South Asian Women in UN Peacekeeping Missions

United Nations peacekeeping is one of the most important tools of ensuring peace and security in the international system, and among the major contributors of uniformed peacekeeping personnel in the world are South Asian countries—especially India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal. Regardless of this quantitative leadership, women are still found to be greatly underrepresented in regional deployments of peacekeeping. This chapter is based on feminist theory of peace and a comparative qualitative approach to the case study; it discusses the roles, contribution, and limitations of South Asian women peacekeepers. The chapter reveals a long-standing paradox, whereby women have become progressively more visible as peacekeepers, and their inclusion has mostly remained symbolic due to the organizational cultures of militarization and the uneven implementation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. The chapter empirically shows that South Asian women peacekeepers promote the effectiveness of missions by fostering community trust, increasing access to vulnerable groups, and addressing gender-based violence in various missions to Liberia, Haiti, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Abyei. They are, however, limited in combat, command, and strategic decision-making roles as their roles are confined to medical, policing, and engagement functions. The chapter states that gender disparities are not based on the operational capabilities of women but rather illustrates the existence of the structurally based barriers at the institutional levels of the national security apparatus. It is based on these findings that the study goes further to propose a multilevel policy framework that includes national institutional reform, the integration of operations within the UN missions, capacity building using gender-responsive training, and regional cooperation conventions. The chapter concludes that effective steps toward gender-responsive peacekeeping in South Asia would involve structural adjustments of both the national and international security institutions to ensure that the presence of women peacekeepers are not seen as something symbolic but as fundamental elements of global peace governance.