UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Major Radhika Sen, an Indian woman peacekeeper with the UN mission in Congo, a “true leader and role model” after she received a top military gender advocacy award. From March 2023 until April 2024, Major Sen led MONUSCO’s Engagement Platoon for the Indian Rapid Deployment Battalion (INDRDB) in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Eight years ago, Major Sen, who was born in Himachal Pradesh in 1993, joined in the Indian Army. She decided to join in the military while still a biotech engineering graduate student at IIT Bombay, where she was also pursuing a master’s degree. She joined the Indian Rapid Deployment Battalion in March 2023 and was sent to MONUSCO as the Engagement Platoon Commander. She served there till April 2024.
She rapidly established herself as a role model for both female and male peacekeepers, helping to create a secure environment in which they could work together under her leadership as a platoon commander. In order to foster trust and raise her team’s chances of success, she also made sure that the peacekeepers under her leadership behaved in a way that was considerate of gender and sociocultural norms in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
After Major Suman Gawani, who served with the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and was recognized with the 2019 United Nations Military Gender Advocate of the Year Award, Major Sen is the second Indian peacekeeper to receive this honor.
The UN “Military Gender Advocate of the Year Award,” which was established in 2016, honors an individual military peacekeeper’s commitment to upholding the values outlined in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security. The Award, which was developed by the Department for Peace Operations’ (DPO) Office of Military Affairs, honors a military peacekeeper who has most successfully incorporated a gender perspective into peacekeeping operations.
