Twenty Years of UN Resolution 1325

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). Canada was a non-permanent member on the Security Council when it voted unanimously for the resolution on October 31, 2000.

Resolution 1325 was a result of an intense campaign after the Fourth World Conference on Women in China in 1995. Civil society organizations lobbied the UN Sec urity Council to hold a debate on the impact of armed conflict on women and girls, and the underrepresentation of women in peace negotiations.

The text of the resolution derived from the Beijing Declaration, which governments agreed upon at the women’s conference. Resolution 1325 calls on UN members to ensure the equitable representation of women in conflict prevention, management and resolution and to end gender-based violence in armed conflict. It also requires member states to support women’s peace initiatives and incorporate a gender perspective in peace operations.

Two years after the resolution’s adoption, women’s organizations pressured the Security Council to urge all UN members to report on how they were fulfilling it. The Security Council called for member states to publish national action plans ( NAP). Over time, the Security Council passed 14 additional resolutions to advance the WPS agenda.

Though Canada had been a longtime member of the UN group “Friends of Women, Peace and Security”—which advocates for the full implementation of the Resolution 1325—it took ten years for Canada to publish its first NAP.

In 2009, Senators Nancy Ruth and Mobina Jaffer chaired a study on how Canada could implement Resolution 1325 for the Senate Committee on Human Rights. Their 156-page report made 26 recommendations and called on the government to prepare a national strategy.

Unsurprisingly, the Conservative government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper released a disappointing 15- page NAP entitled Building Peace and Security for All in October 2010. One glaring omission in the strategy was its failure to mention Afghan women and address their security needs, though the Canadian Armed Forces were involved in combat in Afghanistan at the time.

Moreover, women questioned the Harper government’s commitment to their security and to gender equality as it had closed 12 of 16 Status of Women offices across the country, cut the funding to over 41 women’s organizations and refused to have an inquiry into Canada’s murdered and missing women and girls (MMIWG) .

Upon election in 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared himself a “feminist” and promised to make women’s empowerment a government priority. He created Canada’s first gender-balanced cabinet, launched a national inquiry for MMIWG and appointed Chrystia Freeland as his second Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Inspired by Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström and Sweden’s feminist foreign policy, in a major speech to the House of Commons, Freeland announced that feminism would inform Canada’s new foreign policy priorities.

Yet in this speech, Freeland also said that “hard power” was critical to Canadian diplomacy and development and that the government must spend more on the military. The next day, the federal government released its new defence policy, which included a foreword by Freeland, who said it was aligned with Canada’s “progressive, feminist foreign policy.”

In the defence policy, the Liberal government pledged to spend over $553 billion on the military over the next 20 years and to buy new fighter jets, armed drones and attack helicopters; build more warships; and recruit soldiers for “high-end warfighting.” How was any of this feminist?

At the same time, the government released a Feminist International Aid Policy, promising to allocate more of Canada’s overseas development assistance (ODA) to women’s groups in developing countries. Yet, the federal government refused to meet the target of 0.7% of Gross National Income for ODA, spending just 0.28%.

Five months later, the federal government issued its second NAP. It explained that Canada’s aggressive new defence policy was an expression of the government’s “feminist” international approach. Shamefully, this NAP overlooked Canada’s $ 15- billion arms deal to Saudi Arabia, a country with one of the worst records of human rights abuses against women.

That year, the federal government also launched the Elsie Initiative to increase women’s participation in peace operations. Yet, Canada’s contribution to UN peacekeeping fell to its lowest level with only 8 women of 35 soldiers wearing blue helmets. Canada is currently ranked 77th for its contributions to UN operations.

In early 2018, Liberal Member of

Parliament Borys Wrzesnewskyj introduced a private member’s motion that cited Resolution 1325 to propose an Ambassador for Women, Peace and Security. Freeland responded by announcing Canada would create the new position. In June 2019, Trudeau appointed Jacqueline O’Neill as Canada’s first Ambassador for WPS.

The ambassador’s three-year mandate includes: advising the federal government on its implementation of the UN Security Council agenda for WPS; consulting with stakeholders, hosting events to encourage women’s participation in peacebuilding; and representing Canada internationally.

In February of this year, members of VOW met with Ambassador O’Neill at her office. It was heartening to hear her say that the UN Security Council’s WPS agenda must not “make war safe for women.” She is concerned that there are no mechanisms to hold UN members accountable for failing to implement the binding resolutions.

Though O’Neill’s appointment is a positive step, Canadian commitment to Resolution 1325 on the whole has been craven and inconsistent. Over the past two decades, the government has privileged masculinized armed force over women’s peacebuilding, prioritized military spending over development aid, and promoted arms exports that exacerbate insecurity.

It will require a renewed, concerted campaign to compel the government to adopt a genuine feminist foreign policy and make transformative progress.

Tamara Lorincz is a PhD Candidate, Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University.