Rights

Dealing with the Aftermath: Sexual Violence and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Citation:

Goldblatt, Beth, and Sheila Meintjes. 1997. “Dealing with the Aftermath: Sexual Violence and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.” Agenda, no. 36, 7–18.

Authors: Beth Goldblatt, Sheila Meintjes

Abstract:

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has completed its task of holding human rights violation hearings. Thousands of people have faced the Commission and the nation to tell their stories and air their pain. Many, who have listened to this testimony for the past two years, will understandably believe that the story of our past has now been completely told. It has not - violence against women is one of the hidden sides to the story of our past. While certain women bravely recorded their experiences, many others have not been able to come before the TRC. This has implications not only for our understanding of our history but also for current attempts to heal our society. In this article we suggest that past and present violence against women is located on a continuum. The process of rebuilding our society involves helping women survivors to deal with their trauma. The process of creating a new society based on human rights and justice demands serious efforts to create a society where women are free from fear and able to participate fully as citizens of the society. This article first examines the role of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in dealing with the issue of sexual violence against women and the evidence that did and did not emerge. The article then tries to explore the relationship between political and other sexual violence and the relationship between public and private violence. This leads us towards a preliminary understanding of the gendered nature of South African society both during and in the aftermath of apartheid. Finally, the article proposes certain reparation measures as the means to ensure positive social reconstruction. These must go hand-in- hand with state action to protect women's safety in terms of rights in the Bill of Rights, such as the right to bodily integrity and the right to citizenship. Such rights must however, be asserted and given content by women's organisations and others committed to gender equality.

Topics: Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Justice, TRCs, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 1997

Political Gender Equality and State Human Rights Abuse

Citation:

Melander, Erik. 2005.  “Political Gender Equality and State Human Rights Abuse.” Journal of Peace Research 42 (2): 149–66.

Author: Erik Melander

Abstract:

Feminist theorists argue that more equal societies that are not based on gender hierarchies ought to be less plagued by collective violence. This study tests whether political gender equality is associated with lower levels of personal integrity rights abuse carried out by state agents, such as fewer political imprisonments, torture, killings, and disappearances. Two indicators of political gender equality are used: (1) a dummy indicating that the chief executive of a state is a woman; and (2) the percentage of women in parliament. The impact of political gender equality on personal integrity rights abuse is tested using multiple regression techniques and a dataset spanning most countries of the world during the period 1977–96. Female chief executives are rare, and their tenures are not significantly associated with the level of abuse. The percentage of women in parliament is associated with lower levels of personal integrity rights abuse. Results show both a direct effect of female representation in parliament and an effect in interaction with the level of institutional democracy. These results hold when controlling for the most important factors known or suspected to influence human rights behavior: democracy, leftist regime, military regime, British colonial experience, civil war, international war, wealth, population, ethnic heterogeneity, and regime transition and collapse.

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Political Participation, Rights, Human Rights

Year: 2005

Rape in War: Challenging the Tradition of Impunity

Citation:

Thomas, Dorothy Q., and Regan E. Ralph. 1994. “Rape in War: Challenging the Tradition of Impunity.” SAIS Review 14 (1): 81–99.

Authors: Dorothy Q. Thomas, Regan E. Ralph

Abstract:

Despite the prevalence of rape in conflicts throughout the world, wartime rape often has been mischaracterized and dismissed by military and political leaders, with the result that this abuse goes largely unpunished. The fact that rape is committed by men against women has contributed to its being portrayed as sexual or personal in nature, a portrayal that depoliticizes sexual abuse in conflict and results in it being ignored as a human rights abuse and a war crime. Documentary efforts reveal where and how rape functions as a tool of military strategy. Soldiers rape to subjugate and punish individual women and to terrorize communities and drive them into flight. Whenever committed by a state agent or an armed insurgent, whether a matter of policy or an individual incident of torture, wartime rape constitutes an abuse of power and a violation of international law.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Gender, International Law, Justice, Impunity, International Tribunals & Special Courts, War Crimes, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Rights, Human Rights, Sexual Violence, Male Perpetrators, Rape, SV against Women

Year: 1994

Human Rights: A Feminist Perspective

Citation:

Binion, Gayle. 1995. “Human Rights: A Feminist Perspective.” Human Rights Quarterly 17 (3): 509–26.

Author: Gayle Binion

Abstract:

This paper explores the ways in which human rights might be understood if women's experience were the foundation for the theorizing and enforcement. The argument is not that there is but one feminist perspective -- indeed the title suggests that there might be many. Rather, it is argued that, if one works from the life experiences most common to women, the principles of human rights that would emerge would not necessarily reflect the universe of such rights as they are commonly understood by liberal nation states. While the prototypic "human rights" case involves the individual political activist imprisoned for the expression of his views or political organizing, forms of oppression that do not fit the Bill of Rights model of liberty are rarely recognized in international understandings or national asylum laws. These forms would include, inter alia, issues related to marriage, procreation, labor, property ownership, sexual repression, and other manifestations of unequal citizenship that are routinely viewed as private, nongovernmental, and reflective of cultural difference.

Keywords: international law, human rights, feminism

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, International Law, International Human Rights, Rights, Human Rights

Year: 1995

Beyond a Snapshot: Preventing Human Trafficking in the Global Economy

Citation:

Chuang, Janie. 2006. “Beyond a Snapshot: Preventing Human Trafficking in the Global Economy.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 13 (1): 137–63.

