 So in our next session here, we are going to drill down a bit from the macro view of 1325 and begin by reminding ourselves that 1325 has legal and humanitarian dimensions to it and that as practitioners we understand the importance of law and humanitarian policy and so it is really an honor today to have with us Rosa Brooks who is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Rule of Law and Humanitarian Policy. What I will tell you about Rosa Brooks is that her resume is intimidating. When I started to read it I thought where do I begin? Do I tell you that Rosa Brooks has worked over the years in over 30 countries from Indonesia to Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Russia, China and India, Iraq and Afghanistan. Do I dare mention that her education includes a degree from Harvard, followed by a master's degree from Oxford, followed by a law degree from Yale. At that point I took my glasses off and said, you know what? The best thing is to bring her here in person. Would you join me in welcoming Rosa Brooks? My goodness, I hate buildup like that. Now I feel like I have to say something really, really smart, witty and demonstrating global awareness and cosmopolitan vision. I may not do that, but let me just start by saying it's a real honor to be here. It's just fabulously exciting and the Department of Defense is really thrilled to be able to participate in this. You're going to hear from somebody way more impressive than I am in about an hour and that's Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but we're very grateful to WIS and to USIP for organizing this and it's fabulous to be here. What I wanted to do today is speak from a somewhat parochial DOD perspective and say a few words both about efforts to implement 1325 at the Defense Department and at our combatant commands and then highlight a few of the challenges that we have ahead of us. It's actually a very exciting time because I think that people such as myself are beneficiaries of the work of an earlier generation of women. I hosted a brunch a couple of weeks ago for a bunch of female friends of mine, all of whom work in national security, all of whom have young children and my mother came to the brunch too. My mother was part of the first wave of American feminist activism. I grew up in a household, a feminist household I grew up being told at the time when all the other girls were dressing up as nurses that I should dress up as a doctor. Back in the day when it still felt like you had to keep making the point that women could be doctors too, they didn't just have to be nurses, that women could be lawyers too. My mother came to this brunch and my friends and I were all talking about the various challenges of being a woman with a job that just happened to be in the defense and national security sector and in fact one of my colleagues at DOD who just had a baby was talking about the difficulty of balancing her extremely high powered career with taking a little time out in the nursing room to pump breast milk. And my mother said to me after they'd all left, she said, I am floored. I would not have believed for a second, if you had told me 30 years ago, 40 years ago, that I would be sitting some day with my daughter and her friends, they would be chatting about the nursing room at the Pentagon. I couldn't have imagined it. So it is an exciting time and I am particularly lucky because I work for Michelle Flournoy who is the number three civilian official at the Pentagon, highest ranking civilian woman and is just a terrific person who brought in a whole slew of women with her into various senior positions. I think Michelle single-handedly more or less doubled the number of women in senior positions at DOD and I hope and trust that that's a legacy that will remain after she goes. We have women leaders, senior women leaders on the joint staff now. We have a woman four star. I think when you look at the number of women, the percentage of women who make up newly commissioned lieutenants, I think it's close to 40% now and I think that's what we can expect in the future is to begin to see a defense and military leadership that looks much more like the American public from a demographic perspective and a gender perspective. Women run DARPA, the Defense Research Agency. Women run several of the major defense agencies. Women fly fighter aircraft. We just heard from Tammy Duckworth, a pilot, a helicopter pilot and military former pilot. Women command marines in the field. This is relatively recent. I think it wasn't actually until the decade prior to the passage of 1325 that we began to see a dramatic increase in the number of women both in leadership positions and civilian side at DOD but also for women in the military. I think we had some 40,000 women who deployed during Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield during the First Gulf War. And it wasn't until 1994, just six years before 1325 that DOD reversed the so-called risk rule that it kept women out of combat-related positions. So by the end of the 1990s, we were already in this country beginning to see a real wave of women entering senior defense positions, entering. We had women graduates from all of the Defense Academies and other type military programs such as VMI and the Citadel. The past decade, though, I think has really changed the dynamic from women having to constantly be making the case that they can do everything men can do better, they can do some things that men can't do to women not even really needing to make the case as much anymore. It's much more taken