Transitional Justice

Women’s Right to Land in Post-Conflict Situations: an Opportunity to Overcome Discriminatory Laws and a Tool for Transformative Justice

Citation:

Martínez, Elisenda Calvet. 2017. "Women’s Right to Land in Post-Conflict Situations: an Opportunity to Overcome Discriminatory Laws and a Tool for Transformative Justice." Paper presented at 5th European Conference on Gender and Politics, Lausanne, June 8-10.

Author: Elisenda Calvet Martínez

Abstract:

The restitution of land in post-conflict situations has been object of increasing interest in the past years due to the importance of safeguarding the right of refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes and places of residence in safe and dignified conditions, with the aim to achieve a just and lasting peace. In situations of post-conflict, women become widowed or heads of household; however, local laws and customs do not recognize them inheritance rights or allow them to own property, which leads to discrimination and it also deprives them of their means of subsistence and of sustenance for their family.

Practice shows that despite adopting gender-sensitive peace agreements and new laws to provide for equal rights for women and men, women’s access to land is still restricted because discriminatory local laws continue to apply and it is very difficult to change traditions, leading to the perpetuation of gender discrimination. Therefore, I argue that addressing women’s right to land in post-conflict situations offers an opportunity to overcome discriminatory laws and build a restitution program upon a more equitable system of property ownership. In this sense, the Pinheiro Principles (UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights, 2005) provide that States should ensure that housing, land and property restitution programs, policies and practices recognize the joint ownership rights of both male and female heads of the household as an explicit component of the restitution process, and that restitution programs, policies and practices reflect a gender-sensitive approach. Moreover, securing women’s land tenure in a post-conflict context may constitute a tool for transformative justice, understood as a process that challenges the inequalities and community structures and looks to integrate both personal and social transformation, which goes beyond restorative justice.

Keywords: conflict resolution, gender, human rights, social justice, transitional states, women, peace

Topics: Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Land Tenure, Households, Justice, Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict, Peace Processes, Rights, Human Rights, Land Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 2017

Transitional Justice, Gender-Based Violence, and Women’s Rights

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

A Feminist Analysis of the Reconciliation Process in Post-Conflict Sri Lanka

Citation:

Sonal, Shruti, and Ninghtoujam Koiremba. 2019. "A Feminist Analysis of the Reconciliation Process in Post-Conflict Sri Lanka." International Journal of Social Science and Economic Research 4 (3): 1615-29.

Authors: Shruti Sonal, Ninghtoujam Koiremba

Abstract:

Feminist scholars like Cynthia Enloe, Ann Tickner and Urvashi Butalia have contributed to creating a more nuanced approach to concerns of international relations such as war and security by highlighting the gendered experiences of conflict and reconstruction. This has been translated into legal frameworks at the international level, including the much-lauded UNSC Resolution 1325 which reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts. Several other attempts have been made to stress the importance of their equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security. However, the application of feminist ethics has not yet been given priority in the realm of reconciliation and transitional justice in post-conflict societies. While there's an unanimous understanding that women experience conflict and respond to violence and deprivation in ways different from that of men, the concerns of women are often overshadowed in post-conflict reconciliation as issues of cessation of violence, infrastructural rebuilding and economic recovery occupy centrestage. There's a growing recognition of the fact that the ways in which conflict changes men’s and women’s roles, needs, and capacities must be taken into account to ensure successful and sustainable reconstruction and reconciliation in post-conflict societies.It is in this context that the paper will analyse the post-conflict reconciliation process in Sri Lanka from a feminist perspective. It will analyse how the two-decade long civil war in the country affected women, both as victims of abuse, heads of families and combatants in militant groups. It will emphasise on the fact that even though the Sri Lanka military achieved a decision victory against the LTTE in 2009, issues of social reconciliation remain unresolved. Then, it will seek to analyse the post-2009 scenario in Sri Lanka, and whether the government has been successful in addressing the gender concerns.

