Виступ Віце-прем’єр-міністра України з питань європейської та євроатлантичної інтеграції Іванни Климпуш-Цинцадзе на відкритих дебатах РБ ООН щодо жінок, миру і безпеки

Mr. President,

I would like to thank the delegation of France for scheduling this traditional Security Council debate on the issue of women, peace and security.

I would also like to express my gratitude to Secretary-General António Guterres for his clear commitment to the women and peace and security agenda and the Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka for her briefing.

Earlier this year both, the Secretary-General and the Executive Director, paid visits to my country. My delegation greatly appreciates their tireless commitment to women’s rights and empowerment and we pay tribute to their continued efforts and support to Ukraine in our pursuit of peace and security.

I am glad that together with the UN we’ve launched two new important initiatives «CEPAW in Action» and «Gender equality in the center of reforms in UA».

Mr. President,

War and conflicts are devastating communities across the world today. In recent years we have also seen wide-spread targeting of women and girls in conflict zones. Since the adoption of the UN Security Council resolution 1325 in 2000, the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda remains relevant and critical in the face of rising violence, extremism and deadly conflicts. Seven SC Council resolutions have been adopted, recognizing and outlining that conflict affects women and men differently, and that women have critical roles to play in peace and security processes and institutions.

Ukraine strongly believes that the UN Security Council should continuously reinforce the importance of implementing existing WPS resolutions and overcome the gaps identified in the 2015 Global Study on the implementation of resolution 1325 as well as in Mapping WPS in the UNSC in 2016. In 2017, the Council has improved inclusion of WPS provisions on all relevant agenda items. In this context we reiterate our all support for the Informal Experts Group on WPS that promoted gender mainstreaming in the work of the Security Council.

Law enforcement security forces and peacekeeping missions mandated to protect civilians must do a better job of seeking out and listening to the needs of women and prioritizing their participation and protection. The international community must pay sufficient attention to providing and delivering the necessary protection to women in conflict-affected areas, in parallel with ensuring a meaningful women’s participation, so as to ensure complementarity between both pillars.

Thus the deployment of senior gender advisors and senior women protection advisors is critical to ensure that missions have sufficient gender expertise, authority, capacity to address those objectives.

A growing body of evidence had shown that perhaps the greatest but most under-used tool for building peace is the meaningful inclusion of women. That is one of the highlight of the findings of the Global Study.

The participation of women at the peace table improves the negotiation process, contributes to a more comprehensive peace agreement, and bolsters the prospect of sustainable peace. It gives an important window of opportunity to set an agenda for sustainable peace that includes the needs of the often-excluded half of the population.

While examples abound of women’s involvement in community-based peacebuilding, their participation in peace processes continues to be limited. This is not only a problem of the 1325 agenda and off all; it is a problem for peacemakers and all those who seek peace.

That is why the topic of today´s discussion put forward by the delegation of France is of great importance.

Mr. President,

Ukraine recognizes the importance of equal and full participation of women in all activities for the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace-building and peacekeeping.

I am proud to say that in the two last years that Ukraine has been a member of the Security Council, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 has been our great and long-standing daily priority. I would like to take this opportunity to share some improvements that my country has made in the implementation of Resolution 1325, and specifically its Pillars on Participation and Protection, as well as to highlight the challenges, which still are to be addressed.

In 2016 the Government of Ukraine adopted the National Action Plan for Implementation of UNSCR 1325 for 2016–2020 years. Through implementation of the plan we work to ensuring greater participation of women in decision-making in the areas of national security and defense, in peacemaking, as well as ensuring protection of women and girls, prevention and response to gender-based violence.

Implementation of the Security Council Resolution 1325 is also a constant feature of Annual National Programs on cooperation between Ukraine and NATO. Experience and good practices of NATO member-states are examined to promote enhanced gender culture in national security and defense sector.

The Government has developed the State Targeted Programme on Recovery and Peacebuilding, which integrates a gender perspective in all of its pillars.

Our government integrates women, peace and security in the on-going security and defense reform. We have accomplished a comprehensive gender impact assessment of the security sector and will soon adopt the multi-year Gender Equality Strategy for Security and Defense. These aims to comprehensively integrate gender equality and women’s rights perspectives in all areas of the security and defense reform.

Over the last two years Ukraine has achieved progress in improving the recruitment policies. This resulted in a steady increase of a number of women working in the security and defense sector.

While still making a minority, Ukrainian women play a prominent role in the peacebuilding process. The President of Ukraine has appointed a woman to a position in charge of the process of peaceful settlement in the Donbas region. There are two women in at Minsk working groups dealing with humanitarian and political issues.

Building peace in my country requires women’s participation and influence, including the Minsk processes. It also requires action to stop the attacks against women and making sure that women will not be attacked with impunity. We will continue to work towards development of a full range of judicial and non-judicial measures, and institutional reform in line with the international standards.

As long as foreign aggression continues, for the majority of women in the territory of Ukraine, peace and security will remain a far-fetched and almost unattainable notion. Women will continue lacking protection, living in fear, having almost no recourse to justice, remaining economically disadvantaged and living in limited freedom.

The situation in Ukraine, suffering from the Russian aggression showed the importance of striking a balance between the two main pillars of the women and peace and security agenda: protection and participation. We believe the Security Council must prioritize these two.

Mr. President,

The Russian aggression against Ukraine and temporary occupation of the part of the Ukrainian territory has resulted in widespread human rights violations, including sexual and gender-based violence. According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission, since the beginning of this aggression 32,252 conflict-related casualties were recorded, including 2,505 killed civilians.

A direct consequence of the Russian aggression against Ukraine has been a displacement of individuals and families with 1.7 million internally displaced persons registered countrywide. Of them, older persons make 78 %, women — 58 % and children — 8 %.

Regrettably, impunity for human rights violations and abuses committed in the context of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, not least with regard to sexual violence, remains prevailing. This is partly due to the fact that the conflict is ongoing and that a part of Ukraine’s territory remains under the control of illegal armed groups, supported by the RF. While there is still much to do, Ukraine has made significant progress towards implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda.

Mr. President,

Finally, I would like to finish my statement with the quote of French philosopher, Nobel Prize winner, Albert Camus: «Peace is the only battle worth waging» (end quote). I am confident that it is our primary task to protect and secure our fragile world in its entirety.

Thank you, Mr. President, for the able leadership of today’s debate.