for granted. I don't mean to say that there are a lot of challenges that remain and I will talk about those in a moment. I think that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance, cultures in which religious precepts and traditions often make it virtually impossible for male troops to have direct face-to-face contact with women in many communities demonstrated the value, the straightforward operational value to our troops of having women fully integrated into our armed forces because women in our armed forces have been able to do things, get information, reach out to communities, tap information networks, build communities of interest in ways that the men just could not have done, literally could not have done, but enormous operational value for our troops as well. But I think even more than the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere demonstrating that sometimes women can do things that the men can't do, the kinds of conflicts that we have increasingly seen and frankly I think we are going to be seeing in the foreseeable future have really broken down any distinction that we might have had between the roles of men and women in combat. The reality of modern warfare actually I think makes a real mockery of prohibitions of women in direct combat roles because the distinction between the front and the rear has virtually been obliterated. In today's conflicts, whether women are, even if they're in so-called rear roles, if they're drivers, if they're translators, logisticians, pilots, they'll also risk their lives. Whether they're sent into combat in a traditional sense or not, combat has a way of finding them. Women soldiers and Marines on patrols can find themselves in firefights. Women piling transport planes or helicopters can face hostile fire. Women just trying to get from one place or another can encounter insurgent ambushes or IEDs and be called upon to fight, sometimes to sacrifice their lives. And I think in all of the conflicts we have, this country has been involved in the past decade, we have seen hundreds and hundreds of women who are wounded and in some case killed. This type of environment is here to stay. If anything, we obviously anticipate that irregular warfare, which we should stop calling irregular warfare because it's no longer quite so irregular. It's become the norm, it's much more than the exception. And asymmetric threats are going to increase and many of the remaining restrictions on women in conflict really date from an earlier era of warfare. So I certainly am optimistic that they will soon fade away and go the way of the corset and a range of other needlessly restrictive rules and regulations. We still have a long way to go. I certainly, like all of my colleagues in defense and national security and I think foreign policy more generally, find myself spending more time than I wished sitting in meetings where I look around and there are 20 people and I'm the only woman. So I think at the senior levels, we still have a pretty long way to go. Let me really quickly just run through some of the things that we have been doing recently at the level of our geographic combatant commands to implement 1325. And you could say that these fall into three basic categories. And I'll just touch on each one to give you a sense of the breadth of programming before I turn to the challenges that still lie ahead. First category lies in programs that are really internally focused, that are again designed to improve career opportunities for women in our forces, to educate men and women, military personnel and civilian personnel working for our military about sexual and gender-based violence, about equal opportunity issues and so on. All of our commands, I think it's fair to say that we have this pretty well integrated, not a single soldier, sailor, airman or marine deploys in this country or gets through basic training in this country without having training specifically on those issues. And I think it is making a difference. Again, our problems remain yes, but I think that the commitment is there and across the board we have this kind of training and it's repeated at multiple points along people's career path so that it doesn't just fade away. Second category of efforts we've been taking to implement 1325 relates to the efforts that we make to encourage the integration of women into foreign militaries and security forces. And here, you know, this is a really exciting area and I think that, you know, it's an area where even the simple presence of so many women in our own military forces, increasingly at senior levels itself, obviously sends a pretty powerful message, particularly in societies where those roles remain closed to women, to see a woman general officer, to see a woman in full combat gear working alongside the men as comrades and colleagues. But we have undertaken also more specific programs that are geared directly towards training foreign militaries, providing opportunities for women in the Africa Command's geographic air responsibility, for instance, a number of African militaries including Sierra Leone, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, specifically requested assistance in improving gender integration within their forces, and we've been able to provide officers to work with them on developing plans and programs to increase the number of women who work with them. We also, AFRICOM recently sponsored a workshop in Senegal on gender mainstreaming within African security forces that included speakers from the armed forces in Mali, Gambia, Gabon, and Nigeria. In