Peacekeepers in areas such as Darfur and Somalia say victims, mostly women and children, are more comfortable dealing with female soldiers.
Women comprise less than four per cent of soldiers, 10 per cent of police officers and 22 per cent of civilians serving in UN missions across the world, while the pace of change remains slow.
More female peacekeepers are needed in conflict zones to improve the rate of success for United Nations peacekeeping missions around the world, experts say.
Peacekeepers in areas such as Darfur and Somalia say victims, mostly women and children, are more comfortable dealing with female soldiers.
“A woman or child who has experienced rape will on most occasions not open up to a man. This is why countries need to rethink the gender gap when deploying troops,” Goreth Mwenzangu, a female police officer who served in a UN mission in Darfur said at a joint training hosted in Kigali by the UN and African Union peacekeeping operations on Wednesday.
The exercise attracted soldiers from troop-contributing countries such as Angola, Botswana, Germany, Senegal, US and Zambia.
“The roles of male and female peacekeepers differ, yet many missions have fewer women. This means that the role of women is sometimes neglected, which affects the success rate of the mission,” said Jantina Pranger, a Dutch nurse who served on UN missions to Burundi and Bosnia.
UN says that female peacekeepers act as role models in conflict environments, inspiring women and girls to demand their rights and insist on participation in peace processes.
However, women comprise less than four per cent of soldiers, 10 per cent of police officers and 22 per cent of civilians serving in UN missions across the world, while the pace of change remains slow.
In June, Rwanda sent a women- dominated police unit of 85 officers to the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.
It was Rwanda’s first female team to be sent on a foreign mission. The country’s army has more than 5,800 personnel in peacekeeping missions across the spectrum, while the police has 1,200 officers.
Tanzania has more than 2,600 military and police personnel serving in six UN operations while Uganda has about 6,000 soldiers in the African Union Mission in Somalia.
Kenya contributes about 3,700 troops to the Somalia mission and 190 police officers in the Darfur UN Mission.
