Check out our new infographic about demining versus other workplace injuries:

Today, Mines Action Canada released a new paper on women's employment in mine action. 

Gender and Employment in Mine Action by the Numbers: An Update contains the results of a follow up study on employment of women by non-governmental organizations in landmine clearance and related fields. This new 2023 survey shows an increase in women's employment between 2019 and 2023. Bénédicte Santoire, a PhD Candidate from the University of Ottawa, carried out the research and analysis this year. The paper is also available in French: Genre et emploi dans la lutte antimines en chiffres: Une mise à jour. 

Gender and Employment in Mine Action by the Numbers: An Update builds on the results of short survey carried out in the first quarter of 2019 and published in early 2020.  

MAC is sharing the results of this survey as the international community meets in Geneva for the 21st Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty. 

In addition to providing some limited answers to questions like how many women work in mine action, Mines Action Canada hopes to shed some light on the success of gender mainstreaming in mine action and highlight areas of improvement for the sector. 

The paper is available here and will be officially launched at a briefing event during the 21st Meeting of States Parties on 23 November 2023. An A4 version of the paper is also available for those printing copies internationally.

The 10th Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions was the first Meeting of States Parties MAC had attended in-person since 2019 due to the global pandemic and we made sure to make our mark.

MAC hosted a Mine Action Fellows Forum with 22 young people from around the world. These Fellows had training sessions on leadership and diplomacy; heard from experts on gender and diversity; making change and research. They had a Model Review Conference to negotiate a statement to the States Parties and had multiple peer learning sessions where they got to learn from each other. In addition, they participated fully in the Meeting of States Parties talking to delegations about transparency reporting, treaty universalization and condemning the use of cluster munitions in Ukraine. The Fellows also met with the President of the Convention, UK Ambassador Aidan Liddle (see photo).

The Fellows delivered a statement in French and English to the plenary at the end of the meeting which was met with applause and excellent feedback from delegates. You can read the statement here in English or here in both languages. The MAC delegation including the Mine Action Fellows made their presence known by being the largest and most diverse delegation to the MSP. The Fellows were a clear example of how powerful civil society can be with their tireless outreach to governments.

Mines Action Canada also had the pleasure of delivering a statement on behalf of the Gender and Diversity in Mine Action Working Group. You can read the statement here and below is a video recording of Program Manager, Erin Hunt, delivering the statement. 

Your support will help ensure we can continue this unique program developing future leaders in mine action and humanitarian disarmament.

From Nepal to Uganda, Iraq to Bosnia, Argentina to Zimbabwe, women are leading the way towards a safer and more peaceful future by advocating for disarmament and for the rights of victims of indiscriminate weapons. In small communities and on the world stage, women leaders are making change each and every day. Women clear landmines, provide services to survivors, advocate for nuclear disarmament and push governments to disarm despite large gender inequality in disarmament decision making. Today as every other day of the year, we #ChooseToChallenge the idea that disarmament is “men’s work” and salute the world-changing women and their allies working to eliminate inhumane and indiscriminate weapons. 

Learn more about how the humanitarian disarmament community is marking the day and how women's leadership is paving the way towards a world without indiscriminate and inhumane weapons by checking out these articles and posts.

• Conflict and the Environment Observatory interviewed women working in mines action around the world on their work and its links to the environment profiling a number of the Mine Action Fellows. Read it here.
• The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is re-sharing posts and stories on gender and autonomous weapons all week. They started with a post from our Program Manager, Erin Hunt. Read it here.
• The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has a great briefing paper and video on gender and nuclear weapons. Read and watch here. 
• The Gender Working Group has so many resources on gender in mine action. Check out the page here. 
• Watch this film from Norwegian People's Aid in Laos. 
• Listen in as Beatrice Fihn of ICAN and Susi Snyder of PAX talk about International Women's Day on this Instagram Live. 
• Read more about what MAC and our partners in the Feminist Foreign Policy Working Group hope to see from Canada's Feminist Foreign Policy here. 
• Mines Advisory Group has a number of stories out. You can check them out here. 
• Watch this panel discussion on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons 

