Agreement Reached in the Multi-Party Negotiations - Transitional ...

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than at a structural level. Measures taken make minor changes rather than introduce radical reform. Solutions such as ‘provision of childcare’ while important and helpful are not sufficient to facilitate the radical change needed to allow women, after years of conflict and discrimination, to move forward. Again, women in particular roles, for example as mothers, are more likely catered for, rather than as a diverse group with differing ambitions. • The language in official documents and from the various implementation bodies is not always gender-sensitive. • Given that Northern Ireland is a society coming out of conflict, there is no official forum to explore whether issues such as violence, restitution, impunity have a gender component, what that may be and how it might be addressed. • Women remain under-represented in a variety of areas. Even newly established statutory bodies, such as the Policing Board, have perpetuated this. While some reports acknowledge discrimination or under-representation, the potential for reform has been undercut by supposedly neutral criteria such as ‘merit’ (for example, with regard to the judiciary) without examining how the term is defined or from whose perspective. • While the role of women in communities is recognised, the potential for community participation is not always realised, as for example with the Criminal Justice Review. • Similarly, the Criminal Justice Review dealt with criminal justice and not social justice, an area of concern to disadvantaged women. The slow delivery of social and economic rights has also impacted on this group. • There has been a dilution of initial aspirations between agreement, review, legislation and implementation. One example is community justice which has not been delegated to the community as envisaged in the Agreement. This dilution often narrows opportunities to involve women, especially from the community and voluntary sector, keeping them once again on the margins of power. • Successful implementation of the Agreement will require clear targets and timetables, adequate funding, effective mechanisms for reaching targets and reviewing mechanisms. • A Gender Equality Unit has been established within the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. 15 It remains to be seen how effective this unit will be in promoting women’s equality. The recent strategy document 16 from the OFMDFM raises concern. 15 Hereinafter OFMDFM 16 OFMDFM Gender Matters, A Consultation Document: Towards a cross-departmental strategic framework to promote gender equality for women and men 2005-2015 5
3. THE GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT In 1996 elections were held to the newly-constituted Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue to determine who would participate in political negotiations. A novel electoral mechanism was employed to ensure the presence of smaller parties at the table, especially the Progressive Unionist Party and the Ulster Democratic Party. 17 This political space, created essentially to facilitate male actors in the sectarian conflict and without any gender design in mind, was taken by women in order to get to the negotiating table. A crosscommunity party, the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, won two of the 110 Forum seats, which allowed them a place at the negotiations. 18 The Coalition’s position was that the Agreement should be underscored by principles of inclusion, equality and human rights; it should go beyond the narrow confines of the two traditions and broaden and deepen democracy within Northern Ireland. 19 3.1 The Good Friday Agreement Text: Gender Overview The opening statement of the Good Friday Agreement declares: We, the participants in the multi-party negotiations, believe that the agreement we have negotiated offers a truly historic opportunity for a new beginning. How inclusive was this opportunity or did it offer a new beginning for men hitherto on the margins to come in and share power without sufficiently taking women into account? If there were gender aspects, were they aspirational without putting in place mechanisms for ensuring women’s participation? Was the commitment to ‘partnership, equality and mutual respect as the basis of relationships within Northern Ireland, between North and South and between these islands’ a commitment based purely on the political relationships between the various communities without any real examination of the level of equality and respect within those communities? Concerned as it was about the power relationship between communities how concerned was the Agreement with the power relationship within communities, such as the power relationship between men and women? The Agreement was negotiated behind closed doors by a largely male political elite, addressing major constitutional questions. This was very far removed from the politics of home and community in which women predominate, and raises a number of important questions: was the Agreement designed to deal solely/chiefly with politics with a capital P rather than politics with a small p, the latter often of more immediate interest to women because of their absence or under-representation in the larger arena? Was the Agreement an opportunity to ensure women a central place in the new political structure? Did it attempt to do this and fail, or was women’s participation not regarded as an important issue? Is it expecting too much of an Agreement such as this to address seriously gender inequality or should it be de rigueur in peace agreements? This was a cross-community document detailing the future relationship between Unionist and Nationalist; citizens from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; Irish citizens and British citizens. Was it assumed that the interests of men and women, from whichever community, coincided entirely? If so, was this a valid assumption? While the language of the Agreement refers to the totality of relationships, what it has in mind is very specific political relationships. 17 Bell, C. (1998) Women Equality and Political Participation in, DIS/AGREEING IRELAND: CONTEXTS, OBSTACLES, HOPES (eds. James Anderson & James Goodman) Pluto Press, London 18 Women won only 15 seats in total and were markedly absent from the negotiating teams of the other political parties. 19 Fearon, K. (1999) WOMEN’S WORK: THE STORY OF THE NORTHERN IRELAND WOMEN’S COALITION, Blackstaff Press, Belfast 6
Page 1 and 2: Women and the Implementation of the
Page 3 and 4: 5.5 Women Victims Post the Good Fri
Page 5 and 6: Women’s Rights in Transitioning a
Page 7 and 8: language of the Agreement) this was
Page 9 and 10: An overall assessment of the succes
Page 11 and 12: 1. RESEARCH 1.1 Sources Primary doc
Page 13: 2. MAIN FINDINGS The main findings
Page 17 and 18: ecent history of communal conflict
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Page 21 and 22: Ad Hoc Committee - Life Sentences (
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Page 27 and 28: failure of the report by Victims Co
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conferencing system for juveniles.
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Gender is ‘piggy-backing’ on th
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The Independent Commission of Polic
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oadly reflective of the population
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linked to women with caring respons
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competitions for police officers (u
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9.8.7 PSNI and Equity Monitoring ov
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9.11.4 Other Policing Challenges De
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with not the same emphasis as the i
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REFERENCES Bell, C. (2003) PEACE AG
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____ (2004) Model Equal Opportuniti
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____ (2003) ‘New Era for Local Po
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____ (2003) Peace Agreements As A M
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