International Organizations

Women participants in Conflict

Mainstreaming Gender in European Union Transitional Justice Policy: Towards a Transformative Approach?

Citation:

de Almagro, Maria Martin. 2019. "Mainstreaming Gender in European Union Transitional Justice Policy: Towards a Transformative Approach?" In Gender Roles in Peace and Security, edited by Manuela Scheuermann and Anja Zurn, 149-64. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Author: Maria Martin de Almagro

Abstract:

The European Parliament awarded its prestigious Sakharov Prize in October 2016 to two Iraqi Yazidi women who were held as sex slaves by Islamic State militias. Some months before, the ICC issued its landmark conviction of Jean Pierre Bemba for his responsibility as commander-in-chief for sexual and gender-based violence carried out by his troops in the Central African Republic in May 2016. Both events are evidence of the increasing awareness at the EU, and internationally, of the need to amplify women’s experiences of violence and their claims to justice. In Guatemala, for example, a court recently convicted two former military officers of crimes against humanity for having enslaved, raped and sexually abused 11 indigenous Q’eqchi’ women at the Sepur Zarco military base during the armed conflict in Guatemala.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, Gender Mainstreaming, Gender-Based Violence, International Law, International Criminal Law, International Organizations, Justice, Crimes against Humanity, Transitional Justice, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militias, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Violence Regions: Africa, MENA, Central Africa, Americas, Central America, Asia, Middle East, Europe Countries: Central African Republic, Guatemala, Iraq

Year: 2019

Gender-Sensitive Conflict Analysis: A New Training Method for Practitioners

Citation:

Close, Sophia, and Hesta Groenewald. 2019. "Gender-Sensitive Conflict Analysis: A New Training Method for Practitioners." Journal of Peacebuilding & Development 14 (3): 304-17.

Authors: Sophia Close, Hesta Groenewald

Abstract:

The authors have co-designed and co-facilitated an innovative training method and approach to gender-sensitive conflict analysis. International organisations rarely undertake gendered conflict analysis as it is perceived to be difficult, with unclear or inconvenient actions identified. Yet the authors’ practice-based research shows it is essential to understanding and transforming the gendered root causes, discriminatory gender norms, and differentiated effects of violence and conflict. In this article, the authors share the lessons from workshops they conducted across multiple conflict-affected contexts. They detail the participatory process undertaken involving diverse gender groups from civil society and policymakers working in conflict-affected contexts and provide data on the effectiveness and sustainability of this innovative training approach.

Keywords: gender sensitive, gender, peace, peacebuilding, participatory, systems, conflict, analysis

Topics: Civil Society, Conflict, Gender, Gender Analysis, Gendered Power Relations, International Organizations, Peacebuilding, Political Participation, Peace Processes

Year: 2019

Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by UN Peacekeepers: Towards a Hybrid Solution

Citation:

Mudgway, Cassandra. 2019. Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by UN Peacekeepers: Towards a Hybrid Solution. New York: Routledge.

Author: Cassandra Mudgway

Annotation:

Summary:
Sexual exploitation and abuse by United Nations (UN) peacekeepers is not an isolated or recent problem, but it has been present in almost every peacekeeping operation. A culture of sexual exploitation and abuse is contrary to the UN’s zero-tolerance policy and has been the target of institutional reforms since 2005. Despite this, allegations of sexual abuse continue to emerge, and the reforms have not solved the problem. This book is a response to the continued lack of accountability of UN peacekeepers for sexual exploitation and abuse. Focusing on military contingent members, this book aims to analyse ways in which the UN can fill the accountability gap while taking a feminist perspective and emphasising the needs of victims, their communities, and the host state.
 
This book directly challenges the status quo of relying on troop-contributing countries (TCCs) to hold their peacekeepers to account. It proposes first, the establishment of a series of hybrid courts, and second, a mechanism for dealing with victim rehabilitation and reparation. It addresses these topics by considering international and human rights law and will be of interest to researchers, academics, policymakers, and students with an interest in international criminal law, United Nations peacekeeping, and peace studies.

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, International Law, International Criminal Law, International Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), International Organizations, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Peacekeeping, Sexual Violence, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Year: 2019

Women, Gender and Peacebuilding

Citation:

Pankhurst, Donna T. 2000. "Women, Gender and Peacebuilding." Centre for Conflict Resolution Department of Peace Studies Working Paper 5, University of Bradford, Bradford. 

Author: Donna T. Pankhurst

Annotation:

Summary:
"Any policy paper on peacebuilding comes up against the problem that we understand far more about how to promote conflict than even how to conceive of peace, let alone build it. To many people, peace is an inverse, or even a mere corollary, of conflict, but such a vague notion does not lead to clear understandings or definitions of what it is that people are trying to promote or achieve in peace building. This paper therefore begins by setting out a framework for concepts and understandings of conflict and peace, which can assist in formulating peacebuilding policies.

