1 00:00:00,650 --> 00:00:03,800 Fantastic. Thank you very much, Fiona. 2 00:00:03,800 --> 00:00:11,030 Our next speaker is a nominal Ruggie Anderlini, who is the founder and CEO of the International Civil Society Action Network, 3 00:00:11,030 --> 00:00:19,730 where she spearheads the Women's Alliance for Security Leadership, comprising independent women led organisations active in 40 countries. 4 00:00:19,730 --> 00:00:25,940 She's also director of the Centre for Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics. 5 00:00:25,940 --> 00:00:30,370 Sonam is a globally recognised advocate in the field of women, peace and security, 6 00:00:30,370 --> 00:00:34,190 with many years of experience as a peace strategist working on conflicts, 7 00:00:34,190 --> 00:00:44,260 crises and violent extremism with a mix of civil society, governments and the U.N. 8 00:00:44,260 --> 00:00:48,220 Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon. 9 00:00:48,220 --> 00:00:52,660 If you if you're happen to be somewhere away from Europe. 10 00:00:52,660 --> 00:00:58,270 And good evening to those of you who may be even further afield. It's a it's a pleasure to be with you here. 11 00:00:58,270 --> 00:01:01,540 I'm sorry that we're not we're not together in person. 12 00:01:01,540 --> 00:01:09,580 I wanted to share my thoughts with you today with with four key points around where we are with this agenda. 13 00:01:09,580 --> 00:01:16,570 But first of all, to start with my own story and my own story is it is long and complicated. 14 00:01:16,570 --> 00:01:22,640 I was 11 years old when I ended up in England as de facto as a refugee from it, from Iran. 15 00:01:22,640 --> 00:01:28,000 So the idea of what it means to have your own country go into conflict or into some sort of crisis 16 00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:33,610 and rupture and then have to deal with the consequences is something that's very personal to me. 17 00:01:33,610 --> 00:01:40,240 And I I got involved in this field precisely for the reason that I didn't want other countries to experience what I had experienced. 18 00:01:40,240 --> 00:01:45,460 I didn't want other kids and other people to experience what I'd experienced. 19 00:01:45,460 --> 00:01:48,370 But it brought me into the world of conflict prevention. 20 00:01:48,370 --> 00:01:56,050 And in nineteen ninety nine, I was one of the we were a team of people working on a campaign called Women Building Peace. 21 00:01:56,050 --> 00:02:02,860 And I for the first time, I arrived at the U.N. to lobby for what became thirteen twenty five resolution thirteen twenty five. 22 00:02:02,860 --> 00:02:11,050 We had done global consultations with women in war zones, with women peacebuilders in war zones to identify what the themes were and back then. 23 00:02:11,050 --> 00:02:18,520 So this is not going 20, 21 years ago, we were already seeing that the nature of conflict was changing, 24 00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:24,610 that the U.N. system was not geared up to deal with 21st century wars. 25 00:02:24,610 --> 00:02:31,660 When you have civil wars, internal conflicts, the principles of sovereignty, respecting sovereignty of states and non-interference, 26 00:02:31,660 --> 00:02:39,730 get in the way of actually being able to deal with these types of conflicts. We are also seeing the rise of new types of threats. 27 00:02:39,730 --> 00:02:46,270 Already we saw the issue of right wing evangelical extremism coming into before. 28 00:02:46,270 --> 00:02:50,380 We, of course, mean the Taliban was was was still around at the time in Afghanistan. 29 00:02:50,380 --> 00:02:52,390 We now see the resurging. 30 00:02:52,390 --> 00:02:59,740 And at the time we were we were still talking about the threat of HIV AIDS as a health global health crisis, a and a security crisis. 31 00:02:59,740 --> 00:03:05,650 So things were different, but not so different to where we are today. 32 00:03:05,650 --> 00:03:09,400 And the resolution deals with it comes from that space. 33 00:03:09,400 --> 00:03:17,860 It comes from a space of women peace voters in Israel and Palestine and Northern Ireland and South Africa and 34 00:03:17,860 --> 00:03:23,050 Rwanda and Burundi and all the places that that at the time there were various forms of conflict going on, 35 00:03:23,050 --> 00:03:28,600 women, peacebuilders, saying the system that we have in place right now is not sufficient. 