Sexual Violence

Citation:

Ergas, Yasmine. 2019. "Take Back the Future: Global Feminisms and the Coming Crisis of the Beijing Settlement." Journal of International Affairs 72 (2): 19-36

Author: Yasmine Ergas

Annotation:

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, International Organizations, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, Sexuality, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS Regions: Americas, North America, Europe, Central Europe Countries: Germany, United States of America

Year: 2019

Citation:

Kramm, Robert. 2019. "Sexual Violence, Masculinity, and Agency in Post-Surrender Japan, 1945." Journal of Women's History 31 (1): 62-85.

Author: Robert Kramm

Abstract:

In the immediate post-surrender period in late summer 1945, thousands of American servicemen entered Japan. Despite Japanese authorities’ tactical planning of a “female floodwall” with brothels and other recreational facilities to distract the occupiers from the Japanese population, especially from Japanese women, and the occupiers’ demonstration of military power, the first physical encounter of occupiers and occupied in the “militarized peace” of occupied Japan was nevertheless accompanied by violence—sexual violence in particular. Contrary to the often-portrayed peaceful image of the American occupation of Japan, this article highlights sex and violence as significant markers for the asymmetrical power relations during the occupation period. It analyzes the arena of sexual violence in which Japanese police officers and administrators, as well as Japanese civilians, struggled to prevent and control, but also to articulate and instrumentalize, the occupiers’ sexual assaults.

Topics: Gender, Women, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Masculinism, Livelihoods, Sexual Livelihoods, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, Violence Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: Japan

Year: 2019

Citation:

Boesten, Jelke, and Marsha Henry. 2018. "Between Fatigue and Silence: The Challenges of Conducting Research on Sexual Violence in Conflict." Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society 25 (4): 568-88.

Authors: Jelke Boesten, Marsha Henry

Abstract:

This paper discusses the meanings of research fatigue and silences in conflict-related sexual violence research. Drawing on field experiences in Liberia, Tanzania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Peru, we discuss some of the unintended consequences of persistent focus on victim-survivors’ narratives and argue for a reflexive feminist perspective that allows us to question the need and context of interviewing survivors and the associated insistence on disclosure.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Conflict, Feminisms, Sexual Violence Regions: Africa, East Africa, West Africa, Americas, South America, Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Liberia, Peru, Tanzania

Year: 2018

Citation:

Mirindi, Benoit Munganga. 2018. "Impacts of Violent Rapes among Women in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo." PhD diss., Walden University.

Author: Benoit Munganga Mirindi

Abstract:

For the last 22 years, systematic rapes and punitive violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were utilized as weapons of war and a control strategy. This quantitative study built upon the ecological model of impact of sexual assault on women’s mental health to investigate the relationship between the health impacts and chronic pain and depression among women survivors of sexual rape in eastern DRC. The sample included 156 female rape survivors, between 18–80 years old, and raped between 2010 and 2014 while residing in the conflict area. The research questions focused on the association between fistulas, other sexual rape-related injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), feelings of worthlessness, social rejection, support from family/friends, and chronic pain and depression among women victims of sexual rape in eastern DRC. Results from multinomial logistic regression and ordinal regression tests showed strong links between independent and dependent variables: Fistula was strongly linked with chronic illness over 6 months (p = 0.003), and with upset all the time (p = 0.033); PTSD was associated with chronic illness due to violent rapes ( p = 0.004) and sadness (p = 0.000); feelings of worthlessness was related to prolonged illness over 6 months (p = 0.024) and feeling blue (p = 0.006); social rejection was linked to avoidance (p = 0.003); and support from family/friends was associated with prolonged illness over 6 months (p = 0.025) and lack of excitement (p = 0.011). The results of this study could assist health care providers in formulating response strategies for identifying public health priorities in conflict area, addressing health needs, and defining approaches for reducing war-related sexual violence, chronic pain, and depression among rape survivors.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Conflict, Gender, Women, Health, Mental Health, PTSD, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women, Violence Regions: Africa, Central Africa Countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Year: 2018

Citation:

