Gender

Intersectionality in Crimmigration: Gender, Race and Crossing Borders

March 15, 2021 by Strife Staff

By Jasmin Lilian Diab

The last decade has witnessed a great deal of insight and contribution by scholars and practitioners into the push factors, quality, and contextualization of the forced migration experience. Discourse in areas of forced migration has developed exponentially, and even more so as intersectional layers add to the burden of the forced migration crises around the world. Perhaps one of the most ongoing debates along these lines is the relationship between forced migration and crime – often developing into debates surrounding national security concerns and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Moreover, although findings on the intersection between forced migration and crime have discredited much of the negativity surrounding migrant communities, popular perceptions, anti-immigrant policies, and stereotypes continue to taint this area of study and the policies it yields. As administrations and governments around the world insist on circulating anti-immigrant sentiments, close off their borders, and promote the falsehood that immigrants are more likely to engage in crime than “citizens,” public perception has generally been divisive over the extent to which this is true.

Research into the political economy of the migration-crime intersection is needed today more than ever as current understandings of this intersection develop rapidly with respect to ongoing political, economic, social and cultural realities. One of the most important and at times, neglected of these realities is Gender. The Oxford Handbook of Gender, Sex, and Crime insists that gender impacts the intersection between migration and crime drastically. Not only can it influence public perceptions of immigrant criminality but it is also a determining factor in governmental policy on immigration. Furthermore, The Handbook outlines that Gender affects both domestic violence crime rates and official awareness of those rates and can encourage social solidarity and political involvement – both of which may reduce criminal behaviors.

On Migration and Crime

The majority of anti-immigrant sentiments worldwide are deeply rooted in the notion that immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than citizens or nationals. Supporters of anti-immigrant administrations and candidates continue to believe that forced migration and crime are an inevitable connection. In his study of the 2018 U.S. General Social Survey on the Attitude of Citizens’ toward immigrants and immigration, Daniel K. Pryce tested the effects of patriotism, nationalism, xenophobia, and global citizenship on pro– and anti-immigration attitudes. Drivers of anti-immigrant attitudes include the belief that immigrants increase the crime rates, immigrants undermine American culture, and that immigrants take jobs away from citizens. The study additionally found that female respondents with higher education were more likely to hold pro‐immigrant sentiments, and found that more than 38% of the sample expressed some form of anti-immigrant sentiments (xenophobia, American superiority, immigrants taking away jobs, etc.).

Contrary to these sentiments and their existence across the “developed” world, studies from the United States, Canada, and European nations conclude that immigrants have lower violent and nonviolent crime, arrest, and incarceration rates than their citizen or native-born counterparts. A study conducted by Michael T. Light, Jingying He, and Jason P. Robey that compared crime rates between immigrants and native-born US citizens in Texas compared violent, property, drug, and traffic arrest rates between both categories. In comparison to native-born citizens and legal immigrants, undocumented immigrants showed the lowest felony arrest rates across all four categories of crime. For violent, property, and drug offenses, legal immigrants occupy a middle position between undocumented immigrants and US-born citizens. The discrepancies between native-born citizens and undocumented immigrants are considerable. According to the study, US-born citizens are over two times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over four times more likely to be arrested for property crimes.

Although the overwhelming evidence points to the fact that immigration is not directly linked to higher crime rates, and that immigrants are less likely to be criminals than the citizens or native-born individuals, governments and administrations continue to manipulate public sentiments, fears, stereotypes, and prejudices about what some perceive immigrants to be. Moreover, global immigration and asylum policies have been developed based on these preconceived notions rather than realities on the ground.

