Encuestas de usabilidad

For example, the Offices of International Women’s Issues, Women in Development and Transition Initiatives, and the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and International Labor are assisting women’s organizations and ministries of women’s affairs, promoting women’s

rights, and involving women in peace-building and post-conflict political structures.

The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration and the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance are addressing women's and girls’

education, psychosocial trauma, special feeding programs, mother-child health care, and protection services for refugees and internally displaced.

In the United States, the Office of Trafficking in Persons is a catalyst within the Government and beyond for new efforts to address this pernicious problem. Within the State Department itself, attention is being paid to issues related to women in conflict in training programs for junior, mid-level and senior officers at our Foreign Service Institute.

At USAID, women’s issues have taken center stage. USAID recently unveiled the African Education Initiative, which will help train 160,000 new teachers, mostly women, and provide scholarships for 250,000 girls. The Clean Energy Initiative will help address the problem of indoor air pollution from cooking with wood and dung that causes 2 million premature deaths a year globally, especially among women. The Global Food for Education initiative will provide school-feeding programme for 7 million school children, with particular emphasis on girls. Other programmes announced at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2001 for clean water, sanitation, hygiene, small-scale agriculture, and housing also have a direct and immediate impact on women.

And clearly, the United States’ announcement of a $15 billion program over the next five years to fight HIV/AIDS in the most highly affected countries of Africa and the Caribbean will have a dramatic impact on the status of women, especially through programs designed to attach mother-to-child transmission of this deadly virus.

For every picture of a woman speaking to the Loya Jirga in Afghanistan or girls returning to school in that country, there are dozens of countries around the world where women are systematically excluded from peace processes and post-conflict governance, and where girls’ access to education, health, and other social services is minimal.

Within many countries, programmes to address these issues are too often adopted on an ad hoc basis. They may be poorly coordinated; they often overlap; and each new effort tends to start from scratch. We can do better in expanding and coordinating these efforts to ensure maximum effectiveness.

Further, there is the need elevate the issue of women in conflict within the foreign policy establishment of the various countries. This issue still suffers from “second-class citizenship.” Despite the heavy emphasis placed on these issues you still hear advancement of women’s interests

described as the “soft side” of foreign policy, especially by those who have never worked on them.

There is nothing “soft” about going after traffickers who turn women and girls into commodities. There is nothing “soft” about preventing armed thugs from abusing women in refugee camps, holding warlords and other human rights violators accountable for their actions against women, forcing demobilized soldiers to refrain from domestic violence, or insisting that women have a seat at the table in peace negotiations and post-conflict governments.

These are among the hardest responsibilities in the foreign policy agenda of various countries and we need to do more to empower those courageous individuals who are dedicated to addressing them.

4.0 CONCLUSION

In the 21^st century many including scholars and statesmen have realized that women have not been treated fairly especially during periods of negotiations for Post Conflict Rehabilitation and Reconstruction. Often, men forgive themselves for what they had done to the “enemies’”

women, but never deem it necessary to compensate the women for the rape, violations and the hardship, which they had to endure for the family while the men were fighting. Through the instrumentalities of the International Human Rights Tribunals, at least, the voices of women can now be heard of what they went through (for those who can tell the story), and how they will like to be compensated ( not that compensation will heal the wounds). However, it is increasingly being accepted that telling the truth and hearing the truth of what happened can help heal the wounds more quickly. The point however, remains that women should be an important component of efforts at rehabilitation and reconstruction after conflicts or wars.

5.0 SUMMARY

In this unit, we have extensively discussed women in peace building and reconstruction. In doing this, we examined women and peace; women, peace and constitution making; women in rehabilitation and reconstruction; women, truth, accountability and reconstruction; and the role of International Human Rights Tribunals.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

Peace building is incomplete without the participation of women.

Discuss.

7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS

Okwudiba Nnoli, (1998) Ethnic Conflicts in Africa, Ibadan, Ibadan University Press Amani Journal of African Peace, 2005 Volume 1, No.1, February.

UNIT 2 PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS AND