Author: Janie Chuang

Abstract:

Current legal responses to the problem of human trafficking often reflect a deep reluctance to address the socioeconomic root causes of the problem. Because they approach trafficking as an act (or series of acts) of violence, most responses focus predominantly on prosecuting traffickers, and to a lesser extent, protecting trafficked persons. While such approaches might account for the consequences of trafficking, they tend to overlook the broader socioeconomic reality that drives trafficking in human beings. Against this backdrop, this article seeks to reframe trafficking as a migratory response to current globalizing socioeconomic trends. It argues that, to be effective, countertrafficking strategies must target the underlying conditions that impel people to accept dangerous labor migration assignments. The article recommends that existing counter-trafficking strategies be assessed with a view to assessing their potential for long-term effectiveness. It also advocates strategic use of the nondiscrimination principle to promote basic economic, social, and cultural rights, the deprivation of which has sustained the trafficking phenomenon.

Keywords: human trafficking, socio-economics, labor migration

Topics: Rights, Human Rights, Trafficking, Human Trafficking

Year: 2006

A "Quick and Dirty" Approach to Women’s Emancipation and Human Rights?

Citation:

Kouvo, Sari. 2008. “A ‘Quick and Dirty’ Approach to Women’s Emancipation and Human Rights?” Feminist Legal Studies 16 (1): 37–46.

Author: Sari Kouvo

Abstract:

During the past decade, women’s and human rights ‘language’ has moved from the margins to the ‘mainstream’ of international law and politics. In this paper, the author argues that while feminists and human rights activists criticise the ‘mainstream’s interpretation of women’s and human rights, ‘we’ do not question what becoming part of the mainstream and the cosmopolitan classes has meant for us. Drawing on examples of how women’s and human rights arguments have been used in the post-conflict state-building process in Afghanistan, the author attempts to show how international women’s rights and human rights advocacy campaigns planned by well-meaning humanitarians in Western capitals can backfire when implemented in politically complex environments.

Keywords: advocacy, Afghanistan, Afghan women, feminism, human rights, international feminist movement, international law

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, International Law, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2008

The Peruvian Truth Commission's Mental Health Reparations: Empowering Survivors of Political Violence to Impact Public Health Policy

Citation:

Laplante, Lisa, and Miryam Rivera Holguin. 2006. “The Peruvian Truth Commission’s Mental Health Reparations: Empowering Survivors of Political Violence to Impact Public Health Policy.” Health and Human Rights 9 (2): 136–63.

Authors: Lisa Laplante, Miryam Rivera Holguin

Abstract:

The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), formed in 2001, turned national attention toward the serious mental health consequences of the country's 20-year internal armed conflict. The TRC prioritized reparations in mental health, using a legal justification that provided victims-survivors of the war with a rights-based framework for demanding that the public sector attend to their mental health needs. Since the majority of victims-survivors come from historically poor, rural, and marginalized populations and have tended to not exercise their right to health for a variety of social, economic, and cultural reasons, framing mental health in terms of rights helps to empower these people to impact the development of appropriate policies in mental health. The authors suggest that this process contributes directly to improving the mental health of this population.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Development, Gender, Health, Mental Health, Justice, Reparations, TRCs, Post-Conflict, Rights, Violence Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Peru

Year: 2006

Women's Rights as Human Rights: Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF)

Citation:

Hodgson, Dorothy Louise. 2002. “Women’s Rights as Human Rights: Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF).” Africa Today 49 (2): 3–26.

Author: Dorothy Louise Hodgson

Abstract:

In recent years, "women's rights as human rights" has emerged as a new transnational approach to demanding women's empowerment. This article explores the advantages and limitations of such an approach to women's activism in Africa through a case study of Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), a multinational African NGO that has been at the forefront of using "women's rights as human rights" to educate women throughout the continent about their legal rights, lobby for national legislative reforms, extend the scope of state accountability, and mobilize international support. Issues addressed include the tensions between universal human rights and national and local differences, the significance of a shift from the language of needs to human rights, the influence of transnational meetings and networks, efforts to reconcile internal social differences among members, and the constraints to such an approach.

Keywords: human rights, NGO, transnationalism, law

Topics: Gender, Women, International Law, International Human Rights, NGOs, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa

Year: 2002

An All Men's Show? Angolan Women's Survival in the 30-Year War

Citation:

Ducados, Henda. 2000. “An All Men’s Show? Angolan Women’s Survival in the 30-Year War.” Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity 16 (43): 11–22. doi:10.1080/10130950.2000.9675806.

Author: Henda Ducados

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, National Liberation Wars, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, Political Participation, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Angola

Year: 2000

Transforming Women's Citizenship Rights Within an Emerging Democratic State: The Case of Ghana

Citation:

Fallon, Kathleen M. 2003. “Transforming Women’s Citizenship Rights within an Emerging Democratic State: The Case of Ghana.” Gender & Society 17 (4): 525–43.

Author: Kathleen M. Fallon

Abstract:

Feminist scholars argue that women generally gain political rights followed by civil and social rights. However, this argument is based on data from North America and Western Europe, and few scholars, if any, have examined the progression of these rights within countries currently undergoing transitions to democracy in different parts of the world. Through in-depth interviews with members of women's organizations in Ghana, the author extends this literature. The findings both contradict and support the prior feminist argument. They indicate that prior to democratization, women focused primarily on social rights to improve their economic well-being. However, new opportunities emerged with the transition, which allowed women to use their political rights to secure more civil and social rights.

Keywords: Gender, democracy, Africa, citizenship

Topics: Citizenship, Democracy / Democratization, Gender, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Ghana

Year: 2003

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