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UNITED NATIONS, Oct 07 (APP): Highlighting in the UN Security Council the suffering of women under foreign occupation, especially in Palestine and Kashmir, Pakistan has called for guaranteeing the protection of women under international law and ensuring accountability.
The 15-member Council met on Monday for their annual open debate on the women, peace and security agenda just ahead of the 25th anniversary of its landmark resolution 1325 (2000) on the issue.
“The plight of Palestinian women is one of the gravest tragedies of our times,” Pakistani delegate Saima Saleem said, while also expressing regret that the Secretary-General’s report makes no reference to the plight of Kashmiri women “who, for decades of occupation, have endured sexual violence deployed as a weapon of war”.
Spotlighting the bombing of homes, schools and maternity wards in Gaza, along with the tens of thousands displaced and hundreds of thousands now facing famine, Ms. Saleem, a counsellor at the Pakistan Mission to the UN, underscored: “These are not collateral tragedies, but deliberate crimes that demand accountability.”
About the plight of Kashmiri women, she pointed out that UN human rights mechanisms, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Special Procedures along with organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Medecins Sans Frontières, have documented violations of their rights, harassment of women human rights defenders and journalists, reprisals against female family members of the disappeared, torture and arbitrary detentions, and widespread trauma of sexual violence and abuse.
“To exclude Kashmiri women from the Women, Peace and Security agenda erases its legitimacy and undermines its universality,” the Pakistani delegate said, adding, “The Jammu and Kashmir dispute is on this Council’s agenda and therefore, future reports must reflect their plight accordingly.”
Ms. Saleem’s sharp comments about the grave rights abuses of Kashmiri women in Indian occupied Kashmir drew a strong response from India’s UN Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish. But later in the Council’s meeting , another Pakistan delegate set the record straight in exercise of his right of reply to the Indian envoy’s remarks.
Reaffirming its commitment to advancing the gender perspective in UN peace operations, Ms. Saleem said Pakistan was actively engaged in implementing the Women, Peace and Security agenda.
“Our women peacekeepers have served with courage and resilience in the DRC, Mali, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Bosnia and beyond,” she said, having built trust, provided medical care, and supported survivors where justice was denied. “They have shown that women in peacekeeping are both symbols of progress and enablers of peace itself”.
“Women’s protection under international law must be guaranteed, and accountability must be ensured wherever and whenever sexual violence is deployed as a deliberate tactic of war.”
Women’s organizations in conflict zones must receive sustained and predictable funding, she said, pointing out that he Pact for the Future reaffirmed our collective commitment to the Women, Peace and Security agenda. “Now is the time to act: mandate women’s participation, guarantee their protection, promote their leadership, and strengthen accountability.”
In conclusion, Ms. Saleem said, “Sustainable peace demands women at the heart of decision-making — as mediators, peacekeepers, and leaders. Pakistan will continue to work with this Council to ensure that the promise of resolution 1325 is not delayed, diminished, or denied —but delivered to women and girls across the world.”
During his speech to the Council, Harish, the Indian ambassador, accused Pakistan of bombing its own people, conducting what he called was a genocide, referring to the 1971 “events.
Reacting to the Indian allegations, Pakistani delegate Sarfraz Ahmad Gohar said they were an attempt to deflect attention from its appalling record in the occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
“The fact remains that Jammu and Kashmir is not an integral part of India. It is a disputed territory, as affirmed by Security Council resolutions, which call for a United Nations-supervised plebiscite.”
Gohar, a first secretary at the Pakistan Mission to the UN, said the theme of today’s debate was painfully relevant to occupied Jammu and Kashmir where women’s plight deserves the Council’s attention. “For decades, women there have endured the worst forms of violence — rape, harassment, arbitrary detention, and collective punishment — at the hands of Indian occupation forces.”
The reference to 1971, he said, was yet another attempt to distort history – by a country that distinguishes itself in disinformation and as a serial violator of international law. “India’s interference, naked aggression and military intervention in East Pakistan was a blatant violation of the UN Charter”.
In today’s India, the Pakistani delegate said, Hindutva ideology has become state policy, as Muslims, Christians, Dalits, and other minorities are persecuted with impunity. “Genocide Watch has warned during a U.S. congressional briefing that there were early ‘signs and processes’ of genocide in the Indian state of Assam and in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.”
He urged India to seriously introspect, accept the facts as they stand and take credible steps towards fulfilling the Security Council resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir, protect the minorities living in its country, and stop misleading the Council.
Opening the debate, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “Too often, we gather in rooms like this one, full of conviction and commitment, only to fall short when it comes to real change in the lives of women and girls caught in conflict.”
Sexual violence is surging, maternal mortality rising, girls are being pulled from school and women in public life targeted with violence and harassment. “In Afghanistan,” he said, “the systematic erasure of women and girls from public life is in overdrive”.
Further, women and girls face horrific violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Sudan, Haiti, Myanmar and beyond.
The UN chief therefore urged, among other things, binding targets for women’s participation — noting that the UN has set an “initial target” for at least one third of participants in UN-led peace processes to be women.
He also called for a “gender data revolution” to close information gaps and ensure that women’s experiences and needs are “visible and addressed”. Resolution 1325 (2000) is clear that “women are leaders of peace for all”, he said, stressing: “Our world does not need more reminders of this truth — what it needs are more results that reflect it.”
The Executive Director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women),Sima Sami Bahous, said, “It is lamentable, then, that we see today rising military spending and renewed pushback against gender equality and multilateralism.”
While underscoring that “those who oppose equality do not own the future, we do”, she warned that the international community must be prepared for the situation to worsen before it improves.