Our fundamental demand is that a gender perspective be incorporated into all documents and concepts as a central category for sustainable conflict prevention, and that all participants take it seriously. To do so, it is indispensable to use gender specific data, particularly for conflict analysis. Credible and just gender strategies for conflict prevention and a peace-oriented security policy can only be pursued successfully if adequate funding is available. This means dramatically increasing the funds for civil crisis prevention at the expense of armaments, i.e., the defense budget. Otherwise, instruments such as national action plans remain hollow declarations of intent. This means drawing up a Gender Action Plan, which must contain the following points:
I. Basic Demands for Foreign and Security Policy:
1. Prevention instead of intervention; civil measures instead of military measures.
2. A security concept true to the understanding of “human security” and human rights, and which incorporates the gender dimension.
3. Participation of all social groups in peacekeeping and security policy considerations, concepts, and measures. This also includes the participation of civil society organizations in discussions and decisions about postwar regimes.
4. The development of a gender index for foreign and security policy: This means criteria for a gender sensitive security concept, for identifying violence against women, and for including women on missions and in democratization processes.
5. Regular collection and strict application of gender specific data, e.g. for the analysis of conflicts and their protagonists.
6. Regular international meetings of experts on war-related sexualized violence.
II. Measures Required in Crisis, Conflict, and Postwar Regions:
1. Enshrining equality for women and men in peace treaties and postwar constitutions, including quotas for women.
2. Comprehensive gender mainstreaming in all peacebuilding operations in crisis regions.
3. Establishment of institutions to monitor human rights in postwar societies.
4. Trauma sensitive medical and psychosocial support for survivors of sexualized violence in wars, which especially promotes the potential of women and girls.
5. Reintegration programs for ex-combatants, to support men and women in re-entering civil life.
III. Demands That Must Be Implemented in the United Nations Reform
Process:
1. More appreciation and promotion of institutions in the UN system that pertain to women’s rights by combining them into one new UN entity for women’s policy.
2. Stronger institutional base for crisis prevention within the UN system of preventive action.
3. Passage of a clear, binding list of criteria, explicitly stressing human rights, for the use of military force as a last resort, defined within the concept of the “responsibility to protect.”
4. Establishment of a monitoring body, in a suitable position within the UN system, that oversees the implementation of Resolution 1325, with participation of NGOs and civil society representatives.
5. Development of standards, unequivocal deadlines, and a list of criteria for evaluating the implementation of UN Resolution 1325. This should also include a precise definition of what “appropriate” participation by women means in different countries; what evaluation criteria should be used to judge
whether the measures introduced have succeeded in the way envisioned by the resolution, etc., as well as a targeted campaign to increase the readiness to implement the insights acquired.
6. A supplementary provision to UN Resolution 1325 requiring that women hold at least 40 % of all offices and positions in peace processes, and applying this percentage to all UN leadership positions as well.
7. Establishment of pools of national and international gender sensitive experts to implement Resolution 1325 in postwar countries.
8. Formation of a UN trust fund to support women peace activists throughout the world.
9. Sending UN observers to postwar regions to monitor postwar processes and the humanitarian situation.
10. Consistent compliance with existing behavioral codes as well as strict prosecution in the event of violations, including the abuse or exploitation of the local population by UN members.
11. The consistent implementation of Resolution 1820 by monitoring, annual implementation reports, and non-military sanctions against countries in which there is sexualized violence in war.
IV. The Following Must Be Implemented on the EU Level:
1. All (military) interventions carried out by EU troops must be authorized by a UN mandate.
2. Establishment of a disarmament agency or a civil conflict prevention agency
and giving up the plan to build a defense agency.
3. Establishment of a permanent budget for immediate non-bureaucratic aid to traumatized women and girls, men and boys in or from crisis regions who have fled to the Federal Republic of Germany or another EU country.
V. The Following Must Be Done in Germany:
1. The Germany shall resolutely pursue a human rights agenda. Governments that systematically violate women’s rights shall be promptly apprised of these abuses by all diplomatic means, in close cooperation between the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Economics. If necessary, economic relations shall be terminated.
2. The budget for gender-equitable civil conflict prevention and management (e.g., for implementation of national action plans for “Civil Crisis Prevention”) shall be substantially increased with respect to the defense budget, in order to achieve a credible peace-oriented security policy.
3. Aid for institutions in development assistance that work in war, crisis, and postwar regions shall be conditional on their demonstrable gender expertise.
4. Reports shall be submitted at two-year intervals on civil crisis prevention, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding, providing detailed information on how the ministries have implemented the objectives and recommendations of the action plan for “Civil Crisis Prevention.” If objectives are not met, the reports shall list the reasons and lay out precise measures for prompt achievement.
5. Gender sensitive studies on foreign and security policy and conditions in individual countries shall be systematically promoted.
6. A national action plan shall be promptly drawn up for the thorough implementation of UN Resolution 1325. To expedite this, meetings of national and international experts as well as relevant networks shall be appropriately supported.
7. A national monitoring office shall oversee the implementation of Resolution 1325. Civil society groups shall be involved in the monitoring.
8. Members of the Bundeswehr and civil society organizations serving Germany shall only be sent on foreign missions if they can demonstrate gender expertise. The percentage of women in peacekeeping forces (and in all other relevant assignments) shall be increased to 40 or 50 %.
9. The materials developed by the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) to prepare national personnel for foreign missions shall be thoroughly utilized; equality-oriented and gender competent education and further training courses shall be provided for military, police, and civil peacekeeping personnel. The deployment of civilian peace experts shall be particularly encouraged and increased. The evaluation, from a gender perspective, of all education and further training courses shall be ensured.
10. Consistent strategies shall be developed to counter sexualized and domestic violence in crisis regions and postwar societies. Networking between them and corresponding domestic initiatives (e.g., for German soldiers) shall be promoted.
11. German soldiers as well as military and civil personnel who violate behavioural codes and laws while on a foreign mission, especially by acts of sexualized violence, shall be strictly prosecuted.