A month ago, on the 31st of October, in the lead up to the Shaping Feminist Foreign Policy during the Feminist Foreign Policy Community Festival, leading voices on human security, disarmament and demilitarisation came together in The Hague. At the session, which was part of the Feminist Foreign Policy Community Festival, Susi Snyder (ICAN), Faizat Badmus-Busari (SIHA), Maria Al Abdeh (Women Now) and Jerome Larosch (Dutch MFA) involved the audience in discussing how to centre human security, demilitarization, and disbarment in FFP implementation.
While we are seeing an increase in military spending across the world, we are also seeing a larger number and often the same states adopting a Feminist Foreign Policy. But what does this Feminist Foreign Policy mean in practice when it comes to security? And who’s security is central? Bringing together grassroots, general, and governmental perspectives, our panellists and attendees discussed and formulated concrete recommendations.
Demilitarisation, disarmament, and human security
Susi Snyder started off our discussions by highlighting that a feminist principles and insights demand a focus on demilitarisation, disarmament, and human security within FFP. Although this may seem aspirational instead of practical, we should aspire to greatness. Speaking from her expertise, Susi highlighted the gendered dynamics when it comes to nuclear weapons. Both on the aspect of the disproportionate number of women that are affected by these weapons but not included in decision making about them, to the gendered language, coercion and justifications involved with nuclear weapons. Susi then applied feminist principles in regard to arms trade more generally. As it is up to states, especially those with FFP to stand up to arms trade companies and involve them in, at the bare minimum, tracking of where their weapons end up.
Rewarded for violence
Building on the points that Susi made, Faizat Badmus-Busari linked the conversation about arms trade to the lack of human security in the Sudan context. Sudan’s pro-democratic protests, mainly led by women, toppled Al Bashir’s dictatorial regime in 2019. During a hopeful transitional period CEDAW was signed and a National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security created. However, the military coup of 2021 and the outbreak of war earlier this year plunged Sudan into deep crisis with big steps backwards. Conflict related sexual violence is widespread. Women are still organising themselves and taking a stand against militarisation and war but remain excluded from ceasefire talks. Instead, Faizat emphasized that military leaders are rewarded for their violence at the negotiation table. For countries that have an FFP, it is important to support women’s organisations deeply rooted in communities and centralize human security in their approach, including economic and environmental security.
The link between militarisation and business profits
Maria Al Abdeh also emphasized this need for human security and humanising civilians to be at the centre of foreign policy. The heavy impact of militarization puts into question who benefits from sieges and who are really impacted, this is exemplified in besieged areas in Syria in 2016, where food was very rare, yet bullets were available and even cheaper than sugar at times. Maria emphasized the link between militarisation and business profits, as in the case in Syria a French cement factory for example was paying ISIS and other military groups to help continue operations. Maria called for justice for Gaza, and conflict resolution approaches that focus on preventing and stopping attacks on civilians. Feminist Foreign Policy should question the notion of terrorism as a justification by states and armed groups to justify systematic violence against civilians.
More than gender mainstreaming
As the last person on the panel, Jerome Larosch underscored the value of the insights of the speakers before him, emphasizing the importance of grassroots perspectives and for the Dutch government to be humble and realistic about where it stands and ambitious in its steps to doing justice in developing and implementing its FFP. The Dutch government should push forward the agenda on how women are more impacted by (nuclear) weapons, similar in cases of Gender-Based Violence. There is enough data and knowledge to take the next step on these issues. Lastly, Jerome highlighted that FFP should be more than gender mainstreaming and making sure it does not become a “tick the box “exercise.
Following the speakers interventions we broke-out into open space conversations, allowing the speakers and attendees to enter into conversation together and give concrete recommendations on Human Security, Demilitarisation and Disarmament. Recommendations included taking a long-term lens and commit for as long as it takes to secure human security, as well as investing in non-violent and non-militarised responses and strategies that respond to violent conflict escalations.