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Major Radhika Sen of the Indian Army has been selected to receive a UN award in recognition of her advocacy for women and children while serving as a peacekeeper, according to Stephane Dujarric, the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Dujarric said Guterres will award Sen with the 2023 Military Gender Advocate of the Year Award on Thursday, which is also International Day of UN Peacekeepers.
The award recognizes a military peacekeeper’s efforts to promote the ideals of the 2000 Security Council resolution, which calls for the protection of women and girls from conflict-related sexual violence and establishes gender-related obligations for the UN.
Congratulating her, Guterres called her “a true leader and role model. Her service was a true credit to the United Nations as a whole”.
Sen served with the Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) where she helped create the Community Alert Networks in North Kivu as a platform that brought in community leaders, young people, and women “to voice their security and humanitarian concerns”, according to the UN.
With her MONUSCO colleagues, she worked to address those concerns.
Guterres said that “with humility, compassion and dedication”, she earned the trust of “conflict-affected communities, including women and girls” as her troops engaged with them “in an escalating conflict environment in North Kivu”.
Sen said, “Gender-sensitive peacekeeping is everybody’s business – not just us, women. Peace begins with all of us in our beautiful diversity.”
“This award is special to me as it gives a recognition to the hard work put in by all the peacekeepers working in the challenging environment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and giving their best to bring a positive change in the society,” she added.
Hailing from Himachal Pradesh, Sen is a biotech engineer who was studying for a master’s degree at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay when she decided to join the Army.
She was assigned to MONUSCO in 2023 as the Engagement Platoon Commander with the Indian Rapid Deployment Battalion, and completed her tenure in April 2024.
Sen is the second Indian peacekeeper to get the medal, following Major Suman Gawani, who served with the UN Mission in South Sudan and earned it in 2019.
Of the 6,063 Indian personnel in UN peacekeeping operations, 1,954 are with MONUSCO, 32 of whom are women.
Sen, who led mixed-gender engagement patrols and activities, became a role model for both men and women, according to the UN, by creating “a safe space for men and women to operate together under her command”.
She also made sure that peacekeepers under her command operated with sensitivity to gender and sociocultural norms in the eastern DRC “to help build trust and thereby increase her team’s chance of success”, the UN said.
She initiated activities for women such as English language classes for children and health, gender, and vocational training for adults.
Source:IANS