Otto, Dianne. 2019. "Contesting Feminism’s Institutional Doubles: Troubling the Security Council’s Women, Peace and Security Agenda." In Governance Feminism: Notes from the Field, edited by Janet Halley, Prabha Kotiswaran, Rachel Rebouché, and Hila Shamir, 200-29. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Author: Dianne Otto

Annotation:

Summary:
"In early 2000, feminist peace activists embarked on an ambitious new strategy of engagement with institutional power, from within rather than from outside the international military and diplomatic establishment, when the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) led a coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) hoping to persuade the UN Security Council to adopt a thematic resolution on women, peace, and security (WPS). Previously, the Council had shown almost no interest in women except, commencing with the 1990s conflicts in the Balkans, as victims of conflict-related sexual violence. That the Council responded positively to the efforts of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security (hereafter referred to simply as the NGO Working Group) and unanimously adopted Resolution 1325 (SCR 1325) on October 31, 2000, came as a surprise to me, although, as I will explain, I have since realized that there was much for the Council to gain by (re)presenting itself as feminist-friendly. I have also been astonished by the remarkable institutional productivity that has followed the adoption of SCR 1325. Not only has it prompted annual Security Council debates on WPS and annual Secretary-General’s Reports since 2004; it has led to a further seven resolutions on this theme (as of October 2016). Cascades of gender policies, training manuals, checklists, indicators, benchmarks, targets, studies, and reports have also followed, as well as many new positions established for “gender experts,” including the special representative of the secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict and Gender Advisory Teams deployed by UN Peacekeeping to all multidimensional peacekeeping operations" (Otto 2019, 200-1).

Topics: Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, International Organizations, Peacebuilding, Political Participation, Peacekeeping, Sexual Violence, SV against Women, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, UNSCR 1820, UNSCR 1888, UNSCR 1889, UNSCR 1960, UNSCR 2106, UNSCR 2122, UNSCR 2242

Year: 2019

Citation:

Skjelsbæk, Inger. 2018. "Silence Breakers in War and Peace: Research on Gender and Violence with an Ethics of Engagement." Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society 25 (4): 496-520.

Author: Inger Skjelsbæk

Abstract:

In 2001 I published an article in EJIR which analyzed 140 studies on sexual violence in war published in the 1900s. It took one year to gather the 140 articles. Today a quick Google search will yield thousands of hits. The political attention given to gender-based aspects of armed conflict, and sexual violence in particular, has created a demand for particular forms of knowledge and in this dynamic lies a tension for the academic community. This article presents an analysis of the social science literature on conflict-related sexual violence based on the notion of an ethics of engagement.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Conflict, Gender, Gender-Based Violence, Sexual Violence, Violence

Year: 2018

Citation:

Fanneron, Evelyn, Eunice N. Sahle, and Kari Dahlgren. 2019. "Transitional Justice, Gender-Based Violence, and Women’s Rights." In Human Rights in Africa: Contemporary Debates and Struggles, edited by Eunice N. Sahle, 89-144. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Authors: Evelyn Fanneron, Eunice N. Sahle, Kari Dahlgren

Abstract:

In this chapter, Evelyn Fanneron, Eunice N. Sahle, and Kari Dahlgren examine sources of gender-based violence in the context of conflict. Further, they explore the gendered underpinnings of transitional justice drawing on transitional justice mechanisms (TJMs in Rwanda and Sierra Leone). The chapter pays particular attention to these TJMs’ approach to wartime sexual violence in order to assess the ways in which they have begun to account for gendered harms and the ways in which they have not yet achieved gendered justice. To achieve its aims, the chapter draws insights from feminist concerns regarding human rights discourse and TJMs’ approaches to gender-based violence and wartime sexual violence.

