The Stormont House Agreement was intended to augment Northern Ireland’s earlier peace agreements, contending with unresolved issues relating to the legacy of the Troubles, as well as other sources of political contestation, including the devolution of Corporation Tax and welfare reform. The all-party talks that led to the agreement were billed as a resumption of the 2013 failed Haass-O’Sullivan talks, which had sought to deal with issues around the past as well as flags, emblems and parades. The intervening year had seen the Northern Ireland Assembly come close to collapse, so there was some relief when agreement was reached in December of last year.
As this series has sought to explore, central to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement was the commitment to address gender inequalities in Northern Irish society, including women’s right to “full and equal political participation” – a commitment which has yet to be fulfilled. Yet there is nothing in the Stormont House Agreement to suggest progress towards this promise. Quite the opposite; the deal contains much that will impede such progress. It has two main elements: austerity measures and dealing with the past. The impact of both elements on women was not acknowledged, but each should be greeted with alarm by advocates of women’s rights.
UN Security Council Resolution 1325 formally acknowledges women’s right to participate in all aspects of conflict prevention and resolution, post conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding. In December 2013, at the Stormont Parliament Buildings, an ‘Inquiry into the Actions and Level of Implementation of UNSCR 1325 Women, Peace and Security for Women in Northern Ireland since the Peace Process’ was held. The inquiry took into account a broad range of issues, including the impact of the conflict on women’s continuing economic inequality in Northern Ireland; the fate of women’s groups; the level of implementation of the Good Friday Agreement’s commitment to the ‘full and equal political participation of women’, and the rights of women victims of the conflict.
