VOA – ENGLISH

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is decrying the failure to bring women into peacemaking, pointing to grim statistics that between 1990 and 2017, women constituted only 8 percent of negotiators and 5 percent of witnesses and signatories to major peace processes.

He told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that at the heart of these statistics is the continuing inequality between men and women.

Guterres said a recent study by the U.N. and World Bank provides convincing evidence linking gender equality and peace — and he urged countries to invest in promoting the equality and empowerment of women to build “peace and prosperity in the world for all.”

Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka, head of UN Women, said: “Women cannot be excluded from the peace process simply because they do not go into battle.”