Transitional Justice

Reintegrating FARC’s Female Combatants: The Challenges of Addressing Gender Binaries in Transitional Justice

Citation:

Ebrahimi-Tsamis, Aleisha. 2018. “Reintegrating FARC’s Female Combatants: The Challenges of Addressing Gender Binaries in Transitional Justice.” Birkbeck Law Review 6 (1): 79–109.

Author: Aleisha Ebrahimi-Tsamis

Abstract:

Against the backdrop of the 2016 Colombian plebiscite and the subsequent peace treaty, the female Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia/Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) face insurmountable obstacles in returning to civilian life. Long-standing gender disparity, largely amplified by socio-economic inequality, manifested with an estimated 40% female guerrilla membership. This article argues that the financial incentives, physical protection and sense of equality offered by FARC posed a strong lure to females who were otherwise at a natural disadvantage within Colombian society, resulting in a large number of female combatants facing gender-specific challenges now that FARC has formally ended their existence as an armed group. Whilst considering female victims of human rights (HR) violations, deeper consideration is given to the symbiotic and conflicting duality of a female who may fulfill the roles of both victim and abuser, and the inability of present transitional justice (TJ) mechanisms to approach and adequately address such a dyad. (Birkbeck Law Review)

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Combatants, Female Combatants, Gender, Justice, Transitional Justice, Military Forces & Armed Groups Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2018

Masculinities in Transition? Exclusion, Ethnosocial Power, and Contradictions in Excombatant Community-Based Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland

Citation:

Holland, Curtis, and Gordana Rabrenovic. 2018. "Masculinities in Transition? Exclusion, Ethnosocial Power, and Contradictions in Excombatant Community-Based Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland." Men and Masculinities 21 (5): 729-55.

Authors: Curtis Holland, Gordana Rabrenovic

Abstract:

This study critically examines how masculinities and intersecting ethnonational and social class identities underscore the social and political agencies of excombatants in Northern Ireland and in the specific context of community-based peacebuilding. The authors draw on interviews with female and male leaders in grassroots and governmental organizations, which illustrate how state-led practices of exclusion reshape such intersectional identities and increase the instrumentality of hypermasculinist, pseudo-paramilitary practices in maintaining excombatants’ status and control on neighborhood levels. The research documents how structural dynamics of excombatants’ social class locations and political disaffection help shape their social agencies of “resistance,” underscored by desires for autonomy and recognition, and channeled by ethnogendered scripts rooted in both violent cultures of paramilitarism and nonviolent peacebuilding masculinities. The implications on women of male excombatants’ takeover of leadership roles in the community sector are also discussed.

Keywords: masculinities, peacebuilding, paramilitaries, class, Northern Ireland, exclusion, transitional justice

Topics: Armed Conflict, Class, Combatants, Male Combatants, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Justice, Transitional Justice, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarism, Paramilitaries, Peacebuilding Regions: Europe, Northern Europe Countries: United Kingdom

Year: 2018

From Victims and Mothers to Citizens: Gender-Just Transformative Reparations and the Need for Public and Private Transitions

Citation:

Weber, Sanne. 2018. “From Victims and Mothers to Citizens: Gender-Just Transformative Reparations and the Need for Public and Private Transitions.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 12 (1): 88–107.

Author: Sanne Weber

Abstract:

Colombia’s 2011 Victims’ Law is often seen as an example of best practice in transitional justice, combining land restitution and individual and collective reparations. This law builds on the increasingly popular concept of transformative reparations and moreover prescribes a ‘differential focus’ to guarantee the inclusion and protection of groups considered to be especially vulnerable. Based on nine months of ethnographic and participatory visual fieldwork in two villages in Colombia’s Caribbean coast, this article discusses how this ‘differential focus’ plays out in practice by critiquing the way in which it is based on a highly essentialized and narrow understanding of gender. Based on the experiences and ideas of women involved in the Victims’ Law process, the article suggests how a focus on citizenship could offer a new approach to reparations, with more potential for transforming gender inequality.

Keywords: gender, reparations, citizenship, Colombia, displacement

Topics: Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Justice, Transitional Justice, Peace Processes, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2018

‘Peace without Women Does Not Go!’ Women’s Struggle for Inclusion in Colombia’s Peace Process with the FARC

Citation:

Céspedes-Báez, Lina M., and Felipe Jaramillo Ruiz. 2018. “‘Peace without Women Does Not Go!’ Women’s Struggle for Inclusion in Colombia’s Peace Process with the FARC.” Colombia Internacional (94): 83-109.

