In 2022, Baah was one of many 173 Ghanaian ladies peacekeepers who served within the UN Interim Mission in Lebanon. She was additionally one of many 6,200 uniformed ladies peacekeepers – navy and police personnel – serving on the earth’s 12 peacekeeping missions that are principally in Africa (6) and the Center East (3).
These ladies are sometimes seen as a beacon of hope and safety for hundreds of thousands of civilians, lots of them ladies and women, who’re struggling to maintain protected whereas serving to to rebuild their lives and communities after wars.
Captain Baah (proper) visits a Lebanese household in Southern Lebanon.
“There are some within the city who should not very comfy with an unknown man speaking to their females so, as a result of I’m a girl, I’m able to method any feminine, in any city, as a result of they see me as a girl and I’m not a risk,” says Captain Baah.
Gender parity in peacekeeping, particularly amongst its leaders and uniformed personnel, has lengthy been a precedence for the United Nations. The group, which is dependent upon its member international locations to offer navy and police contingents, has launched a number of initiatives through the years, together with urging and incentivizing troop-and-police-contributing international locations to deploy extra ladies peacekeepers.
“The world can be a greater place with gender equality. We should always, due to this fact, proceed to problem gender stereotypes, name out discrimination, draw consideration to biases and search out inclusion,” says Ghanian Commodore Faustina Anokye, the Deputy Power Commander of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara.
Through the years, some progress has been made. Between 1957 and 1989, there have been solely 20 uniformed ladies in peacekeeping. As of September 2023, there have been 6,200. However progress has been sluggish and notably low among the many navy contingents. Out of the greater than 70,000 uniformed peacekeepers, lower than 10 p.c are ladies.
Greater than half of those ladies are from Africa. Among the many over 120 international locations that contribute each troops and police, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia are a few of Africa’s largest contributors of uniformed ladies peacekeepers at the moment.
Pioneers and trailblazers
“Collectively, with all the opposite ladies pioneers, we’ve a duty to hold the torch and break down the gender stereotypes, prejudices and boundaries in opposition to ladies within the discipline of corrections and safety,” says Téné Maïmouna Zoungrana, a corrections officer from Burkina Faso who served in MINUSCA, the UN peacekeeping mission within the Central African Republic.
Zoungrana was awarded the first-ever UN Trailblazer Award for Girls Justice and Corrections Officers in 2022. Working beneath MINUSCA’s mandate to assist build-up the nationwide capability to take care of regulation and order, she was instrumental in creating an all-women speedy intervention workforce, and recruiting and coaching native jail officers on the Ngaragba Central Jail – thought of the biggest and probably the most infamous jail in Bangui.
Téné Maimouna Zoungrana is a corrections officer from Burkina Faso serving with the UN Mission within the Central African Republic (MINUSCA).
“In my skilled atmosphere, the sector of safety, ladies are sometimes positioned second and even ignored, due to stereotypical perceptions that males are higher fitted to the job. I had the braveness and power, and vocation, to interrupt down boundaries and assert myself confidently on this discipline,” provides Ms. Zoungrana.
Girls peacekeepers like Téné Maïmouna Zoungrana act as position fashions for a lot of ladies and women. Her work helps to interrupt down conventional gender boundaries, and motivates and empowers native ladies to construct their confidence by taking over non-traditional roles monopolized by males within the safety sector.
Peacekeepers additionally play a crucial position in setting up gender-sensitive outreach programmes designed particularly to cater to the distinctive wants of girls and women.
Army Gender Advisor Steplyne Nyaboga from Kenya, gained the UN Army Gender Advocate of the Year award in 2020. She skilled a navy contingent of greater than 15,000 troops, who served within the UN Mission in Darfur (now closed), on gender dynamics and strengthened the mission’s engagement with Darfuri ladies.
“Peacekeeping is a human enterprise: putting ladies and women on the middle of our efforts and issues will assist us higher shield civilians and construct a extra sustainable peace,” she says.
Over the a long time, worldwide norms and conventions have been adopted to incorporate ladies in peace processes – to ensure ladies are represented in peace negotiations, assist ladies civil society organizations and tackle the gender imbalance amongst decision-makers that continues to exist at the moment.
In 2019, the Elise Initiative Fund, hosted by UN Girls, was established to offer international locations with monetary incentives and assist to extend the variety of uniformed ladies peacekeepers.
By 2022, it had invested $17 million to assist 21 nationwide safety establishments, together with in Uganda, Senegal and Ghana, and two peacekeeping operations together with MINUSMA in Mali.
Senegalese and Nigerian UN law enforcement officials attend an Elise Initiative Fund-sponsored coaching with Malian law enforcement officials in Bamako, Mali.
“It’s now time to reside as much as these commitments. We have to deliver the voices of girls to the negotiation desk in political and peace processes. We should empower them via capacity-building and supply the assist they must be heard. This can be a should for sustaining peace,” says the UN Assistant Secretary-Common for Africa Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee.
On the bottom, the indispensable work of girls peacekeepers continues to make a serious impression particularly within the lives of native ladies and women.