Afghanistan, one thing we're very proud of is our troops and our forces have worked very closely with the Afghan security forces to create a female officer candidate school for the Afghan National Army. And we recently graduated the first class of 29 female soldiers just in September who will join another almost 300 women in the Afghan Army. And this is the first class of women officers to get specific training that was really tailored towards the unique challenges and opportunities as well that they face as Afghan women serving their country in their country's security forces. Across the board, the third category that I might just highlight very briefly of our efforts to implement 1325 relates to efforts to both train our troops in ways both to protect women when they are victimized but also to draw on the many, many strengths that women can bring to the table as peace builders, as sources of information and expertise on their communities, et cetera. And here, just again to throw out a few examples, whether it's in the European command, whether it's in the European command where we have a very active task force on the prevention of human trafficking with a specific focus on women and children that UCOM chairs, a joint task force on trafficking persons, or whether it is in the AFRICOM AOR where our troops and Special Operations Command troops in Africa recently conducted a fairly significant series of training exercise with a Congolese Army battalion on the prevention of sexual and gender-related violence. It was a program that was based on very extensive research that AFRICOM commissioned and helped fund on the origins and root causes of sexual and gender-based violence in conflict in the Congo. And it was so successful that we are now working with partner militaries to explore ways to expand that to other battalions at various different levels within the Congolese military. We've also been, for instance, funding in the same area, funding facilities that will, physical facilities, that will be used for programs protecting victims of gender-based violence. I could go on, and in fact, I could go on and on and on, and I've just been handed the note that says, shut up. Actually, it doesn't say that. It says, please, shut up. So I will, let me close by saying, you know, we would love to have you come and talk to us and get your feedback on the programs we are doing. We're very proud of what we've been doing, but we also recognize that we still have a long, long, long way to go. Let me just mention three challenges that remain for us. One still relates to training our people. I think we're thrilled at the number of young women officers in our military and the young women enlisted soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines in our military. But we recognize that we still have a military where the pointy edge of the spear, if you will, is made up primarily of young men. And young men are not always the best at automatically thinking, you know, what are the needs of women in this region? What are the potential contributions women can make? So we face significant challenges still in training our soldiers to tap appropriately into women's expertise as well as recognize women's protection issues. A second challenge actually relates to that is, I think, overcoming something that's already been mentioned, the tendency to view women primarily through the framework of victims. Obviously, protection is very important to us, particularly in places like Afghanistan where groups have focused very intently on protecting women's health centers, women's schools for girls, et cetera, but going beyond protection instead to see women as peace builders and builders of security and identifying the best ways that we can do that. A third challenge, and this I think in some ways conceptually is the toughest one, is avoiding falling into, you know, the essentialist trap of thinking women are different because they're women in some deep, inherent way. That's problematic for reasons that we all know. I think that we're all beyond the age where we thought, well, if women ran the world there would be peace, harmony, and happiness. We've seen too many atrocities in which women themselves have been involved, but balancing the need to recognize the unique experiences, the lived experiences of women which are different from the lived experiences of most men, against forcing women in the name of protection and recognizing women's unique strengths into roles that they might not necessarily want to have, and I think this has been something we've struggled with with our female engagement teams in Afghanistan, for instance. We have a long way to go. My office at the Pentagon, which is a new office on rule of law and international humanitarian policy, one of the major initiatives that we are undertaking that we're just at the very earliest stages on is one on gender insecurity. So I think that these are all challenges that we are actually looking forward with as we move forward, as we move forward, the National Action Plan to implement 1325 more fully over the coming decade. So let me just close by thanking you all again for being here today. Madeleine Albright famously said that there's a special place in hell reserved for women who don't help other women. Corollary to that is probably that there is a special place in heaven reserved to those who work hard to implement Resolution 1325. So thank you all for being here. Thank you, Rosa. We celebrate your success and Michelle Flournoy's and all of those who are paving the way. I also want to take