Pakistan deploying female infantry engagement team at UN peace keeping mission
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ISLAMABAD - Pakistan is deploying a female infantry engagement team to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said the country’s permanent representative to the UN on Saturday.
As she gave her two cents during a debate in the General Assembly on sexual violence, Maleeha Lodhi added, “Pakistan has achieved the goal of deployment of 15 per cent female staff officers in peacekeeping missions, thus fulfilling its responsibilities in accordance with the uniformed gender parity strategy and Security Council resolutions.”
She maintained, “Our professional peacekeepers to the UN, including our female peacekeepers, continue to set the highest standards in fulfilling peacekeeping mandates, and protecting all vulnerable segments of the population, including women, from violence in some of the most dangerous and complex conflict situations around the world.”
The envoy hailed the eliminated of the breeding grounds spawned by unresolved disputes as one of the most effective ways to prevent conflict-based sexual violence.
She also called for the full integration of gender perspectives in the UN’s peace-building paradigm.
Ambassador Lodhi added, “By leaving disputes unaddressed, the Security Council runs the risk of acting selectively and displaying a blind spot for some of the most vulnerable women who suffer disproportionately from violence perpetrated by foreign occupation.”
Appreciating the UN Security Council for leading global efforts to eliminate the scourge of conflict-related sexual violence, the Pakistani ambassador pointed out that women, especially young girls, continued to brave the main brunt of physical and psychological abuse.
She underscored that the occupying forces and aggressors were employing sexual violence as a broader strategy to repress, dominate and subjugate the defenceless and vulnerable communities.
