: to protect civilians, to create conditions conducive to the delivery of humanitarian assistance, to monitor and investigate human rights violations, and, currently, to support the implementation of the revitalised peace agreement. In advocating for the 35% women\u2019s participation quota in that agreement, however, the UN has created a significant credibility challenge for itself that\u2019s apparent to local authorities and communities.<\/p>\n

The UNMISS civilian component has 26% women, the police approximately 20%, and the military only 4%. At the leadership level, despite the appointment of Police Commissioner Unaisi Vuniwaqa (Fiji), women\u2019s participation is lower again. Only one female military contingent commander has served in UNMISS (Lieutenant Colonel Katie Hislop, British Engineering Task Force 2017). Anecdotally, there are few military women in roles that are visible to the local population and in senior operational planning or staff roles, and their overall visibility to the local community as part of UNMISS is more limited than that of men serving in the mission.<\/p>\n

The UN\u2019s uniformed gender parity strategy<\/a> focuses on increasing the proportion of women in missions, but its numerical approach gives insufficient weight to where and how women are employed. This negates the Security Council\u2019s assertions that deploying more women increases community engagement and the mission\u2019s ability to implement the WPS agenda. Rather than just percentages, emphasis also needs to be placed on deploying women into visible UNMISS decision-making roles, particularly at colonel level and above. A force leadership that normalises female participation provides a credible basis for advocacy, as well as a model for contributing militaries that don\u2019t yet have their own senior female officer cohort.<\/p>\n

Operationalising women\u2019s participation is more than a practical challenge for WPS and reflects on mission credibility. A similar challenge arises for UNMISS for the protection of civilians, which is another pillar of WPS and a key mandated task.<\/p>\n

UNMISS\u2019s responsibility to protect civilians specifically includes the protection of women and children from conflict-related sexual violence. Campaigns of such violence have continued following the peace agreement, including a reported mass rape near Bentiu in September\u2013December 2018. Importantly for operational planning, an investigation<\/a> by UNMISS and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights found that the risk factors for organised sexual violence in Bentiu included large numbers of fighters in \u2018stand-by\u2019 mode awaiting the implementation of the peace agreement and the presence of armed youth militias. Those risks are likely to increase further when the cantonment of forces proceeds as part of the peace implementation. Thus, the processes that were intended to facilitate peace between the main security actors have increased the risk of violence for others. Counterintuitively, as violence between some armed groups decreased with the peace agreement, the risk of sexual violence against civilians went up.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult for UNMISS to reconcile its mandates both to protect the population from sexual violence and to support the implementation of the peace agreement. This problem has been compounded by the fact that the perpetrators include government forces that are parties to the agreement. An added level of complexity is the persistent denial of UNMISS freedom of movement by government forces, which was criticised in Security Council resolution 2459 (2019). The UN\u2019s 2013 policy on human rights due diligence only partially addresses this problem by requiring peacekeepers to avoid supporting human rights violators in their operations.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s particularly difficult to strike an operational balance between these competing tasks when UNMISS\u2019s mandate offers limited direction beyond requiring the mission to prioritise the protection of civilians in the use of resources. The risk is that the security of women and girls is subordinated to the implementation of the peace agreement on the assumption that their short- to medium-term increased risk will be reduced in the longer term if peace is achieved\u2014but when the implementation of the gender-specific aspects of the agreement is also slow, that mitigation seems increasingly unhelpful.<\/p>\n

While these challenges are significant, it shouldn\u2019t be assumed that they undermine the relevance or utility of WPS, although they do call for creative approaches and an explicit balancing of mandate interests in the pursuit of peace and security for all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Experience in the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) highlights many of the operational challenges in implementing the UN\u2019s agenda of women, peace and security (WPS). As I reflected on my recent UNMISS deployment as …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1033,"featured_media":53009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[150,1843,92,1002,1868],"class_list":["post-53007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-peacekeeping","tag-south-sudan","tag-united-nations","tag-women","tag-wps"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOperational challenges for the women, peace and security agenda in South Sudan | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Operational challenges for the women, peace and security agenda in South Sudan | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Experience in the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) highlights many of the operational challenges in implementing the UN\u2019s agenda of women, peace and security (WPS). As I reflected on my recent UNMISS deployment as ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-01-20T02:25:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/GettyImages-618507012.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Angeline Lewis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Angeline Lewis\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/GettyImages-618507012.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/GettyImages-618507012.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":683,\"caption\":\"WAU, SOUTH SUDAN - OCTOBER 26: South Sudanese people, who were internally relocated because of the civil war and various violent attacks, are seen at Civilian protection camp founded by the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) in Wau, in the Bahr el Ghazal region of South Sudan on October 26, 2016. More than 28,000 live in makeshift sheds at the camp. (Photo by Bruno Bierrenbach Feder\/Anadolu Agency\/Getty Images)\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/\",\"name\":\"Operational challenges for the women, peace and security agenda in South Sudan | The Strategist\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-01-20T02:25:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-01-20T02:25:39+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/ca642f65adc70c6af8e4ca8dbc2fbf4e\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Operational challenges for the women, peace and security agenda in South Sudan\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/ca642f65adc70c6af8e4ca8dbc2fbf4e\",\"name\":\"Angeline Lewis\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/723c1a661c8b2d9de00a052cc171d86c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/723c1a661c8b2d9de00a052cc171d86c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Angeline Lewis\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/author\/angeline-lewis\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Operational challenges for the women, peace and security agenda in South Sudan | The Strategist","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Operational challenges for the women, peace and security agenda in South Sudan | The Strategist","og_description":"Experience in the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) highlights many of the operational challenges in implementing the UN\u2019s agenda of women, peace and security (WPS). As I reflected on my recent UNMISS deployment as ...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/","og_site_name":"The Strategist","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org","article_published_time":"2020-01-20T02:25:39+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":683,"url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/GettyImages-618507012.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Angeline Lewis","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ASPI_org","twitter_site":"@ASPI_org","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Angeline Lewis","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/","name":"The Strategist","description":"ASPI's analysis and commentary site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-AU"},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-AU","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/GettyImages-618507012.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/GettyImages-618507012.jpg","width":1024,"height":683,"caption":"WAU, SOUTH SUDAN - OCTOBER 26: South Sudanese people, who were internally relocated because of the civil war and various violent attacks, are seen at Civilian protection camp founded by the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) in Wau, in the Bahr el Ghazal region of South Sudan on October 26, 2016. More than 28,000 live in makeshift sheds at the camp. (Photo by Bruno Bierrenbach Feder\/Anadolu Agency\/Getty Images)"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/","url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/","name":"Operational challenges for the women, peace and security agenda in South Sudan | The Strategist","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2020-01-20T02:25:39+00:00","dateModified":"2020-01-20T02:25:39+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/ca642f65adc70c6af8e4ca8dbc2fbf4e"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-AU","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/operational-challenges-for-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-south-sudan\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Operational challenges for the women, peace and security agenda in South Sudan"}]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/ca642f65adc70c6af8e4ca8dbc2fbf4e","name":"Angeline Lewis","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-AU","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/723c1a661c8b2d9de00a052cc171d86c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/723c1a661c8b2d9de00a052cc171d86c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Angeline Lewis"},"url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/author\/angeline-lewis\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53007"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1033"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53007"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53012,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53007\/revisions\/53012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}