Authors: Lina M. Céspedes-Báez, Felipe Jaramillo Ruiz

Abstract:

In this study, we analyze the tactics deployed by Colombian women’s rights NGOs, movements, and advocacy groups to challenge masculinism in the peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the former Colombian guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) held in Havana. By drawing on the literature on women’s participation in peace and transitional justice processes, the research assesses the presence of women in Colombia’s peace talks, the way women’s movements articulated their demands, the role of the sub-commission on gender, and the manner in which gender was introduced in the drafts of the peace agreement and in the document the parties to the negotiation signed in Cartagena in September 2016.

Keywords: gender, armed conflict, peacebuilding, feminism, Colombia

Topics: Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Masculinism, Justice, Transitional Justice, NGOs, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2018

The Battle After the War: Gender Discrimination in Property Rights and Post-Conflict Property Restitution

Citation:

Mohan, Sharanya Sai. 2011. "The Battle After the War: Gender Discrimination in Property Rights and Post-Conflict Property Restitution." The Yale Journal of International Law 36 (2): 461-95.

Author: Sharanya Sai Mohan

Annotation:

Summary: 
“This note argues that property restitution programs in transitional justice settings need to correct barriers to women's property ownership. In so doing, efforts by government, civil society, and the displaced themselves to achieve transitional justice can also create long-lasting property rights reform that moves a post-conflict society toward both reconstruction and equality. After considering the existing international legal framework as well as several case studies of transitional justice schemes, this Note will argue that actors in transitional justice should take certain steps at the very beginning of the transitional process to ensure that women's property rights are protected as they return to their lives” (Mohan 2011, 463).

Topics: Civil Society, Conflict, Peace and Security, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, International Law, Justice, Transitional Justice, Land Grabbing, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 2011

Defying Victimhood : Women and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding

Citation:

Schnabel, Albrecht, and Anara Tabyshalieva, ed. 2012. Defying Victimhood : Women and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding. Tokyo: UNU Press.

Authors: Albrecht Schnabel, Anara Tabyshalieva

Abstract:

Women are among the most competent, yet marginalized, unnoticed and underutilized actors in efforts to rebuild war-torn societies. Opportunities for sustainable peacebuilding are lost - and sustainable peace is at risk - when significant stakeholders in a society's future peace and conflict architecture are excluded from efforts to heal the wounds of war and build a new society and a new state. The contributors to this book draw on comparative case and country studies from post-conflict contexts in different parts of world to offer their insights into frameworks for understanding women as both victims and peacebuilders, to trace the road that women take from victimhood to empowerment and to highlight the essential partnerships between women and children and how they contribute to peace. The authors examine the roles of women in political and security institutions.

Annotation:

Table of Contents:
1. Forgone opportunities: The marginalization of women’s contributions to post-conflict peacebuilding
Albrecht Schnabel and Anara Tabyshalieva
 
2. Framework for understanding women as victims and peacebuilders
Lisa Schirch
 
3. Mass crimes and resilience of women: A cross-national perspective
Krishna Kumar
 
4. Victimization, empowerment and the impact of UN peacekeeping missions on women and children: Lessons from Cambodia and Timor-Lesta
Sumie Nakaya
 
5. Frontline peacebuilding: Women’s reconstruction initiatives in Burundi
Rose M. Kadende-Kaiser
 
6. Women and children in the post-Cold War Balkans: Concerns and responses
Zlatko Isakovic
 
7. Emerging from poverty as champions of change: Women and children in post-war Tajikistan
Svetlana Sharipova and Hermine De Soto
 
8. Young mothers as agents of peacebuilding: Lessons from an early childcare and development project in Macedonia
Deborah Davis
 
9. Gender and transitional justice: Experiences from South Africa, Rwanda and Sierra Leone
Lyn S. Graybill
 
10. Empowering women to promote peace and security: From the global to the local – Securing and implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1325
Ancil Adrian-Paul
 
11. State-building or survival in conflict and post-conflict situations? A peacebuilding perspective on Palenstinian women’s contributions to ending the Israeli occupation
Vanessa Farr
 
12. Women’s participation in political decision-making and recovery processes in post-conflict Lebanon
Kari H. Karamé
 
13. Combating stereotypes: Female security personnel in post-conflict contexts
Kristin Valasek
 
14. Defying victimhood: Women as activists and peacebuilders
Anara Tabyshalieva and Albrecht Schnabel

Topics: Development, Gender, Women, Conflict, Peace and Security, International Organizations, Justice, Transitional Justice, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Security, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325

Year: 2012

Gendering Agency in Transitional Justice

Citation:

Björkdahl, Annika, and Johanna Mannergren Selimovic. 2015. “Gendering Agency in Transitional Justice.” Security Dialogue 46 (2): 165-82.

