View previous stories
	Women Peacebuilders: The Missing Voices at the Negotiating Table by Sania Farooqui IPS Inter Press Service, agencies   Women Peacebuilders: The Missing Voices at the Negotiating Table, by Sania Farooqui. (IPS News)   For most individuals, the process of peace starts with the signing of a ceasefire or an agreement among politicians. However, those who live in regions experiencing violence understand that peace is made long before politicians meet at the negotiating table.   Peace is created among communities by people who work everyday to ensure that no violence takes place, and that disputes are sorted out.   Women have been playing central roles in the process of making peace, but their role is largely ignored in official peacebuilding processes.   Speaking to IPS Inter Press Service, Yemeni peacebuilding advisor and humanitarian leader Muna Luqman challenged conventional thinking about who builds peace and where peacebuilding truly begins, “Communities never wait until peace happens,” Luqman said. “They’re working to protect peace on a daily basis.”   Based on her extensive experience working in Yemen for more than 15 years, Luqman explained how local communities, especially women, resolve disputes, provide crucial services, negotiate humanitarian assistance and create dialogical spaces way ahead of any intervention of international organizations.   Luqman is the founder and chairperson of Food for Humanity, has seen first-hand the changes conflict brings about in society. While living through the Yemeni civil war, she faced airstrikes and negotiated the evacuation of civilians caught up in the war zone. These experiences led her to realize that humanitarian response alone is inadequate.   “If we only respond to the consequences of conflict without addressing its causes, we will always be a step behind,” she reflected. Her experience also exposed one of the greatest challenges facing local peacebuilders and that is of recognition.   “We thought we would be the first to be supported,” she said, referring to local organisations that led humanitarian responses before international actors arrived. “But we found out that it was a long process.”   According to a report by UN Women, around 676 million women lived within 50 kilometers of deadly conflict in 2024 – the highest figure since the 1990s.   Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women, said, “Women and girls are being killed in record numbers, shut out of peace tables, and left unprotected as wars multiply. Women do not need more promises, they need power, protection, and equal participation.”   Data collected by the United Nations from 2020-2024 found that, “Women’s representation as negotiators, mediators and signatories in peace processes is far below the target set by the UN. In 2024, women made up only seven percent of negotiators on average worldwide, and nearly nine out of ten negotiation tracks included no women negotiators”.   The report stated, women were slightly more represented in mediation roles, averaging 14 percent but still, two-thirds of mediation efforts did not include women.   The discrepancy for Luqman pointed to an underlying problem in international peacebuilding. While local groups responded immediately to communities in need, other institutions were bound by mandates, funding, and procedures. It becomes evident, she says, why true inclusion in peacebuilding should be more than merely symbolic in nature.   True inclusion requires recognizing women not as mere recipients of help or observers of processes, but as active participants in negotiating, mediating, and taking crucial decisions.   It is proven that peace treaties are much more sustainable in those cases where women are actively involved in the negotiation process. Women broaden the agenda from purely political aspects like political power-sharing to such crucial areas as justice, education, health care, livelihoods, displacement, and community reconciliation.   Luqman believes that local women possess a unique understanding of these realities because they remain deeply embedded within their communities.   “Women mediators are willing to prevent disagreements before they become violence,” she explained. She has witnessed women in Yemen securing the release of prisoners, organizing their communities to rebuild schools and water supplies, and preventing children from joining armed groups. This is often done discreetly, outside the limelight of the international community.   “The strength of women peacebuilders is their ability to mobilize their communities,” she said. However, it is precisely these women who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. They are threatened, intimidated, forced to flee, and often lack funds despite helping others. Protecting women peacebuilders must be a priority on the global agenda, Luqman says.   “They do this work while they are facing either lack of funding or no funding at all. They remain resilient, they remain vulnerable at the same time, and they remain under threats.”   She believes that the international community needs to go beyond recognizing the contribution of women and work to provide financial support to women-led organizations that are trusted and credible within the local communities.   While serving as the United Nations National Coordinator on Inclusion in the Peace Process of Yemen, Luqman developed an approach that would allow local people to speak up.   The initiative did not consider participation just as a formal aspect but actually aimed to bring in the community perspective.   “It wasn’t symbolic participation,” she told me. “We really took that analysis and used it in our system.”   