Gendered Peacekeeping in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Despite an attempt to integrate more women into the peacekeeping mission in 2000 with the UN Security Council Resolution 1325, the peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo stands at about 4 per cent women out of the total military personnel. The Security Council’s thematic work on Women, Peace and Security has led to resolutions that call on the MONUSCO peacekeeping mission to integrate more women into the peacekeeping mission and use a gender-specific framework to define the peacekeeping mission. Although MONUSCO has taken these concerns over the years and included them in their mandates, progress of integrating women into the peacekeeping mission still needs to be made by making gender perspective the priority. In order for gender equality to be meaningful to the peacekeeping mission, the mission needs to first acknowledge and incorporate the effectiveness of gender perspective