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Published on: 09 January, 2018
Conference in Armenia: Challenging Wars and Conflicts
Source: Facebook
Location: Yerevan, Armenia
Date: May 31-June 2, 2018
Organizer: Democracy Today NGO
Challenging Wars and Conflicts: Peace and war through the gender lens is the Seventh International conference organized by Democracy Today. The 2018 conference is designed to create an open forum for women on the frontlines -- as reporters, peace journalists, peace builders, and politicians -- to discuss the changes in war and peace narratives. It will offer presentations by women working on the frontlines, the impact of women’s perspectives that might allow for the greater engagement with the lives of victims of war, the importance of gender in war reporting, ways to increase the visibility of women peace makers and their achievements, as well as the political efforts of women politicians working on security and peace negotiations. The conference will offer discussions on the key aspects and important spirit of the UNSC Resolution 1325 on how women journalists and peace builders are collaborating to develop innovative solutions both for strengthening the security and protection for themselves and to develop a new model of effective conflict resolution and peace, while changing the patterns to include women in peace process as change makers and peace promoters.
The conference will assemble grassroots activists, peace journalists, diplomats, politicians, state officials, representatives from the academia among others.
In recent years women have become more and more involved and visible in high-ranking positions as military officials, officers, soldiers, and high-ranking politicians tackling security issues.
In its earlier conferences Democracy Today has organized discussions on the involvement of women in the military, specifically in peace keeping forces, as military attaché’, and high-ranking diplomats who shared their views and experiences on the role of women in the military and peace decision making. That discussion allowed for a better understanding of the realities and complexities that women encounter on daily basis within their respective roles. The shared experience and discussions allowed to develop constructive methodologies for future activities.
Recent war reportage worldwide has included more women war journalists reporting from frontlines and gaining significant prominence for their role. We can name many iconic names of women involved in peace journalism. To discuss the difficulties women journalists encounter in their work: absence of interest towards women’s issues on the part of editors, working in culturally diverse environments not always receptive towards their profession, growing violence and killings of journalists for their professional work are issues of higher international concern and will be the theme of discussion by our panelists during this year’s conference.
According to UNESCO study “Violence against women journalists is sadly an important issue that is rarely openly confronted. There are at least four different ways in which violence against women journalists occurs. One is during the course of reporting dangerous events such as wars and conflict zones where a woman journalist, much like a male journalist, simply finds herself in a dangerous context. A second form is sexual violence which, while meted out on occasion to male journalists, is preponderantly acted out against women. A third is state-sponsored violence in the form of arbitrary arrest, imprisonment and torture of journalists, amongst whom number many women. And a fourth form includes trolling and other forms of sexualised hate speech that women encounter on the internet.” (Violence against women journalists Annabelle Sreberny)
Although women journalists from conflict zones have been participants in our conferences in the past, rarely women war reporters and journalists have shared their experiences about their daily work and specifically working with women peace builders. We hope to offer these perspectives during this year’s conference.
Women peace builders and human rights defenders, irrespective of the threats and violence they have been facing in recent years, must be identified as the recognition of their work has increased to a level that many women have received prestigious awards for their peace work, including the Nobel Peace Award.
The Young Women’s Peace Award established by Democracy Today and named after famous peace activist and writer, Anahit Bayandour has already recognized and awarded 17 exceptional women from many parts of the world. It is important to stress that when women participate in peace process they help sustain the peace longer.
Since the UN Security Council resolution 1325, calling for women’s participation in peacebuilding was passed 18 years ago, there is mounting evidence that women are powerful actors in sustaining peace in their communities and nations. Furthermore, research shows that achieving gender equality helps in preventing conflict, and high rates of violence against women correlates with outbreaks of conflict.
Despite the evidence, actions for women’s inclusion, leadership and protection remain inadequate. In some areas, there has even been a roll back on progress. In 2016, the percentage of signed peace agreements containing gender-specific provisions declined to 50 per cent, as compared to 70 per cent in 2014.
It has to be mentioned that violent extremism is on the rise. Terrorists and extremist groups manipulate prevailing gender norms and gender stereotypes to advance their agenda and drive recruitment. Women and girls are not only targets of their systematic sexual violence, but have become targets of recruiters—women make up at least 20 to 30 per cent of foreign terrorist fighters. (http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/women-peace-security)
To raise the effectiveness of interactive discussions, the Challenging Wars and Conflicts: Peace and war through the gender lens conference will include panels, workshops, masterclasses, screening of films and photo exhibitions where participants will present papers.
The Ceremony for the 7th International Young women’s Peace Award will be organized within the frames of the conference.
We look forward to welcoming powerful women from the frontlines of journalism, politics, peace building, academia and other areas to Yerevan, Armenia in May 2018.
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