German government treading on dangerous ground in the UN Security Council

Planned new resolution threatens to weaken the «Women, Peace and Security» agenda

As a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Germany will be helping to shape international security policy in the years 2019 – 2020. Against this backdrop, the German government has declared the «Women, Peace and Security» agenda to be one of the focal points of its work. It is envisaged that Germany’s presidency of the UN Security Council in April 2019 will be devoted to the struggle against sexualised violence during conflicts. One of the German government’s declared aims is to introduce a further resolution in the UN body with its stated objective of plugging the «normative gaps» and thus affording women and girls greater protection from violence.

The undersigning organisations expressly welcome the fact that Germany is addressing this core issue. However, a source of concern to us is the initiative to adopt a further resolution. Given the further hardening of antidemocratic and decidedly misogynistic stances in the UN Security Council, we believe there is a danger of a weak resolution text ultimately being negotiated and adopted. Some powerful members of the Security Council, such as Russia, China and the USA, are undermining women’s rights and once again questioning, for example, women’s and girls’ right to self-determination. Through such actions, the achievements that have already been made could be shattered and the «Women, Peace and Security» agenda overall decisively weakened.