Letter From Mindanao

Between 2000 and 2019, the United Nations Security Council adopted a series of Women, Peace and Security resolutions – starting with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 – that mandated the inclusion of women and their concerns into every stage of the peace process. The resolutions follow almost a century of women’s rights advocacy by national and international women’s organisations.

The 1325 resolutions are specifically intended for conflict and peace-building contexts. Importantly, they follow from the “human security” discourse at the United Nations since the mid-1990s, and as such, many of the mandates apply to other situations of acute insecurity — such as disasters and climate induced events, while expanding the scope of security to reflect diverse experiences.

UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and its sister resolutions are the product of several historical factors. First, decades of transnational activism, advocacy, and networking had brought the women’s movement significant experience in lobbying national delegations at the UN. Second, changes in the thinking about development and women’s roles in development had led to landmark women’s conferences in Mexico City, Nairobi, Copenhagen and Beijing. Finally, as more feminists engaged academically, questions about women’s invisibility in international relations, and the failure to document and account for women’s experiences and work, began to be raised more often.

These three factors had the impact of broadening the understanding of “security” and making it imperative for the international community to acknowledge that women’s experiences in conflict were different and significant.

Despite the vibrancy of the women’s movement in Asia, not all governments in the region are willing and interested in implementing the mandates that are core to advancing the Women, Peace and Security agenda. Further, the varying levels of progress and commitment can potentially impede outcomes.

What is critical in all of this is the role that civil society organisations are playing in advocating for progress on the Women, Peace and Security agenda and mobilising social movements on the ground to advance women’s role in peacemaking and peacekeeping. When grassroots women take the lead, they ensure transparency, strengthen democratic decision-making and contribute to inclusive development.

Mindanao in the Philippines is an example of this in practice, as I observed from my recent trip there. “This is an historic moment,” my colleague, Noraida Chio, Senior Program Officer said to me excitedly soon after I arrived. “It’s the first time these women senior combatants have traveled to a meeting such as this with an international NGO, after 48 years in the struggle.”

We were in Cotabato City in Mindanao, Philippines waiting with anticipation, seated at bench seats in a small café with a few people scattered at other tables. Soon after, several of the women officers from the Philippine Bangsamoro Islamic Women’s Auxiliary Brigade (BIWAB) arrived. One with her husband in tow, who sat smiling and watching us from a nearby table while we talked.

We ordered plates of food for the women, hungry from their over five-hour trip to meet with us. Then we talk. These former combatants have known nothing but civil war for the last few decades, with many becoming child soldiers at the age of eight or nine years old. “It was a choice of becoming a soldier, or becoming a victim,” says one woman. “The massacres were beyond anything you could comprehend.”

Today, the BIWAB has over 10,000 women members including over 300 war widows. They’ve now formed the League of Moro Women organization with 33 branches across Mindanao so that they can actively, within a new era of self-determination, shape peace for their communities and country. “As a result of what we have been through, we can organize for peace and prosperity for our women,” said one of the BIWAB members with us.

I was in Cotabato City in Mindanao, Southern Philippines, spending time with Noraida together with another colleague, Aisha Midtanggal, Program Officer, to learn more about the pivotal role that over 50,000 women had played in leading the peace process, to secure a lasting peace there. Now, women were being seen as the best chance of maintaining this peace. Ensuring their continued access to economic opportunities and their active role in the transition government is vital for the time ahead.

For those not familiar with the history, on 15 October 2012, a preliminary peace agreement was signed in the Malacañan Palace between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Government of the Philippines. This was the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro, which called for the creation of an autonomous political entity. The signing came at the end of 32 peace talks between the two parties, over a nine-year period.

Read Jane Sloane’s blog post ‘Letter from Mindanao’ in full on her blog site Jane In The World

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme, the International Inequalities Institute, or the London School of Economics and Political Science.