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“Peace that is shaped only by men is not Peace”
Nobel Prize laureate Nadia Murad and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas opening the Women, Peace and Security College (Kolleg Frauen, Frieden, Sicherheit), © Florian Gaertner/photothek.de
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Nobel Prize laureate Nadia Murad today officially opened the Women, Peace and Security College (Kolleg Frauen, Frieden, Sicherheit) at the Foreign Service Academy in Tegel.
The aims of the UN Security Council Women, Peace and Security agenda, which emphasises the importance of women in peace processes, are an integral part of the training for all foreign service career tracks at the Academy.
At the opening of the Women, Peace and Security College at the Academy in Tegel for all junior staff of the Federal Foreign Office, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas stressed women’s key role as active participants in peace processes and underlined the importance of the rights of women and girls worldwide:
Where human rights are being trampled underfoot, there can be no long-term political stability. Respect for the rights of women and girls is a vital indicator here. That is one reason why the Women, Peace and Security agenda has become a core element of German foreign policy in recent years.
Germany is engaged worldwide for the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda, established by the United Nations Security Council in October 2000 with Resolution 1325.
Over the past four years, Germany has launched some 700 measures to support women and girls in crisis contexts and to boost women’s participation in peace processes – from support for survivors of sexual violence in the Congo to protective facilities for peace activists in Afghanistan and training courses in negotiating techniques for women in countries in transition such as the Sudan.
In April 2019, as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, Germany also pushed through Resolution 2467 on protection for the victims of sexual violence, which furthers the Women, Peace and Security agenda and Resolution 1325.
At today’s opening ceremony, Nobel Prize laureate Nadia Murad said:
Peace that is shaped by men, for men, is not peace. There can only be peace if women have equal access to justice and security. To prevent violence in the future, we need a fundamental change. If we do not manage to ensure gender equality in times of peace, then we can hardly hope to prevent sexual violence in times of war.
Addressing the trainees at the Foreign Service Academy in Tegel, Foreign Minister Maas said:
As German diplomats, your place is by the side of those whose rights are under threat. Of those who need protection and support. This is not a matter of blind idealism. Ultimately it is a matter of peace and security.
The aims of the Women, Peace and Security agenda are an integral part of the training for all levels of the foreign service at the Academy. The opening of the College is testimony to this.