Syrian activists say -”The voice of women must not be sidelined at peace talks”

Syrian activists
said Monday
that the voice
of women from
the war-
ravaged nation
must not be
sidelined at
peace talks
due to start
next week in
Switzerland.
"We have to take part in the whole process, from A
to Z," Syrian Women's League member Sabah
Alhallak told reporters in Geneva.
Alhallak and around 50 female campaigners from
both inside Syria and the refugee community, held
a two-day meeting behind closed doors in the
Swiss city Sunday and Monday.
The session was hosted by The Netherlands'
embassy at the United Nations as well as UN
Women, an agency of the world body, which
underlined that the participants came from across
the Syrian spectrum.
The head of UN Women, South Africa's former
deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, said
the goal was to ensure that women form at least 30
percent of all the delegations at the looming peace
talks.
The campaigners were due Tuesday to meet with
Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations and Arab
League envoy who has spent months trying to
bring Syria's warring sides to the table.
The long-awaited Geneva II peace talks — a follow-
up to a meeting last year whose terms were never
implemented — are set to begin with an
international conference on January 22 in the city
of Montreux.
Two days later, they are scheduled to shift to
Geneva itself, where Brahimi is to broker meetings
between the Syrian authorities and the opposition.
Given that women and children make up the
overwhelming majority of the millions of Syrians
driven from their homes by almost three years of
bitter civil war, women must be involved in all
levels of peace efforts, the campaigners said in a
statement.
"If Geneva II doesn't work, we'll keep working to
make Geneva III work, or Geneva IV or Geneva V,"
said Rafif Jouejati of the Local Coordination
Committees network, which opposes the Syrian
regime but has also been targeted by hardline
Islamist rebels.
"We have come together as Syrian women looking
to make peace… If Geneva II doesn't work, we will
push the men who are making war to make peace,"
she added.
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Sent From David Aniemeka