36 00:03:28,600 --> 00:03:34,540 It cannot deal with the reality of what it means when a war comes into your home and into your community. 37 00:03:34,540 --> 00:03:40,360 When the frontlines of warfare are not some battlefield further away, but it's actually close to home. 38 00:03:40,360 --> 00:03:49,990 And when literally women's bodies become that battlefield, as we saw with with the with with the sexual violence and deliberate strategic 39 00:03:49,990 --> 00:03:55,390 rape that was going on in the wars that we were witnessing then and now, 40 00:03:55,390 --> 00:04:00,460 at the same time, the Israeli and Palestinians and others were telling us we were at the frontlines of the peacemaking. 41 00:04:00,460 --> 00:04:08,320 I don't know how many people know this, but the idea of a two state solution was first floated publicly and designed by women, 42 00:04:08,320 --> 00:04:12,730 Israeli and Palestinian women working together in South Africa in the 1990s. 43 00:04:12,730 --> 00:04:16,900 The first group to come out publicly across the political spectrum were women. 44 00:04:16,900 --> 00:04:24,520 So they were there. They were always present. But there was no no duck vocabulary, if you want, 45 00:04:24,520 --> 00:04:33,490 for explaining and understanding what it is that women do and how it is that women experience and understand war and what their perspectives are. 46 00:04:33,490 --> 00:04:44,470 So this resolution was was was our way of providing a framework and a vocabulary and a global kind of globally recognised set of set of issues. 47 00:04:44,470 --> 00:04:51,550 And as much as we get frustrated by saying it's failed or it's not being implemented properly and so forth, which is all true, 48 00:04:51,550 --> 00:04:58,600 I think it's also important to recognise what it has done and how much of it we take for granted in the last 20 years. 49 00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:04,270 So here are my forth points that I would like to say on that. Number one, before we had resolution 13. 50 00:05:04,270 --> 00:05:13,780 Twenty five on the talk of women in war and peace, the human face of war was not part and parcel of the international peace and security discourse. 51 00:05:13,780 --> 00:05:17,470 If you think about it from the U.N. Security Council or elsewhere, they didn't. 52 00:05:17,470 --> 00:05:20,140 It was never a discussion of what's happening to women. 53 00:05:20,140 --> 00:05:27,070 And then through women, what's happening to young people, what's happening to men, what's happening to people that have different abilities? 54 00:05:27,070 --> 00:05:28,750 What's happening to minorities? 55 00:05:28,750 --> 00:05:39,130 This idea of bringing the human face of war into international discourse about wars was something that was brought about because of this resolution. 56 00:05:39,130 --> 00:05:43,630 And for those of you who say, oh, well, you know that you know why women. I'll tell you this, that if. 57 00:05:43,630 --> 00:05:49,220 We had started with youth. I don't think we would necessarily have gotten to the gendered dimensions of it. 58 00:05:49,220 --> 00:05:55,220 It's often through the lens of women that we begin to see the hetero heterogeneity of society. 59 00:05:55,220 --> 00:05:58,520 I remember when we first got the resolution, people were saying, why do you just talk about women? 60 00:05:58,520 --> 00:06:03,740 Why not talk about the widows? Because we have so many young widows. And why not talk about elderly? 61 00:06:03,740 --> 00:06:08,930 So it gives you the complexity of society and how people are experiencing it. 62 00:06:08,930 --> 00:06:13,940 The second element of what this resolution and what this agenda has done for us is that 63 00:06:13,940 --> 00:06:20,360 it's also helped us and challenged everybody to think about who are the actors so often. 64 00:06:20,360 --> 00:06:23,360 And still we meet when when we have global discussions. 65 00:06:23,360 --> 00:06:31,670 It's the the actors of war are those who will have guns, those who have the weapons and those who defect to have that kind of military power. 66 00:06:31,670 --> 00:06:41,090 But what we've seen and what I work on very, very specifically is who are the actors who emerge as peace actors? 67 00:06:41,090 --> 00:06:44,030 And so often you see that is when a crisis arises. 68 00:06:44,030 --> 00:06:51,890 It is women who run to the problem to try and solve it, whether it's providing humanitarian relief, whether it's doing the early recovery issues, 69 00:06:51,890 --> 00:06:57,980 whether it's doing mediation with armed actors to get access and to enable the humanitarian relief. 