The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) has significantly decreased its presence in the country in 2016. The departure of much of the peacekeeping force has left the country with several security issues that it is struggling to resolve during its transition. 

2016, an important year for Liberia, a country that has seen a steady consolidation of peace since 2003. 2016 is the year when the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) formally left, barring a minuscule presence. This is also a time when Liberia’s security sector would be left without a big brother stationed to ward off any potential threats to security. This transition to national responsibility for security will test some key assumptions about security sector reform (SSR). First, what is the effectiveness of SSR as a policy of international development? Second, what is the utility of SSR as a tool for external influence?

Liberia’s political and economic transition

UNMIL’s exit comes at a time of anticipated political contest in the upcoming elections of 2017. Given the potential for politically motivated armed mobilization of security actors in a system that is rooted in patronage and loyalty to the ruling party and elites, one could expect some election centric violence. As a run up to this uncertainty, in 2014, the ruling Unity Party fared poorly in the Senate elections, receiving only 10 % of votes. Large scale corruption, deep-rooted cronyism, and mishandling of the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak that claimed nearly 5000 lives have turned voters against the ruling regime. It is also a time when critics of the political elite and its policies are increasingly being targeted and threatened. Arrests and politically motivated killings have created an uneasy atmosphere of fear and suspicion.

Given this context, the prospect of a post-Ellen Sirleaf Liberia is unsettling because of the limited leadership options and a potential polarisation of domestic politics. The opposition remains divided with few serious contenders. Prince Johnson, from Nimba County, a warlord who led the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL) group, and Benoni Urey, a close business associate of Charles Taylor, present less than ideal choices. Other more positive options include George Weah, a renowned international soccer star turned politician. He was recently appointed a Peace Ambassador by the President and is also the chairman of the National Reconciliation Committee. He is widely popular with the youth, who make up an overwhelming majority of the voting bloc. He might be a candidate to watch out for.

On the economic front, Liberia has long standing problems with chronic poverty, high prevalence of informal or vulnerable forms of work and poor physical infrastructure. The Liberian economy’s decade-long dependence on international aid and primary commodity exports has presented weak growth indicators. A weak currency, high inflation and a null growth in 2015, according to the IMF, are worrying statistics. According to estimates, the prices of rubber and iron, two main export commodities have fallen more than 80 % since their peak in 2011. Widespread work layoffs, labour unrest and government instigated austerity measures due to lower revenues and drop in international donor funding have created a less than ideal economic environment for reform.

What about security?

A post-UNMIL security environment presents some gaps that have still to be plugged despite every effort to undertake a responsible draw-down in Liberia. The core issues of transparency, accountability, efficiency, respect for human rights, and civilian oversight will be tested in an environment where the different security agencies continue to struggle for lack of sufficient trained staff and resources.

The Armed Forces of Liberia has witnessed a high attrition rate, and its 2000 strong force remains a token army that is for the most part confined to the barracks. In August 2014, an army scuffle with civilians in West Point, resulted in civilian injuries and some reported deaths that enhance lack of trust towards the national army.

The Liberian National Police, and different immigration, border and intelligence agencies that had been the target of SSR efforts led by UNMIL and donors, remains poorly resourced. A mere 5000 strong force to secure a 4.4 million strong population results in low levels of police presence outside the capital region.

Despite efforts to decentralize the security apparatus through Justice and Security Hubs, across the country, the slow response of LNP to local problems such as the mining riots in 2014, present evidence that gaps remain. There have also been allegations of police corruption in recent investigations by Human Rights Watch.

In reality the transition from a regime centered security sector to a people-centered one is far from complete. It is likely that the security apparatus will be used by the government to intimidate opposition politicians and instigate localized violence as this has been the legacy of the past.

Finally, an ‘unintegrated’ ex-combatant element lingers in the background of externally supported statebuilding. The UNDPled disarmament, demobilization, reintegration and rehabilitation (DDRR) programme in Liberia (2004-2009), did not absorb fighters from the different non-state groups involved in the civil war into the new security sector.

Considerable civilian infiltration in the DDR programme, also meant that ex-combatant continues to live and work within their wartime social networks. Efforts by UNMIL to break command and control chains had limited impact due to neo-patrimonial nature of Liberian society and politics.

