Arab Women, Peace and Security conference calls for a new model to protect women from ‎violence and wars

The LAU Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World (IWSAW) launched yesterday the ‎Beirut Appeal for Action at the closure of its international  conference, ‘Towards Prioritizing ‎Women, Peace and Security on the Agenda of the Arab Region”, which comes as part of a larger ‎regional debate on the subject (http://bit.ly/2bl4mxR ). The appeal, released at the end of the ‎conference, urged Arab countries, the UN, the Arab League, civil society, decision makers and ‎policy makers to adopt, act on and comply with its recommendations. The latter pressed for ‎drawing a new analytical approach that seeks to involve women in the making of peace at the ‎regional level and promotes the exchange of expertise and lessons learned to this effect. ‎Participants also called for the development of a new model that inspires peace and the ‎protection of women against violence, underlining the need to document the experiences of ‎women in war and peace. They also drew attention to the importance of exposing the complex of ‎so-termed military masculinity most evident during times of war, and to gender gap in policies ‎related to conflict and peace building, besides methods of engaging men in issues related to ‎women, peace and security issues as allies and advocates of gender justice and equality. ‎Recommendations finally called for supporting multinational partnerships in such they involve ‎conventional and non-conventional parties, including the academic, media, and non-political ‎players, as well as the private sector in order to sustain peace and tolerance. (Al Mustaqbal, ‎August 12, 2016)‎