Mine action is and should be everybody’s concern – and for very obvious reasons. The effects of landmines are felt by men, women and children in different ways, but all are affected and so the solutions to end this problem should be sought and supported by all. Unfortunately, women remain under represented in this field of work. Discussions on the subject are normally dominated by men with little representation from women (unless it’s a discussion about women’s involvement or gender equality but that’s a discussion for another day); when it comes to women’s involvement, a lot still needs to be done to ensure that they, like men, are permitted to add a meaningful voice to inform policy, actions and decisions.

Mines Action Canada has worked since 1998 to train, mentor and empower youth to address the impacts of inhumane and indiscriminate weapons. The Mine Action Fellows Program, started by MAC in 2018, has 45 youth from 25 countries enrolled so far. These are young people who are interested in or are already involved with civil society organizations working in mine action. The 2018 and 2019 cohorts focused on young women and deliberately so, to increase female involvement in mine action. This program brings to life a famous slogan, “Nothing about us without us” originally coined in Latin as; nihil de nobis, sine nobis. Each year the Mine Action Fellows have an in-person assembly at a forum organized to run alongside a global diplomatic meeting that brings together various stakeholders in mine action, including governments and civil society organizations. During the forum the youth undergo various training in topics relevant to their role as youth leaders; they also witness the major international diplomatic meeting in action; as well as meet and learn from fellow campaigners from around the world.

Last year the Mine Action Fellow’s Forum that was held from November 24 to November 29 in Oslo, Norway was attended by 32 female youth from 13 different countries. Among them were three landmine survivors and 22 were from landmine affected countries. Having survivors at this forum was important for us because they hold the lived experience of the harmful effects of landmines and their stories are such a powerful force to compliment all the statistics and data collected and shared to inform policy and decisions. Landmine survivors are truly experts in landmines. The forum took place alongside the 4^th Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty. The Review Conference is a formal diplomatic meeting of all states parties to the Mine Ban Treaty that reviews progress made in achieving the treaty obligations and set an action plan for the next five years. These young women were exposed to formal plenary discussions and after some basic training in lobbying, they also got an opportunity to speak with governments that had not yet submitted their annual Article 7 transparency reports and encouraged them to do so. It was interesting to see these young women confidently and in certain instances persistently take on governments and ask them to account for their Article 7 reports. The assertive manner with which they did this could not go unnoticed – they sure did make MAC proud. What I saw in these youth was the future of Mine Action in good hands.

During this time the youth also drafted and presented a statement to the conference delegates, in which they called for increased resources, political will and concrete support by all states parties to finish the job by 2025. They were very clear about having the job done by 2025, and in their call to get this done they stated very boldly; “Our generation is ready to help finish the job on landmines, but in many of our countries we still need your support. We cannot wait forever so we are giving you only 5 (more) years”.  The youth statement was the highlight of the Forum and for many, the Review Conference as well. The conference ended on a high with this powerful statement which was read out by four of the young women, each taking a part in one of the UN languages, namely English, French, Arabic and Spanish.

From this unforgettable experience for those involved, MAC sent a strong message to the world; that you cannot leave out such an important group when you discuss something that affects the communities they live in. Young women should be involved at every level of mine action because just as the problem affects them, they should also be part of the solution. And because this year’s theme for International women’s day, Each for Equal is about collective individualism, we believe that each of the young women who represented their community at the conference went back to add their voice and effort to the field for a bigger impact as they clearly put it in their statement:

“Each of us present here is proof that if there is a strong commitment to a better world, whatever language you speak, whatever country you come from, by uniting your strengths you will be able to achieve your goals”

Diane Mukuka is Mines Action Canada's Project Officer

Today, Mines Action Canada released a new paper on women's employment in mine action. 