Reflections on the SSR

There has been much criticism of the SSR in Liberia. It is accused of causing:

• high levels of dependency on UNMIL and international donors,
• a mismatch between international policy and local practice;
• encouraging European models of security provision in a context of low reliance on formal institutions; and
• creating self-help forms of security in a context of low public trust/reliance on the national security and justice institutions remain.

Core problems with physical infrastructure, weak capacity of the human resources, corruption and elite control make the prospect of delivering ‘people centered security’ challenging.  The security transition plan of the UNMIL requires nearly 38 million USD to complete the process of handover to national agencies. So far the national government has disbursed only 10 million USD, towards this effort.

Earlier mistakes committed by international advisers on SSR, such as requiring all police officers to re-apply to be vetted for their eligibility as LNP officers has left lingering gaps. As a result, senior officers became patrol officers even though they had many years of experience.

Such a demotion brought serious moral problems to the police. Other policy decisions such as retiring senior officers, and those found ineligible on human rights or qualifications related criteria has created dissatisfied pockets within the security sector.

Citizen security currently remains a low priority as security efforts are geared towards replacing UNMIL duties in the area of VIP protection, aerial surveillance for border patrol and management, maritime and prison security, and bomb disposal.

National adaptation

Given this reality of a less than complete reform process, it will be worthwhile to observe how national models of adaptation fare compared to international or UNMIL led models such as the Justice and Security Hub (JSH) structure.

This model of decentralisation, attempts to build five ‘hubs’ or centres where formal security and justice providers will be stationed in key provincial locations.

To date only the Gbarnga hub is operational; while the government has committed US$1 million over 2014–16, in addition to the funds provided by the Peacebuilding Fund, to support the construction of the Harper and Zwedru hubs.

This model of decentralization and access remains difficult to operationalize because of constraints related to finance, infrastructure and capacity (human and material). Further, the JSH concept did not address the issue of civilian oversight of security and justice institutions or the issue of legitimacy.

In reality, most Liberians continue to trust and turn to local informal security and justice providers. National level adaptation includes setting up of the County Security Councils (CSC) structure. It is part of national peacebuilding efforts to ensure decentralization and access. The CSCs incorporate the paramount, clan and town chiefs, providing much-needed civilian input into security policy making at the sub-national level.

President Sirleaf, the current elected Chair of the Economic Community Of West African State (ECOWAS), has also attempted to beef up the role of the Peace and Security Council apparatus to boost regional security linkages with Côte d’Ivoire, which shares borders with LIberia and has witnessed illicit cross-border farming in the Western front.

In sum, Liberia will need to continue capacity building in a post-UNMIL environment. President Sirleaf’s efforts to gain technical assistance from Israel to train Liberian security forces is one example of this strategy. As such the true test of adaptation will come in the post 2017 election period when a remaining UN presence of nearly 2000 military and civilian staff will finally exit.

In essence the effectiveness of SSR as policy tool remains questionable. Do the peace dividends returned from an enormous time-bound and often poorly targeted investment of resources and technical capacity building create a capable security apparatus? The answer in the case of Liberia remains far from positive.

Sukanya Podder is a Senior Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department, King’s College, London.

Donald Trump’s presidency has called into serious question the role of the US in the Paris Agreement, the direction of international cooperation on climate change, and the role of the US in the liberal international order.

Just one year ago, the world was celebrating the adoption of the Paris Agreement as a new foundation for global cooperation on climate change. The North/South firewall that created asymmetrical obligations under the Kyoto Protocol was removed, leaving in its place, a level playing field upon which to build efficient international regulatory cooperation. As Prime Minister David Cameron remarked, “What is so special about this deal is that it puts the onus on every country to play its part.” The more optimistic among us were already discussing how the voluntary aspects of this hybrid agreement could be strengthened to advance the effectiveness of the treaty regime.

The election of Donald Trump as the 45^th President of the United States, however, has called into serious question the role of the US in the Paris Agreement, the direction of international cooperation on climate change, and moreover, the role of the US in the liberal international order and its cohesiveness moving forward. On climate change, for example, Trump and his cabinet vacillate between outright denial and “lukewarmism” (open to the possible existence of climate change but denial of its importance or the urgency of a response).

