11/03/2021
This week we celebrated International Women’s Day. We celebrated the social, economic and political achievement of women, and called for action to improve women’s rights. There is still a lot to be done, not only on International Women’s Day, but every day!
The Netherlands is proud to support the promotion of gender equality at the SMM, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, including by seconding Sanne Tielemans, the current Senior Gender Adviser to the SMM, and before her, Yvette Langenhuizen.
Sanne joined the SMM as Senior Gender Adviser and Head of the SMM’s Gender Unit in July 2020. Yvette has been with the SMM since 2016 and is now Deputy Team Leader of Monitors with the SMM.
The SMM, deployed in March 2014, is an unarmed, civilian mission with over 1,300 Mission Members present on the ground 24/7, in all regions of Ukraine, tasked to observe and report on the security and human rights situation in Ukraine and to facilitate dialogue. SMM has worked to incorporate a gender perspective in its activities since its deployment, e.g. by including attention for women’s experiences, needs and contributions in its daily monitoring and reporting efforts.
As Senior Gender Adviser, Sanne coordinates the Mission’s efforts at gender mainstreaming and provides technical advice to the Chief Monitor and senior management. She also manages the SMM’s Gender Unit and guides a network of gender focal points across the Mission. Sanne: “Without a gender perspective, you don’t see the full picture, you won’t be able to give a comprehensive sketch of the security situation and miss out on identifying opportunities for peace”. Yvette adds: “We need to break stereotypes in order for women and men to be enabled to fully contribute to matters of peace and security”.
https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/2/9/480005pdf