70 00:06:57,980 --> 00:07:04,160 Again, we take it for granted. But women are the first and often the best humanitarian responders. 71 00:07:04,160 --> 00:07:11,300 When we imagine people in refugee camps, when when the vast majority are women and children, it is women looking after children. 72 00:07:11,300 --> 00:07:18,600 So just because we think of them in a passive way does not mean that a mother who's trying to figure out what it means to live under 73 00:07:18,600 --> 00:07:25,340 a plastic tent and has to calculate getting blankets and getting food and not being raped and so forth isn't thinking actively. 74 00:07:25,340 --> 00:07:28,220 So recognising that the courage, 75 00:07:28,220 --> 00:07:36,620 recognising the incredible thinking and rationality that has to go on in the midst of chaos I think is very important. 76 00:07:36,620 --> 00:07:42,050 And recognising that those women who step into the space to become peace actors 77 00:07:42,050 --> 00:07:47,510 really deserve to be acknowledged and have their own space at the peace table. 78 00:07:47,510 --> 00:07:54,830 They are actors without using violence and violence and weapons should not be the only ticket to get you to the peace talks. 79 00:07:54,830 --> 00:08:00,590 This, I think, is the most important message. And if you can go away with this one today, I'd be very happy. 80 00:08:00,590 --> 00:08:08,170 The third question around this, which which was also raised before, is the question of how we understand equality. 81 00:08:08,170 --> 00:08:18,020 I what I see with this agenda is that it's not simply that we're asking to have women included into the status quo just so that they can be there. 82 00:08:18,020 --> 00:08:21,680 And this is a discussion that we often have across the spectrum. 83 00:08:21,680 --> 00:08:28,940 Amongst those who are advocates for women's equality in different spaces, I think it's from an equality basis. 84 00:08:28,940 --> 00:08:33,890 It's fantastic. If women want to be combat soldiers, that's that's an it's equality agenda. 85 00:08:33,890 --> 00:08:41,960 That's fine. But this agenda, the women peace and security agenda was about women stepping into the space of peace and security, 86 00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:50,720 saying we want to prevent wars so that neither our boys nor our girls ever have to experience the horrors of war. 87 00:08:50,720 --> 00:08:59,780 But neither our boys nor our girls ever have to be thinking about being killed or killing, being maimed or or maiming, returning home, traumatised. 88 00:08:59,780 --> 00:09:07,550 It is transformative equality for all of us, not just about women getting into the spaces and behaving like women. 89 00:09:07,550 --> 00:09:10,580 And this is, again, something that happens when they come to the peace table. 90 00:09:10,580 --> 00:09:17,570 When women, peace, peace, peace builders are involved in the negotiations, they bring up all sorts of issues that others don't. 91 00:09:17,570 --> 00:09:19,760 In Northern Ireland, go back in the nineteen nineties, 92 00:09:19,760 --> 00:09:26,240 they raised the issues of police and security sector reform, education reform, prison, prison reform. 93 00:09:26,240 --> 00:09:33,910 These were not issues that were necessarily being discussed there. So there's an understanding of the totality and transforming it for everybody. 94 00:09:33,910 --> 00:09:38,320 The fourth point I want to say is about the definition of security. 95 00:09:38,320 --> 00:09:48,700 Again, we heard that this was about human security and if anything, this moment that we're living in brings this back to us in such a critical way. 96 00:09:48,700 --> 00:09:58,450 I live right now and I'm stuck in Washington, D.C., where we are living in the moment of the greatest national insecurity in this country. 97 00:09:58,450 --> 00:10:06,010 Over 30 million people are unemployed. Over 80000 people have died of of Corona of the Corona virus. 98 00:10:06,010 --> 00:10:08,530 And it's completely chaotic. What's happening. 99 00:10:08,530 --> 00:10:16,060 And yet when you think about when you think about where or how we define security and you think about the Pentagon and the Defence Department, 100 00:10:16,060 --> 00:10:26,470 whose existence is basically to provide national security, they are completely irrelevant to what is happening now. 101 00:10:26,470 --> 00:10:35,980 And the dichotomy or the contradiction between seeing warehouses full of weapons that we have, 102 00:10:35,980 --> 00:10:41,740 all the things that we have ready to go to war and kill. And yet we don't have the masks. 