Women In Security

Exclusive Interview with UNSCR 1325 at NATO HQ Celebrating her 19th Birthday

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Possibly you have one living with you? A 19-year-old, behaving like an adolescent but expecting to be treated as an adult. Maybe you can remember being 19? Something of a grey area - the excitement of your 18th forgotten and the focus now on turning 20 which slightly mutes the pleasure of turning 19. And so it is, I suspect, for United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325). This foundation Resolution who made the headlines by linking the disproportionate impact of conflict on women and girls and their absence from peace-talks as a security concern, is 19 years old on 30 Oct 2019. As always with the birth of a new-born there was excitement and clamour when 1325 was adopted. One can only imagine the scene in the Security Council that day; the cheering would have been deafening, maybe even some tears of joy in the public area – members of UNIFEM (the forerunner to UN Women), NGOs and Civil Society, who had worked tirelessly after the 1995 World Conference on Women hosted in Beijing, had finally got their Resolution. Possibly there was a different atmosphere in the Delegate’s area - bemused looks, scratching of bald heads, fixing of ties, raised eyebrows, general harrumphs and possible mutterings about what the Security Council had just brought into the world.

South African Exemplar

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April 4, 2019: Major Seitebatso Pearl Block from the South African National Defence Force received the accolade of UN female Peacekeeper of the Year in 2017. She is interviewed by SecurityWomen.