On Migration, Gender, and Crime

Criminology has largely suggested that masculinity and constructed gender roles are capable of both shaping a community’s social dynamics and encouraging criminal and social behaviors. Criminological discourse further highlights that law enforcement typically responds to community members based on gendered and racialized misconceptions and preconceived notions. Though scholars across the United States, #BlackLivesMatter advocates and activists, and human rights defenders have argued repeatedly that negative media depictions of the violent masculinity of young black men encourage hostile policing activity in low-income and minority communities, the intersection between gender, immigration, and criminality remains understudied. Gender constructions, stereotypes and pre-dispositioned roles are relevant to both social dynamics as well as the relationship between immigration and crime in a number of contexts. Subsequently, research on gendered behavior may ultimately produce new understandings into the layered relationship between immigration and crime.

In her commentary “Gendering Crimmigration: The Intersection of Gender, Immigration, and the Criminal Justice System,” Allison S. Hartry insists that although discussions of race and nativism have played a large part in analysis between immigration and crime, the same cannot be said for the connection between crimmigration and gender. Understanding the connection between gender and crimmigration will assist in the comprehension realities such as community perceptions of immigrant criminality, the implementation of restrictive immigration policies and practices, intimate-partner and gender-based violence in immigrant communities, and the victimization of immigrant employees. Elaborating on the literature in these areas will not only assist in shedding light on crimmigration realities, but will also assist in grasping the impact of these policies on gendered realities.

The management of global migration flows is now tainted with a need to control – more specifically, a need to preserve false notions of “national security.” With this logic, notions such as race and gender not only shape public perceptions of immigration, but also shape stringent policies on cross border movements and immigrant flows. Crimmigration has propagated a very gendered and racialized legal system and framework. Additionally, racism has been associated with mobility restrictions as immigration policies continue to discriminate against non-white immigrants actively.

On Migration, Race, Gender, and Crime

The study of the intersections between immigration and crime has largely disregarded gender as a unit of analysis and has additionally failed to create connections with ethnicity, race, and class. A clear example of this is that migratory experiences are considerably different for women of color at every stage of their immigration process. Their experiences merit exploration and inquiry into the many layers at play in these experiences.

Women continue to be most affected by direct violence throughout forced migration experiences, which is aggravated by the militarization of the physical border. Women encounter situations where sex is demanded of them to facilitate their crossing and multiple studies have found that that border rapes are not random or isolated incidents. In his article, “‘You Have to Pay With Your Body’: The Hidden Nightmare of Sexual Violence on the Border,” Manny Fernandez documents incident after incident of sexual assault at the US-Mexico border, insisting that migrant women and girls of color are the victims of sexual assaults that most often go unreported, uninvestigated and unprosecuted.

As it stands today, the policing of migration sanctions an evident gendered and racialized hierarchy the developed world abuses. This unfortunate reality and blatant violation of human rights render women of color uniquely affected by crimmigration as they continue to endure violence and assault throughout their journeys, preconceived notions about their sexuality, gender-based violence (GBV), and abusive relationships throughout their immigration processes. The international community and international migration frameworks must move away from punishing people for fleeing persecution while allowing discrimination, dominance, and coercion to govern their search for safety. A deeper interrogation into perceptions of criminality, gender, race and immigration will assist in shifting attitudes and engaging people in the discussion on who is allowed to go where – and more importantly, how?

Jasmin is a Canadian-Lebanese researcher, writer, editor, reviewer, instructor and consultant in the areas of Forced Migration, Gender and Conflict Studies. She is the Refugee Health Program Coordinator at the American University of Beirut’s Global Health Institute, as well as a Research Associate on the Political Economy of Health in Conflict under its Conflict Medicine Program. Jasmin is a Research Affiliate at the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University, an Adjunct Professor of Gender and Migration at the Fatima Al-Fihri Open University, and a Pre-doctoral Fellow and Program Lead at the ‘War, Conflict and Global Migration’ Think Tank of the Global Research Network. In other roles, she serves as the MENA Regional Focal Point on Migration of the United Nations General Assembly-mandated UN Major Group for Children and Youth and as a Senior Consultant on Refugee and Gender Studies at Cambridge Consulting Services.

