Good afternoon Chairman and thank you very much for the warm welcome. Greetings to all my former colleagues and hello to the new Members who have entered the Dáil and Seanad since I left in 2002. This is my first time on this side of the table, as a gamekeeper turned poacher or poacher turned gamekeeper, whichever term one prefers to use, and it is a great honour.
I thank the Chairman and members for the opportunity to present to them today on the first annual report of Ireland's third national action plan on UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which is the founding resolution of the women, peace and security, WPS, agenda. I remind the Chairman that having launched the second national action plan, NAP, report in 2015, he is a friend to this oversight group.
As mentioned by the Chair, I am joined today by fellow members of the oversight group for the NAP on which I serve as the independent chair. The group brings together academics, civil society and representatives from Government Departments and is tasked with overseeing the implementation of the national action plan.
The adoption of Resolution 1325 by the UN Security Council over 20 years ago was a seminal moment for women’s rights and gender equality. It was the first time the Security Council explicitly recognised the differential role of conflict for women but also women’s agency in peace and security matters, particularly their essential role in conflict prevention and resolution, as well as in peacebuilding. For Ireland, this agenda has always resonated deeply - not least given our lived experience of women’s role in the Northern Ireland peace process - and we have consistently demonstrated our commitment to making its ground-breaking vision a reality. National action plans are key to ensuring that UN resolutions on women, peace and security, WPS, are adequately implemented at national level and in UN member states’ foreign policies.
This third plan builds on the ambitions of Ireland’s previous plans in 2011 and 2015, reaffirming the WPS agenda and gender equality as key priorities for Ireland’s foreign policy but also across government. It also included a specific provision on engagement with the Oireachtas to raise the profile of the WPS agenda. This is the first time the oversight group has reported, and indeed presented, to an Oireachtas committee. For that reason, we are delighted to be here.
The NAP includes an ambitious set of actions across government in development, peacekeeping and diplomatic engagement. It was designed with the collaboration of a large cross-section of Irish society and has been afforded special recognition by the UN Secretary General for including women from conflict-affected contexts living in Ireland, as well as rural and minority women, in its development. Reflecting this diversity, the plan adopts an intersectional approach to WPS, recognising that women are not a homogenous group and face many and varied forms of discrimination - including for being a member of a religious, cultural or ethnic community, for identifying as LGBTI+ or as a result of experiencing a disability – which affect their full and meaningful participation at all levels of decision-making in society. I also highlight that the NAP recognises that the WPS agenda is not simply an issue we should seek to promote internationally. It also has a domestic focus with provisions on how we engage with women from conflict-affected contexts living on this island. This third plan is particularly conscious of that responsibility.
The NAP is structured around four pillars – prevention, participation, protection and promotion – and highlights a number of specific focus contexts where Ireland’s engagement on the promotion of the WPS agenda is particularly relevant. I will use this opportunity to highlight some of the work that has been accomplished in these areas as featured in the report and to focus also on work undertaken by Ireland in one of the focus contexts, in this case Palestine, which is sure to be of interest to the committee.
Under the pillar of prevention, the NAP focuses on addressing the root causes of conflict and ensuring a comprehensive approach which ensures that Ireland adopts a gender lens in its engagements. Engaging men and boys in addressing gender-based violence, GBV, is one aim of the NAP, recognising the importance of combating discriminatory gender norms and harmful masculinities in efforts to combat GBV. In this area, Ireland funds research through the OECD Development Assistance Committee's International Network on Conflict and Fragility and Irish Aid supports partner organisations that engage refugee and displaced men and promote positive masculinities. The Defence Forces have also sponsored research on the topic of military masculinities using this information to inform practices and policies. Such initiatives contribute to the NAP's goal of transforming the deeply entrenched attitudes and behaviours that allow violence to prevail and supporting survivors of such violence both in Ireland and abroad.
Work in the area of participation focuses on ensuring that gender analyses and women’s leadership are strengthened in governance and peace and security processes at all levels. The empowerment of all women and girls is essential to unlocking their potential as leaders and full and equal participants in conflict prevention, resolution, mediation, dialogue and peacebuilding, both domestically and internationally. This requires ensuring access to education, expanding women’s capabilities and supporting women’s leadership in political, economic and social life, not unlike what we do in our own country. At the international level, the International Rescue Committee, a partner of Irish Aid, works to build the capacities of women and adolescent girls to be leaders and advocates for their communities.