one second to thank the Dutch Embassy for its progressive support. It's aggressive support. I don't know if there's anyone here that has worked on the project or if Robert is somewhere, but we all really do owe them a round of applause. They have really supported this. And with that, I am now going to introduce to you somebody who's really moving out in many corners of Washington and the world to talk about 1325, and that's Netherlands Ambassador to the United States. But in addition to holding that important office, Renee Jones-Boss has served in many capitals and in many positions from Moscow to Washington. She's been an ambassador at large for human rights and so has dealt with many of the painful issues that women confront from around the world. Without further ado, would you join me in welcoming Ambassador Jones-Boss. Thank you so much, Tara, and what an honor and pleasure it is for me to be here and what truly inspirational stories we heard in the earlier part of this meeting. It's an honor and a pleasure to work together with the United States Institute of Peace and with Women in International Security and, well, as an Embassy, we're happy that we can cooperate and coordinate with you. And also what an honor to be here with Ambassador Choudhury, the father, Godfather, or the father of Resolution 1325 and with Special Representative Wolfstrom, Rosa Brooks, wonderful to be here. You know, the Dutch are very practical and I could tell you a lot of things about Resolution 1325 and the work we do, and I would also love to talk about my work as Human Rights Ambassador. But in view of the time, I thought, let me just be very specific and practical and tell you a little bit about how we worked on getting our national action plan on Resolution 1325 a reality, how we made it a reality. And let me also say how very pleased we are that the United States has also decided to draw up a national action plan. So, three points. First of all, inclusiveness matters. In formulating our action plan, we involve not only the gender experts within our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, our security and development expert, political leadership, everybody got actively involved, and other ministries were involved. Of course, most of all, our colleagues at the Ministry of Defense, but we broaden the scope even further. Civil society actors, NGOs, academics, lobbyists were not only listened to, but we actively engaged with them to get them to take up commitments of their own, be part of the national action plan team and co-sign the document. And we think this is a very important achievement of our national action plan. We've brought together all our national stakeholders. And lasting stakeholder commitment is ensured by the fact that 25 to 30 persons from all organizations that have signed the national action plan, government agencies as well as civil society partners are working full-time on its implementation. So, inclusiveness matters. That is the first point I'd like to make, not just in talking and listening, but really taking responsibility, working together. Second, training matters. And Rosa Brooks mentioned it as well in her presentation. There's no denying that when we set out on the process of integrating women's perspectives into the peace and security efforts, there was a certain degree of skepticism initially. Many of our people that work in conflict areas, both civilian and military, felt that the gender perspective would just be another box to check, right? We have so many boxes to check in our daily lives. Sure, they would do it if they were told to do so, but did they really believe in it? We realized that a successful implementation of our national action plan was only possible that when people that have to do the work in the field really put their heart into it. They have to be truly convinced of the fact that including a gender perspective is not only a required element of their work, another box to check, but it's actually the most effective way to achieve lasting results. And that is why we've provided almost 200 hands-on colleagues from the different government ministries and agencies that work in conflict areas with training, as well as 30 from civil society, and we gave them a very, very thorough training in the area of women, peace and security. And in 2009 alone, more than 8,000 of our men and women in uniform received gender classes. It's to a large extent due to this intense level of training of our civilian and military personnel that we have been able to achieve some positive gender results in difficult areas like Southern Afghanistan, Urusgang, where the Dutch have been, and my colleague from the Hague, Jos Hoene, he's over there who has a lot of experience in that field will elaborate on this in a session later on this afternoon. So training matters. And my third and last observation is results matter. I already said we are very action-oriented as a Dutch people, like you Americans are as well, I think. And that is why we went out of our way to make the National Action Plan truly actionable. We felt that formulating broad objectives was not enough. We defined 71 very concrete actions needed to reach these objectives. And we laid down who was responsible for each of these actions, creating ownership and buying across the board. And very importantly, and Ambassador Verveer mentioned that this morning as well, we added a budget. In 2009, the Netherlands invested 23 million euros to support women's organizations in fragile states to promote female leadership. And we increasingly think, and Jos