Reaching higher: Women liberators and gender

The aim of this paper is to call on WPS activists, as well as feminists in the Horn, to reach higher than NAPs by challenging the discourse that women are solely victims of conflict, and emphasise women’s agency in peace and state-building. Moreover, all actors should pay due consideration to gender-just peace and transitional justice. By doing so, a critical feminist engagement with UNSCR 1325 and 1820 should argue that the political participation emphasised in the IGAD-RAP has become conflated with agency. Governments of the Horn must ensure space for women to engage in peace-building while also considering their needs and representation in processes of transitional justice by acknowledging the role women have played in national liberation, reconstruction, and state-building processes.