Balkans

Citation:

Campbell, Kirsten. 2004. “The Trauma of Justice: Sexual Violence, Crimes Against Humanity and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.” Social & Legal Studies 13 (3): 329–50.

Author: Kirsten Campbell

Abstract:

Topics: Health, Trauma, International Law, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), Justice, Crimes against Humanity, International Tribunals & Special Courts, Sexual Violence Regions: Europe, Balkans Countries: Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2004

Citation:

Mayer, Tamar, ed. 2000. Gender Ironies of Nationalism: Sexing the Nation. New York: Routlege.

Author: Tamar Mayer

Abstract:

This book provides a unique social science reading on the construction of nation, gender and sexuality and on the interactions among them. It includes international case studies from Indonesia, Ireland, former Yugoslavia, Liberia, Sri Lanka, Australia, the USA, Turkey, China, India and the Caribbean. The contributors offer both the masculine and feminine perspective, exposing how nations are comprised of sexed bodies, and exploring the gender ironies of nationalism and how sexuality plays a key role in nation building and in sustaining national identity.

The contributors conclude that control over access to the benefits of belonging to the nation is invariably gendered; nationalism becomes the language through which sexual control and repression is justified masculine prowess is expressed and exercised. Whilst it is men who claim the prerogatives of nation and nation building it is, for the most part, women who actually accept the obligation of nation and nation building. (Amazon)

Topics: Gender, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies, Nationalism, Sexuality Regions: Africa, MENA, West Africa, Caribbean countries, North America, Asia, East Asia, Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, Balkans, Southern Europe, Western Europe, Oceania Countries: Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Liberia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, United States of America, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2000

Citation:

Ní Aoláin, Fionnuala. 1997. “Radical Rules: The Effects of Evidential and Procedural Rules on the Regulation of Sexual Violence in War.” Albany Law Review 60: 883–905.

Author: Fionnuala Ní Aoláin

Topics: Armed Conflict, International Law, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts, War Crimes, Sexual Violence Regions: Balkans Countries: Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 1997

Citation:

Nebesar, D. A. 1998. “Gender-Based Violence as a Weapon of War.” University of California Davis Journal of International Law and Policy 4: 147–80.

Author: D. A. Nebesar

Abstract:

This article focuses on rape as a concrete war strategy used for the purpose of annihilating an entire group of peoples. This article begins with a discussion of the historical background of rape in wartime (Section I). The article then turns to rape as a weapon of war in the former Yugoslavia (Section II). Section III discusses forced pregnancy and forced maternity as illustrative of the particular nature of rape in the Balkan conflict. Section IV explores the aftermath of rape for women survivors and specifically its cultural and familial ramifications. This section also discusses forced prostitution and prostitution as a result of rape in war. Section V explores the role pornography may have played in creating and exacerbating this scenario. Section VI addresses whether international legal mechanisms can provide effective remedies. Section VII discusses the definition of this war as either international or internal and the ramifications of each. Finally, rape in during armed conflict is compared and contrasted to rape that takes place during peace time.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender-Based Violence, International Law, Livelihoods, Sexual Livelihoods, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Weapons /Arms Regions: Europe, Balkans

Year: 1998

Citation:

Sion, Liora. 2008. “Peacekeeping and the Gender Regime.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 37 (5): 561–585.

Author: Liora Sion

Abstract:

This article addresses the issue of women participation in peacekeeping missions by focusing on two North Atlantic Treaty Organization Dutch peacekeeping units in Bosnia (SFOR8) and Kosovo (KFOR2). I argue that soldiers are ambivalent toward what is perceived the “feminine” aspects of peace missions. Although peacekeeping is a new military model, it reproduces the same traditional combat-oriented mind-set of gender roles. Therefore Dutch female soldiers are limited in their ability to perform and contribute to peace missions. Both peacekeeping missions and female soldiers are confusing for the soldiers, especially for the more hypermasculine Bulldog infantry soldiers. Both represent a blurred new reality in which the comfort of the all-male unit and black-and-white combat situations are replaced by women in what were traditionally men's roles and the fuzzy environment of peacekeeping. At the same time, both are also necessary: peacekeeping, although not desirable, has become the main function for Dutch soldiers, and women are still a small minority, although they gain importance in the army. Present government policy prescribes a gender mainstreaming approach to recruiting, partly due to a lack of qualified male personnel, especially after the end of the draft in 1996.

Keywords: women, peacekeeping, Dutch, exclusion, NATO

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Gender, Gender Roles, Femininity/ies, International Organizations, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Peacekeeping Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo

Year: 2008

Citation:

Duncanson, Claire. 2009. “Forces for Good? Narratives of Military Masculinity in Peacekeeping Operations.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 11 (1): 63–80.