As such, most of us who take international cooperation seriously are filled with more than a little anxiety and/or dread at the prospect of a Trump presidency but it is important to view Trump as a symptom of a systemic problem: a struggle at the heart of liberal democracy.

The past and future of liberal democracy

Winston Churchill’s remark that, “the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter” gets to the heart of the post-Cold War rebalance between the paternalism of liberal autocracy (or undemocratic liberalism) and the recent growth of populist illiberal democracy.

As Fareed Zakaria reminds us, “The tension between constitutional liberalism and democracy centers on the scope of governmental authority. Constitutional liberalism is about the limitation of power, democracy about its accumulation and use.” The purpose of liberalism’s controls on democracy is to create a long-term structure that is resistant to the short-term solutions of individual leaders to placate the short-term thinking of the people. The liberal international order seeks to do the same between states.

The recent pendulum swing towards illiberal democracy reflects the shortened time horizon of the electorate in the West and their resentment of the longer time horizon of the elites necessary for a liberal international order.

Foreign policy and the willingness of the electorate to pay for it

Trump has been able to tap into a populist resentment of the costs Americans are paying to support international public goods, in particular a global trade regime that is perceived to have benefited Mexico and China at America’s expense and “collective” security arrangements in Europe and Asia that have provided US allies a far greater peace dividend at a disproportionately lower cost than for Americans. For many Americans, ungrateful allies but also America’s challengers are free riding on an international order shouldered by the American taxpayer.

There are, of course, virtually no benefits and considerable costs for America to withdraw from the international economic order or its security alliances, but Trump may be able to increase the cost for other states of participating in the international order secured by the US.

The Republican Party has been trying to limit disproportionately high financial obligations to the UN since the 1980’s, but with an electorate choosing to give them control of the Presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court, the credible threat of US isolationism has not been this great since the rejection of the League of Nations.

By threatening to walk away from international agreements that provide others benefits reliant on American beneficence, Trump, who has made a career out of rent seeking in real estate development and personal branding, will seek to extract greater rents from the international order.

The danger for Trump is that reduced obligations for Americans, or unreasonably high costs for free riders, create incentives for them to seek other sources of global leadership. However, there is reason to believe that Japan and South Korea see much larger costs from Chinese domination; middle-eastern allies see much higher costs than benefits from a US withdrawal; and post-modern Europe will realize it is mostly defenseless without American security guarantees.

None of this “deal making” will improve the lives of the Americans who voted for Trump, but it will likely force US allies to come to terms with their contribution to the peace benefit they’ve enjoyed for so long.

Paris and domestic politics

The Trump administration has begun the process of rolling back the implementation of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and is likely to reduce donations to international climate funds. In the short term, this will appease many in the Republican Party who feel that responsibility for addressing climate change creates short-term costs that disproportionately fall on Americans and provides benefits primarily to non-Americans. That said, these policy changes are likely to result in more coal plants outside the US than within it.

Article 28 delays the possibility of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement for four years, but the US could repudiate the ratification of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, a process that would only take one year. As the Paris Agreement creates no binding mitigation obligations for the US, it is not clear what the Trump administration gains from walking away from either treaty, especially when it is clear that the US would lose a seat at the table it could use to stall the progressive development of the regime.

With former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, the US is likely to continue to support the transition away from fossil fuels (or decarbonization of the global economy) but work actively to slow the pace of implementation to a crawl.

Contagion: from a domestic politics issue to an international problem

In the West, the long-term thinking of liberal democracies facilitated increased prosperity among partners in the international order.

And that prosperity empowered undemocratic liberal elites to expand national rights and responsibilities and translate them into international rights and responsibilities. Tacit approval for these measures, however, was reliant on continued domestic prosperity. But as that prosperity has faltered, it is unsurprising that support for liberal internationalism has declined among the electorate.

The vote for Brexit typifies the impulse of the people to support measures described by illiberal democrats as necessary to regain control of their uncertain economic and cultural destiny. The EU’s migrant crisis and austerity measures from the financial crisis have strengthened illiberal nationalists across Europe, weakening the normative power of the liberal autocracy at the heart of supranational Europe.

