You can watch the video from this event here.
In December 2019, nearly two decades after the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325, the Yemeni Government approved its first Women Peace and Security National Action Plan (NAP). The adoption of the NAP has generated mixed feelings among Yemeni women’s groups given that it was drafted with little effort to consult with civil society organizations (CSOs). In particular, the evidence gathered by women’s groups through on-the-ground consultations have been ignored as have the opinions of gender experts including those who were actively involved in the Yemeni Women National Committee, a government body responsible for advancing women’s rights.
With the war in its sixth year, the panellists will explore both the potential of and gaps in Yemen’s NAP during these uncertain times and draw on examples from similar contexts. How international partners can best support Yemeni women’s groups to secure a transformative peace will be considered.
About the speakers:
Rasha Jarhum (@RashaJarhum) is a Gender, Peace, and Security Expert. She is co-founder and Director of the Peace Track Initiative hosted at the Human Rights Research and Education Centre, at the University of Ottawa. Rasha was invited among seven women by the UN Special Envoy to Yemen to support the peace talks held in Kuwait in 2016, and has briefed the UN Security Council on Yemen and Women’s Rights to push for peace. She has more than 15 years’ experience working to advocate women’s, children’s and refugees’ rights with many organisations including UNICEF, ESCWA, UNDP, and JICA, in Yemen and the Middle East and North Africa region.
Aisling Swaine (@AislingSwaine) is Associate Professor of Gender and Security at the Department of Gender Studies. Aisling’s research and teaching interests are in the areas of feminist examination of conflict-related violence against women, feminist legal theory and gender theory of armed conflict, international security and peacebuilding.Aisling has been commissioned to produce multiple UN Expert Papers and policy guidance on implementation of the WPS agenda and specifically on NAPs by UN Women, has developed guidance for developing NAPs and has published academically on the global proliferation of NAPs.
Chair: Louise Arimatsu (@larimatsu10) is Distinguished Policy Fellow in the Centre for Women, Peace and Security, where she works on the AHRC project 'A Feminist International Law of Peace and Security' and the ERC project 'Gendered Peace'. Her current research projects include 'A Feminist Foreign Policy' and 'Women and Weapons'.
Image credit: Julien Harneis (CC BY-SA 4.0)