To care and to serve: the challenge faced by women in the military on peacekeeping missions

^{Foto: Cortesía de Karen Santos}

Karen Santos is from San José, a town located 95 kilometers from Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. She has served in the National Army for 17 years and currently works in the supply department of the Army’s Material and Armament Service. She was one of the first women to access the benefit provided for deployment through the Elsie Project Uruguay in 2024.

She participated in the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Golan Heights (UNDOF), Syria, from October 2023 to January 2025. “I always said that before leaving the Army, I wanted to go on a mission. I had always wanted to go to the Congo, but I ended up going to Syria instead. I always knew I would go on a mission.”

Karen has six children. In conversations with her husband and children, family support was present and played a significant role in her decision to apply for deployment. The burden of caregiving at home was a very important factor in enabling her to apply. In Uruguay, a National Integrated Care System has been in place since 2015, expanding services toward more co-responsible care models. However, like most Latin American countries, women dedicate three times more time to unpaid domestic and caregiving work than men. 

^{Foto: Cortesía de Karen Santos}

Care considerations within the household are one of the barriers identified in Uruguay to increasing women’s participation in the Armed Forces in peace operations. To mitigate this barrier, the Elsie Project, implemented by the Ministry of National Defense in collaboration with strategic partners UN Women and the Uruguayan Agency for International Cooperation, has designed a family support activity for women who care for children up to 12 years old and are deployed in UN peace operations. Financial support is provided for school transportation, as well as for curricular and extracurricular activities. This support also extends to men who are deployed and are single parents caring for children up to 12 years old.

Karen says her deployment experience had a positive impact on her family: “My 12-year-old daughter, when I returned, was doing many things on her own,” she explained, referring to caregiving tasks that previously fell almost exclusively on her.

In Uruguayan households, caregiving work continues to fall mainly on women, so the decision to deploy for 12 months has a significant impact on women in the Armed Forces.

Karen was deployed for nearly 14 months as part of the Army company in UNDOF, in an environment very different from Uruguay, facing challenges such as culture and even the climate. She requested support from the Elsie Project to cover the cost of her children’s school van. “It was a significant aid to improve our finances. It was hard to take that money out of the family budget every month,” she explained, in addition to the time spent on transportation.

This type of action to strengthen family support for women during deployment is accompanied by a communication campaign from the Elsie Project on shared responsibility in caregiving, enabling more women to participate in peace operations. “If I had the chance, I would deploy again. I’m considering going to Sinai,” she concluded.

Interview conducted as part of the EIF 1325+25 communications and advocacy plan, together with the Elsie Project – Armed Forces of Uruguay. 

About the Elsie Project 

UN Women supports the Ministry of National Defense of Uruguay in implementing the Elsie Project, which aims to mitigate barriers to increasing the participation of women in the Uruguayan Armed Forces in UN peace operations, in collaboration with the Uruguayan Agency for International Cooperation (AUCI) as a strategic partner.

With support from the Elsie Initiative for Women in Peace Operations launched by Canada, UN Member States, the United Nations system, and subject matter experts, the Elsie Initiative Fund seeks to develop and test a combination of innovative approaches to accelerate institutional change in security institutions and increase the meaningful participation of women in peace operations. Uruguay was the first country in the world to receive approval from the Elsie Initiative Fund to develop a project after completing the MOWIP (Measuring Opportunities for Women in Peace Operations) assessment. This was also the first such assessment conducted in the Americas.

The project focuses on four priority barriers, out of the ten identified in the MOWIP study (2020): Lack of information about deployment criteria and other aspects; Care responsibilities within the household that limit women’s availability for deployment; Negative experiences of others in peace missions that influence their decision to apply; Gender roles in Uruguayan society reflected in the underrepresentation of women in operational roles in the Armed Forces. The family support activity aims to mitigate the second barrier by offering a benefit to strengthen family support during deployment.  

This project marks a significant milestone as a new and innovative contribution by UN Women to the development of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda in Uruguay.