Women's participation in peace and security is not symbolic, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council as it opened its annual open debate on women, peace and security, reported by the UN's own meetings coverage and by Xinhua. “Women represented just five per cent of negotiators across 57 peace processes last year,” he said, “and less than one-fifth of global peace agreements last year included at least one reference to women, girls, gender or sexual violence.”

Source: UN Meetings Coverage and Press Releases

“Twenty-six years after Resolution 1325, this implementation gap is unacceptable,” Guterres said, referring to the Council's landmark 2000 resolution on women, peace and security. “Durable peace must reflect the leadership, aspirations and contributions of all people — including of women and girls.” He noted positive strides, including more than 110 countries adopting national action plans, and called for a minimum target of one third for women's participation in UN peace processes.

The world is facing the highest number of conflicts since the Second World War, the Council heard, and UN-verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence rose sharply to over 9,700 last year, with girls denied education and facing severe restrictions in Afghanistan, Mali, Yemen and Somalia. Guterres set out three areas for urgent action: delivering on Resolution 1325's promise — women at every peacemaking table and their needs reflected in every peace agreement; scaling up funding for women's organisations in conflict settings and honouring aid commitments; and zero tolerance, with full accountability, for violence against women and girls.

Sima Sami Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women, told the Council that after 26 years of commitments it is indefensible that nearly 80 per cent of active peace negotiations last year took place without a single woman at the table. “This exclusion is not accidental,” she said. Not one of the 13 ceasefire agreements reached in 2025 included substantive references to women and girls, and not one prohibited sexual violence, she said, urging that at least 15 per cent of official development assistance to conflict-affected countries be earmarked to advance gender equality.

Afghan human rights activist Tamana Zaryab Paryani told the Council that women in Afghanistan are forced out of public life with no mechanism to hold violators accountable — a reality extending to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Sudan, Myanmar and beyond — and called on the international community to define gender apartheid as a crime against humanity and to make women's rights the first priority in any engagement with the Taliban.