Topics: Conflict, Feminisms, Gender-Based Violence, Justice, Transitional Justice, Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, West Africa Countries: Rwanda, Sierra Leone

Year: 2019

Citation:

Swaine, Aisling. 2018. Conflict-Related Violence against Women. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Author: Aisling Swaine

Abstract:

By comparatively assessing three conflict-affected jurisdictions (Liberia, Northern Ireland and Timor-Leste), Conflict-Related Violence against Women empirically and theoretically expands current understanding of the form and nature of conflict-time harms impacting women. The 'violences' that occur in conflict beyond strategic rape are first identified. Employing both a disaggregated and an aggregated approach, relations between forms of violence within and across each context's pre-, mid- and post-conflict phase are then assessed, identifying connections and distinctions in violence. Swaine highlights a wider spectrum of conflict-related violence against women than is currently acknowledged. She identifies a range of forces that simultaneously push open and close down spaces for addressing violence against women through post-conflict transitional justice. The book proposes that in the aftermath of conflict, a transformation rather than a transition is required if justice is to play a role in preventing gendered violence before conflict and its appearance during and after conflict.

Annotation:

Topics: Armed Conflict, Conflict, Gender, Women, Justice, Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women, Violence Regions: Africa, West Africa, Europe, Western Europe, Oceania Countries: Ireland, Liberia, Timor-Leste

Year: 2018

Citation:

Schulz, Philipp. 2019. "'To Me, Justice Means to Be in a Group’: Survivors’ Groups as a Pathway to Justice in Northern Uganda." Journal of Human Rights Practice 11 (1): 171-89.

Author: Philipp Schulz

Abstract:

How do male survivors of sexual violence conceptualize justice in a post-conflict and transitional context? Centralizing male survivors’ voices and perspectives, this article seeks to address this under-explored question in the growing literature on gender and transitional justice. Even though recent years have witnessed increasing consideration for redressing crimes of wartime sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls, specific attention to justice for conflict-related sexual violence against men remains remarkably absent. Utilizing novel empirical data from northern Uganda, in this article I show that justice for male survivors of sexual violence means to be in a group with other survivors. Drawing on survivors’ perspectives, I argue that groups make it possible for male survivors to attain a sense of justice on the micro level and in a participatory capacity in four fundamental ways: (1) by enabling survivors to re-negotiate their gender identities; (2) by mitigating isolation through (re-)building relationships; (3) by offering safe spaces for storytelling as a culturally-resonating contribution to justice, enabling survivors to exercise agency; and (4) by initiating a process of recognizing male survivors’ experiences, contributing to justice through recognition. By addressing male sexual and gendered harms in a myriad of ways, survivors’ groups thereby constitute a pathway through which justice can be achieved among survivors themselves on the micro level. In northern Uganda, where formalized transitional justice processes are irresponsive to male sexual violations, survivors’ groups thus constitute community-driven and participatory alternative redress mechanisms for harms that remain unrecognized and unaddressed by standardized transitional justice processes.

Keywords: activism, gender, masculinity, survivors' groups, sexual violence, Uganda

Topics: Gender, Men, Gender-Based Violence, Justice, Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, SV against Men Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Uganda

Year: 2019

Citation:

True, Jacqui. 2018. "The Political Economy of Post-conflict Violence against Women." In Handbook on the International Political Economy of Gender, edited by Juanita Elias and Adrienne Roberts, 184-195. London: Edward Elgar Publishing. 

Author: Jacqui True

Abstract:

Eliminating violence against women and girls globally is one of the major challenges of the twenty-first century. Transformations in the political economy of gender relations, including the increasing mobilisation of women’s labour beyond the household in the public sphere and the globalisation of women’s activism, have contributed to the breaking of silence on the problem of violence against women and girls. This chapter examines the opportunity to remake political and economic institutions to redress injustices and inequalities that contribute to various forms of violence against women and girls. Contrary to hunches about post-conflict bringing a social rupture in gender roles, post-conflict transitions often heighten gender inequality in power and economic power and exacerbate sexual and gender-based violence. The chapter shows how a feminist political economy method analyses the gendered economic inequalities underlying political inequalities and applies this analysis to explain the continuum of gendered violence in transitions from conflict to peace.

Topics: Economies, Economic Inequality, Feminisms, Feminist Political Economy, Gender, Women, Girls, Gender Roles, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Livelihoods, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, SV against Women

Year: 2018