103 00:10:41,740 --> 00:10:45,100 We don't have the PPE covers for people, so. 104 00:10:45,100 --> 00:10:52,450 So the question of security and how we define it is something that women brought to the table very, very strong 20 years ago. 105 00:10:52,450 --> 00:10:57,550 And we bring it to them today with us today and in the discussions here. 106 00:10:57,550 --> 00:11:03,160 And again, the idea that we see who were the first responders in our hospitals across the world, 107 00:11:03,160 --> 00:11:09,070 women are 80 percent of the health care workers, both in the medical centres, but also at home. 108 00:11:09,070 --> 00:11:16,570 Nobody talks about who is doing the caretaking at home at this moment when we have the ill and the second silver. 109 00:11:16,570 --> 00:11:23,440 And on the ground in war zones where I have my colleagues and my partners long before anybody else was talking about it, 110 00:11:23,440 --> 00:11:29,710 it was women peacebuilders who have been the first responders in organising the awareness raising around and 111 00:11:29,710 --> 00:11:35,320 around the disease from the awareness raising going down the path of producing hand sanitisers to give it up, 112 00:11:35,320 --> 00:11:42,940 raising alarms around the fact that when we when the World World Health Organisation is telling us people should wash their hands with soap and water, 113 00:11:42,940 --> 00:11:49,560 that there is neither soap nor water in most in many of the places that we're talking about. 114 00:11:49,560 --> 00:11:54,290 Then they came along and they said there's no food, so no women, peace builders are providing food packages. 115 00:11:54,290 --> 00:11:58,080 And along with the food packages, they're saying, well, we must provide sanitary pads for women. 116 00:11:58,080 --> 00:12:04,880 And then as they're developed, providing the food, they're also dealing with the high levels of violence against women and children. 117 00:12:04,880 --> 00:12:10,890 That's happening in the home. And they're bringing in Basra and elsewhere in Iraq and across the world where where we have parties, 118 00:12:10,890 --> 00:12:16,020 it's women peacebuilders who are actually negotiated and engaging the police and religious 119 00:12:16,020 --> 00:12:22,140 leaders and tribe and elders to come in and deal with men who are being violent at home. 120 00:12:22,140 --> 00:12:29,310 So peacebuilders, women, peace voters are the first responders. They take a humanistic, integrated approach to everything. 121 00:12:29,310 --> 00:12:34,050 And they are at the frontlines of this agenda and have been at the frontlines of this agenda. 122 00:12:34,050 --> 00:12:39,390 And yet they're constantly either erased from the picture or taken for granted. 123 00:12:39,390 --> 00:12:45,390 It's not all women who do this. It's a very specific group that emerge and end up taking such action. 124 00:12:45,390 --> 00:12:52,560 And I think it's time that we actually recognise them. I'm going to end with a with a short film and a and an appeal. 125 00:12:52,560 --> 00:12:58,710 Maybe if you're interested in these issues. We have a campaign called She Builds Peace hashtag she build peace. 126 00:12:58,710 --> 00:13:01,830 There's a there's a Web site. She goes she builds peace dot org. 127 00:13:01,830 --> 00:13:08,670 And we are looking at for a four pillared approach which we call soor ss for security. 128 00:13:08,670 --> 00:13:13,950 Peacebuilders need physical security. They're being attacked because of their peace building work. 129 00:13:13,950 --> 00:13:21,000 Always is for obligations. It is. We have ten Security Council resolutions, most of which have not been implemented. 130 00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:24,930 And it's really time that they're implemented and it involves everybody. 131 00:13:24,930 --> 00:13:29,700 It involves the development community. It involves a peacekeeping community and more political community. 132 00:13:29,700 --> 00:13:38,020 Everybody has a role to play in enabling the gender responsiveness in their work and the inclusion of women in one piece. 