Paper read at a forum on “Women’s Role in Syria’s Transition and Reconciliation,”
hosted by the UPF Office of Peace and Security Affairs in Washington, DC, January 15, 2014

This forum in Washington comes at a very adequate and right moment: war has been raging for more than two years in Syria. The UN seems to be ready for a peace conference in Geneva, and you choose the right moment to ask: what about women in this peace debate? The UN should already have put this question in front of international debates, because UN Security Council Resolution 1325 specifically addresses the role of women in peacebuilding, peace negotiations and conflict solutions. The USA, at that time, represented by Dr. Condoleezza Rice, was very active in getting this resolution passed in the Security Council in 2000, and I was in the room as part of the Belgian delegation when it was adopted.

Syria  "peace" conference is the most important opportunity to apply Resolution 1325 from the adoption of the resolution by the Security Council in 2000.

There have been various war situations where this resolution could be implemented, but the most important and adequate one is Syria. In this country, women have always been educated and integrated in an active role: able to work and to assume high level functions in the state management, with differences between the ethnic groups - the Sunnis being the most backwards group in this matter on the role of women. But as they (the Sunnis) were not under a religiously authorized power (such as the Muslim Brotherhood), even for Sunni women the situation in Syria was relatively better than for women under Sunni rule in other areas. In this war, women are managing humanitarian crises, caring for the poorest, managing hospitals, educating children, and distributing food - not requesting power for themselves. We can assume that in a war situation leaders will emerge; but in Syria women from most ethnic groups have long been active in the forces loyal to Assad. Alawite women, Shiite women of other groups, Christian and Orthodox women, and especially the Kurdish women have been integrated in militias (peshmerga) against foreign jihadist battalions.

For the first time since the adoption of the resolution, there is the possibility of showing that women’s rights are not only a social issue or a question of social justice but that they may also play a strategic role. This is the real argument for giving women a role in the peace process: giving the floor to women will give the floor to a real group of Syrians who will never let Al-Qaeda take power. Syrian women can be the group that prevents the extremist Al-Qaeda foreign battalions from taking power. This is the evident reason to give Syrian women a role in the UN Geneva 2 conference if you are concerned about how Syria can avoid becoming a state where the jihadist militias are making the laws, especially implementing Sharia against women’s basic rights such as a minimum age of marriage. (An example that very few people quote in Egypt: when Mohamed Morsi came to power, what was his first legal act? He forbade the passage of a law setting the minimum age of marriage at 18 years old and returned it to 11 years of age. Active women in Syria know all of that risk. It is then imperative to give them the floor.)

We propose to add women to the official delegations to the Geneva 2 Syria Peace Conference and to the UPF seminar in Geneva Track 2, to give them the floor and to add three women to the delegation of the opposition. One woman in each delegation in the current format is not enough. For the official Syrian conference the format is very limited, and the addition of women delegates is necessary. The nine official members in the "loyal Assad delegation" include a woman. For the nine members of the "opposition" delegation, any seat is the result of a serious battle between men who are supposedly influential on the ground.

I propose the following objective: to ask for the addition of at least three women on each side. The number of seats will increase a little, but it is easier to imagine the result: the Kurdish women will be associated with the opposition and will counterbalance the Muslim Sunni extremists in the group opposed the peace formula. No women involved will accept the retrograde Sunni view of women. This is why we need to ask for the addition of three women in all delegations deliberately. For all delegations to include three women in addition to the nine members is the way to implement Resolution 1325 of the Security Council, which seeks equality in the role of men and women.

The perfectionists will say that a ratio of three women to nine men is not very equal, but I do think that this formula is possible and will be the best way to also win the peace. Lakhdar Brahimi already implemented this at the Afghan talks in Bonn in December 2001 and asked me to help give them the floor, as I explained in the book I wrote together with Patricia LaLonde about Afghanistan.

The best way to weaken Islamist extremists in Geneva 2 is to add women to the opposition delegations. It is an efficient way to succeed in weakening from inside the Islamist front demands and to implement a UN principle of equality (almost) in a country where a new vision of the state will need to be built after Geneva 2.

The UPF forum in Geneva, called Geneva Track 2, will be also a great opportunity to listen to some women involved in the social and civil life in Syria, if they are able to come to Geneva to speak. That will be a huge challenge for UPF. The forum that UPF is preparing will be open to listen to all persons concerned with the Syrian peacebuilding period, even if they have no access to the very strictly limited peace negotiation seats.

I am personally accustomed to fighting for equality between men and women as a matter of principle. But in this case, we are making a stronger argument, that of effectiveness. That is why I spoke of the strategic role of women in this special peace process as an instrument to limit the Islamist extremists.

Anne-Marie Lizin is honorary speaker of the Senate of the Kingdom of Belgium and member of the Belgian Government (1988-1992) with responsibilities for European Affairs.