Most approaches to peacebuilding have either ignored or marginalised issues of gender and women.Women consistently remain a minority of participants in peacebuilding projects; receive less attention than men in peacebuilding policies; and gender analysis rarely informs peacebuilding strategies. This is in spite of the fact that there have been many United Nations and European Commission resolutions which, for more than a decade, have criticised such marginalisation and neglect, and which have called for gender issues and women's needs to be given much more serious attention in all policies relating to conflict and peace.  Such resolutions were not drawn out of thin air, but built on at least two decades of practical experience in, and evaluation of, gender and women-focused policies in the area of development.

This paper charts a path for concrete, peacebuilding policies which take their key from these international resolutions and recommendations, and which would begin to redress this persistent gender inequality and widespread failure to tackle issues relating to women. It is founded on the view that groups of women often have a stronger commitment to the ending of violence and the maintenance of long term peace than groups of men, and thus often constitute a highly motivated and able group of stakeholders for peacebuilding, who nonetheless are often ignored.

By way of background, the paper also reviews the range of women's experiences during conflict; the usefulness of a gender analysis of conflict; and a gender analysis of peacebuilding, before drawing out the recommendations for future peacebuilding policies" (Pankhurst 2000, 1).

Topics: Conflict, Gender, Women, Gender Analysis, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, International Organizations, Post-Conflict, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes

Year: 2000

Participation and Protection: Security Council Dyanmics, Bureaucratic Politics, and the Evolution of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda

Citation:

Goetz, Anne Marie, and Rob Jenkins. 2018. "Participation and Protection: Security Council Dynamics, Bureaucratic Politics, and the Evolution of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda." In The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict, edited by Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Naomi Cahn, Dina Francesca Haynes, and Nahla Valji, 119-131. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Authors: Anne Marie Goetz, Rob Jenkins

Abstract:

This chapter focuses on the political and institutional factors behind the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1325. It illuminates two elements of the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Agenda: participation and protection. It argues that despite the WPS Agenda’s efforts, women continue to remain underrepresented in peace negotiations and post-conflict political settlements. Further, by concentrating solely on protecting women from sexual violence, and neglecting an analysis of gender inequality and its contribution to conflict-propensity, the WPS Agenda perpetuates a protectionist narrative. This is due to opposition to the participation agenda from developing country member-states, a lack of accountability systems, and a lack of a powerful advocate within the UN bureaucratic system. The chapter concludes with suggestions for a recently formed working group under resolution 2242 to utilize, in order to better enable women’s participation in peace and security processes.

Keywords: Security Council Resolution 1325, protectionism, Security Council Resolution 2242, United Nation bureaucracy, women, Women Peace and Security agenda, gender

Topics: Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, International Organizations, Post-Conflict, Peace Processes, Sexual Violence, SV against Women, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, UNSCR 2242

Year: 2018

Women's Organizations and Peace Initiatives

Citation:

Tripp, Aili Mari. 2018. "Women’s Organizations and Peace Initiatives." In The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict, edited by Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Naomi R. Cahn, Dina Francesca Haynes, and Nahla Valji, 430-441. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Author: Aili Mari Tripp

Abstract:

Women’s peace movements in the post–Cold War era frequently share three common characteristics: a grassroots and local focus due to exclusion from formal peace negotiations; an early and sustained commitment to bridging differences between factions; and the use of international and regional pressures to create success on the local level. This chapter reviews each of these characteristics through case studies. Examples from Sri Lanka, Somalia, and Nepal illustrate the successes and challenges of grassroots or local peace movements led by women. Peace processes in Burundi, led by women activists, exemplify a commitment to unity across ethnic lines. The chapter concludes with examples from Liberia and Sierra Leone, demonstrating the efficacy of international and regional organizations supporting local peace movements.

Keywords: women's peace movement, peace process, women activists, grassroots peace movement, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Nepal, Burundi

Topics: Civil Society, Ethnicity, Gender, Women, International Organizations, Post-Conflict, Peacekeeping, Peace Processes Regions: Africa, East Africa, Asia, South Asia Countries: Burundi, Nepal, Somalia, Sri Lanka

Year: 2018

Gender and Peacekeeping

Citation:

Karim, Sabrina M, and Marsha Henry. 2018. "Gender and Peacekeeping." In The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict, edited by Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Naomi R. Cahn, Dina Francesca Haynes, and Nahla Valji, 390-402. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Authors: Sabrina M. Karim, Marsha Henry

Abstract:

This chapter examines three manifestations of gender in peacekeeping: the gender of those serving as peacekeepers; gendered hierarchies within peacekeeping missions; and the gendered discourse used by the United Nations when discussing women peacekeepers. The chapter provides statistics on the numbers of female peacekeepers historically and by assignment. Using the concept of hegemonic masculinity, the chapter explores how protection masculinity and militarized masculinity complicate the work of female peacekeepers in various ways. Finally, the chapter critiques the problematic rhetoric used by the UN to promote female peacekeepers, which largely relies on an essentialized view of women and downplays the impact of other identities such as culture, language, and class. The chapter argues that rather than seeking to simply increase the numbers of women in peacekeeping roles, a focus on gender equality at a structural level is critical to improving the efficacy of peacekeeping missions.

