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The Participation of Women in Peace Processes

The Other Tables

Authored by: María Villellas Ariño

Categories: Peace Support Operations
Sub-Categories: Peace Accords, Peacemaking, Post-Conflict Reconstruction
Country: Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland
Region: Europe and Eurasia
Year: 2010
Citation: Villellas-Ariño, Maria. The Participation of Women in Peace Processes: The Other Tables. ICIP Working Paper 2010/05, International Catalan Institute for Peace, 2010.

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Executive Summary

This paper argues that women’s absence in peace processes cannot be explained by their alleged lack of experience in dialogue and negotiation, but by a serious lack of will to include them in such important initiatives of change. Women have wide-ranging experience in dialogue processes including many war and post-war contexts, but there has been a deliberate lack of effort to integrate them in formal peace processes. After introducing the research framework, the paper addresses women’s involvement in peace and analyzes the role played by women in peace processes, through the cases of Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland. The paper concludes that peace processes are as gendered as wars, and for that reason, gender has to be a guiding line for including women in peace processes.