En this November 16, International Day for Tolerance, I ask a simple but essential question: how can we celebrate peace when half of humanity remains excluded from the tables where it is negotiated?
For decades, women have participated in civil society, leading local peace initiatives, but they remain largely absent from formal negotiations. This exclusion is not only unjust: it weakens the very construction of peace and the sustainability of the agreements concluded.
For more than twenty years, the United Nations has recalled, through Resolution 1325 and those that followed it, the importance of women’s participation in peace processes, but, between 1992 and 2019, they represented on average only 13% of negotiators, 6% of mediators and 6% of signatories to agreements. However, women and children constitute nearly 80% of the displaced populations.
This invisibility is not just an injustice: it constitutes a strategic weakness. Studies show that when women actively participate in negotiations, the resulting agreements are 35% more likely to last at least fifteen years.
A first concrete step towards parity
It is in this context that I took the floor, during PeaceTalks at the United Nations, to propose the establishment of a minimum quota of 30% women in all official negotiating delegations. This threshold is not an end in itself, but a first concrete step towards parity. It is fully in line with the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. Balanced representation is not a luxury: it is a condition of stability and effectiveness.
During the PeaceTalks, participants welcomed this proposal with enthusiasm. Both civil society and diplomatic circles expect women to stop being spectators and become actors of peace. This dynamic joins the spirit of the agreements of Sarah and Hajar [signés par des représentantes d’Israël, des Emirats arabes unis, de Bahreïn et du Maroc] – which I created in 2023, the female equivalent of the Abraham Accords – and shows that concrete mobilization, led by women, can open the way to innovative and inclusive solutions.
You have 34.26% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
