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gotiation party. However, the team connection between women’s in- de any reference to women-re-
could seat at the negotiation table clusion and gender-sensitive pe- lated or gender-related issues.
and ended up bring valuable and ace agreements. However, not in The new peace accords that came
vital expertise to the process. The all cases women’s inclusion in ne- to life in 1996 contained several
credibility that was granted them gotiations eventually guarantees references to gender-related issues
by their outstanding backgrounds,
together with the supporting in-
fluence of Nelson Mandela – chief
mediator in the talks – enabled
the gender-advisory team to con-
vince the negotiators to convene
an All-Party Women’s Conference.
The peace process in Somalia also
showed the positive and effective
contribution that the participation
of gender advisors has on peace
talks. In the negotiation process
and in the consequent agreemen-
ts held and signed in the period
from 2008 and 2011, there was
no representation of women at all.
A change came when the gender
advisor from the UN Mediation
Support’s Unit (UN MSU) Standby
Team of Mediation was included gender-sensitive final agreements that were the result of the advo-
in the talks of 2011. The advisor as having women sit at the table cacy and participation of one wo-
granted participation to a women does not necessarily mean having man, Luz Mendez, together with
quota in the following peace talks, gender advisor. Historical eviden- the influence of civil society’s re-
playing in important role in the ce shows us that having a relati- presentatives convened in the Civil
acknowledgement and recognition vely large number of women in the Society Assembly, and the legacy
of the needs of Somali women. negotiation process does not auto- of the Fourth World Conference
Her institutional role in the UN matically affect the final formula- on Women held the previous year.
MSU allowed After 36 years of
her to interact INCLUDING OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED GEN- civil war, when
easily with wo- the final peace
men from lo- DER ADVISERS IN MEDIATION TEAMS IS NOT A accords were si-
cal communi- COMMON PRACTICE YET, ALTHOUGH WOMEN gned in 1996,
ties, collecting Luz Mendez was
information HAVE PLAYED A DE FACTO GENDER ADVISERS’ the only female
and recom- ROLE IN PEACE PROCESSES IN SEVERAL OCCA- signatory. Men-
mendation dez, who parti-
that were then SIONS cipated as part
brought to the of the delegation
negotiation table. Thanks to tion of the agreement accordingly. of the Guatemalan National Revo-
her strenuous work, a manda- In the peace process in El Salvador, lutionary Unity, fiercely advocated
tory quota of women in political Guatemala, the number of women for the recognition of women’s ri-
spheres was included in the pro- participating in the process ac- ghts in the final agreement. Abo-
visions for the final agreement. counted to 25% of the participan- ve all, she focused her work on the
However, it is obviously easy to en- ts. Nonetheless, the subsequent inclusion of provisions on sexual
counter a fundamental bias: the peace agreement did not inclu- violence perpetrated during the

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