Conflict often arises in situations of marginalisation, whether from political structures and equitable power sharing or discrimination based on religious, ethnic, caste, class and other social memberships. It also denotes the failure of nation states to accommodate the exercise of inclusive citizenship and accept plurality within their polity. Therefore in terms of ‘Political Restructuring and Social Transformation’, conflict and post-conflict phases probably offer the most opportune moment to renegotiate structures of power and whole paradigms governing nation-states. It is even more so if this phase also involves a change of political regime, which signifies a new balance of power and is often accompanied by constitution making processes.

The challenge is that this phase is often fast-paced and opportunities to influence political decision-making arise unexpectedly. In many cases, the post-conflict phase is also fertile ground for the rise of religious fundamentalisms and identity politics. Post conflict situations may negate the agency and gains women made in times of conflict when they are expected to return to a former status quo. Protracted conflict and equally protracted peace building and peace making also place heavy demands on women and women’s organizations that engage in these processes. New, innovative and strategic initiatives at the local, national, regional and international spheres on women in armed conflict and post-conflict situations need to take account of these multiple complex and often contradictory, circumstances.

The project is focused at the collection of case studies on women’s engagement in conflict resolution and peace building work in the South and Southeast Asian regions. The team decided to document and to analyze the actual work that they were doing as activist-feminist researchers involved in peace building initiatives. This generated a strong interest on inter-generational learning among participants that came from groups and institutions that constituted the research team. These are as follows: Women and Media Collective/Suriya Women’s Development Centre (Sri Lanka); North East Network (India); Institute of Human Rights Communication (Nepal); and National Commission on Violence against Women (Indonesia). Together they gathered a total of 18 case studies on women’s initiatives in peace building that covered a diverse range of conflict situations, periods, actors, and forms of women’s engagements.

At the South and South East Asian Regional Consultation on Feminist Engagement with Conflict, Impunity and Peace, held in Katmandu, Nepal on 27-28 March 2009, the case studies were presented and discussed. Also shared was a case study on the long-running Kashmiri conflict. The Consultation was followed by a meeting between the participants and activist from the Women’s Movement in Nepal. Also present were two women Constituent Assembly (CA) members who were part of the Women’s Movement, Sapana Pradhan (Women’s Rights) and Malla Pandey (Trade Unionist). The CA members gave an overview of their post-conflict work including their involvement in the constitution making process; engagement with diverse issues of citizenship, affirmative action, fundamental rights; and the difficulty of setting up a women’s caucus in the CA. The DAWN Team that facilitated the Nepal consultation are Kumudini Samuel (Sri Lanka), Gita Sen (India), and Cecilia Ng (Malaysia). They will be joined by Kamla Chandrakirana (Indonesia) in guiding the finalization of the case studies and consolidating the overall analysis.

During the Conflict Consultation in Nepal, participants grappled with the problem of protracted armed conflict and the lack of UN special procedures or gaps in the special procedures to deal with some of the gendered concerns of such types of conflict. Thus, in terms of advocacy, the research team is looking at a possible two-prong engagement, i.e. pursue the idea of a CEDAW General Resolution on Women in Conflict, as well as, take the opportunity of the anniversary of UNSCR 1325 to open up advocacy at the level of the Security Council. UNSCR 1325 is especially significant in that it clearly mandates to look at issues of conflict transformation and political restructuring.