IRELAND IS to step up its leading role in an international initiative to tackle violence against women.
The Government has pledged to draw up a national action plan setting out the country's response to issues of gender and violence, Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin told a conference on Women, Peace and Conflictyesterday.
Learning partnerships between Ireland and countries experiencing conflict are also planned so that the Irish experience of countering violence against women can be shared with countries such as Liberia and Timor Leste.
Former president Mary Robinson said Irish agencies had made good progress in highlighting the impact of violence on women since the Joint Consortium on Gender Based Violence was established four years ago.
However, Ireland's reputation in the area could be significantly bolstered by the delivery of a national action plan.
"This plan should centre on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, to which the Government is already committed. By expediting a plan to deal with women and conflict, Ireland could draw on our own experience of conflict resolution."
Ten other European countries have developed action plans on woman and violence but Ireland was now in a good position to reach out to countries where the protection of women was vital, she said. Even in Congo, where massive human rights abuses against women had been reported during the latest upsurge in fighting, this was "not impossible".
Despite the global financial crisis, it was extraordinarily important that governments continued their commitments to development aid and to tackling the extraordinary suffering of many women in conflict situations, Mrs Robinson, director of the Ethical Globalisation Initiative, said.
Mr Martin said Ireland would continue to stress the importance of gender violence issues at international level but also recognised that "words must be matched by action". In drawing up an action plan, Ireland would ensure that women in conflict-affected areas were at the centre of the process.
"Ireland, through the experience of the Northern Ireland situation, and Liberia and Timor Leste through their experiences of conflict and post-conflict situations, have a lot to share in relation to the central objectives of Resolution 1325," he said.
Resolution 1325 demands recognition of the role of women in conflict prevention and resolution and urges the international community to take specific steps to enhance women's participation and to protect them.
The conference heard testimony about the effect of violence on women around the globe. Mukesh Kapila, special representative for HIV/Aids of the Red Cross, pointed out that 99 per cent of sexual violence in conflict situations was directed against women.
Eighty per cent of people displaced in such situations were women and children and women tended to suffer the greatest hardship in post-conflict situations, often when they were left alone to raise their families.
Responding to questions, Mrs Robinson said she shared the concerns for Pamela Izevbekhai and her children about the risks she faces if she is deported from Ireland back to Nigeria.
Ms Izevbekhai, whose case comes before the High Court today, says she lost a baby daughter after the child was forcibly genitally mutilated in Nigeria and fears that the same fate awaits her two other children should they be deported.
Mrs Robinson said she hoped the case would highlight the "very real considerations" about women threatened with sexual violence.
