Retrieved #5 Gender & Peace-Building

0:00:06
“So when it comes to peace-making and peace-building, typically what happens is those who were the leaders of the conflict are the ones who assemble around the table and make the terms of the peace. And because the women haven't been out on the streets, they're not at the peace table”. “This gathering of international development agencies, civil society organizations, government officials and traditional rulers are here to take another look at the role of women in conflict, this time as agents of Peace and Security”.

0:00:41
Christina: There are plenty of studies that show that when women are included in peace-building processes, peace is bound to last longer.

George: And yet, between 1992 and 2018, women were only 13% of negotiators in major peace processes.

0:00:58
Christina: So what can we do to change that?

George: And more importantly, what can a feminist foreign policy bring to peace-building efforts?

Christina: I'm Christina.

George: And I'm George, and we're journalists and producers at the Greek Podcast Project. 

Christina: And this is ‘Retrieved’, the podcast that shines a light on the new chapter of foreign policy, taking it out of its dusty past and into a fairer future. George, who are we speaking with today?

0:01:24
George: Today we're speaking with Maria Hadjipavlou, Associate Professor at the Department of Social and Political Sciences in the University of Cyprus. For 40 years, she's been doing really, really important work in Cyprus, leading peace-building efforts. She's involved with a number of NGOs, one of which she's the founding member and president of, the Cyprus Peace Centre. And she's also the founding member and president of the first independent Cypriot women's NGO, Hands Across the Divide. She's advised governments, she's done plenty of research and activism. She's really on the ground and still doing incredible work. So I can't wait for this one for our final episode.

Christina: Agreed George, I'm very excited to speak with her.

00:02:24 
Hi, Maria. Welcome to the show.

Maria: Hi, Christina. Thank you very much for this opportunity.

George: How are you doing today, Maria?

Maria: Oh, very well, except the heat here in Cyprus.

Christina: Where from in Cyprus are you tuning in?

Maria: I'm tuning in from Nicosia.

Christina: Exciting. Well, I think we can get right into the interview and hear more about Cyprus, your work there and your background.

Maria: Yeah.

Christina: So you ‘wear many hats’.

Maria: Yes.

Christina: Yes. You are a scholar, you're an advocate, you are a peace-builder, and you've done a lot of impactful work in Cyprus. How did you get started on this track?

0:03:10
Maria: Well, it's a long story, Christina, but I just put it in three sentences. One is when I started my PhD in the United States at Boston University and then at Harvard, I was really looking for a theory, for a framework to understand deeper conflict and more specifically the Cyprus conflict. What were the conditions that led us to this division, and also the impact this conflict has on ordinary people in their everyday lives. So one day, passing outside Lamont Library at Harvard, I saw a poster announcing a meeting between Palestinian Knesset members and PLO. And I thought: “my goodness” and this was in the 80’s when PLO was a terrorist organization. And I inquired and I introduced myself if I could attend that. So what I saw happening in that room, really, immediately, as we say, that was my defining moment. And I said to myself, this is what I really want to do in Cyprus. Dialogue, contact amongst people, and also bringing in the more unofficial understanding of people's experiences in the forefront, and how policies should also be taking into consideration this aspect, which later became what we call in my jargon in conflict resolution, ‘unofficial diplomacy’, ‘citizens diplomacy’, etc. So for the last 40 years, I've been trying to do this in Cyprus. The early steps were not easy at all, especially after I wrote my thesis and the first papers I published on analysing the Cyprus conflict from a conflict resolution lens.

0:05:27
George: So we just want to jump into feminist peace-building, if you can give us a definition of what that is and what it looks like and what the role of intersectionality plays in that? 

Maria: Okay, in Conflict Resolution we speak about three levels. The one is peace-keeping, which is the cessation of possibilities and so on, and then peace-making, which is the more official, diplomatic agreements and so on, and the third level is peace-building. And peace-building really refers to building, as the name suggests, new structures for peace, new structures where people who were enemies before can start cooperating, can start also rebuilding a new culture away from the male-dominated and militaristic approach into one of resolution, also one of challenging the power dynamics, and this is where I think the feminist approach has a lot to tell us with regard to this aspect of power hierarchies, power dynamics, both before the conflict, during and after. So peace-building cannot be completed without gender equality approaches.