Keywords: feminism, reconciliation, conflict, gender, Sri Lanka, peacebuilding

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Combatants, Female Combatants, Feminisms, Households, Justice, Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Sri Lanka

Year: 2019

Conflict-Related Violence against Women

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:

Table of Contents: 
Part I: Introduction
1. Introduction
 
Part II: Approaches to Understanding Conflict-Related Violence against Women
2. Historic Prevalence Verses Contemporary Celebrity: Sexing Dichotomies in Today's Wars
 
3. Who Wins the Worst Violence Contest? Armed Conflict and Violence in Northern Ireland, Liberia, and Timor-Leste
 
Part III: Violence against Women Before, During, and After Conflict
4. Beyond Strategic Rape: Expanding Conflict-Related Violence Against Women
 
5. Connections and Distinctions: Ambulant Violence Across Pre-, During-, and Post-Conflict Contexts
 
6. Seeing Violence in the Aftermath: What's Labeling Got to Do with It?
 
Part IV: Justice, Transition, and Transformation
7. Transitions and Violence After Conflict: Transitional Justice
 
8. Conclusion: Transforming Transition

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

'To Me, Justice Means to Be in a Group’: Survivors’ Groups as a Pathway to Justice in Northern Uganda

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

Intersectionality, Transitional Justice, and the Case of Internally Displaced Moro Women in the Philippines

Citation:

Sifris, Ronli, and Maria Tanyag. 2019. "Intersectionality, Transitional Justice, and the Case of Internally Displaced Moro Women in the Philippines." Human Rights Quarterly 41 (2): 399-420.

Authors: Ronli Sifris, Maria Tanyag

Abstract:

This article explores the relevance of adopting an intersectional approach to transitional justice by focusing on the specific context of internal displacement and Moro women in Mindanao, Philippines. The analysis begins with a discussion of the value of adopting an intersectional lens when addressing overlapping and interrelated forms of sexual and gender-based violence perpetrated in armed conflicts. It then proceeds to examine how such an approach may assist in revealing everyday practices that complicate dichotomies of gendered agency and victimhood. Capturing these intersections is vital for ensuring the most marginalized groups of women and girls faced with protracted displacement and compounded suffering are at the heart of transitional justice programs.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Displacement & Migration, IDPs, Gender, Women, Girls, Gender-Based Violence, Justice, Transitional Justice, Sexual Violence Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Philippines

Year: 2019

When There Is No Justice: Gendered Violence and Harm in Post-conflict Sri Lanka

Citation:

Davies, Sara E., and Jacqui True. 2017. "When There Is No Justice: Gendered Violence and Harm in Post-conflict Sri Lanka." The International Journal of Human Rights 21 (9): 1320-36.

Authors: Sara E. Davies, Jacqui True

Abstract:

Reparative measures for conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) attend to the practical needs of victims while also addressing the long-term structural conditions that led to the violence and often endure after conflict. Over the last decade, transitional justice has sought to address high levels of impunity for SGBV, while also addressing the long-term structural conditions causing and exacerbating it. In this article we study the case of Sri Lanka, where crimes have been committed during and after the civil war (1983–2009) but a transitional justice mechanism to redress them is unlikely to be established. The article considers whether in such a situation of impunity gender-sensitive approaches to SGBV prevention can still be promoted to ensure its non-recurrence. We closely examine post-conflict Sri Lanka and women’s ongoing experiences of multiple forms of insecurity and violence to highlight the relationship between enduring structural gender inequalities and reparative justice. Bridging human rights and political economy approaches, we argue that addressing gender inequalities in access to resources and public space is essential to prevent further gender-based violence and structural harms in conflict-affected countries like Sri Lanka.

Keywords: post-conflict, sexual violence, gender-based violence, gender inequality, human rights, transitional justice, Sri Lanka

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Conflict, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Justice, Transitional Justice, Political Economies, Post-Conflict, Rights, Sexual Violence, Violence Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Sri Lanka

Year: 2017

Reintegration of Female Rape Survivors: The Overlooked Priority of Transitional Justice in the Face of Mass Wartime Rape

Citation:

Abi-Falah, Layla. 2020. "Reintegration of Female Rape Survivors: The Overlooked Priority of Transitional Justice in the Face of Mass Wartime Rape." William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice 26 (2): 425-50.

