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Tue, Nov 26, 2019

MENASourcebyEmily Burchfield

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Libyan women with taped mouths take part in a silent march in support of the women who were raped during the recent war in Libya, in Tripoli November 26, 2011. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

At a recent United NationsSecurity Council (UNSC) meeting on November18, 2019 concerning Libya, members were privileged to hear from Rida Al-Tubuly,advocate for peace and co-founder of Together We BuildIt, a nonprofit that supportsa peaceful democratic transition in the country by empowering women to play anactive role in peace-building. Ms. Tubuly addressed the systematic exclusion ofLibyan women from the UN-led peace process and suggested a different pathforward.

Libya experts frequentlycall for greater inclusion of civil society and local governance leaders inpeace-building efforts in order for the peace process to be more representativeof ordinary Libyans. And yet, Libyan womens powerful role in civil society andthe fact that they make up half of the population of ordinary Libyans isoften overlooked. For the peace process to be truly by and for Libyans and successfullyadvance a long-term solution, a broad and diverse range of Libyan women must begiven a seat at the negotiating table.

Why have women beenexcluded from the peace process?

As Ms. Tubuly explained to UNSCmembers, [Libyan women] are often told by international decision makers thatthe reason women are excluded from formal peace and political negations isbecause the Libyan actors are against womens political participation. Thisbegs the question: if there are no means for ordinary Libyans to take part inthe political process, then how will we be able to change things on theground? It is misguided and reductive to imagine that the majority of Libyansare opposed to womens involvement in the peace process. Womens inclusion isnot just a feminist issue, it is an issue of reflecting Libyas nationalculture and traditions in the peace process.

Libyan women have longplayed a key role innegotiating or mediating conflicts within families, clans and localcommunities. This legacy is often overlooked because it lives in local culturesthrough oral history rather than written documentation, according to ZaraLanghi, scholar and head of Libyan Womens Platform for Peace. Women also play an outsize role incivil society organization and activism in Libyaindeed, nonviolent action byurban women was central to the 2011 uprising that ousted former LibyanPresident Muammar Qaddafi. Libyan womens active engagement in the revolution empowered their political and socialstatus, but the chaos and dysfunction of the post-revolution era led tobacksliding in womens empowerment.

War-related insecurity hasin many instances limited womens freedom of movement in public. Traditionaland religious injunctions against women traveling without a male guardian(mahram) have been invoked in some areas. Further, patriarchal strains ofLibyas culture have fused withthe ideas of masculinity, militarism, and fundamentalism promoted by the violentconflict, giving rise to political actors with interests and objectives thatexclude women. These factors created obstacles to womens participation inpolitical activities, but women found ways to overcome them. Women facilitatemany of theinformal peace processes throughout the country and are activeorganizers for peace. However, their formal participation in the peace process isfurther hindered by the UNs neglect in the post-revolutionary period.

How does the ongoingviolence affect Libyan women?

Libyas local and regionaldiversity means that womens experience throughout the country is highlyvariable. However, it is important to address the conflicts differentialeffect on women. The war has led to a loss of gains in womens rights andpolitical empowerment. Women who do participate in politics are increasingly atrisk: Seham Serghewa, a rights activist and member of the House ofRepresentatives, was abducted in July and her fate remains unknown toinvestigators. As UN Special Representative for Libya Ghassan Salame noted inhis briefing tothe UNSC on November 19, Ms. Serghewas fate is part of a larger pattern ofviolence against women across the country that includes several instances ofkilling and forced disappearances in recent months. Women are among thecivilians that bear the brunt of the conflict and are also increasingly at risk of sexual and gender-basedviolence, but,as Libyan womens organizations have pointed out, the absence of gender disaggregateddata on conflict casualties and sexual and gender-based violence among womenserves to further their marginalization and the erasure of the gendered impactof armed conflict.

Libyan women have ideas for a path forward in their country, and deserve to have their input amplified at an official level.

