Women, Peace, and Security in Crisis: Has UNSCR 1325 Lost Its Momentum?

Author: Jordan Rinaldi

More than two decades after its adoption, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) is widely celebrated as a landmark achievement in international peace and security. Passed in 2000, it formally recognized that armed conflict affects women and men differently and affirmed the importance of women’s participation in peace processes, conflict prevention, and post-conflict reconstruction. However, the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda seems to be getting less attention in the midst of today's high-intensity conflicts, from Sudan to Gaza to Ukraine. The question is no longer whether UNSCR 1325 was transformative, but whether it still has the political force to shape contemporary conflict response. 

Photo source: unwomen.org

At its core, the WPS agenda rests on four pillars: participation, protection, prevention, and relief and recovery. Academic scholarship has long demonstrated that women’s inclusion in peace negotiations increases the durability of peace agreements and improves post-conflict outcomes. Peace agreements are significantly more likely to last when women’s groups meaningfully participate. Despite this evidence, women remain systematically excluded from formal peace negotiations, particularly in conflicts framed as existential or national-security emergencies. 

This disparity is highlighted by recent disputes. Despite the vital roles that women have played in civil defence, humanitarian assistance, and resistance in Ukraine, formal diplomatic conversations have continued to be dominated by men. Gender inclusion is frequently viewed as secondary to military urgency during high-intensity interstate or proxy conflicts, according to academics. The WPS agenda is frequently reframed as a “soft” concern, invoked rhetorically but excluded from strategic decision-making when violence escalates. 

This pattern reflects a broader critique: that WPS has become performative rather than transformative. States increasingly adopt National Action Plans (NAPs) to signal compliance with UNSCR 1325, yet implementation remains uneven and underfunded. Research shows that many NAPs prioritize symbolic commitments over structural change, reinforcing existing power hierarchies rather than challenging them. In practice, women are often included as victims or caregivers, not as political actors shaping peace and security outcomes. 

Protection gaps are also widening. Conflict-related sexual violence remains pervasive, while accountability mechanisms remain weak. The Council on Foreign Relations documents how sexual and gender-based violence is increasingly used as a tactic of war, even as global attention shifts toward conventional military dynamics. In Gaza and Sudan, humanitarian organizations have warned that the collapse of health systems and legal protections disproportionately harms women and girls, yet these concerns rarely shape ceasefire negotiations or military planning. 

International security groups have structural opposition to the WPS agenda at the institutional level. UNSCR 1325, according to feminist security researchers, challenges long-standing masculinist security norms that put state sovereignty, military might, and territorial control ahead of human security. Security institutions tend to marginalize gender perspectives because they disrupt conventional understandings of power and authority. This helps explain why WPS commitments weaken precisely when conflicts become most violent. 

However, it would be premature to declare UNSCR 1325 a failure. Women's groups, civil society organizations, and feminist diplomats now have a long-lasting normative space to demand accountability and inclusion thanks to the resolution. According to UN Women, local women’s organizations continue to play essential roles in mediation, humanitarian access, and community resilience, often filling gaps left by formal institutions. The challenge is not the relevance of the WPS agenda, but the lack of political will to operationalize it in crisis conditions. 

In the end, a deeper conflict in international security is reflected in the decline of UNSCR 1325's influence: whether peace is defined as the absence of conflict or as the existence of justice and inclusivity. Conflicts of a high intensity reveal this gap. The revolutionary potential of the WPS agenda will not be achieved if it is still viewed as optional, activated in post-conflict conditions but suspended during war. More than just new rhetoric is needed to revitalize UNSCR 1325; gender inclusiveness must be incorporated into the definition of security itself, even and particularly when the stakes are at their highest.