0:06:58
Also, feminist approach makes us revisit the norms and the values that sustained those structures, those militaristic and those patriarchal structures that fed the conflict culture. So we need to deconstruct a lot. And of course, we also understand through feminism that women are not homogeneous social groups, as men are not either. So this is where we unpack the differences and where intersectionality comes in and we talk about the experiences of women in the rural areas, of working women, of women in the front line during this, you know, military strife, but the most important I think is that intersectionality invites us to put new theoretical questions.

0:08:00
Christina: Can you give us an example of the new theoretical questions you're referring to?

Maria: Yes, for instance, one theoretical question has to do about looking at the root causes of sexual violence, of rape during and even after the cessation of hostilities. For instance, we ask why men are really treated, even the wounded men, as heroes, as the ones who really protected the state, the nation, and not also have the same priority of looking at raped women. Why women raped are in shame, are silenced, are in Cyprus and in many other countries, you know, they are marginalized, they are put on the side. Why is that? 

Women are not just simply victims, you know, they are agents as well

So these are the questions that we pose in new literature and new knowledge and understanding comes up, which of course does not stay there, but you know, these new understandings help us build new policies. And then women are not just simply victims, you know, they are agents as well. And they've been also contributing a lot in the process of peace-making and negotiations and so on.

0:09:42
Christina: Could you give us some more practical examples of peace-building processes that take gender into account? What have been their outcomes and what can we learn from them?

Maria: Yeah, I think we have many examples of this. And I think the one that I learned from a lot was the Irish women's, I mean Northern Ireland's case with women's coalition. And this was before 1325 in Ireland. That's why we learned a lot from that kind of strategy that was used by the women in Northern Ireland, which started from the grassroots, you know, with women in the different communities of different ideological and sectarian and differences. But they were able to formulate a shared understanding of the conflict, but at the same time, they built together shared goals that women's presence, experiences and participation cannot be ignored but need to be included. So it starts from the grassroots and it builds up to the middle-level and then to the macro-level, to trap one, as we say, to the decision-making level.

0:11:31
Christina: Can you take us a little bit to the micro-level, maybe speak more about the case of Ireland or Cyprus and show us what that work, that grassroots work, looks like in practice.

0:11:43
Maria: Yes, I mean, from what I also saw, because I've worked with women in Northern Ireland, this was done at the very community-level. You go to the women’s neighborhoods, you go to their community centers, you go to their schools, to their areas where they gather and so on. And one of the techniques we use is to create safe spaces for these women to really be able to articulate the experience of conflict in their everyday life and started from the domestic to the communal. And recently we used it in Cyprus in a very three-year-program that I coordinated and I initiated and we addressed exactly this aspect that I'm talking about, creating little spaces for dialogue and these spaces have to do with safety. Women feel very vulnerable and especially in conflict culture, you know, there is not much trust or even of your neighbour. So we use a lot the conflict resolution mechanism of trust-building before we engage with women's stories and very intimate experiences.

0:13:20
Christina: Let's speak about ‘inclusivity’ because I feel like that's a very important aspect of a feminist foreign policy that can be very impactful in peace lasting longer. So an International Peace Institute study that analyzed I think 182 signed peace agreements between 1989 and 2011 found that when women are included in peace processes, there is a 35% increase in the probability that a peace agreement is going to last 15 years or more, which is quite significant. Why does peace last longer when peace processes are gender inclusive?

0:14:04
Maria: Yeah, there's been a lot of research also on this, as you mentioned. Yes, and when women sit at the negotiating table, absolutely, they are much more, the whole package of agreement, peace agreement, is much more representative and much more democratic and much more participatory. So what difference would it make? 