In all cases, the excesses of undemocratic liberalism, followed by reduced domestic prosperity, have eroded popular support for international cooperation where the domestic costs are perceived to exceed the benefits.

Conclusion

Trump’s formal repudiation of the TPP and rejection of the TTIP reflect the shortened time horizon of an electorate unwilling to invest in potential future economic gains, but these decisions don’t inherently threaten the international economic order. If, on the other hand, Trump imposes 45% tariffs on imports from China (another ill-advised campaign promise) or walks away from US security guarantees these actions would present serious systemic risks.

It’s worth considering, however, that by painting the worst-case scenario of US withdrawal from the international order so vividly, Trump has highlighted the benefits provided by American leadership that are frequently taken for granted.

In seeking to protect US sovereignty (by reducing what are viewed as asymmetrical obligations) Trump may reinforce the importance of reciprocity in international cooperation and diminish the desire to internationalize Western liberal values. An international criminal court with the support of the US, China, and Russia would be stronger than the current European incarnation. The UN Security Council would be stronger if each member of the P-5 paid the same proportion of UN dues, and the UN General Assembly (where two-thirds of the members collectively pay less than 2% of the total UN budget) would be more legitimate if it were unable to determine the UN budget with a two-thirds voting majority.

Scaling back liberal excesses need not result in authoritarianism, isolationism, or gunboat diplomacy. If addressed prudently, illiberal democratic rebalancing may produce more sustainable liberal democracies and a better liberal democratic foundation for international cooperation.

Murray Carroll is a co-founder and director of the International Court for the Environment Coalition. He has a law degree from the London School of Economics, and is a graduate student of international relations at Harvard University and international law at the University of London. Responsibility for the views expressed in this commentary rest exclusively with the author.

 

Music and dance can be useful means to engage youth in a dialogue for peace.  Music and dance can also provide many unique insights into transforming conflicts and achieving change.

 

“As a musician who works for peace, “unity” holds less interest for me than “harmony.” Unity is when we all sing the same note. Harmony is when we sing different notes, and they are beautiful together.”

– David Lamotte, musician and peace activist

At the same time, as David goes on to say in his book World Changing 101, “Harmony is not homogeneity.” Moreover, he says, “Of course, it is also true that many notes playing together may clearly not be in harmony with one another. Creating that confluence takes attention, patience, and work. It is a beautiful thing when we achieve it, though. And it is not achieved by eliminating difference, but instead by finding ways to work together that are mutually nourishing, that honor and reveal each other’s gifts.” (LaMotte 2014: 113).

In these ways, artistic approaches to building peace like music and dance can offer us the means to embrace pluralism through working together to co-create knowledge rather than attempting to determine one ‘right’ way upheld by those a particular society may deem to be experts.

On Music and Peacebuilding

In the research for my first book, Youth Peacebuilding: Music, Gender and Change I used qualitative case comparison to explore the use of music as a tool for engaging youth in reducing and preventing violence.  More specifically, the research for that book included participant observation and semi-structured interviews with young people involved in musical peacebuilding programs in Australia and Northern Ireland, providing a uniquely deep look at young people’s experiences of everyday violence and how they approached peacebuilding in their local cultural contexts.

In Australia this involved a peace program in a major city engaging Indigenous, non-Indigenous, and migrant and refugee background young people in a collaborative process of music making in order to build understanding across difference, challenge racism, and create safe spaces for recovering from violence already experienced. Similarly, the program in Northern Ireland shared similar goals around addressing both racism and sectarianism in its efforts at peacebuilding through participatory music practice.

This project contributed to theoretical and practical debates and discussions around: youth political participation, the gendered landscape of conflict environments, and creative approaches to pursuing peace. In particular, I explored how music could foster peacebuilding through offering an alternative means for dialogue, helping people create and recreate identities of themselves and others, and offering a tool that could help create safe spaces for such dialogue and identity work, often in challenging circumstances.

While my research has taken me in many directions in the decade since I began the study that underpinned that first book, I always feel drawn to return to reflections on creative approaches to peace, especially the ways they can engage youth. At present, this has taken the form of working to further analyse and share the findings from my research on dance and peacebuilding. While my earlier work dealt with dance to a degree as part of a broader range of musical practices for peacebuilding, since then I have taken up opportunities to explore dance more specifically.

