女性维和警察对平民保护效果的影响

Protection of civilians has become enshrined as a core task for international peacekeeping missions. How to ensure that civilians are safe from violence and human rights abuses is central to developing military doctrine for peacekeeping; how safe civilians are from attack is central to how peacekeeping missions are assessed both by locals and international observers. However, protection of civilians is often seen as something that is done by active peacekeepers on behalf of passive civilians, potentially missing the ways in which peacekeepers’ actions interact with strategies that civilians undertake on their own behalf. Integrating peacekeeper and civilian self-protection strategies is not trivial, either from a practical or a moral standpoint. Drawing on primary research among women in Liberia, as well as case studies of civilian protection elsewhere, this essay examines the ways in which working with civilians on protection—creating ‘hybrid’ systems of protection—inevitably entangles peacekeepers in civilians’ other social, political, and moral concerns, undermining at least a naïve impartiality. To retain their moral stance, peacekeepers ought to focus on using the safety they provide to allow different local actors (civilian and armed) to interact safely and, ideally, constructively.

… peacekeepers, at least in principle, a duty to protect civilians … The more common role for military and police peacekeepers in … officers, PoC advisers, child-protection officers, women’s-…

ABSTRACT This article examines the contributions of police to the Protection of Civilians (PoC) in United Nations (UN) peace operations. Drawing on field research in four missions where police have had to implement PoC mandates in challenging and unprecedented ways, I identify lessons associated with emerging practice. The article contributes to debates about non-military forms of civilian protection arguing that police – at once uniformed and civilian, coercive but also community-oriented – offer unique contributions to PoC. It also highlights the need for a systematic evaluation of what works and what does not for protection through policing to be harnessed in future missions.

ABSTRACT This paper explores the differences in experiences between female and male police officers deployed in United Nations peacekeeping missions. In the last decade, the United Nations Police (UNPOL) have pushed to increase the percentage of female officers deployed to peacekeeping missions. These UNPOL officers are at the forefront of post-conflict police reform. Police reforms can have a serious impact on how females are treated in UNPOL and in the host nation. UNPOL officers face various challenges, including difficulties transitioning into a multicultural environment and the physical dangers they must circumvent in a peacekeeping mission. The differences between male and female officers are discussed to provide insight into the impact of the missions and the policy implications to improve the effectiveness and efficacy of the missions.

… , UN peacekeepers acted in accordance with their Chapter VII mandate to protect civilians and use force in self- defence. In … ’ to protect UN personnel, equipment and facilities, to ensure …

Despite the upsurge in conflicts at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries and the increase in peacekeeping activities, women’s participation in peacekeeping operations has been the exception to the rule rather than the standard practice. However, the UN has focused on the negative and disproportional impact of internal armed conflicts on women and children. For the past two decades, the UN has been working to incorporate a gender perspective into the peacekeeping architecture. The starting point was UN Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted in 2000, which fully recognized the importance of the gender perspective in peace and security. The UN’s further systematic actions in this direction have changed the simplistic view of women as victims of internal armed conflicts and have recognized them as active contributors to peace and security. The purpose of the article is to comprehensively examine the current state of the international community’s commitment to women, peace and security in order to fill the existing theoretical gaps and find further ways to enhance the role of women in peace and security activities. The study is based on interdisciplinary, historical and structural-functional approaches, and uses content analysis of official UN documents and data, analytical reports of international organizations, relevant scientific materials and publications. The authors conclude that UNSCR 1325 (2000) initiated a major shift in UN peacekeeping in the context of a large-scale “Women, Peace and Security” agenda and has led to new approaches to women’s participation in all stages of peace processes. Women’s active and equal participation in peace negotiations and the implementation of political decisions has become an important factor in strengthening peace and security. Moreover, the UN’s current activities are not limited to women’s participation in peacekeeping. In addition to changes in the planning and staffing of peacekeeping operations, the UN has also taken steps to address less visible behavioral issues, including the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence, as well as the professional skills of peacekeeping personnel. At the same time, the increase in the number of women in the military and police components of UN missions has raised some international concerns about the potential masculinization of female peacekeepers.

… peacekeeping can protect civilians if missions are adequately composed of military troops and police … Darfur deployed police to protect women leaving internally displaced people (IDP) …

… of protecting civilians at risk.Such … civilian protection in peacekeeping involves the assessment of the specific needs and vulnerabilities of women as civilians during peacekeeping …

ABSTRACT The United Nations and many member states have placed increased emphasis on improving child protection in UN peacekeeping missions, particularly with regard to child soldiers. These efforts often depict a critical role for female peacekeepers in child protection. In this paper I analyse UN child protection documents, drawing on feminist critiques of gendered discourses in peacekeeping and work on children in global politics to explore how the UN understands gender in child protection contexts. I do so through an analysis of how peacekeepers’ gendered subject positions and representations of children in need of protection are constructed. I find that the construction of children primarily as victims lacking agency and in need of being saved, and a focus on female peacekeepers primarily in community engagement, risk perpetuating the neglect of children’s agency during armed conflict and leave the protective masculine basis of peacekeeping largely unchallenged. These constructions have implications for the implementation of both the children and armed conflict and WPS agendas in peacekeeping.

… women's involvement in peacekeeping operations and the introduction in 2007 of an all-female formed police … Possible benefits and challenges of deploying all-female contingents in …

… , and security with a specific focus on sexual and gender-… of female peacekeepers and particularly UNPOL as a means to … This is because civil society was only marginally consulted in …

ABSTRACT This paper critically examines the inclusion of uniformed female personnel in United Nations (UN) peace operations, employing the theoretical lens of Feminist International Relations and Feminist Security Studies, with an empirical focus on Indian female peacekeepers. The study interrogates the institutional rationale for including women in peacekeeping roles, which, while framed as a transformative step toward gender equality, has been critiqued for its functionalist and instrumentalist underpinnings. Adopting theoretical and empirical approaches to understand the complex dynamics between theory and practice, the findings reveal the coexistence of a sense of personal empowerment among uniformed female peacekeepers along with the challenges of working in institutions of hegemonic masculinity. This article utilises data from interviews with peacekeepers to study how women navigate their roles in the specific context of UN Peace Keeping Operations (UN PKO), experiencing empowerment in personal spheres amid structural challenges. The paper argues that while an instrumentalist rationale may serve the short-term institutional goals of gender parity, it risks perpetuating gender hierarchies if not critically addressed. It concludes with policy recommendations.

ABSTRACT How do United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions influence the use of conflict related sexual violence (CRSV) by armed non-state actors? This study argues efficacy is influenced by conditions that precede deployment and the composition of UN forces. Poor intragroup cohesion within rebel ranks incentivizes CRSV, putting peacekeepers in a precarious position upon deployment. UN police improve law enforcement capabilities, build relationships with local communities, and promote information diffusion mechanisms. As a result, UN police are associated with a decrease in CRSV, even in the most difficult environments.