Inclusion of women in the peacemaking in colombia: 2012-2016 havana peace talks

This Master Thesis aims to take a closer look to the inclusion of women in Havana Peace Talks between Colombian government and FARC-EP, the biggest guerrilla group in the country. In November 2016 these talks resulted in a peace agreement, ending a 52 year old conflict. International community was very supportive of the agreement, explicitly stressing that women‘s inclusion in this peace process is unique, both locally and globally. The main question raised in this thesis is how the women were actually included – whether it is truly a case of empowerment, “making women count”, or rather another case of “just add women and stir” scenario. Johan Galtung‘s theory of violence and peace is combined with notions of critical feminism in order to create a research model. Main variables focus on the context of the conflict, the participation and influence of women in Havana peace talks. These variables help to determine the type of inclusion. Later on main process and context related factors, determining the type of inclusion, are found and explained. The Colombian conflict was analysed via Galtung‘s „Violence Triangle“. The analysis shows women‘s marginalization and exposure to direct, structural and cultural violence. The latter is internalised, normalised and manifests through gender roles which are inspired by machismo and marianismo and imply women’s subordination in relation to men. Thorough analysis of women’s inclusion in Havana peace talks show that their inclusion was rather symbolic than empowering – women did not hold key positions with decision-making powers. Internationally famous Gender Subcommittee in reality did not possess any power as well. Also, both publicly and in peace negotiations, women were often constructed in a category of a “victim”, which replicated cultural violence and women’s inferiority. Women’s influence towards the final peace agreement is also found to be limited. Due to late inclusion in the peace talks themselves, women did not have agenda-making power. The final agreement poses twofold implications. On one hand, local peasant women are empowered due to new rights they are now entitled to. On the other hand, traditional gender roles are replicated throughout the whole text as women are constantly imagined as victims and the rights they get are associated with maternity and weakness. Thus, it is concluded that in Havana peace talks the dominating inclusion model was formal and instrumental, better known as “just add women and stir”. This was heavily influenced by such factors as the time of inclusion, selection criteria, decision-making procedures, public buy-in, gender roles, and lack of previous precedents. However, it is import to notice that the presence of strong women’s groups and their ability to unify their effort was the main factor that enabled women’s participation in the peace talks in the first place. By this, a precedent for future cases in Colombia was created. Lastly, recommendations for improvements concentrated on the quality of inclusion, such as ensuring early inclusion in the process and access to all negotiation platforms by establishing quotas. Lastly, when drafting a document it recommended to avoid the language replicating traditional gender roles and truly commit to gender focus in order to eliminate not only direct, but also structural and cultural violence. The future research in this field could concentrate on the evaluation of the implementation of the agreement as well as on the comparative studies as there are still plenty of guerrilla groups in Colombia with whom the government seeks to establish peace. Last but not least, since “women” is not a homogenous group, future research could concentrate on different identities of Colombian women and their place in the peace process