- Conference
- 2004 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 13 October 2003
- Decision
- Carried
Conference applauds a recent initiative between Palestinian and Israeli women to participate in the fragile peace process in the Middle East. The women believe they can have an impact on what is happening and that the perspective they will bring will be radical in terms of Middle East politics and could offer a solution to an increasingly volatile situation and provide a real prospect of peace to this troubled region.
However there is no tradition of involvement of women in the peace process in the Middle East so this new group is having difficulty breaking into this male dominated preserve. Other recent conflicts in the latter part of the 20th century such as Northern Ireland, the civil rights movement in the United States and the ANC in South Africa all included women and accepted their involvement as an integral part of their struggle. This is not replicated in the Palestinian movement, and whilst there are a few women in the Israeli Cabinet, none of them are involved in the peace process so this group is having to start from the very beginning.
Their basic premise is that as the men involved have been unable to reach a settlement it is time for a new approach which is simply to involve women. They argue that only by insisting on the formal inclusion of women in peace negotiations, reading framework documents from a feminist viewpoint and assessing how any proposals will impact on normal families will there be any chance of peace in the Middle East. They propose setting up an International Women’s Commission which would be formally attached as an advisory panel to any Middle East peace negotiations. The Commission, made up of Palestinian, Israeli and international women peace makers would have a specific mandate to review all documents in light of how they would impact on women, children and normal, non-military society.
The key plank to their argument is a United Nations (UN) resolution, number 1325, passed in 2001, which commits members to promote the “equal participation and full involvement” of women in peace processes, and “the need to increase their role in decision making”. It was the first UN resolution ever to address the specific impact of war on women, and was passed unanimously. The Italian Government, current president of the European Union, has given its support to the women’s proposal, as has a key adviser of Kofi Annan. More recently the British Government has pledged its support to bring the Commission into effect.
Conference agrees that women in UNISON should also give their wholehearted support to this proposal and the setting up of the Commission. Conference therefore instructs the National Women’s Committee to:
1)campaign through all appropriate channels for the setting up of the Commission;
2)seek the support of the National Executive Council, the UNISON Parliamentary Group, the wider trade union movement throughout the United Kingdom and other relevant bodies for this campaign;
3)urge members to write to their MPs and MEPs asking them to support the setting up of this Commission;
4)maintain this as a high profile campaign throughout the coming year and report back to Conference 2005.