133 00:13:38,020 --> 00:13:42,120 Is appreciation literally recognising that there are peacebuilders out there and 134 00:13:42,120 --> 00:13:46,920 they do extremely difficult work and it takes a lot of courage and compassion. 135 00:13:46,920 --> 00:13:48,270 And finally, it's about resources, 136 00:13:48,270 --> 00:13:54,890 making sure that we get resources down to the ground into the hands of of the people who are doing such extraordinary work. 137 00:13:54,890 --> 00:13:59,760 And in that context, I think about it in terms of the division of power and responsibility. 138 00:13:59,760 --> 00:14:06,450 We are living in the era where the least powerful are taking on the greatest burdens or responsibility 139 00:14:06,450 --> 00:14:11,930 for caring for those in their communities who are most affected and the most powerful, 140 00:14:11,930 --> 00:14:17,910 which is which is our governments, our states, the Security Council, they are simply absent. 141 00:14:17,910 --> 00:14:23,280 They are not there when they are most needed. And so we we need to be aware of this. 142 00:14:23,280 --> 00:14:28,290 We need to raise our voices and we need to appreciate those who are really at the forefront of this. 143 00:14:28,290 --> 00:14:41,880 So with that, I'm going to try and share my screen and and one one second. 144 00:14:41,880 --> 00:14:59,240 You see how this works. Can you see the screen? 145 00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:04,200 Can you see the screen? They or not, Alterio. 146 00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:20,790 Now you can't sit. You just see. 147 00:15:20,790 --> 00:15:30,450 Yes, you can see the screen. You've heard my two. 148 00:15:30,450 --> 00:15:44,290 Sorry, but this. You heard my story every day. 149 00:15:44,290 --> 00:15:52,030 Although you may not realise it. You've heard how violence is burning like wildfire through everything and everyone I care about. 150 00:15:52,030 --> 00:15:59,200 And you've seen the rubble. That was my life on the news. They told you about the extremists who seem to be more powerful every day. 151 00:15:59,200 --> 00:16:05,530 And the officials in our who hide behind their bombs and bombast take no responsibility to stop the pain. 152 00:16:05,530 --> 00:16:12,130 I know it's hard to imagine yourself in my shoes, the orange shoes I ever imagined being in. 153 00:16:12,130 --> 00:16:18,550 When my children go to bed. I'm like afraid of monsters, the ones they see with their wake. 154 00:16:18,550 --> 00:16:26,020 I see nothing to the imagination. You heard my story before, but only half. 155 00:16:26,020 --> 00:16:31,140 What they didn't tell you is that one day some of us women stood up. 156 00:16:31,140 --> 00:16:36,190 We pick up the pieces of the rubble. We held them and Greece for what we had lost. 157 00:16:36,190 --> 00:16:43,880 Then we used those pieces to build a bridge to the future we want. They want you to believe that peace is impossible. 158 00:16:43,880 --> 00:16:48,320 But my experience tells a different story. And that's the heart of my story. 159 00:16:48,320 --> 00:16:55,600 They didn't tell you I am a peace bender. Is it dangerous, difficult and lonely work? 160 00:16:55,600 --> 00:17:01,580 Yes, but you see, violence is a choice and we reject it. 161 00:17:01,580 --> 00:17:07,340 Our choice is to provide Penns and purpose, to negotiate and find the humanity in others. 162 00:17:07,340 --> 00:17:15,350 Even those who have lost theirs. We choose to deal with conflict, choosing words, not weapons, as peacebuilders. 163 00:17:15,350 --> 00:17:22,730 We know that if we want to solve any of the other problems our work faces, we must first have peace. 164 00:17:22,730 --> 00:17:26,680 Today, more than ever, we need women, peacebuilders, vendors. 165 00:17:26,680 --> 00:17:33,770 We're there to care to seek the disappeared, to challenge those with guns, to talk instructions. 166 00:17:33,770 --> 00:17:37,230 That's why I can invite you to stand with us. She will. 167 00:17:37,230 --> 00:17:45,790 Speace is a global collaborative effort to ensure that women, peace builders around the world can truly soar. 168 00:17:45,790 --> 00:18:00,810 Part of my story, part of our story, if I can make a difference, you can to. 169 00:18:00,810 --> 00:18:05,680 Thank you. Thank you very much. Best live announcement, neighbour relief programme. 170 00:18:05,680 --> 00:18:10,480 Gosh, I'm going to stop there. Thank you very much indeed, Honour. 171 00:18:10,480 --> 00:18:14,452 And sign up for these inspiring and insightful opening talks.