Hoene will say some more about that this afternoon as well, that that is very important and political participation to increase gender capacity. These steps ensured that our approach is focused and results-oriented. So, you know, just those three observations, you are going to start work on your own National Action Plan, inclusiveness matters, training matters, and putting your money where your mouth is, making it very concrete and giving people specific tasks, assigning responsibilities, and assigning a budget also really matter. I think we have laid a foundation for systematic attention, recognition, and support for the role of women in conflict and post-conflict situations throughout the different bodies of our administration and civil society. We have an awful lot of work still to do. We can learn a lot from others, and that's why we also think this conference is so timely. And I once again want to thank USIP and Women in International Security for this initiative. We heard it from Ambassador Verveer from Tammy Duckworth this morning. We heard it from Rosa Brooks. We still have a long way to go. A lot is to be done, but we can make concrete steps in the right direction. And one of my favorite persons that I always get a lot of inspiration from, also in my human rights time, is Eleanor Roosevelt. And Eleanor Roosevelt said, and you can hear her say it in the way she uses the words, for it isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it. And well, I think Resolution 1325 was a very, very good start for us. And I once again want to thank Ambassador Choudhury to not just believing in peace, but also start working concretely towards it. Thank you all so much, and thank you for being here. And thank you for letting us participate in this wonderful event. Well, so we've heard a lot about the architect of 1325. I think we're reaching the moment when we should hear from the architect of 1325. The man whose initiative in March 2000 as President of the Security Council led to the adoption of this global call for the inclusion of women in peace and security. He really does not need any introduction, but we will give him one heck of an introduction, the Honorable Ambassador Choudhury. Thank you, Tara, so much for this wonderful welcome. I'm very energized here. And I think I should add my own thank you to Ambassador Jones for the strong support that her government, the Dutch government, has given to 1325. But for her wonderful statement and her own personal support to this, I must say that our, well, my country and her country, but my country in particular has something to do for that. She started her first ambassadorial foundation in Bangladesh. So, again, we Bangladeshies go a long way. The vicinity of the United Nations in New York experienced a tremendous expression of energy and vibrancy last week, as civil society observed the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325. From morning till evening, in the course of the five-day 1325 Peace Fair organized wonderfully by the civil society organizations, we expressed spirited enthusiasm and determination to move forward a task, a commitment, an agenda that has never been seen before in the respect of any United Nations Security Council action on any issue. I believe that a key contribution by the Peace Fair is the opportunity it provided for the excellent discussions, exchanges and filled perspectives following the launch of a number of substantive reports, and I will list them. The civil society monitoring report called Women Count by the Global Network on Peace Women, ICANN and MIT report, and I see Sanam here, entitled What the Women Can Say Dealing with Participation, Care International's report from Resolution to Reality, again focusing on participation, Operational Guidelines for Conflict Resolution and Peace Processes brought out by the UK-based initiative on Quiet Diplomacy and also on Women's Participation, Costing and Financing 1325, a Cordade and GNWP study on resource need, and of course, Peace Women's Publication, Women and Peace and Security Handbook that gives us an analytical expose of the Security Council language on the issue during the last 10 years. Why do I list all these CSO publications? Because they highlight the substantive and forward-looking contribution civil society have been and will be making to the meaningful implementation of 1325. Those also bring out the gaps and new areas which need attention in the subsequent implementation processes globally and nationally. It is amazing that in 10 years, just four numerals, as I often say, one, three, two, five, have generated a global enthusiasm that is unprecedented in many ways. Adoption of 1325 in 2000 opened a much-awaited door of opportunity for women who have shown time and again that they bring a qualitative improvement in structuring peace and in post-conflict architecture. Even the United Nations Security Council, which is known for being a closed club, showed forward-looking approach by adopting a number of follow-up resolutions. I consider those subsequent resolutions 1820, 1888, and 1889 adopted much later in 2008 and 2009 as the children of the Mother Resolution 1325. When you take that into account, the potential of 1325, its implications and its impact in real terms are enormous. Tracking back from my own vantage point on 1325, the International Women's Day in 2000 was an extraordinary day for me and will remain so for the rest of my life. That day, I had the honor on behalf of the United Nations Security Council as its president of issuing a statement that formally