Only one in five senior positions among NATO civilian staff is held by a woman, according to data released Monday by the European Institute for Gender Equality, which warns of under-representation of women in the organization.
With regard to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit, scheduled for July 11-12, in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, which is also home to the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), this Monday an agency of the European Union (EU) released a statistical bulletin on the representation of women and men in security and defense decision-making positions, which Lusa had access to.
“Despite formal commitments” — emphasizes EIGE — “progress has been limited and women remain significantly under-represented”.
Among the organizations analyzed is NATO, at a time when the succession of the current Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, is being debated, with some arguing that it is time to have a woman at the helm.
A few days ago, the Portuguese ambassador to NATO, Pedro Costa Pereira, admitted in an interview with Lusa that it was “desirable” but not a “condition sine qua non” [obrigatória]”, that Stoltenberg is succeeded by a woman.
However, such a scenario must be postponed for a while, as last week the reappointment of Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg (who has headed the organization for two terms since 2014) as NATO leader has been postponed for another year. as given for sure.
A decision on NATO leadership, including the possible temporary reappointment of Stoltenberg, is expected to come from the Vilnius summit.
By 2021, women will represent 27% of people in civilian positions at NATO, “a number that has changed little since 2017,” compares EIGE.
Women were even more underrepresented in senior leadership roles, holding one-fifth of top civilian positions – but this figure represents a 13% increase from 2017.
At the same time, only one in five NATO member states has a woman as a representative on the North Atlantic Council (the organization’s main political decision-making body).
The under-representation of women is also visible in the defense and security ministers of the European Union (EU). Until March, only seven women (26%) held this position, including Portuguese minister Helena Carreiras.
The Vilnius Summit will bring together the Heads of State or Government of the 31 Allies (Finland joined in April) who will decide on new measures to strengthen deterrence and review the significant increase in defense sector spending, and to support to Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion that began in February 2022.
Pointing to the rising regional tensions due to the war between Russia and Ukraine, EIGE points out that the latest data on gender equality in the military setting (2020) show that women are significantly under-represented in the armed forces of Member States or countries that are NATO partners are .
All told, women represent less than one in five full-time military personnel and only one in ten in ten of the countries. Portugal has 12% of women in the armed forces.
In national armed forces, women are “even less” likely to be in leadership positions (only three countries have women in top positions), says EIGE, which also looked at other European institutions dealing with security and defense.
The European Parliament has parity in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, but women are underrepresented in the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Subcommittee on Security and Defense.
In the European Commission, leadership is equally divided between women and men, yet women occupy less than a fifth of senior management positions in EU security and defense agencies.
EIGE also analyzed United Nations peacekeeping missions and concluded that only 11% of command positions are given to women, but the percentage is even worse in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), where only 7% of field operations are conducted by women. women are led.
Well, according to EIGE, “the evidence consistently shows that there is a long-term positive relationship between gender equality and security and peace”.
The presence of women in active leadership, together with men, is a guarantee of “conflict prevention, lasting peace and social resilience”, the institute emphasizes.
Therefore, “more efforts are needed to ensure that commitments are translated into actions,” insists EIGE, calling for the adoption of “a gender perspective” in security and defense.
Source: DN