This is because peace processes cannot be made by the political elite only; they need to be inclusive of communities that have been experiencing conflict.   In Luqman’s opinion, local governance, climate challenges, livelihoods, transitional justice, and building trust are not marginal questions but rather central factors in avoiding further outbreaks of violence.   Luqman insists on the need for peacebuilding to involve listening: “Sometimes listening to the people themselves and giving them a space is in itself a peace process.”   In the context of rising complexity of conflicts, the importance of inclusion into peace processes has never been so urgent.   Women’s involvement in the processes cannot be considered as some kind of equality issue or simply as an obligation under international mechanisms.   On the contrary, it is strategically necessary based on experience and community trust. The message from Luqman to policymakers is obvious: local women peacebuilders are not marginal figures in peacebuilding but its cornerstone.   “The local women peacebuilders are the structure and the backbone of these societies,” Luqman said. “They are valuable. They should be treated as valuable assets. They should be supported and protected.”   Constructing sustainable peace is not possible only through negotiations of the parties involved in armed conflict but also through investing in people who have done so many years of keeping communities together despite the situation being unrecognizable.   http://www.ipsnews.net/2026/07/women-peacebuilders-the-missing-voices-at-the-negotiating-table/ http://news.un.org/en/story/2025/10/1166138 http://www.unocha.org/news/acting-un-deputy-relief-chief-tells-security-council-regional-tensions-could-deepen-yemens   Oct. 2025   In advance of the October 2025 UN Security Council Open Debate on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), this open letter was sent to UN Member States on behalf of 661 civil society signatories from 106 countries working on issues related to gender equality and women’s rights, peace and security, human rights, humanitarian assistance, and protection of civilians. The letter calls on the Security Council and Member States to take decisive action to defend the fundamental tenets of the WPS agenda.   http://www.globalr2p.org/publications/2025-open-letter-to-the-un-in-advance-of-the-annual-open-debate-on-wps/ http://www.prio.org/research/topics/gender Visit the related web page
	Online and digital spaces should empower women and girls by UN Women, agencies   Nov. 2025   There is #NoExcuse for online abuse   Online and digital spaces should empower women and girls. Yet every day, for millions of women and girls, the digital world has become a minefield of harassment, abuse, and control.   What can start small, on screens – a message, a comment, or a post – can quickly spiral into a torrent of threats and violence in real life. Private photos are stolen without consent. Lies spread in a matter of seconds. Locations are tracked. AI is weaponized to create deepfakes designed to shame and silence women.   This 16 Days of Activism (25 November – 10 December) join us as we rally for a world where technology is a force for equality – not harm.   Behind every statistic are real women and girls   Journalists who stop writing after death threats, activists who delete their accounts to protect their families, girls who lose confidence before they’ve even found their voices, women who are stalked, raped, or even killed. The harm may happen online, but its impact is painfully real, seeping into homes, workplaces, and communities.   And it’s happening at a time when sweeping aid cuts are forcing women’s organizations around the world to shut down or drastically scale back programmes to end violence against women.   Misogynistic content in the manosphere is fuelling the abuse and spreading disinformation and hate. When these toxic ideas go viral, they shape how entire generations see and treat women and girls. Inequality in access and power over technology deepens the risks for women and girls.   What needs to happen now and how to take action   Hold perpetrators accountable through better laws and enforcement. Make tech companies step up by hiring more women to create safer online spaces, removing harmful content quickly, and responding to reports of abuse. Support survivors with real resources by funding women’s rights organizations and movements. Invest in prevention and culture change through digital literacy and online safety training for women and girls and programmes that challenge toxic online cultures.   It’s time to reclaim our digital spaces and demand a future where technology powers equality.   http://www.unwomen.org/en/get-involved/16-days-of-activism http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2025/12/tipping-point-the-chilling-escalation-of-online-violence-against-women-in-the-public-sphere http://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/explainer/when-justice-fails-why-women-cant-get-protection-from-ai-deepfake-abuse http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/05/grok-ai-elon-musk-jess-asato-labour-mp-lawsuit http://counterhate.com/research/grok-floods-x-with-sexualized-images/ http://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/faqs/ai-powered-online-abuse-how-ai-is-amplifying-violence-against-women-and-what-can-stop-it http://news.un.org/en/story/2026/03/1167174 http://www.unfpa.org/16days http://www.unfpa.org/thevirtualisreal http://www.unfpa.org/bodyright http://africarenewal.un.org/en/magazine/online-abuse-real-violence-and-africas-women-and-girls-are-paying-price http://www.unfpa.org/TFGBV http://www.unfpa.org/gender-based-violence http://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1q/k1qtfqmptt http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/childrens-exposure-intimate-partner-violence-against-their-mothers-pervasive   Online ‘manosphere’ is moving misogyny to the mainstream. (UN News)   A decline in democracy and harmful content spread on social media platforms are helping to drive a backlash against feminism, and the growth of misogynistic and retrograde ideas about the roles of men and women and society.   