By Leah Pickering, Programme Officer – Transparency International Defence & Security
“Trick or treat?”
It’s a familiar call every 31 October. But twenty-five years ago, another call echoed through the corridors of the United Nations in New York. An active and vibrant civil society movement, joined by a handful of determined member states, were demanding something far more profound: power, protection, participation, peace, and security.
For years, these advocates had been knocking on closed doors, urging the UN to confront the gendered realities of conflict and the exclusion of women from decision-making. At last, the door opened.
On 31 October 2000, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), a landmark decision that recognised both the unique security challenges faced by women in conflict and their crucial contributions to peace. Centred on the four pillars of participation, protection, prevention, and relief and recovery, it called for women’s full inclusion in peace and political processes, stronger measures to prevent and respond to gender-based violence, and the advancement of gender equality across all peace and security efforts.
It was a historic shift from seeing women as passive victims of war to recognising them as active agents of peace and positive change. In the years that followed, more than ten additional resolutions expanded this vision, and over one hundred countries developed National Action Plans to bring it to life. Regional organisations such as the African Union, the European Union, and NATO integrated WPS principles into their frameworks, helping to embed gender perspectives across peace and security institutions.
Yet even amid these gains, not all doors have opened equally. Women continue to be underrepresented in peace negotiations, and when they do participate, their involvement is often symbolic rather than substantive. Implementation has frequently ignored the perspectives of women from the Global South, LGBTIQ+ individuals, and other marginalised groups, leaving significant voices unheard. The spaces where women’s rights organisations once influenced and defended the agenda are shrinking, and those most affected by conflict and violence are often the first to be excluded.
No tricks, just truth: while the WPS agenda has achieved much, persistent gaps and blind spots continue to undermine its promise.
One of the most concerning of these gaps is corruption.
Corruption impacts every pillar of the WPS framework, silently shaping whose voices are heard, whose rights are protected, and who remains unsafe. In defence and security sectors, corruption manifests in deeply gendered ways such as sexual extortion in exchange for aid or safety, bribery that denies survivors justice, and patronage networks that exclude women and marginalised communities from decision-making. These are not small flaws in governance. They are daily realities that determine who is safe, who is heard, and who gets justice.
In fragile and conflict-affected settings, corruption and gender-based violence feed off each other. From peacekeepers implicated in sexual exploitation and abuse, to officials colluding with traffickers, to survivors silenced by corrupt courts, the pattern is disturbingly familiar. Corruption weakens institutions, insecurity rises, gender-based violence spreads, and impunity deepens. The result is a vicious cycle that corrodes both peace and trust.
Despite these harms, corruption has remained a persistent threat. The WPS and anti-corruption agendas have developed in isolation, speaking different policy languages, working through different systems, and drawing on different funding streams. Corruption is often treated as a technical problem of governance, while WPS is seen as a political and human one. The result is a blind spot that allows abuse and insecurity to persist unchecked.
Twenty-five years after its adoption, the WPS agenda must face the truth: corruption continues to undermine its promise of peace and equality. Transparency International Defence and Security’s new policy brief, Closing the Blind Spot: Confronting Corruption to Advance Women, Peace and Security, argues that integrating anti-corruption into the WPS agenda is not an optional extra – it is essential. Recognising corruption as a driver of gendered insecurity is vital if prevention, protection, participation, and recovery are to be realised in practice rather than only in principle.
The brief calls for five key steps:
- Acknowledge the risk by naming sexualised corruption explicitly in WPS frameworks.
- Assess with a gender lens by embedding gender-sensitive corruption risk assessments into security sector reform, disarmament, demobilisation, reintegration, and peacekeeping processes.
- Embed safeguards through survivor-safe oversight and reporting mechanisms.
- Enable accountability by empowering parliaments, national human rights institutions, and civil society watchdogs.
- Align global tools by connecting WPS, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and United Nations Convention Against Corruption obligations into a coherent framework for integrity and inclusion.
Twenty-five years after UNSCR 1325 first opened the door, the WPS agenda still inspires hope. Yet it also demands honesty. If we are to move from promise to practice, we must unmask corruption and confront the structures that keep women, girls and LGBTQI+ individuals unsafe.
No tricks, just truth: peace that ignores corruption will always be haunted by inequality, insecurity, and silence.
It is time to face the ghosts and build peace that is not only promised but practiced.