UN Portal on Women in Justice and Security
DCAF, in partnership with the United Nations, is developing the UN Portal on Women in Justice and Security. Building on joint DCAF/UN research on women in the defence sector over 2023-2024, the Portal will expand data collection to police, corrections, justice, and mine action institutions.
This project supports implementation of key international norms and frameworks, including SDGs 5 and 16, the UN System-Wide Gender Equality Acceleration Plan, the Secretary-General’s Data Strategy, the New Agenda for Peace, the New Vision for the Rule of Law, the Seven-Point Action Plan on Gender-Responsive Peacebuilding, and A4P+ priorities.
Workstreams
The Portal will offer a centralised and publicly accessible repository of global data on women in national justice and security institutions.It will serve as a credible source of information on women’s participation in policing, corrections and the justice sector, and on good practices for increasing women’s recruitment, promotion and retention. The Portal will support evidence-based analysis, policymaking, advocacy, and institutional reforms aimed at promoting inclusive security and justice systems worldwide.
To collect key data, the United Nations will circulate five surveys to Member States, inviting them to share information on women’s participation in their police service, corrections service, justice sector, military justice and mine action bodies. The surveys will also ask about barriers to women's and men’s equal opportunities and good practices in increasing women's representation and leadership.
The surveys on police, justice and corrections have been co-developed by DCAF and the UN, drawing upon DCAF’s analysis of existing research and consultation with UN stakeholders.
The surveys will be available in English, French and Spanish.
DCAF is supporting Member States to complete the surveys through an informational event at the UN in New York in March 2026 and a series of online technical support sessions in April 2026.
The Portal on Women in Justice and Security will be hosted on a UN webpage. It will combine access to data with visualisation tools that consolidate and analyse trends, and highlight good practices and recommendations.
- United Nations, “Towards equal opportunity for women in defence sector“ (2024) Report
- DCAF, “Good practices in increasing women’s representation and gender equality in armed forces: Case studies“ (2024)
Contacts
Simon Petitjean, Programme Manager (s.petitjean@dcaf.ch)