Roundtable Discussion and Workshop
Exploring the Roles of Women in CVE (USA)
On 18 March 2015, Hedayah and the Global Center on Cooperative Security held a roundtable discussion with diplomats, UN officials, practitioners, and civil society representatives in New York City, USA in order to explore the practical opportunities and challenges in integrating a gender dimension into countering violent extremism (CVE) efforts.
Several speakers gave the opening reflections to the roundtable, which included: Jamal J. Al Musharakh, Acting Deputy Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the United Arab Emirates to the United Nations; Hilde Klemetsdal, Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations; and Sarah Taylor, Women, Peace and Security Advocate, Human Rights Watch.
After the opening remarks, speakers and participants debated if there is a particular role for women in CVE policy and programming, and if a gender analysis could be better integrated into CVE efforts. The discussions focused heavily on how these questions fit within the framework of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, but also within wider international policy frameworks. Participants generally agreed that there was important role for women to play in CVE policy and programming, but many cautioned against instrumentalizing the work of women and women’s groups solely for security purposes. There was general consensus that gender equality and women’s rights are critical objectives that can contribute to CVE.
However, these objectives are important also in their own right, and more should be done to further articulate the role of women in CVE efforts beyond the spectrum of gender equality and women’s rights.
The roundtable discussion was convened in support of an ongoing project exploring the differing roles of women in CVE.
Authors’ Workshop: Exploring the Roles of Women in Countering Violent Extremism
From 18-19 March 2015, a two-day workshop was convened as part of an ongoing project co-organized by Hedayah and the Global Center on Cooperative Security on the differing roles of women in CVE efforts in New York City, USA.
The workshop provided a platform for discussion and discourse about each of the contributing authors’ chapters in the publication, and to begin to draw preliminary conclusions on developing and implementing CVE programming and policy with respect to women’s’ roles.
Contributing authors to the publication include:
- Alison Davidian, UN Women
- Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, Women in International Security (WIIS), United States
- Guillaume Denoix de Saint Marc, Association française des Victimes du Terrorisme (AfVT), France
- Sahana Dharmapuri, Independent Gender Advisor, United States
- Ross Frenett, Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), United Kingdom
- Jayne Huckerby, Duke University School of Law, United States
- Oluwakemi Okenyodo, CLEEN Foundation, Nigeria
- Mariam Safi, Organization for Policy Research and Development Studies (DROPS), Afghanistan
- Edit Schlaffer and Ulrich Kropiunigg, Women Without Borders/Sisters Against Violent Extremism (SAVE), Austria
Authors drew on their diverse professional and personal experiences from a variety of regions in the fields of development, human rights law, academia, security sector reform, advocacy, and international security. The various perspectives of the authors will be presented and analyzed in a final volume that is to be edited by Naureen Chowdhury Fink, Sara Zeiger, and Rafia Bhulai.