When women sit at the negotiating table, the whole package of peace agreement is much more representative, democratic and participatory

Apart from the more sustainability of the agreement, I think at the table women bring very complementary new understandings of how gender equality is interlinked with peace and peace-building, and also how women's participation during the peace process and in the implementation phase is extremely important. One reason is because women are much more knowledgeable of the grassroots and communal levels. So the agents of bringing this agreement that was decided with their participation, therefore there is a much more ownership of the agreement, not only at the elite level, but also at the civil society level.

0:15:40
And the other aspect I think is that women bring at the table issues that men might not think of bringing. For instance, the issue of security, okay, which is a very big issue in all peace processes. And usually, the male understanding of security is from the defense level, armies and weapons and agreements of the military, institution and so on. So women would say: “hold it, you know, this is not security in its holistic aspect, which has to do with everyday life”, so they bring in human security.

0:16:30
George: Let's move on to talk about the 1325 resolution. It's a very significant resolution and you could argue that the link between gender, peace and security has officially been recognised. Whether or not that is effective is obviously up for debate. But are you able to just go over the resolution, talk a little bit about its history, the main kind of pillars and what it's really recommending or attempting to do.

0:16:57
Maria: Okay, I mean as you know 1325 of 2000 did not come about just because Security Council, which as we all know is the most patriarchal mechanism of the UN and at the same time the five permanent members are the ones who are arms-producing countries. So they have all this industry of war, right? So in order to reach that stage that unanimously 1325 was adopted in 2000, a lot of background work went into it. So who were involved? Again, they were academics. Academics sent studies and books to all these different departments of the Security Council and men to inform them about the impact of war on women and men, that it's different. There are also experiences, there are needs, there are understandings and so on. So they started with the information campaign.

0:18:15
Then the NGOs of different countries that are stationed at the UN headquarters started lobbying, you know, the different members and then sending information and so on, or back to their NGOs in their national governments. So these channels of communication helped a lot to mobilize locally their own governments. There is a lot of background work that took place before this resolution and there were different drafts by women from Africa, from Latin America, from Asia, from Europe, and so on, until the final text was adopted.

0:19:12
Christina: Could you elaborate a little more on the mechanisms aspect? Because we've spoken a lot about security on this show, but I'm more so interested in understanding what mechanisms have been created and are available for countries to put the resolution into practice.

Maria: I think that, regards to, as George mentioned before, the 1325 is a tool, you know, the panacea, you know, and there's been a lot of criticism of it as well. That doesn't stress enough the, you know, patriarchy and also the role of men in creating wars. For instance, even in democratic societies, in Europe, I mean, just to take the issue of participation, the European Institute of Gender Equality last year, in its report, said that democratic, that EU countries will take them 60 years to reach gender equality. And the UN Secretary General, Guterres, told us in March, 8th of March, that it will take 400 years for gender equality globally. 

This dichotomy between private and public, which is very ingrained in traditions and norms, has really kept the sexes in separate spheres of action 

So what does this tell us? So just to look at one of the pillars and unpack it in our, you know, national and international governments and representations, we see that we still have a lot to do. But for me to really address in its root causes the lack of women's participation is to look at the binary of private and public. This dichotomy, which is very ingrained in traditions and norms, has really kept the sexes separate, in separate spheres of action.

0:21:21
George: We read a critique from a paper by Fiona Smith that I'm paraphrasing, but she says that the WPS captures the experience of women who have access to power and resources and I know you mentioned a little earlier that sometimes women are treated as a homogenous group when it comes to peace-building and there's obviously countless different experiences of women. So what's your thought on that critique, that its processes only capture the experience of women with access to power and resources?

0:21:52
Maria: I agree with Fiona and this is where I think research and especially many African countries, but also in the Middle East and so on, we should bring this more to the public discussion, that resources and the allocation of opportunities should be given to all groups of women, not just those who are either de-educated or have connections or have networks and so on. And the latest project we did, we're just finishing in Cyprus, is to go to those areas in the country where women do not have access either to technology or either to knowledge or resources and give them this opportunity to voice their needs. So we went to remote villages all over Cyprus and in all the communities, Armenians and Maronites and Latins and Turkish Cypriots and migrants and Greek Cypriots and so on.

