Women, Peace, and Security at the UN
In conflict after conflict, women were being targeted. Rape was used as a weapon of war. Women were excluded from peace talks. And when the fighting stopped and countries tried to rebuild, women were left out of the decisions that shaped their futures. Noeleen Heyzer decided to change that. And she actually did.
This is part of my retelling of “50 Years of Singapore and the United Nations” (Tommy Koh, Li Lin Chang, Joanna Koh, 2015, ISBN: 978-9814713030).
Chapter 41 is written by Noeleen Heyzer, an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and the highest-ranking Singaporean in the UN system. Her career spans running UNIFEM (the UN Development Fund for Women), pushing through one of the UN’s most important resolutions on women and security, working in post-Taliban Afghanistan, engaging with Myanmar during its most difficult years, and leading the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. This is one of the most powerful chapters in the book.
Singapore’s Own Story of Courage
Noeleen starts by connecting Singapore’s story to the UN’s story. When Singapore’s flag was raised at the UN for the first time on September 21, 1965, it became the 117th member of the community of nations. Like other newly independent countries coming out of colonialism, Singapore was starting fresh.
The road was rough. In 1964, there were racial riots. There were political and ideological struggles over which path to take. The Cold War loomed. Indonesia’s Konfrontasi policy created threats. But Singapore made key decisions early: reduce poverty through jobs, build public housing, invest in education and healthcare for everyone based on merit, not background.
Noeleen was born into this Singapore. She benefited from the emphasis on quality education regardless of race, religion, or gender. That foundation would shape everything she did at the UN.
Getting Women Onto the Security Council Agenda
In 1994, Noeleen was appointed Executive Director of UNIFEM. She was determined to make the world better for women, using the UN’s principles as her tools.
Under her leadership, UNIFEM provided assistance to women in conflict-affected countries and supported their participation in peace processes. But the problem kept growing. Women continued to be targeted during conflicts. Sexual violence was being used systematically as a weapon.
On October 24, 2000, the first UN Day of the new millennium, Noeleen and her team achieved something historic. For the first time ever, they got the issue of women, peace and security before the Security Council.
She asked the Security Council for a full assessment of how armed conflict affects women. She had met women in conflict zones who were choked with painful memories. She demanded that protection for women and girls in conflict be addressed at the highest level of the UN.
The result was Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. For women organizing for peace on the ground, it was recognition long overdue. SCR 1325 became one of the UN’s most important and legally binding frameworks. It inspired action across the entire UN system, in security sectors of member states, and among women’s rights advocates worldwide.
Burundi: How It Started
Before the resolution passed, Noeleen had already been proving the concept in the field. At the invitation of Nelson Mandela, who was facilitating the Burundi peace process, UNIFEM succeeded in getting Burundi’s 19 negotiating parties to accept women’s involvement.
Twenty-three of the women’s recommendations made it into the final peace accord. Education. Health. Employment. Inheritance rights. These became critical parts of the country’s reconstruction.
Then Noeleen brought women from conflict-affected countries to share their stories directly with the Security Council. These women knew the cost of exclusion and failed states. They wanted to be key players in shaping a stable future for their children and their countries. That direct testimony helped convince the Council of the importance of supporting women’s leadership in peace building.
Afghanistan After the Taliban
With Resolution 1325 in hand, Noeleen tested it in one of the hardest political situations imaginable: Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban.
After September 11, 2001, images of violence against Afghan women filled the news. Public executions. Complete removal from social, economic, and political life. For Noeleen, the world was finally seeing what she had been arguing: the condition of women in a country is a barometer of peace and security.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan invited her to join his delegation to the International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan in Tokyo in January 2002. But it was not smooth. Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi, who had overall authority for the UN’s work in Afghanistan’s transition, advised her to postpone the gender equality issue. Wait for things to stabilize. He felt she didn’t understand the complexity of the local situation.
Noeleen disagreed. Based on UNIFEM’s experience in Rwanda, Liberia, Burundi, Kosovo, Guatemala, and Timor-Leste, she knew that support for women in conflict could not wait. Getting gender equality into Afghanistan’s legal and policy frameworks from the beginning was essential.
She immediately went to Afghanistan. She held consultations with the government and with women from all walks of life: doctors, teachers, lawyers, displaced women, girls in refugee camps.
By International Women’s Day on March 8, 2002, UNIFEM and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs had mobilized over 1,000 Afghan women from seven districts. In the ruins of a cinema that had been burned down by the Taliban, Chairman Karzai, Ambassador Brahimi, and the whole cabinet listened to women from rural and urban areas, from all ethnic groups.
Their message was clear: the women of Afghanistan wanted to help build a government accountable to all Afghans. They knew the cost of decades of conflict. Sons forced to fight. Daughters forced to hide. Displacement. Some of the highest maternal and child mortality rates in the world. The lowest access to education and healthcare. Total exclusion from public life. These women were now the highest stakeholders of peace.
After that day, Brahimi became a champion of their cause. He helped UNIFEM support 100 women leaders to engage with the 500-member Constitutional Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) in December 2003. After difficult negotiations, women were recognized as equal citizens for the first time in Afghanistan’s constitution. A huge historic victory, even though implementation challenges remained.
Liberia and Rwanda
The work kept building. Using the legitimacy of SCR 1325, UNIFEM educated women voters and supported peer networking. In Liberia, women elected Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as the first female president of Liberia and of Africa. In Rwanda, women supported into leadership roles gave the country the highest percentage of women in parliament in the entire world.
These were not abstract policy wins. Real women in real countries were shaping the direction of their nations.
Myanmar: Finding a Way In
In 2007, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Noeleen as the first woman Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) since its founding in 1947.
Almost immediately, Myanmar became a crisis. Burmese monks were protesting after the military government removed fuel subsidies. Then on May 2, 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit. Over 100,000 people were missing or dead. Up to 2 million were affected. And the military government severely restricted humanitarian access.
Noeleen accompanied the Secretary-General into the country. He secured full humanitarian access after meeting with President Than Shwe, and a three-way aid coordination mechanism was set up between ASEAN, the UN, and the Myanmar government.
By December 2009, Noeleen had built an unprecedented development dialogue with Myanmar’s leaders. The government requested a development partnership with ESCAP. This was delicate. Myanmar was politically isolated. The West opposed its human rights record. The Secretary-General’s office was focused on political prisoners, especially Aung San Suu Kyi. The UN Resident Coordinator had been asked to leave the country for raising poverty concerns.
But ESCAP’s mandate of supporting economic and social development in all member states gave Noeleen reason to stay engaged. She pushed hard on the development front even when the politics were difficult. She used economic and social issues as a way to open dialogue and build trust, keeping people and poverty reduction at the center.
The result was the Second Development Partnership Forum, which brought together international scholars like Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, local researchers, government agencies, and civil society. Many people, including Myanmar’s President Thein Sein, credited this engagement with helping to provide the initial direction for the country’s economic reform agenda at a critical moment.
Looking Forward
Noeleen ends the chapter by looking ahead. No country or people can navigate the future alone. In an interdependent but divided world, shared values, common purpose, and collective responsibility are the only way forward. She says our destiny rests in our own hands.
About the Author
Noeleen Heyzer is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and the highest-ranking Singaporean in the UN system. She served as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser for Timor-Leste, the first woman Executive Secretary of ESCAP (2007-2014), and the Executive Director of UNIFEM. She was widely recognized for the formulation and implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security. She holds a BA (Upper Honours) and MSc from Singapore University, a PhD from Cambridge University, and has received numerous awards for leadership.
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