brought to global attention the unrecognized, underutilized and undervalued contribution women have been making to preventing war, to building peace and to engaging individuals and societies live in harmony. The members of the Security Council recognized that peace is inextricably linked with the equality between women and men and affirmed the equal access and full participation of women in power structures and their full involvement in all efforts for peace and security. The conventional impression of women as helpless victims of war and conflicts was overtaken at least in principle by the assertion of the role of women in fostering peace in their communities and beyond. Thereby, the seeds for the Security Council Resolution 1325 was sown. The core focus of this action is women's participation at all levels of decision-making and thereby structure the peace in a way that there is no recurrence of war and conflict. That is why women need to be at the peace tables. Women need to be involved in the decision-making and in the peacekeeping teams, particularly as civilians to make a real difference in transitioning from the cult of war to the culture of peace. This dimension of participation came out very loud and clear in the civil society reports that I listed at the outset. 1325 marked the first time that increasing participation of women was recognized as an objective of the Security Council for ensuring peace and security. 1325 is an impressive step forward for women's equality agenda in the context of contemporary security politics. As such, its meaningful implementation places a unique and all-embracing responsibility on the international community, particularly the United Nations. However, the historic and operational value of the resolution has the first international policy mechanism that explicitly recognized the gendered nature of war and peace processes has been undercut by the frustrating record of its implementation. The complicity of the Security Council in the international practices that make women insecure basically as a result of its support of the existing militarized interstate security arrangements is disappointing. Also, we should keep in mind that the Security Council itself, despite all those follow-up resolutions, is yet to internalize gender considerations into its operational behavior and actions. A major concern emerging from various studies is that the themes most frequently referenced in country-specific resolutions of the Security Council tend to refer to women as victims rather than as active agents in the peace-building processes such as in governance, peace negotiations and post-conflict peace-building. It should be realized by the Council that women are not just a vulnerable group, only they are empowering as well. My own experience with different responsibilities more so during last 20 years has shown that the participation of women in peacemaking, peacekeeping and peace-building assures that their experiences, priorities and solutions contribute to stability, inclusive governance and sustainable peace. Let me present a reality check at this point. The Security Council, which held the open debate on 26th of October on the occasion of 1325, 10th anniversary, failed to live up to general expectation on its outcome. Yes, I agree. The participation was good. 90 countries made statements. Level was also good with a number of ministers participating. But instead of an expected resolution, as is normal in such high-level meetings, the Council adopted a presidential statement lowering the status of its action. Its political savvy has been proved by its smartness in avoiding key issues in that statement. No mention of the need for the working with civil society closely. No mention of the Peace Building Commission or its support office that has a major role in the involvement of women no support to the national action plans, no role for the regional organizations like the African Union, no assertion that the new entity, even women, should include 1325 in its mandate. For good or not, even the indicators proposed by the Secretary General did not get endorsed. Only the part on sexual exploitation and abuse shows some positive aspects, and Margaret will be speaking on that afterwards. But in that area too, our great concern continues to be those abhorrent acts by the even peacekeeping forces and humanitarian personnel that remain ignored, tolerated and left unpunished for years by the United Nations. Shut up, note. There should be no impunity whatsoever in the name of national sovereignty, as is the practice now. The UN should initiate move to change its agreements with the troop contributing countries so that such perpetrators are brought before the International Criminal Court for trial. Given the decision that the Security Council has now asked the Secretary General to propose next year a strategic framework including targets and indicators to guide the United Nations implementation of the resolution, the risk-bound exercise by the secretariat is expected. In this context, Secretary General has also been asked to include policy and institutional reforms for the improved response by the UN to women and peace and security issues. That means instead of the big push that all of us expected in reality, no forward movement is possible till the Council takes action on that report from the Secretary General earliest next October. The role of the UN secretariat and the Secretary General in particular remains much to be desired to say the least. Undoubtedly, there is a clear need for his genuinely active