Written by Elssa Gbeily, a Strategic Communications consultant from Belgium and Lebanon, focusing on gender issues with the UN Department of Peace Operations. She has a background in gender, peace and security.
Women remain underrepresented in national security roles and peacekeeping operations, despite well-established evidence that their participation leads to more effective security institutions and fosters sustainable peace. A groundbreaking UN Report, Equal Opportunities for Women in the Defence Sector, again finds that gender equality is crucial for peace and security outcomes, and yet women continue to face barriers to their recruitment, retention, and career development at all levels of security institutions.
Despite this, remarkable women are breaking barriers in security sectors around the world. Meet three extraordinary women whose leadership is driving transformative change in their local communities, national security institutions, and within UN peace operations:
1. Brigadier General Léa Yangongo – Central African Republic
A woman of firsts, Brigadier General Ghislaine Léa Yangongo has made history in the Central African Republic’s military, where only 5 per cent of her colleagues are women. She joined the Forces Armées de la Centrafrique (FACA) in 1997 and became the country’s first woman officer to graduate from military school. She now serves as Secretary General of the Higher Council for Military Condition, her country’s only woman at this rank. She is partnering with the peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic, MINUSCA, to implement the Women, Peace and Security agenda, a global framework for advancing women’s inclusion in peacebuilding efforts, including peace talks, peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction efforts.
“The military is, first and foremost, a men’s environment. When I joined, I had to adapt. It wasn’t easy, but I made it,” she says. “If all of us embrace change towards gender equality, it will bring peace to our country!”
2. Victoria Luka – South Sudan
In South Sudan’s Western Equatoria State, Subchief Victoria Luka advocates for women’s empowerment and community protection. With the support of the peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, UNMISS, she is encouraging women to form protection groups to address local security challenges and ensure the most vulnerable have a say in how local security is delivered. These groups play a crucial role in early warning, awareness raising, advocacy, and coordinating between the local community and relevant actors to address emerging threats, including sexual and gender-based violence.
"Women should form groups like the protection [groups]… to empower themselves. Let women gear up their efforts so no one should stay behind," says Subchief Luka.
3. Captain Esinam Damu Baah – Ghana
Captain Esinam Damu Baah of Ghana served as Engagement Platoon Commander in the peacekeeping missions in Lebanon, UNIFIL, in 2023. She brought compassion and determination to her peacekeeping work, fostering trust with local communities, especially women and girls who often hesitate to engage with male peacekeepers. Her work has shown the power of inclusive peacekeeping to more effectively reach and protect community members.
"I am able to approach any woman in any town because they see me as a woman and I’m not a threat," she explains from her deployment experience in South Lebanon.
Leaders like Brigadier General Yangongo, Subchief Luka and Captain Baah are making headway in security institutions that remain “a sanctuary of hypermasculinity,” according to findings* cited in the UN report.
UN Peacekeeping is committed to advancing women’s inclusion in national security institutions and peace operations, to empower more women like these. As Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix stresses, “without women's full, equal and meaningful participation in all that we do ... we are unlikely to see durable results.”
* Dalia Ghanem and Dina Arakji, Women in the Arab Armed Forces (Beirut, Carnegie Middle East Center and the Arab Institute for Women at the Lebanese American University, 2020).
This story is part of the “Action for Peacekeeping” (A4P) story series, which reports on efforts by the UN, its Member States, and other partners to strengthen peacekeeping operations, and the impact they have for people living in conflict areas.
Women, Peace and Security is a key area of the A4P agenda and its implementation strategy A4P+, which seeks to enhance accountability to our peacekeepers. Supporting women’s full, equal, and meaningful participation in peace and political processes is central to enhancing operational effectiveness in peacekeeping and sustaining peace.