Keywords: peacekeeping, female peacekeepers, hegemonic masculinity, gender hierarchies, United Nations, female stereotypes

Topics: Gender, Women, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Discourses, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Gender Equality/Inequality, International Organizations, Peacekeeping

Year: 2018

Religious Discourse and Gender Security in Southern Thailand

Citation:

Marddent, Amporn. 2019. "Religious Discourse and Gender Security in Southern Thailand." Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies 12 (2): 225-47.

Author: Amporn Marddent

Abstract:

This article describes the complexity of applying human security through the notion of gender equality in southern Thailand where violent conflict has been prevalent for nearly half a century in a Malay-Muslim dominated society. It explores how the concepts of gender and security have been interpreted in Malay-Muslim leaders’ outlooks. To define security more broadly, the article surveys the various notions of peacebuilding dealing with comprehensive human security and any security threat, thus not limited to state of war or physical violence only. In the prolonged armed violence and conflict, like that faced in Thailand’s Deep South, women’s security and their role in peacebuilding emerge as pertinent concerns. The discontinuities within the narratives of women and security highlight a divergence connected to personal-political imaginations of conflict whereby subtle variations in violent conflict can be seen as the products of different policy prescriptions, local cultural norms, and the project outcomes of women groups supported by governmental organizations and national and international donors. Thus, in order to reflect upon how contemporary security notions are framed, gendered security perceptions ought to be considered as they signify the exercise of peacebuilding programs in the local context. Persistent advocacy of gender equality is about cultural change, which eventually becomes a modality for non-violent society.

Keywords: Cultural Change, Deep South of Thailand, gender security, Malay-Muslim Women, peacebuilding

Topics: Conflict, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, International Organizations, Peacebuilding, Religion, Security, Human Security, Violence Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Thailand

Year: 2019

Local Peace Processes: Opportunities and Challenges for Women's Engagement

Citation:

Wise, Laura, Robert Forster, and Christine Bell. 2019. Local Peace Processes: Opportunities and Challenges for Women's Engagement. UN Women.

Authors: Laura Wise, Robert Forster, Christine Bell

Annotation:

Summary:
"This Spotlight outlines briefly the relationship between women and local peace processes, drawing out and focussing on a number of examples from the MENA region, and Sub-Saharan Africa. We do so in order to provide comparative information to support women’s meaningful participation and gender-sensitive approaches in local peace processes and agreements. It is sometimes suggested that women may have greater access to these local-level negotiations than to formal national peace negotiations, because they take place through mechanisms such as civil society organisations and local peace committees, rather than internationalised high level political diplomacy. However, a review of agreement texts reveals few provisions referring to women, girls, and gender specifically. Moreover, ‘institutional, economic, cultural and social obstacles’ to women’s participation prevalent at the national level are also evident in local processes. 1 Nonetheless, women are often very active at local levels of governance, and there are some striking examples of where they have been central to mobilizing, supporting, and implementing local peace initiatives" (Wise et al 2019, 2).

Topics: Civil Society, Conflict, Gender, Women, International Organizations, Peace Processes Regions: Africa, MENA, Southern Africa

Year: 2019

Women in Peace Negotiations

Citation:

Paffenholz, Thania. 2018. "Women in Peace Negotiations." In Gendering Diplomacy and International Negotiation, edited by Karin Aggestam and Ann E. Towns, 169-91. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Author: Thania Paffenholz

Abstract:

The adoption of United Nations Security Council resolution 1325 in 2000 brought Women, Peace and Security (WPS) onto the UN agenda, yet women remain significantly underrepresented in peace negotiations. This landmark resolution called for increased awareness of women as actors for peace, rather than only as victims of armed conflict, and has led to important further developments in the WPS field, as well as a surge of attention in both academic and policymaking circles. Most policy and academic debates tend to focus on women’s presence in, rather than their actual impact on, peace processes. Yet, research shows that it is not the inclusion of women per se, but rather women’s actual influence on peace negotiations that is positively correlated with a higher likelihood of reaching sustainable peace agreements: in other words, it’s not about counting women, but rather about making women count. This chapter thus provides insights on how women participate in, influence and impact peace negotiations, by focusing on the various avenues through which they can participate, and the process and context factors that enable or constrain their involvement.

Keywords: United Nations Security Council, women count, UNSC Resolution, peace process, peace agreement

Topics: Armed Conflict, Conflict, Gender, Women, International Organizations, Peace Processes, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325

Year: 2018

Pages

© 2024 CONSORTIUM ON GENDER, SECURITY & HUMAN RIGHTSLEGAL STATEMENT All photographs used on this site, and any materials posted on it, are the property of their respective owners, and are used by permission. Photographs: The images used on the site may not be downloaded, used, or reproduced in any way without the permission of the owner of the image. Materials: Visitors to the site are welcome to peruse the materials posted for their own research or for educational purposes. These materials, whether the property of the Consortium or of another, may only be reproduced with the permission of the owner of the material. This website contains copyrighted materials. The Consortium believes that any use of copyrighted material on this site is both permissive and in accordance with the Fair Use doctrine of 17 U.S.C. § 107. If, however, you believe that your intellectual property rights have been violated, please contact the Consortium at info@genderandsecurity.org.

Subscribe to RSS - International Organizations