The pushback against gender equality is one of the findings in a major report from UN Women, the UN agency for gender equality, on the progress made so far in advancing women’s rights worldwide.   This latest version of the study, which is updated every five years, comes at a time of great uncertainty, as several donors announce major funding cuts, leading to the disruption of essential services for women worldwide.   The report measures the extent to which the aims of a groundbreaking women’s rights accord adopted in Beijing in 1995. Around a quarter of countries surveyed note a backlash against feminism and gender equality.   However, it is not all bad news: there have been many encouraging signs of progress over the last thirty years, from legal protections for women, to services and support for survivors of domestic abuse and bans on gender-based discrimination in the workplace.   Ahead of the launch of the report, Laura Turquet, the deputy head of the research and data team at UN Women, and Lydia Alpizar, a Costa Rican feminist activist based in Mexico City, spoke to UN News about the reasons for this renewed attack against feminism and what it means for the state of gender relations.   Laura Turquet: What we’re talking about is organised resistance to gains that have been made on gender equality, whether that's preventing the implementation of existing commitments, rolling them back or stopping new laws and policies.   Examples include the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the United States [a US Supreme Court decision that protected the right to abortion] and the decision by several European countries to pull out of the Istanbul Convention [a treaty on gender-based violence]. And elsewhere, from Argentina to Zimbabwe, we’ve seen a defunding of women’s ministries, or their mandates are changed from focusing on gender equality to a broader focus on families and children, which waters down their ability to drive policies forward.   Another element is the targeting of women's rights defenders and activists, women in politics, journalists and trade unionists who dare put their heads above the parapet and speak out on gender equality.   Lydia Alpizar: There most common form of attack is harassment and defamation, including criminalization, building fabricated charges against women's human rights defenders, or even arbitrarily detaining them, turning them into political prisoners.   It can also lead to more lethal forms of violence, such as disappearances and killings. In Mexico and Central America, we have documented 35,000 attacks on and 200 killings of women human rights defenders since 2012.   UN News: Is the situation in your region getting worse?   Lydia Alpizar: Yes. When we started, we didn't have as many killings. Right now, we have an open dictatorship in Nicaragua where there are political prisoners including women, and there are other countries with women’s rights defenders in prison, including Mexico. There are other defenders that are in prison, such as Kenia Hernandez in Mexico, or others who are protecting nature in El Salvador.   We are definitely seeing an increase in attacks on feminists working on gender-based violence, political participation an access to sexual and reproductive health and rights: the highest levels of abuse take place during March, which is women’s month, when most marches and public demonstrations in support of women take place.   UN News: What are the reasons for the increased threats and violence?   Lydia Alpizar: One has to do with the way in which agendas for gender equality and women's rights have been transforming the world.   We have definitely made progress across important areas that are included in the Beijing Declaration, in terms of legislation, policies and cultural transformation, really changing the way in which women are recognized in their public and private lives.   More women are leading movements that are challenging the interest of very powerful actors, so there is a backlash.   UN News: So, the pushback is a response to the progress that is being made?   Laura Turquet: I think that is true to a large extent, but it also goes hand in hand with a decline in the strength of democracies in general. Many countries are experiencing the erosion of key democratic institutions such as freedom of the press, free and fair elections, and the rights of women to speak in public.   They become a target of those who want to return to an imagined past where men and women had much more traditional roles.   It’s also linked to rising inequality. A few people at the top are doing extremely well whilst millions are being left behind. When people feel that they can't access a decent job or a basic standard of living, they look for scapegoats, whether it's migrants, LGBTQ people, or women who are speaking up.   UN News: Social media also seems to be connected, bringing formerly fringe ideas into the mainstream.   Lydia Alpizar: We have seen an increase of these kinds of narratives. Social media is a big platform for the dissemination of misogynistic and sexist ideas and women’s rights defenders are called bad mothers to stigmatize the work that they do and there is a trend of legitimizing violence against them.   