Women and children eat hot soup at an aid station shortly after their arrival in Poland at the Medyka border crossing on March 3, 2022 near Medyka, Poland.SeanGallup/Getty Images
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Merita Ilo is the weekend editor at The Globe and Mail.
It was the spring of 1999 when, as a reporter for the Associated Press, I arrived at the border between Kosovo and Albania. I was there to report on the flood of refugees fleeing the wrath of then-Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, who had launched an ethnic cleansing campaign against Kosovo Albanians.
I remember the first group of mostly women and children who arrived on foot – mothers trying to calm their wailing babies, young boys and girls helping the elderly who could barely walk. Within weeks, more than 800,000 people had crossed the border into Albania and Macedonia.
It’s a drama that had played out before in the Balkans and beyond: Wars incited by politicians – often male leaders with big egos and delusional beliefs – who will do anything to stay in power; men who take up arms to defend their homes and their land; and women who have no choice but to pick up their children – and the pieces of their shattered lives – and flee to safety, becoming refugees.
Over the last few days, the world has been horrified at the devastating violence Russian President Vladimir Putin has unleashed against Ukraine. Scores of civilians have been killed, including children, and more than one million people have fled the country.
Civilians bear the brunt of wars and armed conflicts but reports from organizations such as the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross show women and girls suffer disproportionately, as social networks break down, making them more vulnerable to violence and exploitation. Furthermore, women are excluded from conflict prevention and peacekeeping efforts.
Janine di Giovanni teaches about conflict at Yale University and has written extensively on peace and security.
“We’re all aware of the gender imbalance in Silicon Valley and Hollywood. But the life-and-death imbalance is in peacemaking,” wrote di Giovanni in Foreign Policy last October.
“Gaining more diverse input in peace processes can only have positive results. After all, women are usually not the combatants but the ones picking up the pieces of a broken society. They know what needs to be done. They know how to heal and how to patch together broken people.”
The UN Security Council’s landmark Resolution 1325, adopted in 2000, called for the increased participation of women in all stages of conflict, from prevention to peace processes and post-conflict reconstruction.
A global study on the implementation of Resolution 1325 found that women’s participation increases the probability of a peace agreement lasting at least two years by 20 per cent, and the probability of a peace agreement lasting 15 years by 35 per cent.
But a quick look at the images from the first and second round of talks between Ukraine and Russia this week suggests its implementation has a long way to go.
It is hard to think of peace in Ukraine when the missiles are raining down and a kilometres-long Russian military column is closing in on Kyiv, promising more destruction and human suffering.
Women and children who have fled from war in Ukraine rest at a temporary shelter set up in a former shopping center on March 3, 2022 in Przemysl, Poland.SeanGallup/Getty Images
And while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s resistance galvanizes his country and the rest of the world, it is the stories of ordinary Ukrainian women that get to me the most.
Like the story of Natalie Slyusar, a self-described tough “like a stone” woman who broke down in tears because the fluffy chocolate cake she had promised her son for his 16th birthday “turned into a terribly dry, flat brown pancake,” thanks to wailing air raid sirens that sent the family into the basement mid-baking.
Or the story of Olena Tsebenko, a 31-year-old social worker from Lviv in western Ukraine, who at nine-months pregnant had to cross the border into Poland with no idea where her baby would be born. And yet, she smiled as she talked about the baby girl, who was due any day. “We’re naming her Vira,” she said, “which means hope.”
Next week, when the world marks International Women’s Day, tributes will undoubtedly pour in for the women of Ukraine – the ones fighting for their country as well as those doing everything they can to keep their families safe.
My hope is that when the time comes to talk peace, those women will have a seat at the negotiation table. They have earned it.
What else we’re thinking about:
Spring is almost here, which means it’s time to bring out my box of seeds and start planning my vegetable garden. No, it’s not concerns about food security or rising prices that drove me to it, although the free cherry tomatoes, red leaf salad and cucumbers didn’t hurt. It’s just a hobby I picked during the pandemic that simply makes me happy and keeps me sane. Last summer I was obsessed with the idea of no-dig gardens – a centuries-old concept that has gained popularity over the past decade. Charles Dowding is the no-dig garden guru, if you want to learn about it. This year, I think I’ll give backyard composting a try, though my husband says Toronto’s infamous raccoons may have something to say about that.
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