Major Abhilasha received UN Gender Advocate of the Year 2025 award, Indian Embassy congratulated

Beirut, May 20. Indian peacekeeper Major Abhilasha Barak, under the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in the West Asian country Lebanon, has been selected for the ‘UN Gender Advocate of the Year Award 2025’. The Indian Embassy has congratulated Major Abhilasha on this. The Indian Embassy in Lebanon wrote on social media platform

Major Barak rendered valuable service as the ‘Female Engagement Team’ (FET) Commander of ‘INDBATT-XXVI’.” Major Abhilasha Barak was assigned as the Indian peacekeeper with the United Nations Mission in Lebanon. For this responsibility, she has been selected by the United Nations for the ‘United Nations Military Gender Advocate Award 2025’. Major Baraka is currently serving in the Indian Battalion as the Commander of the Women’s Participation Team in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. She is also the first woman combat helicopter pilot of the Indian Army.

Abhilasha is the third Indian to receive this award. Before her, Major Suman Gawani and Major Radhika Sen have been honored for their commendable work while serving in UN peacekeeping missions. Major Radhika Sen of the Indian Army received the ‘2023 United Nations Military Gender Advocate of the Year’ award. Sen was deployed to MONUSCO in 2023 as the Engagement Platoon Commander with the Indian Rapid Deployment Battalion. He completed his term in April 2024.

Earlier, Indian Army officer Major Suman Gawani, who served as a female peacekeeper in the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) in 2019, was honored with the prestigious ‘United Nations Military Gender Advocate of the Year Award’ on 29 May 2020. Major Suman received the award along with Brazilian Naval Officer Commander Carla Monteiro de Castro Araújo. Major Suman served as a military observer at UNMISS from November 2018 to December 2019. While at the mission, she was the principal focal point of contact for women-related matters for military observers at the mission.