0:23:07
And what came out of this is the big gap that exists between the elite women, okay, who have access to resources, who have the feasibility, who talk on their behalf, but they are very ignorant of the real needs of these other groups of women. So resources are not allocated properly. When women tell us: “we don't have a bank in our village and I'm old. I need, I'm dependent on my son to come from the city to drive me 30 miles to the next bank”, for instance. So these are, for me, issues for our feminist understanding of everydayness.

0:24:08
Christina: So we want to jump a little deeper into your personal work in Cyprus. Can you start by telling us a little bit about why your work there is necessary and what you've achieved?

Maria: You know, in Cyprus, we were divided. I mean, the problem is so intractable, it goes back 60 years, right, if we take into account 1963, the early intercommunal strife in ’67, and the first dislocation and also displacement of Turkish Cypriots living in enclaves.

0:24:49
And then, in ’74, we had for the first time the sharp ethnic divide. And the island was divided north and south. And there is big military line along, you know, which was coined Green Line in ’64 when the first peacekeeping forces came to the island. So this created, you know, gradually a culture of us and them, and also a narrative that would not bring us together but separate us and demonize each other. So in this kind of environment, I was very concerned and very early on when I first came from the States to Cyprus in ’89, with other Greek Cypriot colleagues, we set up the Peace Centre. So this was the first organization that was also registered and our aim was to be advocating a peace culture and challenging the mainstream narrative from being very adversarial and exclusive into one of including the other.

0:26:12
So after the Peace Centre, I was involved in co-founding women's groups, Hands Across the Divide in 2000. And together with many of the women from Hands Across the Divide, especially scholars and experts on gender issues, we established a gender advisory team in 2009. And we focus exclusively on 1325 and how to integrate gender equality provisions in the negotiations. So for this, we started working on the different issues that are at the negotiating table for decades. So we started producing recommendations on the issue of governance, what good governance look like from a gender perspective with the representation and participation of women in all the institutions at the federal and the constituent level. Then we started producing recommendations from a gender perspective on the issue of property, women's rights to property, the allocation of their access to land and so on. And then we worked on the issue of citizenship, that citizenship should not be based only on the binary Greek Cypriot, Turkish Cypriot, but be much more fluid because today we have 25% of our communities which are mixed marriages. So where do these people go in terms of citizenship?

0:28:13
George: Does that multiculturalism kind of complicate things with peace-building? 

Maria: Multicommunalism, multiculturalism and also these different multiple identities. Where do these go? And then the fourth chapter we worked on was on the issue of economy, allocation of resources from a gender perspective. And we brought in at that time the gender budgeting principle. And we presented these recommendations, which we published in a brief, we had conferences and so on, but the most important thing is that we presented them to the negotiators, Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot, the teams near the two respective leaders. And we heard comments, we heard some ideas that they provided for us, etc. However, when it came to implement what these ideas were, that we were presenting to them at the negotiating table, we did not see that happening. So what does this tell us about how the gender aspect of our peace process is completely marginalized. Of course, there are many women in the background who do all the work, you know, prepare the documents and so, but they're not visible. Their contribution is not registered, it's not in the media. You know, this man-led process needs to change.

0:30:00
Christina: Amazing, Maria. Thank you very much for your insight, Maria. This was a very interesting conversation and I'm really glad that we got the chance to zero in on Cyprus and learn a lot more about how feminist peace-building is happening there, from a person that is on the field doing this important work.

Maria: Thank you, Christina. And thank you, George, for this opportunity.

George: Thank you very much, Maria.

0:30:33
George: So that was the last episode of this season of ‘Retrieved’ in which we unpacked what feminist foreign policy is, where it comes from and where it's heading.

Christina: A massive thanks to the academics, policy-makers, journalists and activists that helped us look at foreign policy through the lens of feminism. We've covered everything from arms and defense to migration and peace-building. We hope you enjoyed our conversations.

George: This podcast series is produced by the Greek Podcast Project and supported by the Thessaloniki office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, distributed under a Creative Commons NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.