Gendered Partition of India: An Untold Story

March 8, 2021 by Strife Staff

By Akshara Goel

Women during the partition. Source – Sabrang India.

‘Partition has caused the politics of the belly’ – Francois Bayart.

On 15th August 1947 India attained independence from the two hundred years of British rule, but, witnessed its secondly, partition into present-day Pakistan and subsequently Bangladesh. The date, 15th August, is chiefly remembered as the victory from colonial domination? achieved through non-violence. Concurrently, its bemoaned for partition the narratives which are limited to national leaders, political causes and high politics dominated by the upper-class male perspective leaders. However, Indian feminist scholarships have argued that this recollection has disregarded the gendered understanding of wide spread communal violence – the story of displacement and dispossession and, the process of realignment of family, community and national identities. Women survivors of partitioned India occupied a distinctly marginalised space in the partition violence. They were not only subjected to barbarity from men of the ‘other’ community but also from their family members and community which began in the pre-partition period (before 1947), and carried on until the 1950s. The ‘other’ here refers to ‘enemy community’ who were not part of the dominant ethnic community of India or then West Pakistan or Pakistan.

Women partition survivors were made attached to their male family member or community as they were assumed incapable of making their decisions on migrating to the other side of the border. Consequently, theywere compelled to agree with the twin concept of ‘Azadi’ – translated as Freedom – that was the loss of community, networks, identity and more or less stable inter and intra-personal relationships . Simultaneously, they witnessed double jeopardy. Firstly, by many human right discourses that were packed up recognize them as victims during the conflict occurred at the time of partition. Secondly, since males couldn’t perform their “role of protector” or unable to participate in “income generation activities” it drove to the domestic violence or resurgence of religious practices. This resulted in re-composition of the patriarchal structure which got disintegrated under the partition conflict, wherein, it led to greater control of women rather than, letting providing them with a mechanism to create their agency otherwise their agency was limited to the act of producing or reproducing the nation, according to the Indian government.

The predominant memory of partition for these destitute women consisted of confusion, dislocation and severing roots. The day-to-day violence caused by the partition formed the everyday experience for these women. They were exposed to distinct forms of sexual violence that carried the symbolic meaning designated to their status in the male dominated -patriarchal society where gender relations are arranged along the beliefs and traditions of the religious and ethnic communities. The most predictable form of violence was sexual assault inflicted the men of one community upon the women of the ‘other’ community to assert their own identity and ‘subduing the other by dishonouring their women’. However, the most notorious action was the sadistic pleasure these perpetrators sought from the humiliation of women.

According to anecdotes by the women partition survivor, they were raped in front of their male family members and some of them were paraded naked in the market or danced in gurudwaras (holy shrine of Sikhs). For the stigmatization purpose and its legacy onto the future generation, the perpetrators sexually appropriated these women by desexualizing her as wife or mother through mutilating or disfiguring her breasts and genitalia (tattooing-branding on their breasts and genitalia with triumphant slogans like a crescent moon or trident) so that they no longer remain a nurturer. The motivation was to make her an inauspicious figure by degrading into an unproductive woman. These barbarian acts reflected the thinking of the patriarchal community wherein women are just considered objects of honour constructed by the male. Women survivors of Partition encountered or witnessed the episodes of violence from their family members and community as well. The latter, coerced their women to death, in some cases women were forced to kill themselves, to avoid being sexually offended and to preserve their chastity along with the shielding the honour of individual, family and community. According to the anecdote by Taran, a partition survivor who successfully came to India in 1947– “We girls would often talk about death – some were afraid, others thought of it as a glorious death – dying for an end, for freedom, for an honour. For me everything was related to freedom (from British colonial rule), I was dying for freedom”. Fortunately, she didn’t have to go through the ‘choice’ of death while her women friends were planning how to prepare for their death- an interview was taken by the Ritu Menon and Kamala Bhasin – Indian feminist writer and activist, respectively. However, women were made to ‘volunteer’ for death coerced to poison, put to the sword or drowned or set ablaze individually or collectively that is with other younger women or women and children (Butalia 1998 cited in Chakraborty, 2014, pg. 41-43) .