Authors: Annika Björkdahl, Johanna Mannergren Selimovic

Abstract:

Mainstream transitional justice and peacebuilding practices tend to re-entrench gendered hierarchies by ignoring women or circumscribing their presence to passive victims in need of protection. As a consequence we have limited knowledge about the multifaceted ways women do justice and build peace. To address this lacuna we conceptualize and unpack the meaning of gendered agency, by identifying its critical elements and by locating it in space and in time. The conceptual work that we undertake is underpinned by empirical mapping of the transitional justice spaces in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina, where we point out instances of critical, creative, and transformative agency performed by women that challenge or negotiate patterns of gendered relations of domination. We collect women’s oral narratives and explore new sets of questions to capture women’s unique experiences in doing justice. Such research enables us to engage with the subjects of post-conflict peacebuilding and transitional justice processes directly and in their own spaces. This article thus renders women’s agency visible and attempts to grasp its contributions and consequences for transformations from war to peace.

Keywords: agency, Bosnia-Herzegovina, gender, peacebuilding, transitional justice

Topics: Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Justice, Transitional Justice, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2015

Peace and Justice through a Feminist Lens: Gender Justice and the Women’s Court for the Former Yugoslavia

Citation:

O’Reilly, Maria. “Peace and Justice through a Feminist Lens: Gender Justice and the Women’s Court for the Former Yugoslavia.” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 10, no. 3 (July 2, 2016): 419–445.

Author: Maria O'Reilly

Abstract:

Post-conflict interventions to ‘deal with’ violent pasts have moved from exception to global norm. Early efforts to achieve peace and justice were critiqued as ‘gender-blind’—for failing to address sexual and gender-based violence, and neglecting the gender-specific interests and needs of women in transitional settings. The advent of UN Security Council resolutions on ‘Women, Peace and Security’ provided a key policy framework for integrating both women and gender issues into transitional justice processes and mechanisms. Despite this, gender justice and equality in (post-)conflict settings remain largely unachieved. This article explores efforts to attain gender-just peace in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). It critically examines the significance of a recent ‘bottom-up’ truth-telling project—the Women’s Court for the former Yugoslavia—as a locally engaged approach to achieving justice and redress for women impacted by armed conflict. Drawing on participant observation, documentary analysis, and interviews with women activists, the article evaluates the successes and shortcomings of responding to gendered forms of wartime violence through truth-telling. Extending Nancy Fraser’s tripartite model of justice to peacebuilding contexts, the article advances notions of recognition, redistribution and representation as crucial components of gender-just peace. It argues that recognizing women as victims and survivors of conflict, achieving a gender-equitable distribution of material and symbolic resources, and enabling women to participate as agents of transitional justice processes are all essential for transforming the structural inequalities that enable gender violence and discrimination to materialize before, during, and after conflict. (Abstract from original)

Keywords: feminism, gender justice, international, local, Nancy Fraser, UNSCR 1325

Topics: Justice, Transitional Justice, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325 Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2016

"Subjects of Change": Feminist Geopolitics and Gendered Truth-Telling in Guatemala

Citation:

Patterson-Markowitz, Rebecca, Elizabeth Oglesby, and Sallie Marston. 2012. “‘ Subjects of Change’: Feminist Geopolitics and Gendered Truth-Telling in Guatemala.” Journal of International Women’s Studies 13 (4): 82.

Authors: Rebecca Patterson-Markowitz, Elizabeth Oglesby, Sallie Marston

Abstract:

This paper explores the often-undervalued role of gender in transitional justice mechanisms and the importance of women's struggles and agency in that regard. We focus on the efforts of the women's movement in Guatemala to address questions of justice and healing for survivors of gendered violence during Guatemala's 36-year internal armed conflict. We discuss how the initial transitional justice measures of documenting gendered war crimes in the context of a genocide were subsequently taken up by the women's movement and how their endeavors to further expose sexual violence have resulted in notable interventions. Interviews with key organizational activists as well as testimonies given by victims of sexual violence during the conflict suggest that transitional justice mechanisms, extended by women's movements' efforts, are creating conditions for the emergence of new practices and spaces that support the fragile cultivation of new subjectivities. Sujetas de cambio (subjects of change) are premised not on victimhood but survivorhood. The emergence of these new subjectivities and new claims, including greater personal security and freedom from everyday violence, must be approached with caution, however, as they are not born automatically out of the deeply emotional struggles that play out around historical memory. Still, their emergence suggests new ways for women to cope not only with the sexual violence of the past but also to work against the normative violence that is part of their present.

Keywords: gendered violence, historical memory, transitional justice

Topics: Armed Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Genocide, Justice, Transitional Justice, Rights, Human Rights, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women, Violence Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Guatemala

Year: 2012

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