Researching Dance and Peacebuilding

 As Nicole Krauss writes in her latest book,

“More and more it seems to me…that when I write, what I am really trying to do is dance, and because it is impossible, because dancing is free of language, I am never satisfied with writing…to dance is to make oneself available  (for pleasure, for an explosion, for stillness)…The abstract connections it provokes in its audience, of emotion with form, and the excitement from one’s world of feelings and imagination—all of this derives from its vanishing…But writing, whose goal is to achieve a timeless meaning, has to tell itself a lie about time; in essence, it has to believe in some form of immutability…” (Krauss 2017: 136).

While recognizing these challenges, I continue to find meaning in attempting to write about dance or perhaps to dance writing. As such, during my time as a McKenzie Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne I designed and embarked on a comparative study looking at the use of dance in peacebuilding programs across a range of contexts, including Colombia (now commonly deemed a post-conflict site); the US (in inner city locations in Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD where violence is commonly seen as widespread) and in the Philippines, which, despite a peace agreement being signed, continues to face conflict in Mindanao.

Using ethnographically informed methods, including participant observation, interviews, and document analysis, I designed the project and methodological approach and gathered data in the US and Colombia, while a research assistant gathered the data in the Philippines case. This type of intensive data gathering, which included participating in the full global training of the trainers for the program involved, as well as months of participant observation of the programs, offered rich insights into how dance and creative movement can and does engage young people in peacebuilding across a range of diverse contexts.

While the process of writing this into a book proposal and eventually a book is ongoing, over the past several years of working on the project some key themes have started to emerge.

The role of dance in peacebuilding

How, if at all, did dance function as a useful way for youth to take part in peacebuilding? Firstly, participant statements indicated, “that dance can be useful in engaging youth in peacebuilding but that it must be applied in sensitive, reflexive and culturally relevant ways to appeal to and include both young men and young women.” Most if not all participants articulated one or more ways dance had been useful for peacebuilding. Some noted, for example, that dance could serve as a nonviolent means of communication and a way to connect with one’s feelings in a peace education context. Moreover, dance was seen as something that is culturally relevant and familiar, thus many youth could relate to it, and it was also something that did not require lots of expensive equipment or training. At the same time, dance was also seen as a way to release and reduce stress, an important aspect of recovering from violence already witnessed or experienced.

Of course, participants also noted a variety of limitations to what dance could do and how, including pointing to how short term funding cycles, which are common across global peacebuilding initiatives, can at times mean short sighted programs. They also noted that without attention to access and inclusion, efforts to engage youth in dance and creative movement for peacebuilding might overlook the needs of people with disability or people who speak a different language from the one deployed in the dance programs. Still these limitations are not inherent to dance or always present, as seen by the work of VisAbility in Sri Lanka, a country recovering from conflict and where dance programming has been used to engage people with and without disabilities in coordination with a rights empowerment initiative.

Conclusion

Overall, it appears music and dance, when applied in thoughtful ways, can help foster peacebuilding. This is not to say they may not also be used ineffectively or to create exclusions, but when used appropriately they can have much to offer. As one facilitator in programs using dance and creative movement for peacebuilding the Washington, DC and Baltimore programs said when speaking about stepping out of one’s comfort zone to engage within a group:

“When one person takes a positive risk, it shows the rest of us that we can take a positive risk and encourages us to do that also.  So hopefully, after a while they will be able to see that if they can just do one thing that makes them uncomfortable or kind of step outside their comfort zone that it actually helps other people to do the same and get the most out of the experience.”

Surely such steps can be a useful means for reflecting on ways of finding harmony in the dissonance of conflict.

Author’s Note: The research assistant involved with the Philippines work, Erica Rose Jeffrey is a fantastic scholar and dance practitioner in her own right and will soon be awarded her PhD for her own practice-led research in Fiji and the Philippines. More on her work can be found at: http://peacemoves.org

Lesley Pruitt is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Monash University and a member of the Monash GPS (Gender, Peace and Security) Centre. Lesley’s research focuses on peace and conflict studies, especially recognising and enhancing youth participation in peacebuilding and advancing gender equity in peacekeeping. A Truman Scholar and Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, Lesley received her Masters & PhD from the University of Queensland. Lesley’s books include The Women in Blue Helmets: Gender, Policing & the UN’s First All-Female Peacekeeping Unit and Youth Peacebuilding: Music, Gender & Change. She is also an author of Young People, Citizenship and Political Participation: Combatting Civic Deficit?

