During  the 4th Ministerial Conference on Feminist Diplomacy, held under the theme “The Time for Peace has come,” Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan participated in the panel discussion titled “Feminist Foreign Policy for Peace and Security.”

The opening remarks were delivered by Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women, and Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Participants of the panel included Isabelle Rome, Ambassador for Human Rights of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France; 2022 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk, Chris Elmore, UK Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Multilateral Relations, Human Rights, Latin America and the Caribbean, Zahra Langhi, Senior Adviser to the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy; and Victoria Sandino, former commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, negotiator of the 2016 Final Peace Agreement, Coordinator of the Gender Commission, and Senator of the Republic of Colombia.

The closing remarks were delivered by Takahashi Katsuhiko, Japan’s Ambassador for Women, Peace, and Security.

“It's a huge pleasure to be here and to take part in this very important conversation. 

First of all, and please, dear women, don't judge me too strongly, but first of all, for us, this is not about numbers, you know, this is about human rights and this is about democracy. To put a long story short, this is about equal rights and equal opportunities. I strongly believe that no one in the world should not be appointed or promoted to a leading position only because she's a woman. And you know what? The “boys' club” should admit that women are their equal partners and can have an equal role in leading the society.

On the other hand, I also believe that no one should be promoted or appointed to a leading position only or mainly because she is a woman. This is the other side of the medal, and I believe that we all should also make an additional attempt to avoid this exaggeration as well. 

Secondly, remember I just said that this is not about numbers. Well, it was not the whole truth because this is also about numbers, because numbers show the real situation in the society, show the trends, show the gaps, show the fields, directions where some additional efforts should be put. And here I'm proud to say that, for instance, when it comes to science, education, technologies, IT industry, Armenia, my country, is well ahead of the global average. When it comes to diplomatic service in my country, in my ministry 44.4% of diplomats are women. This is almost an ideal equality. Although I should also confess that this is not about the whole system: when it comes to ambassadors, we don't have this equality, so there is a gap to be filled in.

Now we have heads of ministries which have traditionally been led by men, like the Minister of Interior, like the Prosecutor General's Office, like the newly founded intelligence service. So this has been part of the men's club, right? And the action plan that you just mentioned has a very clear goal, for instance, to increase women's participation in institutions like the army and police, which have traditionally had the aura of a very masculine face. 

So there is an index that I just want to indicate, a global gender gap index.  According to this year's rating, Armenia has closed 73.1% of the gender gap, which is not ideal, but it also shows the trend. It also shows that we do have the willingness to fill this gap. And interestingly, public polls show that people in Armenia are more and more not only ready, but also happy to see that there is increasing women's participation in leading roles. I mentioned a couple of ministries. This is in addition to what we already have had traditionally, like the Ministry of Science, Education, Ministry of Health, etc. 

And when I, and this is also a small personal touch, probably, when I speak to my daughter, when we touch upon these topics, we see that the youngsters demand more. They don't even understand why human beings can be treated differently based on their gender. And this is very good. 

I'm sorry to take a little bit more of your time, there is also a third dimension, a third layer to this. For my country, this topic has a particular meaning also because we are a post-conflict society. Maybe it's already well known, we just established peace with Azerbaijan. Now the two countries are trying to put in more, additional efforts to fully normalize the relations.

So, in addition to the efforts of the government to sign formal treaties, to come to concrete solutions, there is also a huge need for reconciliation of societies. The previous speaker also touched upon this topic, we have been discussing these for two days. We understand, we acknowledge the suffering of women during the conflicts, but we also should, with all due respect to the suffering, we also should acknowledge that when it comes to communities, the reconciliation of the families, the leading role of women cannot be underestimated, I mean, it's obvious and it's crucial. So, this is why this topic also has particular meaning for us. We very much hope that women in our society will find the strength to overcome all the suffering, the loss of their beloved ones, the psychological trauma of displacement, and now, to prevent future suffering, take the burden and take the responsibility of the reconciliation as well.

So, thank you very much.”