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

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The Northern Ireland transition offers a graphic illustration of many of the concerns outlined above. However, it also offers an example of an attempt to integrate a gender perspective into both the negotiation process and to the post-agreement political environment. This was achieved through three different types of intervention. 10 First, through women creating networks across communal divisions during both conflict and peace process, enabled by their very political invisibility. Thus, women found ways to deal with communal difference without requiring its prior negation or elimination. Secondly, building on this experience, women worked together with other marginalised groups to create rainbow coalitions which were significant in placing a 'human rights and equality' agenda on the table, and ensuring that this agenda met real problems. 11 Finally, women worked both within their own political groupings and through the establishment of a women's political party – the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition – to input into the negotiations leading to the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement. The result of these combined strategies, was an Agreement whose human rights and equality commitments went well beyond addressing the 'nationalist/unionist' communal divide to address other exclusions. However, despite this considerable effect, the preliminary audit contained here suggests strongly that women may not have fared as well as might be expected by the creation of these broader commitments. The case of Northern Ireland illustrates ways of opening up processes, both conceptually and practically, to ensure the participation of women. However, it also indicates many difficulties. First, while Northern Ireland evidences some successes with relation to peace agreement provision for women, such provision is still relatively scant, evidencing the need for further models of good practice to be explored. That barrenness is confirmed by the close analysis provided of the institutional structures and policies spawned by the Agreements provided in this report. Secondly, there is the difficulty of implementing any ensuing gender commitments, not least given the sheer volume of work which the Agreement has created for women's groups. This reality has also been compounded by the massive deficits in funding to the women’s (and other voluntary) sector organisations in the post Good Friday/Belfast Agreement environment. Forced to provide essential frontline services while relying only on short-term crisis funding, the sector has seen its lobbying capacity severely curtailed. While beyond the remit of this report, the actual impact of the Agreement upon the women’s and voluntary section (specifically by creating additional demands) needs to be seriously examined and assessed. Thirdly, is the difficulty that any emerging political consensus between opposing nationalisms, may, where women's issues are concerned, work to their detriment, as Assembly debates on reproductive rights evidence. Finally, the political realignments evidenced in Northern Ireland’s Assembly and Westminster elections have also operated to squeeze out the representational space that the Women’s Coalition had gained in the post-Agreement elections. Moreover, even the most scant assessment of the issues which dominated the recent Westminster elections serves to confirm the absence of these issues from contemporary political agendas. This is further evidence of the capacity of the transitional environment to operate in non-linear and illiberal directions, in antithesis to the interests of gender mainstreaming and the consolidation of women’s political interests. 10 Bell, supra note 3 11 McCrudden, Christopher (1999) Mainstreaming Equality n the Governance of Northern Ireland, Fordham International Law Journal 22:1696-1775.; Bell, supra note 3.
An overall assessment of the success or failure of the Northern Ireland transition is some time off. Elaboration of the criteria for success will need to take account of shifting legal ground in the global legal and political environment. This will be no easy task. However, we hope that this report will stimulate debate and reflection on the specifics of how women actually fared under the legal and political provisions contained in the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, what the transitional environment has offered them, and where structural and policy changes are necessary to meaningfully changes experiences of discrimination, exclusion, silence and violence for women in Northern Ireland. Feedback, Response and Development As the report is very much a working report, we are keen for any feedback, further information, or suggestions as to how it can be made more useful. Responses should be forwarded to Catherine O’Rourke at: cf.orourke@ulster.ac.uk, Transitional Justice Institute, Magee Campus, University of Ulster, BT48 7JN, by 31 July 2005.
Page 1 and 2: Women and the Implementation of the
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Page 11 and 12: 1. RESEARCH 1.1 Sources Primary doc
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8.3 Equity Monitoring 200 There are
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• Females are more likely than ma
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ecommended 228 a ‘programme of ac
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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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