This email series highlights voices of peace from around the world, to help you find yours.
This month’s Voice of Peace features highlights from Search’s recent virtual event, “The Power of Women in Peacebuilding.” Below are a few powerful quotes that stuck with us.
“Two main factors contribute to the exclusion of women in peacebuilding. First, when women are excluded or underrepresented in the decision-making bodies, debates, and governments in the communities and countries where they live—which is the case everywhere we work, including the United States—they’re almost destined to be excluded entirely from or largely underrepresented in really high-stakes negotiations. Second, the violence that necessitates a peace process is almost always being perpetrated by men, and negotiations oftentimes exclusively engage those perpetrators in an effort to get them to lay down arms. One of the most researched and documented facts is that peace processes which include women tend to last longer and be more comprehensive—moving beyond negotiated distributions of power to address community needs.”
—Shamil Idriss, CEO
“Women are not only impacted by conflict but politicized by it. For Afghan women, the narrative is usually around our victimhood and needing to be rescued. It’s only when you see yourself as an active agent that you can play a role in negotiations as someone who can be an expert, can innovate, can take risks, can hold people accountable. We need to ensure this level of agency not only for women but for everyone.
When we work as peacebuilders, we must think about the long-term and the short-term at the same time. One of the ways Afghan women have been politicized is the focus on what can be done in the distant future rather than what can be done right now—because right now is about us, right now is about our agency, and it’s not imaginary. At Search for Common Ground, we work with locals to see what can be done for the people right now and balance that with the future changes we want to bring at the societal level. The desire for quick change is not conducive for building sustainable peace.”
—Zuhra Bahman, Afghanistan Country Director
“As a young peacebuilder facing risks, I realized that everything I ever wanted was on the other side of fear. For women, engaging in the peacebuilding sector requires huge compromises—for their reputation, their safety, their livelihoods. The Israeli and Palestinian women we’re bringing together are facing huge challenges—not only the traditional challenge of being excluded, but also their deep fear and the wounds they carry. Even so, they are committed to be together and work together to advance peacebuilding and political solutions. Even if we cannot guarantee their physical safety, we can ensure their voices are heard.”
—Naglaa Elhag, MENA Regional Director
“I first encountered Search for Common Ground through a radio program when I was a young girl in Nigeria. It wasn’t elitist: it featured voices of common people, sharing their inspirations for hope and what they were doing to build peace. Now I lead Search’s work in Nigeria.
Societies are not monolithic. Conflict affects men, women, boys, and girls differently. Likewise, interventions need to be tailored for these groups. The insight women bring is tremendous. In negotiating the return of non-state armed group members to their communities, women have been very influential in convincing men why they needed to drop their arms and open themselves up to the reintegration process. We see that women could do much more, such as ensuring that these reintegration processes are sustained and that initiatives are meeting the needs of specific groups.”
—Fatima Abubakar Madaki, Nigeria Country Director
