Binalakshmi Nepram. Credit: Nobel Women Initiative

By Kumkum Chadha
NEW DELHI, Jan 27 2026 (IPS)

It was Christmas eve: some two decades ago. Binalakshmi Nepram was a witness to the killing of a 27-year-old.

In utter disbelief, she saw a group of three men dragging the victim from his workshop. Within minutes, he was shot dead.

“Every day three or four people are shot dead in Manipur’s ongoing conflict. Thousands have died and many women widowed and children orphaned. And those who survive look into a scarred future. This must end,” she said.

When Nepram contributed 4,500 Indian rupees to buy a sewing machine for the victim’s wife, Rebika, the intervention was just the beginning. Since then, there has been no looking back. The date is etched in Nepram’s mind and psyche: December 24, 2004.

Now, two decades later, when she was unanimously elected Vice President of the International Peace Bureau, it was a befitting tribute to her crusade for peace: a recognition of the work her organization, the Manipur Gun Survivors Network, has done to rescue and uplift women from the trauma and agony that they face because of armed conflict.

Nepram has been at the forefront of providing the necessary healing touch to those affected by the violence perpetrated by mindless individuals.

She has also co-founded the Control Arms Foundation of India to focus on gender-based violence and end racial discrimination in India.

Currently, Nepram is chair of the Rotary Satellite Club of International Peace, an initiative that led to the establishment of the International House of Peace in Japan. She is also an associate at Harvard University and she is researching and leading work on Indigenous approaches to peacebuilding to help resolve some of the entrenched global conflicts.

“Good research should be the foundation of good policies and social action,” she says.

A globally recognized Indigenous scholar and a peace builder, Nepram is the first Indigenous person from the Indian state of Manipur to be appointed to this prestigious post. In the past, she has served on the IPB Board for two terms. As Vice President, she will hold this position until 2028.

With 400-member organizations spanning 100 countries, the International Peace Bureau or IPB is a Nobel Peace Laureate; 14 of its officers have been recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. Founded in 1891, the IPB is one of the oldest Peace Organizations. It was awarded the Nobel in 1910.

Hammering a vision of a world without war, the IPB focus is on reducing funding for the military sector and disseminating those funds for social projects.

In her role as Vice President, Nepram would focus on strengthening global coalitions for peace and disarmament.

Peace, for Nepram, is not a project but a lifetime commitment. Her firm belief: “If wars can be engineered, we can also engineer peace.”

In an exclusive interview with IPS, Nepram spelled out the various dimensions of her work and what she plans to in her new role at the International Peace Bureau.

Excerpts from the interview:

IPS: What does this election mean?

Nepram: My election as Vice President of the International Peace Bureau is a historic one because it is the first time that anyone from India or my home state, Manipur, has been elected to this post. It means the growing recognition of our role, especially women-led peacebuilding—whether at home in Manipur, Northeast India or around the world—that we have been honored by the international community.

IPS: What would be your focus areas?

Nepram: My focus areas will include building a more peaceful world where people treat each other with love, respect and dignity; reducing wars and conflicts in biodiversity hotspots where Indigenous Peoples live; and the inclusion of women and Indigenous Peoples in peace talks, peace mediation and negotiations, as this is, as of now, missing.

IPS: What needs to change and has remained neglected?

Nepram: What needs to change are the mindsets of  people, policymakers and nations who believe in “war profits.” As of now, many “wars” in our homes, regions and nations are “engineered” for profit and power. Pitch this against the hundreds and thousands of innocent civilians who pay the price by way of their homes being burnt and many of them being displaced. In this context my own hometown, Manipur, stands as an example, particularly since 2023. But change will come; it must come and it will come once realization dawns.

IPS: How will your election help your people and the cause you are fighting for?

Nepram: Manipur has been in a state of violent conflict since the 1970s. Nobody has been able to work genuinely to bring peace in my state for decades. I, for one, will work for bringing the peace that has been denied but that every citizen in the state deserves. This is the need of the hour.

IPS: What are the first steps you will take?

Nepram: The first steps for peace in Manipur had been taken even before my election. This is by way of the formation of the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network, the Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace and the Northeast India Women Peace Congregations. I have also conceptualized the Global Summit on Indigenous Peacebuilding in April 2026 and will help in the forthcoming World Peace Congress.  We will also continue peace meetings, dialogue, negotiations, and mediation this year. These are the first few steps I will take this year.

IPS: What does this election mean for women and India and Manipur? How excited are you?

Nepram: This election puts India and Manipur back on the world map of peacemaking, and this, to me, is crucial and critical. India and the women of Manipur in particular have shown the world the power of peace and non-violent action in ending the colonization of British rule. At a time of rising wars and conflicts, this news will come as a balm to many wounded lives.

IPS: What is the big picture that needs to be addressed? What is the way forward?

Nepram: The big picture we are considering is that there are currently 132 conflicts and wars in the world, which have displaced 200 million people. Eighty percent of these conflicts and wars are happening in biodiversity areas where Indigenous Peoples live. Greed and power are what are driving the world towards wars and if humans don’t stop this, we will be heading towards doom. War is the greatest polluter in this world; every year our climate is changing. There are floods, droughts etc. so we need solutions now to protect the planet and to achieve this peace is the answer, as is Indigenous peacebuilding the way forward.  We must include Indigenous people and women in every process of decision-making from now on.

