By Libyan women activists.
28 February 2015:
An open letter to Bernardino Leon, head of UNSMIL
Dear sir,
With the promising hope for a genuine Libyan dialogue bringing together opponents and the conflicting parties to submit ideas and proposals in order to get closer views that would make us form a consensual government that will lead the country to peace and stability and build up the rule of law.
We praise your determination for the need to adopt a political solution to address the events taking place inside Libya and face the challenges that regional and international peace and security meet.
We do hope that the national dialogue you called for will reach its objectives in order to unite all Libyans and stop the bloodshed through sustainable peaceful solutions which will be in tune with our noble human values.
We the Libyan civil society women activists are very keen to follow and work for the success of the dialogue and its outcomes. We would also like to underline that the representation within the dialogue should include a great number of women from all trends and backgrounds in compliance with the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 related to women and peace.
We are women who sustain dialogue, transparency, and community participation in planning, monitoring, evaluation and follow-up of the dialogue. We are also women activists working for the adoption of a civic constitution empowering women as full citizens full civil.
We are aware that the role of the United Nations Mission in Libya is to provide advisory and technical support to all Libyan parties on an equal footing, without giving priority to any party at the expense other parties and without any exclusion or marginalization of any Libyan women activists, experts, or advisers.
Taking into account the aforementioned, and being determined to participate in order to support the present and the future of the United Nations Mission in Libya and to help achieve its objectives as established by the Security Council, we would like to submit the following proposals:
1 / Enlarge the representation of Libyan women so that they can attend all sessions of the dialogue.
2 / Review the nomination mechanism of women participants in the dialogue, both as representatives of civil society, the academia, political parties, or human rights activists, including also displaced women living outside Libya. . There are also those who are , including displaced outside of Libya, so that the UN Mission’s Women Empowerment Department will not take unilateral decisions any more without consulting women’s sectors as it happened several times during past years.
3 / The United Nations Mission should support women’s and youth organizations and a number of Libyan women experts, advisors, academia and researchers both in Libya or those forcibly displaced to form a coordination and cooperation group to set up a strategic action plan to further develop the role of the United Nations Mission in supporting Libyan women in various “political, economic and scientific fields, etc.” so that cooperation with Libyan women is not limited to Women’s Empowerment Department only.
We reiterate our support for the dialogue. The role of the United Nations is to provide assistance to the peace process and not to choose those who will make peace. The success of dialogue will only be through community participation so that there is no discrimination against Libyan women activists and including the displaced ones.
We hope you will consider this request as a priority and are looking forward to meeting you personally
Thank you for your kind cooperation.
Libyan Women activists
Libya Herald received copies of lists of hand written signatures of activists with the above letter.
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