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Madam President,
We thank South Africa for organizing today's debate on the important issue of Women, Peace and Security.
We also thank the briefers for their remarks.
Madam President,
This open debate is being held on the eve of significant landmarks and anniversaries. Next year we will be celebrating seventy-five years of the creation of the United Nations. We will also mark 25 years since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and 20 years since the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325.
This, therefore, is an opportune time to reflect on our achievements as well as on the lost opportunities and consider a course correction where needed.
Madam President,
While we have made considerable progress on the normative front, the world continues to remain a very dangerous place, especially for women and girls, who find themselves caught in the vortex of pain and suffering, caused by seemingly unending wars, protracted disputes and foreign occupation.
Despite our best intentions and efforts, they continue to suffer disproportionally with lasting consequences. According to the Secretary General's recent report, over fifty parties in various conflicts around the world are suspected of having committed or instigated patterns of rape and other forms of sexual violence in situations that are on the agenda of the Security Council.
Women not only remain one of the primary victims of hostilities and sexual violence in conflict situations, they also face multiple practical and institutional barriers which prevent them from participating fully and substantively in peace processes.
Madam President,
Security Council resolution 1325 marked a watershed in placing women's issues at the center of the global conflict prevention debate within the larger context of international peace and security.
While this agenda has sought feminization of peace in a post conflict environment, a greater effort will be needed to safeguard and protect countless women whose suffering we continue to discount or ignore due to exigencies of realpolitik or geopolitical interests.
We need to reaffirm that this agenda applies to all women in conflict situations, especially in cases of foreign occupation such as in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
Madam President,
For almost three months, the world has watched in horror, as a cruel Indian clampdown on all civil liberties in occupied Kashmir, and its illegal annexation of the disputed territory, in gross violation of international law and several Security Council resolutions, have exacerbated the suffering of people, especially women and girls.
The anguish of Kashmiri women is further compounded when their family members, including children, are abducted in midnight raids, illegally detained and then tortured by occupying forces; when unremitting restrictions on movement and communication condemns women in occupied Kashmir to seeing their children suffer and die for lack of medical help.
The continuing lockdown has not only made access to healthcare, food supply, and even communication with loved ones next to impossible, it has also made women more vulnerable to abuse, as they are left at the mercy of occupying forces enforcing an inhumane curfew. Rape after all has long been used here - and confirmed in reports of international human rights organisations - as a brutal tactic to humiliate an entire community.
Madam President,
This travesty of justice must end. The Security Council must to live up to its responsibilities and address this dire and unacceptable situation.
Madam President,
We believe that the Women, Peace and Security agenda provides an important impetus to global efforts for prevention of conflicts and for peacebuilding.
To achieve its full objectives, we need to give equal attention to all four pillars of the Women Peace and Security agenda namely prevention, participation, protection and recovery, and ensure that the framework is implemented at all levels.
Peacekeeping operations and uniformed personnel remain the most visible representatives of the UN, working directly with communities each day. They have a critical role to play in mainstreaming gender perspectives in peace and security.
Among the world's top troop contributors to UN Peacekeeping, Pakistan, for its part, is not only training our blue-helmets on these lines, but we have also increased the number of female peacekeepers and met the UN target of 15 per cent women in our troop contributions to the UN.
As agents of peace, women also have a vital role to play in achieving sustainable development as peace and development are inextricably linked.
Women's special skills in mediation makes them particularly suited as the Secretary General's Special Envoys and Special Representatives. Yet they head very few such missions. This needs to change.
Madam President,
As this my last statement as the Permanent Representative of Pakistan in the Security Council, I would like to conclude by saying that giving women a key role not only brings fresh perspectives but can be a good changer by contributing significantly to building a foundation for a lasting and sustainable peace.
I was the first woman in seventy years to represent my country at the UN. It has been a great honour and privilege, especially to speak for my country in this august chamber. I am confident it won't take 70 years for another woman to represent Pakistan here.
I thank you.