The attack on Tripoli inApril by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and the Libyan National Army (LNA) significantlyimpacted women and girls. Of the 90,500 civilians displaced by first month ofthe offensive, an estimated 51 percent were female; they face disproportionate risks in shelters and internally displacedpeoples camps that lack safe places,privacy, security and freedom from harassment. Most women and children displaced from Tripoli and its surroundingareas are traumatized by the ongoing conflict and in need of some form of psychosocialsupport, and an estimated 400 women are at risk of sexual violence in thisenvironment. And if the ongoing conflict creates security vacuums in the restof the country that Salafi jihadist militants can exploit, the impact on womens rights andsecurity in those locales could be devastating. It would also be remiss to omitthe fact that women migrants and refugees in Libya are at risk of rape and other forms of sexual andgender-based violence, sexual exploitation, and forced prostitution indetention and at large.

The increased instance ofsexual and gender-based violence during conflict is not a phenomenon unique toLibya: the UN has noted that violence against women and girls is widespread during conflict and usedas a war tactic worldwide. Wartime rape, trafficking, forced prostitution, andviolence targeting women is frequently used as a strategy of war; it not only terrorizes women but also contributes to malehumiliation when men fail to protect their women. Continued conflict in Libyaposes special threats to the security of women and girls.

Why should the UN include morewomen in the peace process?

Women must be included inpeace processes not necessarily because they are inherently peaceful, butbecause they have unique meditation and negotiation skills imbued by theirculture, are equal stakeholders in peace with men, are highly motivated toterminate conflict given the differential effect of war on women. This is truein Libya, where women have overcome great odds to play an important role inpeacebuilding. However, their absence or diminished presence at UN-led internationalconferences like Palermo and Paris meant that no space was made for arepresentative range of Libyan women to contribute their experiences,perspectives, and ideas to the formal decision-making process.

Not until 2015 did the SpecialRepresentative for Libya at the time, Bernardino Len, instruct that womenmust get involved in talks at the municipality and tribal level. While nomention was made of their inclusion in the formal process, some progress hasbeen made in terms of womens role in local dialogues since then. The Libyan National Conference Process, which was initiated at the request ofthe UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) under the auspices of the Centre forHumanitarian Dialogue, held more than seventy separate meetings of localleaders with a grand total of more than 7,000 Libyans participating; over aquarter of whom were women. While 25 percent is not representative or sufficient, the increase in womens involvementwas an improvement. One outcome of womens participation in the meetings wasthe inclusion of references to women in the final report of the conference,including the recommendation that women should be integrated into the militaryaccording to Libyan social needs and norms in order to improve the militaryseffectiveness. This is a great idea: womens participation in the securitysector has been shown to improve community relations, provide mission-critical intelligence and insights, and reduce sexual violence. These are the types of women-driveninitiatives the peace process is lacking in and could benefit from if womenspresence was representative. The National Conference Process meetings werewidely seen as more successful than their international counterparts, andwomens participation in themwhile still not at paritywas likely a causalfactor.

Research showsthat womens active participation in a peace process makes it 64 percent lesslikely to fail, and 35 percent more likely to last at least fifteen years. Theinclusion of women at the negotiating table can produce agreements that improvegender equality, which in turn decreases conflict between and within states,increases stability, and promotes post-conflict recovery. Despite the evidenceof womens valuable contribution to peace and security, their representationhas only marginally improved. Worldwide since 1992, women have made up only 3 percent of mediators, 4 percent of signatories,and 13 percent of negotiators.

UNSMIL and theinternational community would do well to consider the evidence of womensutility in peace processes and make a concerted effort to include them atinternational fora like the forthcoming Berlin conference, as well as increasing theirparticipation in national dialogues. Furthermore, as long as elections are notpossible, UNSMIL must be creative in facilitating and leading a politicalprocess that is gender-inclusive. To restorepower to ordinary Libyans, the peace process must be reconfigured: women musthave representation at the negotiating table as well as in dynamics on theground. Libyan women have ideas for a path forward in their country, anddeserve to have their input amplified at an official level. Not only that,Libya deserves the kinds of solutions women can drive forward.

Emily Burchfield is an assistant director at the Atlantic Councils Middle East Programs.

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How the exclusion of women has cost Libya - Atlantic Council