Lieutenant General Sadhna S. Nair, Director General of the Medical Services DGMS, in the Indian Army, represented India at the Women, Peace and Security Week organized by India, Germany and Switzerland in New York, USA. Lieutenant General Nair is the first woman to become Director General medical services in the Indian Army.
The Lieutenant General participated in a multinational panel discussion followed by an interactive session on the status of women in defence services during which she highlighted the progress, challenges and opportunities in advancing equal opportunity and the full, equal and meaningful participation of women in the Indian Armed Forces.
Giving an insight into the gender neutral environment in the Indian Army, including in areas of recruitment, promotion and retention, Nair highlighted the efforts taken by the Indian Army to ensure that women are actively included in UN peacekeeping efforts She also underlined how it has helped foster gender neutrality in multinational environments.
Her discussion also included details on how Indian Army has enabled uniformity to effectively combine family responsibilities with the military careers of its women personnel.
This year’s debate was also crucial as it comes at a moment when global security and the role played by women in preserving it has been globally deteriorating.
UN Women, the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, believes that in today’s time, when worldwide military spending is at an all-time high, funding for women organizations has significantly plunged.
What can be seen as another setback, is that heightened violence against women human rights defenders also has been coupled with this global regression against women. And this includes those involved in UN peace and security processes, it says.
Women’s participation in peace processes is about more than gender equality. It is about dismantling systems that permit and promote violence so that we can move towards a new era of lasting global peace and security.