While it is important not to view women through a solely protectionist lens, it is clear that we must redouble our efforts to shield women and girls from the impacts of conflict, including conflict-related violence. Protection forms the third pillar of the NAP and encompasses the protection of women’s human rights; their physical protection from gender-based violence, sexual exploitation and abuse; ensuring gender-responsive peacekeeping and peacebuilding; combating human trafficking; and, importantly, relief and recovery for victims of conflict-related violence.
Work in this area reflects the partnership approach adopted by the NAP bringing together NGOs, Government services and agencies and the communities they work to serve. The HSE works to support NGOs nationally in the provision of health-related services such as support for survivors of female genital mutilation; support to victims and survivors of torture; mental health supports and promotion; and the development of an outreach programme by the HSE sexual health crisis pregnancy programme to direct provision communities. Another example of this can be seen in the work undertaken by An Garda Síochána in its efforts to combat human trafficking in co-operation with the HSE, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and victim-led NGOs. Just recently, we saw the work of An Garda Síochána in bringing about convictions for human trafficking. Part of this work also includes awareness training and almost 5,000 members of An Garda Síochána have received human trafficking awareness training as part of their training curriculum.
Promotion in the WPS agenda includes advocacy, lesson sharing and communicating our efforts, including at international fora. WPS is a key priority for Ireland’s two-year membership of the UN Security Council and we have been consistent and strong in using this to advance the agenda across the work of the council. As members will be aware, we took up that position earlier this year. Together with Mexico, Ireland co-chairs the informal expert group, which is a working group of the Security Council, on WPS. This role allows for close engagement with senior leadership of UN missions on how they implement the WPS aspects of their mandates. Ireland also seeks to advance the WPS agenda more broadly across all its work on the Security Council, including on country, thematic and peacekeeping files, as well as through ongoing engagement with civil society. We have also reacted quickly to events on the ground. As shocking reports of conflict-related sexual violence emerged from the Tigray region in Ethiopia, Ireland convened a Security Council briefing with the UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict to shine a light on the situation. Similarly, Ireland hosted a meeting between civil society and council members on how recent violence was impacting on women in Gaza.
This leads me to my next point. WPS is also a key priority for the work of many of our missions around the globe, of which Ireland’s mission in Palestine is one such example. I know the committee has a particular interest in this. Ireland has supported efforts to combat gender-based violence in Palestine through an agreement with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs that focuses on building institutional capacity to combat violence against women.
We also support the occupied Palestinian territory humanitarian fund, which finances projects related to gender-based violence, such as counselling and psychosocial supports for victims and survivors, as well as the provision of shelter services. Our engagement with civil society organisations in Palestine focuses on empowering women's political participation and implementation of the women, peace and security agenda.
I will spend a few moments on Covid-19. There are many positive developments to report but I also acknowledge the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the implementation of the national action plan and women, peace and security agenda more broadly, which we have been monitoring closely. To better understand the gendered dimensions of Covid-19, Ireland commissioned the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders and UN Women to assess the impact that the pandemic has had on their ability to work at grassroots level, consulting with women peace builders from Northern Ireland, South Africa, Uganda and Colombia. The findings are in line with other international reports and clearly demonstrate that the pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on women, as well as on women's organisations, at a time when their services are most required. We are all particularly concerned at the shadow pandemic of gender-based violence, which has been there all the time, regardless of the Covid-19 pandemic. Ireland has therefore made it a priority to maintain and strengthen funding for the WPS agenda and particularly gender-based violence programming at this critical time, including through trusted partners such as UN Women, the Women's Peace and Humanitarian Fund and the International Rescue Committee, which carry out essential work.
I reassure the committee that all members of the oversight group are committed to the women, peace and security agenda and the promotion of activities under the national action plan. I hope I have given the committee a flavour of the scope and ambition of Ireland’s work on women, peace and security through its third national action plan. To conclude for now, I once again thank the committee for the invitation to present today and look forward to discussing the annual report and any questions and comments that members might like to make.