Tri-Service
Raising Awareness Of Gender In Conflict
WARNING: The report contains flash photography from the start
Forces personnel have been taking part in a UN course on gender issues in conflict – a first for the UK armed forces.
The pilot course is intended to improve the capacity across the armed forces to ensure gender perspectives are accounted for in planning and executing operations.
This could mean taking into account the effects of sexual violence as a weapon of war, understanding the differing needs of different communities with respects to relationships between men and women, and protecting both men and women during peacekeeping operations.
Approved by NATO and partly funded by the Ministry of Defence, the course at Worthy Downs Barracks is being attended by around 35 personnel.
Warrant Officer Chris Gavin, who's usually based in Kenya training African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) soldiers before they deploy, says what he's learning here in Worthy Down could have a direct impact in Somalia – such as ensuring a zero-tolerance policy toward sexual violence.
The UK military signed up to delivering gender perspectives into policy and training in 2008, but the gender course is the first move forward in this area.
With the course oversubscribed, and the armed forces preparing to deploy smaller teams to more locations around the world, the gender course looks set to become increasingly popular, and necessary.
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