Author: Claire Duncanson

Abstract:

Evidence of military involvement in sexual exploitation and aggression against civilians on peacekeeping operations has led many feminists to question the appropriateness of using soldiers to create peace. They argue that the problems stem from a particular form of military masculinity, hegemonic within western militaries, associated with practices of strength, toughness and aggressive heterosexuality. Masculinities, however, are multiple, dynamic and contradictory. As they are constructed in relation to the contexts men find themselves in, involvement in peacekeeping may itself play a role in the construction of alternative military masculinities. Examining autobiographical accounts of soldiers involved in peacekeeping in Bosnia in the 1990s, I argue that there is evidence of an alternative discourse of ‘peacekeeper masculinity’, but question whether it fully challenges the hegemony of the warrior model. I acknowledge that peacekeeper masculinity is also problematic because although it disrupts elements of the traditional linkages between militarism and masculinity, it still relies on a feminized and racialized ‘Other’. Yet, I suggest that this is not the only way in which peacekeeper masculinity can be viewed. It can alternatively be considered part of a ‘regendered military’, which may be a necessary component of successful conflict resolution.

Keywords: militarised masculinity, masculinities, peacekeeping operations

Topics: Gender, Masculinity/ies, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Peacekeeping, Sexual Violence, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2009

Citation:

Gardam, Judith. 1997. “Women and the Law of Armed Conflict: Why the Silence?” The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 46 (1): 55–80.

Author: Judith Gardam

Abstract:

The aim of this article is to extend the critique of human rights law by feminist scholars to humanitarian law—or the law of armed conflict, as it is more traditionally known. When reflecting generally on the role that international law plays in providing protection for women from the effects of violence the obvious starting point is the regime of human rights. So much of human suffering in today's world occurs, however, in the context of armed conflict where to a large extent human rights are in abeyance and individuals must rely on the protections offered by the law of armed conflict. The debate that has been taking place for some years in the context of human rights as to the extent to which that system takes account of women's lives needs to extend to the provisions of the law of armed conflict. Although commentators have convincingly demonstrated the limitations of the existing body of human rights law adequately to take account of the reality of women's experience of the world, the law of armed conflict is even more deficient. Moreover, despite the recent focus on rape in armed conflict as a result of the international outrage at the sexual abuse of women in the armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia, these shortcomings remain largely unaddressed. At first glance this seems somewhat surprising until the special difficulties that flow from certain characteristics of the law of armed conflict are appreciated.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, International Law, International Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), Sexual Violence Regions: Europe, Balkans Countries: Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 1997

Citation:

Mertus, Julie. 2000. War’s Offensive on Women: The Humanitarian Challenge in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.

Author: Julie Mertus

Abstract:

* Case studies from Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan tackle human rights laws and gender-based violence

War's Offensive on Women contends that humanitarian groups’ attempts to provide assistance and protection for women will fall short unless they make women major actors in such efforts. Mertus shows how human rights laws are beginning to address gender-based violence, and how agencies can respond to women’s needs in conflict and post-conflict settings. The book is of wide interest to humanitarian and human rights practitioners, policymakers, and students alike. (Amazon)

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, Humanitarian Assistance Regions: Asia, South Asia, Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Afghanistan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo

Year: 2000

Citation:

Scheffler, Sabine, and Agnes Müchele. 1999. “War, Life Crisis and Trauma: Assessing the Impact of a Woman-Centered Training Program in Bosnia.” Women & Therapy 22 (1): 121-38.

Authors: Sabine Scheffler, Agnes Müchele

Abstract:

This article presents a woman-centered approach to healing that is necessitated by trauma inflicted by armed conflict. The authors present a historical context within which they depict many of the daily consequences that citizens experienced. A training program was developed during a trip to Bosnia in which sixteen women, among whom were social workers, psychologists, physicians, teachers and one Islamic theologian, participated. This program was comprised of five training modules: introduction to basic concepts and issues, the social psychology of war, the counseling process and techniques, social work in a wartime environment, and termination.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Gender, Women, Health, Trauma Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 1999

Citation:

Cockburn, Cynthia, and Dubravka Žarkov. 2002. The Postwar Moment: Militaries, Masculinities and International Peacekeeping, Bosnia and the Netherlands. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

Authors: Cynthia Cockburn, Dubravka Žarkov

Abstract:

A postwar moment is one of promise - but too often of missed opportunities. Will peace bring a democratic, inclusive and equal society? This depends on many factors, but the contributors to this book argue that one of them - crucial but often overlooked - is the importance accorded to transforming gender power relations. Through a focus on two countries, Bosnia and the Netherlands, linked through a "peace-keeping operation", the contributors illuminate the many ways in which processes of demilitarisation and peace-keeping are structured by notions of masculinity and femininity. The Dayton Peace Agreement failed to acknowledge the gendered nature of the war it ended. Gender was also neglected by the many powerful international institutions and agencies which arrived in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995 to pacify and administer the war-torn country. Several chapters in the book consider these shortcomings in the Bosnian postwar moment, and the way they have impeded local women's efforts to reshape their world. The Dutch contingent of the UN peace-keeping forces was widely held responsible for failing to prevent the massacre by Bosnian Serb forces of thousands of Bosnian Muslim men in Srebrenica. The self-questioning provoked in the Netherlands by this event here becomes a rich source of insight into relationships between soldiering and masculinities, war-fighting and peace-keeping. (Amazon)

Topics: Gender, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, International Organizations, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Peacekeeping, Post-Conflict Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe, Western Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Netherlands

Year: 2002