Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ

¡°Security Council resolution 1325 gave voice to a simple truth: Women¡¯s leadership is not just a matter of rights. It is central to building just and lasting peace,¡± Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Secretary-General Ant¨®nio Guterres.

Twenty-six years later, progress remains fragile, and the world continues to fall dangerously short of this ideal. , women made up just five per cent of peace negotiators across 57 peace processes worldwide, declining from seven per cent in 2024. Nearly 80 per cent of active peace negotiations in 2025 included no women negotiators. Yet the decisions made during these negotiations continue to shape the lives of millions of women and girls living amid conflict.

¡°Women¡¯s participation is not symbolic,¡± adds Secretary-General Guterres. ¡°Peace processes are more likely to endure when women participate meaningfully in advancing them. Stability is more achievable when women have equal opportunity to shape the future of their communities.¡±

Despite a minimum target of one-third representation, women accounted for only 22 per cent of participants in Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ-led or co-led peace processes in 2025. Consequently, just 19 per cent of reviewed peace agreements included gender-related provisions. Most glaringly, none of the 13 ceasefire agreements reached that year contained substantive references to women and girls or explicitly prohibited sexual violence.

This unfolds against the backdrop of the most severe levels of global conflict in recent history. The disproportionate cost to women and girls is staggering: an unprecedented number now reside within 50 kilometres of armed conflict, and Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ-verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence have doubled since 2024 and nearly quadrupled since 2022.

¡°The story of so many crises confronting our world is fundamentally a story of power,¡± argues Guterres. ¡°Who holds it. And who is denied it. Nowhere is the power imbalance more glaring than that most ancient and universal form of inequality¡ªbetween women and men.¡±

The 26 years since the adoption of Resolution 1325 have yielded crucial gains. Today, over 110 countries have adopted national action plans on women, peace, and security. Women are increasingly involved in¡ªand often leading¡ªlocal mediation efforts. Gender provisions have been integrated into peace agreements, and women-led organizations play a vital role in helping communities heal long after the fighting stops.

Even as funding for their organizations and programmes has been slashed in recent years, women on the frontlines continue to make headway where formal politics fail. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, women mediators successfully secured commitments from armed groups to end retaliatory violence against women and children.

In the Central African Republic, women now make up 35 per cent of the 66 local peace and reconciliation committees¡ªa presence that has helped reduce community violence by 40 per cent since 2021.

And in Lebanon, women-led organizations have stepped in to mitigate aid-related conflicts in collective shelters, actively mediating disputes between displaced people and host communities.

¡°We know what must be done,¡± says Bahous, addressing Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Member States. ¡°The question now is whether we have the courage to share power, the resolve to invest in women¡¯s leadership, and the political will to turn our commitments into action.¡±

For those living the reality on the ground, that action cannot wait. In Paryani's own words: "If you are a parent, stand up for the future of your daughters. If you are a brother, stand firm beside your sisters. And if none of these roles define you, then stand up for our common humanity. Because none of us can claim ignorance. None of us can say we did not know."