 

There will be no sustainable security if we do not equally value the needs, experiences and input of men and women. A new report published by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), funded by ActionAid and Womankind Worldwide, examines the role women play in local community peacebuilding in Afghanistan, Liberia, Nepal, Pakistan and Sierra Leone. The report states “despite the increased international attention to women’s participation in peacebuilding, the achievements and challenges facing women building peace at the local level have been largely overlooked”.

Last week’s Guardian article entitled Who creates harmony the world over? Women. Who signs peace deals? Men points to some surprising data on female participation in official peacebuilding initiatives. “There have been no female chief mediators in UN-brokered peace talks and fewer than 10% of police officers and 2% of the soldiers sent on UN peacekeeping missions have been women”, reports the article. Furthermore, “fewer than one in 40 of the signatories of major peace agreements since 1992 have been female […] and in 17 out of 24 major accords- including Croatia, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Liberia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo- there was zero female participation in signing agreements”.

An excerpt from The Guardian datablog:

The IDS report found that “women are more likely than men to adopt a broad definition of peace which includes the household level and focuses on the attainment of individual rights and freedoms such as education, healthcare and freedom from violence. In contrast, men have a greater tendency to associate peace with the absence of formal conflict and the stability of formal structures such as governance and infrastructure”. It is important to include women in formal peace mediations and agreements as “peace means different things to women and men because of their unique experiences as a result of war”.

Additionally, the research established that women have a lot of experience, and are principal actors, when it comes to mediating and decision making within the home and the family. Women are also more likely to come together collectively to create change. However, their “experiences building trust and dialogue in their families and communities are frequently dismissed as irrelevant or are not sufficiently valued by national governments, and the international community”.

Some barriers to women’s participation in peacebuilding include: restrictive social norms and attitudes, violence against women and girls, poverty and economic inequality and inequality in access to education. The report suggests empowering women through access to justice, creating safe spaces for women’s participation and changing attitudes towards peace and valuing women’s contribution as key elements to support women peacebuilding.

The 2000 United Nations Security Council resolution 1325 calls for “equal participation for women in the maintenance and promotion of sustainable peace”.

Only yesterday, Foreign Secretary William Hague called upon UN Security Council resolution 1325, announcing to the UN General Assembly that the UK  “will contribute £1 million this financial year to support the Office of the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict”. “It’s our purpose in gathering here this morning to ensure that preventing sexual and gender-based crime in conflict and post-conflict situations is an urgent priority for the international community”, William Hague declared, and went on to say “We are convinced in the United Kingdom that we can do more to help […] we can do it as a permanent member of the Security Council, a leading member of NATO, the European Union and the commonwealth and as a nation with one of the most extensive international development programmes in the world.”

The IDS report states that although Security Council resolution 1325 was passed in 2000, it has since then been almost totally ignored, not least by the UN itself. Hopefully this time, the international community, including the UK government, will take serious steps towards its implementation. At the same time, it is important to commit to preventing sexual and gender-based crimes, not only in “conflict and post-conflict situations”, but also in times of “peace”.

No sustainable peace and security will ever be possible, if women’s voices are marginalised and if women and men do not work together equally on national and international peace mediations and agreements.

Anna Alissa Hitzemann is a  Peaceworker with Quaker Peace and Social Witness. She currently works with Oxford Research Group as a Project Officer for the Sustainable Security Programme, with a focus on our ‘Marginalisation of the Majority World’ project.

 

IDS, ActionAid, Womankind Worldwide report From the Ground Up can be read here.

The Guardian, Who creates harmony the world over? Women. Who signs peace deals? Men is available here

The Guardian, datablog Women’s participation in peace- how does it compare is available here

Remarks by the Foreign Secretary William Hague to the UN General Assembly can be read here

UN Security Council resolution 1325 is available here

Image Source: UNAMID