Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697637028114.pdf (Australia)
Lead Convener, "Women Seriously" Global?ampaign on Women, Peace and Security to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Remarks of IRENE M. SANTIAGO Canberra, 5 March 2015 am pleased to be here and thank the Standing Committee for this opportunity to make a few brief remarks on the issue before you: the human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean - Asia Pacific region.
will confine my remarks to what I see as the barriers and impediments to enhancing the human rights of women and girls in the Indian Ocean - Asia Pacific region, especially regarding the impact of family and sexual violence, women's leadership and economic opportunities; and the effectiveness of Australian programs to support efforts to improve the human rights of women and girls in the Indian Ocean - Asia Pacific region.
My work on women's empowerment and gender equality has spanned many levels, from community to national, regional and international levels.

In the past 15 years, I have been actively working on peace issues.

have found that in all the areas that affect women and girl children's status and situation, there are three barriers to full recognition and enjoyment of rights.

These barriers are conceptual, technical and political.

First, the conceptual barrier.


This is the ideology or value or belief that holds women and girls back.

Sometimes we call this culture.

This is the "script" we are given.

It can oppress and it can liberate.

Consider the three words "personal is political".

It took a long time for the women's movement to write that new "script" but when it did those three words had the power to change the way we considered two issues extremely important to women: domestic violence and women's reproductive health.
Consider also the notion that peace negotiations are only about ending war.

Thus, only war actors are to sit at the table.

Women, not being the usual war actors, are not needed - and therefore not participants - at peace negotiations.

However, if the reason for peace negotiations were expanded to include building peace, women, who are involved significantly in peace activities at many levels, will have a chance to sit at the table.

Second, the technical barrier.


I define development as the process of increasing capacities and decreasing vulnerabilities so that we can all lead long, happy and creative lives.

In the area of human rights of women and girls, there are capacities to be increased and vulnerabilities to be decreased on the institutional as well as personal levels.

Gender mainstreaming is an example of a program that addresses this barrier.
But while capacity building is important, without addressing the third barrier- the political barrier - defined here as the potency to influence decisions and actions at the highest levels, change will be slow and most difficult to achieve, in spite of a plethora of policies and international instruments such as UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.

Oftentimes our efforts are directed toward the participation of women in decision-making.
We forget that participation is empty without influence.

The aim of our work must be for women to be taken seriously both as victims and as leaders.

Consider violence against women.


In their landmark study published in the American Political Science Review in J Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 85 2012, Mala Htun and S. Laurel Weldon looked at 70 countries over four decades to examine the most effective way to reduce violence against women.
They found that the mobilization of strong, independent feminist movements was a more important force in reducing violence against women than the economic wealth of a nation, the representation of women in government or the presence of progressive political parties.

Strong and thriving feminist movements help to shape public and government agendas and create the political will to address violence against women.

This is not to say that gender mainstreaming is a bad thing.
I'm saying that the power to influence comes from organization, from movements that equalize power.

Movement building and strengthening have to accompany mainstreaming.
Because whether it is poverty, health, violence against women, armed conflict, economic participation, politics and decision-making, mechanisms to promote the advancement of women, mass media, the environment, women's human rights, and the girl child, - all key concerns of the Beijing Platform for Action the implementation of which we are reviewing this year - the equalizing power of a movement is critical for creating the political will to act.
That is why I have initiated a campaign entitled "Women.Seriously", the global campaign on women, peace and security/ This campaign aims to address the political barrier.

A broad-based movement of informed and concerned citizens who understand the value of having women at the negotiation, table and demanding their full participation in all phases of conflict prevention, conflict resolution and peacebuilding will be a transformative global voice heard by governments and the UN.
Civil society stakeholders are the largest untapped resource for global stability and key constituents in creating significant and , sustainable social change to advance the WPS agenda.

had a long and meaningful engagement with AusAID in the Philippines.

AusAID supported the work of the Mindanao Commission on Women, an NGO I co-founded and headed for more than a decade.
AusAID in the Philippines to me was a model of what aid assistance should be and I invite you to read the evaluation report of "Another Mindanao is Possible" copies of which I have brought for you.

I have often termed our relationship with AusAID as one of accompaniment, a shoulder-to-shoulder journey toward the same goal.

I believe that in the end no one empowers anybody else.

That decision rests with the individual or the institution itself.
Thus "accompaniment" is the most effective and enduring - in aid circles, I believe it is called "sustainable" - way of supporting development efforts, including the human rights of women and giris.

Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 85