On Gender-Mongolia: Where we are in Women, Peace, and Security Agenda
Due to my research background in Intimate-Partner Violence and Policy Alternatives in Mongolia, I had the opportunity to be invited to a discussion held in Beijing China on Northeast Asian Countries’ Contribution to the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in December 2019. This regional meeting was organized by the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) in partnership with UN Women, UN Development Programme (UNDP), and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
I was not much aware of the relations of Women in Peace and Security and my first impression was that participants must have a background in peacebuilding and national security. However, interestingly, tackling domestic violence had way more to do with the regional agenda.
In terms of contribution to UN Peacekeeping, Mongolia is notable for the high number of women we deploy. As of June 2019, 886 personnel (877 military and 9 police) deployed to five missions (Jung and Tsujisaka, 2019).
In the Women Peace and Security Index, Mongolian men are comparatively accepting of women working outside the home than the rest of the region’s countries, women have incredible access to financial services, but we have the worst performance in community safety where only 2 in 5 women feel safe walking alone in the streets at night. Women’s leadership in parliamentary decision-making level falls behind at 17 percent where the regional average is at 23.
giwps.georgetown.edu/the-index)
In addition to this, still, one in 3 women experience intimate-partner violence throughout their lifetime. Thus, increasing community safety as well as creating collaborative approaches together to understand and tackle this better is essential for the WPS agenda.
The discussion was an interesting experience surrounded by a very diverse group of individuals. As we better understood more about the agenda, the more we realized the need for collaboration and unity.
As for Mongolia, focusing on community safety projects, enhancing women’s leadership as well as tacking domestic violence are key factors to contribute to the regional agenda. Once again, we tackle all these together with men and women, which was our common conclusion together to establish a ground understanding that it is not about gender battle but a creative approach to unity.