Concept Note for Protection of Civilians Week Side Event: Where Protection of Civilians and Women, Peace and Security Meet

Wednesday 21 May 2025, 10.30 – 12 noon

Conference Room 11, UN New York (in person only)

Co-sponsored by: The Permanent Missions to the United Nations of Australia, Canada, Jamaica, Liechtenstein, the Philippines and South Africa, as well as the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, CIVIC, IPI, PAX and Stimson

Organised by: DCAF – Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance

Open to all. Please register here.

Objectives

1. To strengthen understanding of gender-responsive Protection of Civilians (POC) from the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) perspective. More specifically, to encourage discussions relating to all aspects of POC to consider Women, Peace and Security (WPS) and gender dimensions, and to see WPS as a critical enabler and element of POC.
2. To share practical measures on mainstreaming WPS and gender perspective in POC, as a means to enhance IHL compliance, derived from national practice, research and practitioner experience.
3. To invite participants to join a new IHL Community of Practice for WPS and contribute to a process of developing a repository of best practices.

Background and Introduction

The Secretary-General's 2024 report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict tracked an alarming 72 per cent rise in civilian deaths, with the proportion of women killed double that of 2022. The Secretary-General's report highlighted CRSV as particularly affecting women and girls, underscoring the increasing and horrific scope of CRSV crimes. This is one of many disparate impacts of armed conflicts upon women, girls, men and boys. The use of explosive weapons in populated spaces, attacks on critical infrastructure, landmines and explosive remnants of war, forced displacement, and interference with medical care likewise tend to harm women, girls, men and boys in different ways and at different rates. For UN POC Week in 2025, redoubling efforts to strengthen compliance with IHL and international human rights law should be at the forefront of discussions.

For States, UN POC Week is an opportunity to build cooperation on measures that can be taken by parties to armed conflict to encourage respect for IHL and to ensure accountability for violations. Two under-explored components of this are applying a gender perspective to POC and taking measures that reinforce WPS and POC hand-in-hand.