"Gender and Employment in Mine Action by the Numbers" contains the results of a pilot study on employment of women by non-governmental organizations in landmine clearance and related fields. A short survey was carried out in the first quarter of 2019 by a graduate student Research Associate and the collected data was analyzed by Mines Action Canada staff later in the year. 

MAC is sharing the results of this survey as the international community meets in Geneva for the National Mine Action Directors' Meeting. 

In addition to providing some limited answers to questions like how many women work in mine action, Mines Action Canada hopes to shed some light on the success of gender mainstreaming in mine action and highlight areas of improvement for the sector. 

The paper is available here and at the National Mine Action Directors' Meeting. An A4 version of the paper is also available for those printing copies internationally.

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda, based on UN Security Council Resolution 1325, and mine action are closely related, but too often the communities working on these two topics are distinct and separate. To achieve the goals of the WPS agenda, the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the Ottawa Treaty banning landmines, states and civil society need to keep both sectors in mind.

As the 2025 goal set by States Parties to the Ottawa Treaty fast approaches and the States Parties to the Convention Cluster Munitions strive to implement the treaty as effectively and efficiently as possible, it is crucially important to capitalize on all intersections between mine action and the WPS agenda. 

Read the short delegate briefing paper on the intersections between the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the Women, Peace and Security agenda, released at the 9th Meeting of States Parties of the Convention on Cluster Munitions here.

The expanded paper covering both the Ottawa Treaty banning landmines and the Convention on Cluster Munitions is available here.

For International Women's Day, let's look back at some of our contributions this year to discussions about gender in disarmament and women's empowerment. The theme of this year's International Women's Day is #balanceforbetter and we know that the outcomes are better when disarmament efforts have gender balance.

In August, we were part of the first ever UN briefing on gender and autonomous weapons at the Convention on Conventional Weapons' Group of Governmental Experts meeting and launched a new briefing note on bias and autonomous weapons. We were so pleased to have the Canadian Ambassador chair the event. 

Canada and the European Union hosted the first ever meeting of Women Foreign Ministers in Montreal and we were there, working with Canadian civil society and our colleagues at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons to highlight humanitarian disarmament.

With the support of the Government of Ireland, we launched our new Mine Action Fellows program at the 17th Meeting of States Parties to the Ottawa Treaty with two of our Fellows addressing a lunch time briefing.

Just last month, our Program Manager presented on gender equality and youth engagement in mine action during a plenary panel at the National Mine Action Directors Meeting in Geneva. 

Humanitarian disarmament is often led by women and the meaningful participation of women from around the world is crucial to making progress towards a safer, more peaceful world. International Women's Day gives us an opportunity to look back at what we've accomplished and reiterate our commitment to diversity in disarmament.

From February 5th to 8th, Mines Action Canada attended the National Mine Action Directors' Meeting for the first time. The National Mine Action Directors' Meeting is a technical meeting focused on field operations rather than the Ottawa Treaty but this year, our Program Manager, Erin Hunt, was asked to address the plenary during a panel discussion on Building Stronger Communities: Youth and Women in Mine Action. Her presentation focused on our youth programming and on gender equality. 

The presentation explored MAC's understanding of empowerment and our TEAM approach to youth engagement before speaking about how masculinity affects who belongs in mine action. This image which includes phrases from over 15 languages all outlining a narrow understanding of masculinity.

The presentation included the following ideas about how the mine action sector can step up for a more inclusive mine action which will be a more successful mine action.

