Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Today, we are marking International Women's Day and at the forefront of our thoughts are the many women living through conflict. Some 600 million women and girls lived in countries affected by conflict in 2022. That represented a 50% increase since 2017. Affected countries ranged from Congo to Ukraine to Palestine. Women suffer the harshest realities of war. In Palestine alone, Israel Defence Forces has murdered 8,400 women and 6,000 girls. That brutality continues every day for women, men and children in Gaza.

Most countries in the world are united in opposition to Israel's war on civilians – its war on the women and children of Gaza. Genocide is unfolding. Anyone unable to call for an immediate ceasefire is morally bankrupt and has no interest in peace and justice. Women have a central role to play in peace-building.

A recent report by the UN shows how many women suffer in conflicts but also how they are excluded from peace agreements. The result is that most peace agreements have no provision relating specifically to women, girls or gender. We need women's direct participation in all peace processes, we need women's voices to be at the heart of our constitutional future, we need the voices of the hard-to-reach women, and we need the voices of rural women. We need the voices of all women to shape the future of our island and create an island that puts women front and centre of policy formation no matter where they have lived. I refer to women of all ages and experiences. Today, I invite women, including nationalist, unionist, loyalist and republican women, to help shape an island we can all be proud of. I call on the Government to invest in those women to enable them to have their voices heard.

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