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For the first time, a resolution adopted in 2000 moved the Security Council from its more common preocupation with the cessation of hostilities to dealing with the disempowering and more insidious and long term impact on women and their communities
 

In October this year, the United Nations will commemorate the tenth anniversary of an important, but inadequately recognized international development landmark: Security Council resolution 1325, which recognized the importance of understanding the impact of armed conflict on women and girls and guaranteed their protection and full participation in peace agreements. Although late in coming, there are now signs of increased commitment and action to ensure that the goals of the resolution are met.
 

A GREAT SILENCE

Ten years ago when the Security Council adopted the resolution, it brought to light one of history’s greatest silences—the systematic, brutal and widespread practice of violence against women and girls in armed conflict. The impetus for adopting resolution 1325 was strong. Recent wars, ranging from those in the former Yugoslavia, to Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nepal and Afghanistan, as well as other conflict zones, were marked by significant violence against women and girls. It is estimated that 70 per cent of non-combatant casualties in recent conflicts were mostly women and children. Up to half a million women were raped in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. Some 60,000 women were raped in the war in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and from 1991 to 2001 an estimated 64,000 incidents of war-related sexual violence against women and girls occurred in Sierra Leone. The bodies of women and girls have become battlegrounds, not necessarily for bombs and shells, but for the callous human hands and minds of armed militia and their associates, and for those who take advantage of the chaos of war to inflict violence on the most vulnerable members of their communities.

The adoption of resolution 1325 by the 192 Member States of the UN fundamentally changed the image of women in conflict situations—from that of victims to that of active participants—as peacemakers, peacebuilders and negotiators. Thus, for the first time, a Security Council resolution shifted from its more common preoccupation with the cessation of hostilities, to dealing with the disempowering, more insidious and long-term impact of armed violence against women.