I have the honour to take the floor on behalf of Norway, Albania, Slovenia, Costa Rica, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Hungary, Türkiye, Spain, Austria, Mexico, Netherlands, Japan, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Lithuania, Finland, Iceland, Montenegro, Switzerland, and my own country, Canada.
Twenty-six years ago, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1325, setting out the landmark Women, Peace and Security, acknowledging the disproportionate impact of conflict on women and girls, and the critical roles women play in conflict prevention, resolution, and peacebuilding.
The importance of including gender perspectives in our work regrettably is being regularly challenged, including in disarmament and non-proliferation fora, despite evidence showing that gender equality is a primary predictor of peace. In the implementation of the NPT and throughout its review process, it is important that we rely on facts to systematically mainstream gender perspectives and advance gender equality.
The effects of nuclear weapons are inherently indiscriminate, yet the disproportionate impacts on women cannot be ignored. It is a fact that women and girls experience exposure to ionizing radiation differently than men and boys; It is a fact that women face higher levels of cancer from this exposure than men, particularly cancers that affect the female reproductive system; and it is a fact that increased reports of birth defects, miscarriage, and reproductive illnesses directly followed exposure to nuclear explosions, both in Japan, and directly following nuclear testing in communities located near nuclear test sites worldwide.
It is also well established that women continue to be underrepresented in science, medicine, politics, and diplomacy, where crucial decisions about nuclear materials and weapons use are made. For example, not a single woman sat on the inaugural UN Atomic Energy Commission, created in 1946 to address the problems raised by the discovery of atomic energy and which laid the ground work for what would become the NPT.
Advocating for gender mainstreaming in the NPT is still forward-looking, as further work remains to be done. Despite some gains, gender equality in the NPT context is yet to be fully realized. Initially comprising only 6.3% of delegates in 1980, women are still underrepresented in the NPT, comprising just 15.6% of delegates in 2000, and 33.9% in 2022, underscoring the distance still to be travelled to achieve equal participation and effective gender mainstreaming.
Both the gendered impacts of nuclear weapons and women’s contributions to nuclear
disarmament remain insufficiently researched, inadequately resourced, and unevenly
implemented. We call on this Conference to:
- Reaffirm the critical role of women in advancing a world free from nuclear weapons;
- Review efforts to advance gender equality when assessing the Treaty’s implementation in the next Review Cycle;
- Ensure gender perspectives are included and considered in the next Review Cycle; and,
- Promote the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women in disarmament and
non-proliferation processes.
Thank you.