Peace for us is not a project; it is a commitment of a lifetime. If wars can be “engineered,” we can also “engineer” peace.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Malaysian women peacekeepers of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) at a medal ceremony in Kawkaba, south Lebanon, on Jan. 11, 2012. Credit: UN Photo/Pasqual Gorriz

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 5 2013 (IPS)

Amidst a rise in sexual violence in the world’s war zones, the United Nations has begun appointing women to head some of the key political and peacekeeping missions in conflict areas – and also created Gender Advisers as a second line of defence.

Still, there is growing scepticism among non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and activist groups that much of the progress is scarcely more than window dressing."There is just a shortage of political will to see women in positions of power." -- Mavic Cabrera-Balleza

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has proudly claimed the appointment of five women as heads of U.N. peacekeeping missions, in Liberia, South Sudan, Cyprus, Cote d’Ivoire and Haiti.

But Mavic Cabrera-Balleza, international coordinator of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP), a programme partner of the International Civil Society Action Network, told IPS, “We also need to look beyond the top leadership positions. We need to examine where women are in the overall architecture of peacekeeping missions.”

She said the middle level positions are just as critical because they are the ones who directly interact with the local populations who are directly affected by the conflicts.

Regarding Gender Advisers, she said it is equally critical to know where these advisers are located in the hierarchy of peacekeeping missions.

“They are the ones who ensure that a gender perspective is fully integrated in the functions of the peacekeeping missions,” she noted.

The problem is that often, the Gender Advisers are very low in the pecking order of the missions, said Cabrera-Balleza, whose GNWP is a coalition of women’s groups and civil society organisations from Africa, Asia and the Pacific, South Asia, West Asia, Latin America, Eastern and Western Europe.

Last month, the secretary-general said that more women occupy the senior ranks of the United Nations than ever before.

“And this year I want to mention a new milestone in the participation of women in our work for peace and security: for the first time, one-third of our peacekeeeping operations – five of 15 — are headed by women,” he added.

These include Hilde Johnson in South Sudan, Karin Landgren in Liberia, Lisa Buttenheim in Cyprus, Aïchatou Mindaoudou in Cote d’Ivoire and Sandra Honoré in Haiti.

Ban has also appointed the U.N.’s first woman lead mediator in a peace process: former Irish President Mary Robinson as the special envoy for the Great Lakes region of Africa.

“We have more distance to travel,” he admits, “but we have never been this far before.”

Cora Weiss, U.N. representative of the International Peace Bureau, told IPS the secretary-general’s “words are fine and welcome but I wish we could feel his heart in this issue.

“When civil society women drafted what became the landmark Security Council resolution 1325 on women peace and security, we were looking at a future world without war,” she said.

Weiss also pointed out that while at least half the world’s population is female, Mary Robinson is the only woman lead mediator in a peace process: “And it’s 2013.”

“We need more women in decision making and peace making, but they need to be peace- and justice-loving women. The days of resort to force have to be over,” she stressed.

Addressing a Security Council meeting last June, Zainab Hawa Banguda, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict, said that when she visited Bosnia early this year – “where an estimated 50,000 women had been targeted with rape and other forms of sexual violence” – she found that to date only a handful of prosecutions had occurred.

Thus, the victims of those crimes “continue to walk in shadow and shame, unable to lay the past to rest, and move forward,” she added.

After visiting the war zone in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) early this year, Ban admitted he met women and girls who had been raped and maimed by armed groups on all sides of the conflict.

He said many had a condition called traumatic fistula. In plain terms, they had been torn inside. Experiencing great pain and often unable to control bladder and bowels, they are disabled and often shunned by society, he added, pointing out the horrors of sexual violence in war zones.

The international community, through Security Council resolutions 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009) and 1960 (2010), has put in place a solid framework for responding to conflict-related sexual violence.

The mechanisms carry out global advocacy through U.N. Special Representatives, in collaboration with the U.N. Action Network against Sexual Violence in Conflict, comprising 13 U.N. entities.

Last month, the Security Council adopted yet another resolution (2122), also aimed at strengthening women’s participation in all aspects of conflict prevention.

“The argument that we in civil society have with the U.N. on the issue of women’s leadership remains: Practice what you preach. Lead by example,” Cabrera-Balleza told IPS.

“We also want to see more women with civil society backgrounds who have been working on peace and security issues for decades appointed to key positions in peacekeeping operations,” she said. “As we’ve seen in the past, bureaucratic experience has not contributed much in improving peacekeeping operations.”

She also said that while checking the list of peacekeeping missions again, she couldn’t fail to notice that there are three women deputy Special Representatives of the Secretary-General (SRSGs): for the U.N. Office in Burundi ( BNUB), the U.N. Integrated Peacebuilding Office in the Central African Republic (BINUCA), and the U.N. Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).

“Will these three women ever become heads of peacekeeping operations?” she asked.

There’s no shortage of qualified women. “There is just a shortage of political will to see women in positions of power,” she said.