Author: Layla Abi-Falah

Abstract:

While mass wartime rape has become a core characteristic of modern armed conflict, transitional justice mechanisms have continuously failed to bring about successful achievement of justice, reconciliation, and truth for female survivors. The abuse, exile, and humiliation of large numbers of female rape survivors by their families and communities leaves entire societies destabilized and susceptible to prolonged instability and state failure, thus obstructing attempts by transitional justice mechanisms to usher in long-lasting peace and stability. To achieve more successful post-conflict reconstruction, transitional justice mechanisms situated in the aftermath of wars marked by mass rape must first focus on the reintegration of rape survivors. Positive reintegration can lead to greater success in transitional justice as a whole through greater survivor participation, a greater chance for restoration of survivor and community dignity, and an increase in survivor and community trust in the process as a whole, eventually leading to a domino effect on the success of subsequent goals of the mechanism and the mechanism itself.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, Justice, Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women

Year: 2020

To Genuine Reconciliation on Comfort Women

Citation:

Zhewei, Li. 2019. "To Genuine Reconciliation on Comfort Women." International Journal of Rule of Law, Transitional Justice and Human Rights, no. 10, 91-102.

Author: Li Zhewei

Abstract:

The comfort women, which was a brutal crime in the Second World War, has been a historical dilemma in the international legal practice in the East Asia. It is an impasse made up of gender, decolonisation and nationalism elements. This article tries to propose a possible way to reach a genuine reconciliation on the comfort women issue from a perspective of transitional justice. Firstly, an introduction about the comfort women issue will be introduced, which will establish the whole theoretical analysis framework. The Second Part will try to analyze the obstacles and difficulties to ultimately settle down the comfort women dilemma. In the Third Part, this essay will conduct cases study by retrospecting the currently existing practice that has tried to address the comfort women problem, namely inter-governmental cases and individual-claim cases. The Conclusion will coincide the rationale of the First Part and put forward the possible solution with a threefold structure.

Keywords: comfort women issue, transitional justice, gender-based crimes, international law

Topics: Armed Conflict, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Gender, International Law, Justice, Transitional Justice, Nationalism, Sexual Violence, Sexual Slavery Regions: Asia, East Asia

Year: 2019

'We Can't Get Anything by Request, We Have to Strike or Protest': Tamil Women's Quest for Justice and Transition in Post Conflict Northern Sri Lanka

Citation:

Menezes, Deborah. 2018. "'We Can't Get Anything by Request, We Have to Strike or Protest': Tamil Women's Quest for Justice and Transition in Post Conflict Northern Sri Lanka." Paper presented at the 25th European Conference on South Asian Studies, Paris, July 24-27.

Author: Deborah Menezes

Abstract:

Following a deeply divisive and highly destructive thirty year long conflict, Sri Lanka is nearing a decade transitioning towards rebuilding and reconciliation. Internationally, feminist research has established how gender is often seen as trivial by many in leadership positions resulting in key elements of post war reconstruction neglected. In Sri Lanka, too, women are missing from key positions in post war rebuilding and reconciliation processes. Women have been given little role in shaping transitional justice policies. However through my 12 month long fieldwork in Sri Lanka I saw a surge in women networking at grassroots and providing social support structures that are relied upon by national and international elites to embed peace processes. Alongside this my ethnography also witnessed anger and a sense of betrayal generating a new wave of women-led protests which threaten to become sources of renewed grievance that damage already slim hopes of reconciliation among communities, and between the state and its Tamil citizens. In discussing the paradoxes and synergies between these experiences, this paper addresses the complex issues around gender and post conflict reconstruction in the context of Sri Lanka. The primary concern of this paper thus is to survey the interplay of gender and post conflict processes allied with the recognition that women must be central to the transformative potential of the post conflict terrain.

Topics: Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Justice, Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Peace Processes Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Sri Lanka

Year: 2018

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