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Peace negotiations must break free from the entrenched narrative that war is all about men and that only men can settle it.
Without the inclusion of Syrian women, Syrian peace negotiations will continue to fail, according to Madeleine Rees, secretary general of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
“Any peace agreement that is made, the rollout is going to be done by civil society and by women. So of course, they should be the architects of peace,” Rees said, addressing a crowd at the City University of New York School of Law Thursday night, where she received the dean’s award for social justice.
Peace negotiations must break free from the entrenched narrative that war is all about men and that only men can settle it, she said.
Rees, who served as gender expert for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been incorporating the hard lessons learned in Bosnia with her recent work with Syrian women. Last month, WILPF brought Syrian and Bosnian women’s rights activists together in Sarajevo to learn from each other and discuss ways they can mobilize during conflict situations and influence peacemaking in a post-conflict Syria.
Bosnia shows us the grave economic and social consequences of ignoring women during the conflict resolution processes, Rees said.
“Seeing how all that happened [in Bosnia] and the desperately hard work that was done by amazing women to try and overcome that is the huge lesson that I learned and is one that we are now trying to transfer to the women in Syria, who will no doubt have to go through the same painful experience, unless we stop it now,” she said.
In Sarajevo, the Bosnians warned the Syrian women that if they do not participate in Syrian peace negotiations now, they will have to start their own revolution in the near future.
Rees said she hopes to bring the Syrian and Bosnian women together again in the future and that the Syrians will have a chance to meet with women activists in Liberia.
Despite the fact that women continue to be left out of negotiations for peace in conflict zones, Rees is optimistic this can change if women are at the forefront of brokering peace around the world and gender relations are examined before conflicts erupt.
“There’s the ‘beginnings’ of a movement," she said, pointing to the Bosnian women sitting in the audience.
“This could be the beginning of a social movement of women who are opposing conflict based on their experiences. And this will change that narrative of: you only talk to men, you only talk to men with guns.”
Asked how she became so passionate about this work and what keeps her going, Rees said, “Seeing the discriminations that women face, you cannot but be a feminist and if you are a feminist, that means you are in solidarity with all those who face discrimination,” she said.
“I’ve been lucky in being in the right place at the right time, to learn the lessons and not forget them, which I think it absolutely vital.”
--Rachel Browne is a Fellow in Global Journalism at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto
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