• One take away from our youth program is the importance of mentorship and action –getting to work with a leader who looks like you and seeing your work have an impact in empowering.
• We need to seek out and hear from expertise that looks and sounds different.
• We need to be careful that efforts to highlight diversity are not inadvertently cementing limiting stereotypes. For example, if you are profiling a female staff member, don’t refer to her as one of the few women or one of a select number of women working in mine action. Women in mine action are just regular women doing a job. Making it sound like women have to be special to work in mine action reduces the likelihood a woman would see themselves in the job and answer your job posting.
• Please remember youth and women are not homogenous groups and make sure that all sorts of people from those demographics are consulted and included.
• We should learn and talk about gender/diversity more. We often see the same faces at side events about gender or youth – and usually they are women. It would be great to see more people especially men showing up for these sessions so I’m issuing a challenge for everyone in this room to attend at least one meeting, lecture, side event, panel or training on gender or diversity this year.
• When in doubt talk to the Gender and Mine Action Program.
• Finally, if the structures, systems and environment we work in do not have space for youth, women or anyone else who doesn’t fit the current understandings of who belongs in mine action, we need to think creatively, adapt and change the structures.

 You can read the whole presentation here and the audio recording of the session is available here. 

Feminist activists share issues and priorities with the first-ever meeting of Women Foreign Ministers

(Ottawa, September 26, 2018) A coalition of Canadian civil society organizations welcomes the successful conclusion of a fruitful exchange between participants in the first-ever women Foreign Ministers meeting and women’s rights activists.

The exchange was held during a working breakfast that was part of the official agenda of the Women Foreign Ministers Meeting co-hosted by Minister Chrystia Freeland (Canada) and High Representative Federica Mogherini (European Union). The meeting was held in Montreal, September 21 and 22, 2018.

Leymah Gbowee, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Beatrice Fihn, Executive Director of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons addressed the Ministers gathered from 16 countries. Informal roundtable discussions followed.

“It was important that the discussion was part of the official programme. This type of exchange is all too rare,” said Theo Sowa, CEO of African Women’s Development Fund. “The mood in the room was constructive. The sharing of information, ideas and strategies will help both the Foreign Ministers and the civil society organisations present to push for more inclusive security and development agendas.”  

Sowa was one of ten activists representing diverse feminist movements from around the globe. They raised concerns about the safety of women human rights defenders and violence against women. They urged a redefinition of security that puts the needs of people (especially women and girls) first. Discussions also focused on increasing women’s participation in peace processes, including in South Sudan; strengthening the voices of feminist activists in foreign policy discussions; and priorities for feminist foreign policy.

Razia Sultana, founder of Rohingya Women Welfare, shared her experiences of documenting sexual violence and working with Rohingya women and girls in the refugee camps in Bangladesh. “I congratulated Minister Freeland on the recent Canadian recognition of the crimes against my people as genocide. I urged the other women Ministers to follow Canada’s example. This is the first step towards ending the violence and ensuring justice.”

At the closing press conference Minister Freeland announced that Canada would create an Ambassador for Women, Peace and Security. “This is an exciting new development, one that we hope will accelerate the implementation of Canada’s ambitious Women, Peace and Security commitments and increase Canada’s support grassroots women peacebuilders,” said Beth Woroniuk, coordinator of Women, Peace and Security Network-Canada.

The Minister also announced $25 million for women, peace and security initiatives, including funding for several women’s rights organizations. Specific funding for these organizations has been a long-time policy ask of Canadian civil society organizations.

Over 200 organizations from around the world urged the Ministers to recognize, protect and support women human rights defenders, noting that these activists face grave and numerous threats. “We will be monitoring the response to this statement. We are optimistic that future meetings of women Foreign Ministers will build on the productive relationships established here in Montreal,” said Anne Delorme, Gender Equality Programme Manager, AQOCI.

An informal coalition organized a series of side events around this historic women Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, including a public panel on Feminist Foreign Policy and a civil society dialogue.  Coalition members are: Amnesty International Canada (English), Amnistie internationale Canada francophone, Association Québecoise d’Organismes Cooperation Internationale (AQOCI), Canadian Foodgrains Bank, CARE Canada, Mines Action Canada, Nobel Women’s Initiative, Oxfam Canada, Oxfam Québec, The MATCH International Women’s Fund, World Federalist Movement Canada.