Radhika Sen, an Indian military peacekeeper serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo has won the 2023 United Nations Military Gender Advocate of the Year Award. Sen, working with the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission, served in the east of Congo from March 2023 to April 2024.
Honouring Sen with the award, the UN said she led mixed-gender engagement patrols and activities in a volatile environment where people, including women and children, were leaving everything behind to flee the conflict.
She also helped create community alert networks in North Kivu which became a platform for community leaders, young people and women to raise security and humanitarian concerns. She would, in turn, help address these issues with her colleagues in the mission.
As a platoon commander, she also helped foster a safe space for men and women to operate together and quickly became a role model for both women peacekeepers and their male counterparts. She also made sure that peacekeepers under her command engaged in a gender-sensitive manner and stuck to sociocultural norms in Congo. These activities helped build trust and thereby increase her team’s chance of success.
She also arranged English classes for children, and health, gender and vocational training for displaced and marginalised adults. As a gender advocate, she encouraged women in the village of Kashlira, near Rwindi town, to organise themselves to address issues collectively, advocate for their rights and amplify their voices within the community, in particular in local security and peace discussions.
On the award, Sen said: "This award is special to me as it gives recognition to the hard work put in by all the peacekeepers working in the challenging environment of DRC, giving their best to bring a positive change in society”.
Who is Radhika Sen?
Hailing from Himachal Pradesh, Sen completed her degree in Biotechnology Engineering and later pursued her master’s from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. She joined the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo in March 2023.
Later she was assigned the platoon commander with the Indian Rapid Deployment Battalion. She is the second woman to win the award after Manor Suman Guwani in 2020.