Laura Turquet: There has a been a development of a “manosphere,” an online ecosystem where extreme and outdated ideas, particularly about violence against women, but also related to a very narrow kind of idea of masculinity.   But I also want to say that online spaces and social media have been a place where feminists can organize and link up with other kinds of social movement. I think we just have to make sure that those spaces are safe and that we root out misogynist and violent online environments so that women are not targeted in that way.   UN News: On balance, is the world in a better place, when it comes to gender relations?   Lydia Alpizar: Yes, absolutely. In the countries where I work, gender relations have been transformed and the world is a different place for women. Their is hope, but we're concerned about the challenges we face right now.   Laura Turquet: There has been significant progress since 1995. The proportion of women in parliaments has doubled, violence against women is on the political agenda in a way that it wasn’t thirty years ago, and maternal mortality has declined by a third.   But there's still so much to do. We need to make sure that 2025 is the year that we don't back down, that we continue to fight for justice, and we continue to march forward for the rights of women and girls.   http://news.un.org/en/story/2025/06/1164531 http://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/faqs/digital-abuse-trolling-stalking-and-other-forms-of-technology-facilitated-violence-against-women http://www.savethechildren.net/news/finland-one-three-girls-facing-sexual-abuse-online-messages-often-becoming-sexual-under-hour http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2024/10/intensification-of-efforts-to-eliminate-all-forms-of-violence-against-women-report-of-the-secretary-general-2024 http://blog.witness.org/2025/03/technology-facilitated-gender-based-violence/   http://carnegieendowment.org/research/2025/06/the-new-global-struggle-over-gender-rights-and-family-values http://www.ids.ac.uk/news/podcast-strategies-for-countering-gender-backlash http://www.unrisd.org/en/activities/news-items/unrisd-puts-gender-backlash-in-the-spotlight-at-international-gender-champions-biannual-meeting http://www.unrisd.org/en/library/publications/understanding-backlash-against-gender-equality-evidence-trends-and-policy-responses   http://equalmeasures2030.org/2024-sdg-gender-index http://www.unicef.org/adolescent-girls-rights http://www.helpage.org/news/social-protection-can-transform-lives-of-older-women/ http://www.unfpa.org/emergencies http://www.unfpa.org/news/explainer-why-investing-women-and-girls-benefits-everyone http://gi-escr.org/en/resources/publications/a-care-led-transition-to-a-sustainable-future http://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/health/cash-transfer-kenya-poverty.html http://www.hrw.org/news/2025/07/14/standing-firm-on-womens-right-to-live-free-of-violence http://www.hrw.org/news/2025/03/07/state-womens-rights   Oct. 2025   One in three organizations have suspended or shut down programmes on ending violence against women due to funding cuts. (UN Women, agencies)   More than a third of organizations surveyed, 34 per cent, have suspended or shut down programmes to end violence against women and girls and more than 40 per cent have scaled back or closed life-saving services such as shelters, legal aid, psychosocial and healthcare support due to immediate funding gaps. 78 per cent reported reduced access to essential services for survivors, while 59 per cent perceived an increase in impunity and normalization of violence. Almost one in four said they had to suspend or completely halt interventions designed to prevent violence before it occurs.   “Women’s rights organizations are the backbone of progress on violence against women, yet they are being pushed to the brink. We cannot allow funding cuts to erase decades of hard-won gains. We call on governments and donors to ringfence, expand, and make funding more flexible. Without sustained investment, violence against women and girls will only rise”, said Kalliopi Mingeirou, Chief of the Ending Violence Against Women and Girls section, UN Women.   Violence against women and girls remains one of the most widespread human rights violations worldwide. An estimated 736 million women—almost one in three—have experienced physical or sexual violence, most often at the hands of an intimate partner.   Earlier this year, UN Women warned that most women-led organizations in crisis settings were facing severe funding cuts, with nearly half at risk of closure—a warning now echoed in the findings of At Risk and Underfunded.   The report’s findings also highlight that only five per cent of organizations anticipate being able to sustain operations for two years or longer. 85 per cent predict severe backsliding in laws and protections for women and girls, and 57 per cent report serious concerns about rising risks for women human rights defenders.   Funding shortfalls are happening alongside a growing backlash against women’s rights in one in four countries. As organizations lose funding, many are forced to focus only on basic services instead of long-term advocacy that drives real change.   At Risk and Underfunded comes as the world marks 30 years since the Beijing declaration and platform for action, a progressive roadmap agreed by Governments to achieve gender equality and women’s rights, that had ending violence against women at its heart.   http://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/press-release/2025/10/one-in-three-organizations-have-suspended-or-shut-down-programmes-on-ending-violence-against-women-due-to-funding-cuts Visit the related web page
	View more stories