How can Southeast Asia achieve lasting peace? The solution is extremely complicated, but more and more people are beginning to see that we must include women in all attempts to prevent, resolve, and recover from disputes if we are to succeed.
We meet 21 exceptional people who have improved lives in homes, communities, across the ten ASEAN member countries, and beyond in this exhibition, Peace Together: Inspiring Peacebuilders, Promoting Gender Equality as well as Sustainable Peace in Southeast Asia.
In December 2022, ASEAN unveiled its Regional Plan of Action on Women, Peace, and Security; the tales and images below demonstrate what may be done to make this agenda a reality in peoples’ day-to-day lives.
The primary theme of the women, peace, and security agenda—”No peace without women“—resounds throughout all the stories of the 21 leaders profiled here, who come from a variety of backgrounds and fields of expertise.
The Canadian and Republic of Korea governments are funding UN Women’s project, Empowering Women for Sustainable Peace: Preventing Violence and Promoting Social Cohesion in ASEAN (2021-2025).
UN Women expresses gratitude to the 21 peacebuilders profiled below for sharing their experiences in an effort to inspire others to join the campaign for more just and peaceful societies. We also like to thank the photographers who documented these tales in the cities and rural areas of the ten ASEAN nations.
The governments of Canada and the Republic of Korea provided funding for the creation of this exhibition, which was made possible through an alliance between ASEAN and UN Women.
The strategic direction and ongoing support provided by the ASEAN Committee on Women Cambodia helped make this effort possible under Cambodia’s leadership as the ASEAN Chair in 2022. The Poverty, Eradication and Gender Division of the ASEAN Secretariat deserves special recognition for helping to coordinate this project.