Dinard declaration on women, peace and security
Nearly 20 years after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 (2000), the G7 calls the attention of the international community to the unique and disproportionate impact of armed conflicts on women and girls, as well as the pervasive barriers they face at all stages of the conflict cycle. Despite the different effects of armed conflict on women and men, and girls and boys, and the substantive role women offer in conflict prevention and resolution, women rarely sit at the negotiating table. Rarely do peace agreements include provisions that protect women’s human rights and fundamental freedoms, or the human rights of other groups facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and violence. At the same time, we know that when women are meaningfully included and play an influential role in peace processes, peace agreements are more likely last.
In this context, we recall the importance of supporting inclusive peace processes that enable women’s meaningful and equal participation. This includes ensuring that women have a formal place in the decision-making process and that their participation and contributions are fully considered and integrated into all phases of the negotiation and implementation of the agreement. It further requires recognition of important and necessary peacebuilding work that women’s organizations and civil society undertake, including at the local level, in times of conflict as well as through prevention mechanisms and in post conflict situations. Inclusive peace processes necessitates providing support to women and women’s organizations as well as creating receptive environments for their full, meaningful and equal participation. We affirm our willingness to intensify our efforts in this respect, in the lead up to the twentieth anniversary of UNSCR 1325 in 2020.
The social stigma and exclusion that survivors and victims of sexual violence in conflict often face must no longer be the norm. The international community must be mobilized to prevent sexual and gender-based violence in conflict and to support efforts and initiatives that promote a survivor and victim-centered approach to response, including by addressing the needs of survivors and victims and their children born of sexual violence in conflict, facilitating their reintegration into family and society, strengthening justice including restorative justice, holding perpetrators to account, and providing medical, psychological and social relief. We recognize the role of activists, civil society, and the private sector in this regard.
Therefore, as participants of the “Dinard Declaration on Women, Peace and Security”, we commit to:
- Continuing efforts to respond to survivors and victims’ specific medical, psychological and social needs. We encourage the efforts such as those by Nobel Peace Prize laureates Nadia Murad and Dr. Denis Mukwege to create a voluntary fund dedicated to survivors and victims of sexual violence;
- Deepening coordination among G7 members to enhance our rapid response support to survivors and victims, including in providing medical, psychological, social assistance and relief efforts to survivors and victims. Efforts could be in support of existing initiatives as well as the establishment of new initiatives and measures;
- Enhancing coordination among G7 members to support women’s participation in peace processes including in their roles as negotiators, mediators and peacebuilders; and encouraging initiatives aimed at increasing the full, meaningful and equal participation of women in peace processes, peacemaking and peace building, including in the framework of the G7 Women, Peace and Security Partnerships Initiative in the negotiation and implementation of peace agreements and through support to relevant local women peacebuilders and women’s organizations.
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