dedicated engagement in using the moral authority of the United Nations and the high office he occupies for the effective implementation of 1325. UN has to take the lead in the implementation and Secretary General has to lead the UN in taking that lead. Many of us wonder where does 1325 belong to in the United Nations system, which secretariat entity has the coordinating responsibility for that. Some member states claim that the mandate of even women does not include 1325. Of 192 member states, only 23 have prepared their 1325 National Actions Plan so far, a major one-third of which are by developing countries. Please remember that governments of developing countries, particularly of the most vulnerable and the poorest ones, would not move unless there is an international support and encouragement to them. That should come from the United Nations with the UN resident coordinators who represent the UN and the Secretary General at the national level taking the initiative to energize the national leadership. The much needed and talked about directive from the Secretary General to UN resident coordinators is still mired in the UN bureaucracy. UN can take a lesson from Secretary Clinton's directive to all the US ambassadors abroad regarding 1325. Ambassador Verbier earlier in her powerful statement in support of participation made us truly encouraged. Secretary General needs also to take the lead in setting up six monthly inclusive consultative processes for 1325 implementation civil society organizations at all levels involving all relevant UN entities. He should encourage similar consultative process with non-governmental organizations at the country level. As we face the reality after the 10th anniversary, the international community's commitment for 2011 is crucial. Ten years of expectation and if I may say, exasperation has to end. Anniversaries are good to lift the spirit and energize us but the time to act was yesterday. Our work and advocacy should now be aimed for every day never to give up. I commend the United States Institute of Peace and its partners for providing the opportunity to strategize for the next course of action through this wonderfully organized three-day conference. 1325 belongs to humanity. It is owned by us all. It is for the benefit of all. It was intended to be so since March 2000 when the conceptual breakthrough was made. Therefore, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary at the Peace Gathering of Civil Society in New York on 25 October I declared 1325 a common heritage of humanity wherein the global objectives of peace, equality and development are reflected in the uniquely historic universal document of the United Nations. We should never forget that when women are marginalized there is little chance for our world to get peace in the real sense. I thank you. Mr. Ambassador, you honor us with your presence and we stand briefly to honor you for what you did in March 2000 and to really say thank you for all your work. Thank you. Just to let folks know that Admiral Mullen is in the house we are going to proceed with our next speaker abbreviated as she's agreed to be and then we ask that you remain in your seats so that we can move seamlessly into Admiral Mullen's presentation. But this conference would not be complete if we did not have Margo Wallström here. Someone we have all come to respect for her work as a long time advocate of the rights and needs of women. First a Swedish ambassador later as environment commissioner and vice president of the European Commission and activist on the promotion of the participation of women in peace and security related issues and of course most notably for bringing to everyone's attention the injustice the violence faced by women in armed conflict. I ask you to join in welcoming Margo Wallström representative on sexual violence and conflict from the United Nations. Ladies and gentlemen thank you very much all protocol observed as we sometimes say to save time. To me that in 25 is also a matter of democracy women make up half of the world's population in Europe actually we're a majority but we are not fully represented at the decision making tables and if you look at the sobering facts about negotiations on peace over the last 10 years 6% of the negotiators have been women less than 3% of the signatories to any peace agreement are women and out of 300 peace agreements only 18 mentioned sexual violence. So if you allow me to just quickly comment on how I think 1325 has provided us with maybe both some successes but also shortcomings I will take you quickly through it because I know you're waiting for somebody else actually but and I will of course comment this I will look at it in the light of how we are addressing this scourge that is sexual violence in conflict and war and as you know in modern warfare this is being used as a weapon of war or a tactic of war or actually as a consequence of war and what we have to understand is how heavy impediment this is to try to build peace and to create some kind of sustainable peaceful development in most countries and what is now a way of war including sexual violence with all the different phenomena that it brings unfortunately can become a way of life and this is what we've noticed in post-conflict countries that this stays and violates the whole society and will make it so much more difficult to achieve peace what on the positive side and I just listed very quickly we've seen an increased reference to conflict related sexual violence and that for example in the Security Council's practice from press