DSRSG Alice Walpole attends conference "Empowering Women is Reform"

Baghdad, 13 October 2018 – The Deputy Special Representative for Iraq of the United Nations Secretary-General, Ms. Alice Walpole, attended today the 10th annual conference organized by the Al-Hakim Foundation to mark the Islamic day of opposing violence against women.

The event coincides this year with the commemoration of the eighteenth anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, which sets out a range of ways to involve women in peace and security. The conference, hosted by Sayyid Ammar al-Hakim, was also attended by the President of the Republic, the Speaker of the Council of Representatives, parliamentarians, civil activists and representatives of the international community.

In her address to the gathering, Ms Walpole recalled that “Iraq was the first country in this region to establish a National Action Plan to implement the measures contained in UNSCR 1325”, which made it, she noted, “disappointing that qualified women remain absent from Iraq’s national and local decision-making structures.” She urged the incoming Cabinet and the new Council of Representatives to reflect carefully on measures to help and support women: “not because they are women, but because they are qualified”.

Ms Walpole also called for the accelerated adoption of laws that would protect women, notably the Anti-Domestic Violence Bill, which is still pending in parliament. And for the establishment of a dedicated, fully-resourced national institution to coordinate the implementation of national frameworks and policies which support women.