Indonesia, France must support women’s participation in UN peacekeeping

Jakarta, The Gulf Observer: Indonesia and France must work together to increase women’s participation in UN peacekeeping missions, Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi has said.

Marsudi held a bilateral meeting with her French counterpart, Catherine Colonna, in Paris on Friday.

During the meeting, she said that Indonesia and France could collaborate on global strategic issues involving women, peace, and security, especially empowering women in UN peacekeeping missions as well as advancing women’s education in Afghanistan.

Regarding the contribution of women in UN peacekeeping, Indonesia believes that women need to be given a deeper role, Marsudi said in a video statement on Friday.

France can support the women, peace, and security agenda because it is a European country with the largest contribution of female peacekeepers, she added.

The issue of women’s empowerment is one that is consistently being promoted in Indonesian foreign policy. Indonesia has a long-standing and strong commitment to fighting for peace diplomacy and advancing the role of women in the peace process.

Indonesia believes that women have an important role in maintaining peace, thus they must be given more opportunities to get involved in negotiations and peacekeeping missions.

However, the participation of women in UN peacekeeping is still low. Referring to UN Women data, during the 1992–2018 period, only 13 percent of negotiators, 3 percent of mediators, and 4 percent of peace brokers were women.

To bridge this gap, Indonesia initiated the establishment of the Southeast Asian Network of Women Mediators and Negotiators in 2019.

It is a platform for women with experience in mediation, negotiation, and peace brokering, who seek to actively contribute to the maintenance of peace and stability, not just in their region but beyond.

Indonesia also established the Indonesia-Afghanistan Women’s Network in 2020 in order to maintain future stability in Afghanistan.