statements to country specific resolutions to terms of reference to mandates etc the adoption of two resolutions 1820 and 1888 we can say is a very positive step because it's a historic recognition that sexual violence can constitute a threat to peace and security and it will be an impediment to peace building so 1820 that resolution ushered in a new understanding of the links between sexual violence and sustainable peace and security and I think that also helped to engage new constituencies including peacemakers, peacekeepers peace builders alongside gender and reproductive health workers the resolution that was the basis for setting up my post is a truly action oriented resolution because it also calls for a team of rapidly deployable experts to assist governments to restore the rule of law and address impunity for sexual violence it also said that we should now have women protection advisors to enhance women security like the children protection advisors that we've used successfully in peacekeeping operations there should be annual reports on sexual violence to the council and as I said my post was also established we have already produced also an inventory of best peacekeeping practices we try not only to look at the failures of peacekeeping but actually what have we done which is has been successful and has proven to be effective and we have listed them in that inventory I think that the council the security council of the United Nations actually this when the atrocities in North Kivu in the DRC happened I would say that the council responded in a serious and strategic way and they evidenced a willingness to engage regularly with me and my office I've already reported three times to the security council and I think that they have also proven that they can play in combating impunity for sexual violence and promoting the international rule of law we have the tribunals for the former Yugoslavia we have the tribunal for Rwanda we have the ICC now that can follow up and make sure that amnesty should not be allowed for these types of crimes and that we will continue to fight impunity the council has also drawn attention to the need to weaken illegal armed groups by targeting diaspora leadership and the latest arrest of Calixte Mabura Shimana in Paris the FTLR leader from the DRC is a very important sign we must continue and the council must demonstrate that they are willing to use all the tools in their toolbox to address this particular problem I think there are positive signs demonstrating that the shortcomings are several unfortunately and the gaps that remain are concentrated to accountability and consistency no indicators and rather weak decision the other week in New York as well no real decision on indicators adopting them and starting to work on them and it seems that the council wants comprehensive quantifiable information before it can act but the thing is sexual violence in conflict affected regions may often be invisible but it is rarely non-existent and when these things happen like in the DRC with looting, pillaging etc we can assume rape we know that this will come in the trails of these kind of rebel groups on the move and pillaging then we can assume rape and we can also unfortunately as we've seen examples of recently in Kenya and Guinea Conakry we've also seen that rape is used in or around elections so it has become a tool also to punish the opposition or instill fear but we hope that sexual violence can be considered when adopting targeted sanctions in the Security Council that council members should lead by example in contributing women to peacekeeping missions as you've said gender balance has improved but women still comprise only 2% of military components of missions and around 8% of police and this limits our peacekeeping operations so we want more women into the police and troops and sexual violence may amount to a crime of concern to the international community as a whole a war crime crime against humanity or actually constitute an act of genocide but the council approach need to have a better accountability structure to name and shame perpetrators for their behavioural change and as we've heard after 10 years since the 1325 was adopted only a 20 some I think now it's 22 member states have adopted national action plans it's weak it's too little it's not enough so we need to go now from reactive band aid responses to proactive action also in terms of combating sexual violence in conflict and that includes the council's approach and last the council must ensure that peacekeeping operations have the sustained political and financial support and capabilities to pursue perpetrators and deter sexual violence you have understood that we have talked a lot about Africa and the first visits that I've made have been to Africa but this unfortunately is a global problem a global scourge we're also visiting Bosnia Herzegovina and we have received a lot of reports from Colombia Timor-Leste, Nepal Burma etc so we have unfortunately a long agenda and a lot of work ahead of us I want to say thank you finally to the United States of America because I must say without the support and moral, financial and political support of the United States I don't think that my office would have been up and running yet but you have helped a lot and that means a lot for us but we of course need also other member states to support us and to do the job that is necessary thank you for listening to me and I hope I'll be able to come back and report on I hope more effective measures against sexual violence in war and conflict thank you