Some of the partition survivors were women who got abducted by ‘others’ and went through the identity crisis concerning the dominant ethnic community. They were abducted as Hindu (dominant community of India) married as Muslim (dominant community of Pakistan) and again recovered as Hindus and eventually had to go through a lot of bitter and painful “choices”. Women who were brought back ‘home’ after getting abducted, following the 1947 partition period with Pakistan, weren’t given choice to decide their home. It was assumed that Hindu women will retreat to India while Muslim women will be transmitted to Pakistan (during 1947 partition). Their space of home could have changed wasn’t given consideration. It wasn’t the boundary of domestic that defined home but it was the boundary of a nation, yet, they met the fate of non-acceptance from their natal families. In theory, everyone had a choice to move or stay but in practice staying on was virtually impossible. The ‘choice’ of whether to move, stay or return was a decision being made for women, by the patriarchal nation-state and their families. Women’s agency wasn’t a principal concern in any of the conflicts and its aftermath .

The partition of violence affected the everyday world and the lives of women. This concept of the “everyday world” was promulgated by Dorothy Smith (1987). She maintains that “everyday world” refers to lived reality in the private sphere in which women’s representation and gendered lives on the domestic space gets effected and affected by the major events in the political sphere – “the domain of men”. The primary meaning of “everyday world” is to connect the political space with domestic (private) lives of women in a given historical instance. In other words, women survivors of partition have illustrated that there is a definite continuity between the “everyday world” and “extraordinary historical times” of the partition era. This everyday world consists of the private/domestic space in which a woman identifies herself’ and a ‘safe space’ as assumed by the patriarchal structure. However, in the partition violence, their ‘safe space’ gets threatened and compromised as they get dragged into the turmoil of public/political space where their male counterparts take an authoritative position but with no or negligible space for women. The patriarchal mechanisms decided everyday belonging of these women survivors. The fate of these women become tied to that of the nation-state or family and community which dictated how the women should live their life in post-partitioned independent India.

The partition violence and Indian nation-state – their efforts and narratives towards the women survivors- have played a crucial role in deconstruction and reconstruction of the women’s identity, space and role. It can be observed that the national belonging for all the partition women survivors was meditated through the institution of the heterosexual and patrilineal nuclear family and community concurrently they were disenfranchised as sexual commodities, patriarchal properties and communal commodities by the nation-state and their respective community and family. After partition, the Indian patriarchal state has explicitly infantilized women survivors by denying them to represent themselves and this process eventually has caused their disenfranchisement.

Akshara is a prospective PhD candidate and has completed her Master of Arts in Diplomacy, Law and Business (2020) from Jindal School of International Affairs, O.P. Jindal Global University, Delhi-NCR, India. Presently, she is a Commissioning Editor in E-International Relations and Associate Editor of Law & Order.

Gender in Politics: Female leadership in times of the Covid-19 pandemic

February 25, 2021 by Strife Staff

By Rixa Riess

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Arden (https://images.app.goo.gl/28n8hZgHptbh4RdA8)

The Coronavirus crisis amplified the grievances of society through a burning glass. Women’s relapse into the traditional role as caretaker and housewife during the lockdowns received a lot of attention. It confirms that gender equality isn’t reality yet.

At the same time, however, a more encouraging scientific finding seems to be proved: Women in government contribute more to security and prosperity. During the pandemic female stateswomen showed outstanding crisis management at the top of governments. ,

First and foremost: New Zealand. Right at the beginning of the pandemic, on March 21st, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern introduced a clear guideline with a country-wide alert system. Four days later the country was put into a nationwide lockdown and by May didn’t record new cases. ‘Going hard and going early’, was the Prime Minister’s motto. She stood out for defensive action and honest communication. Although at this point New Zealand isn’t Coronavirus-free just yet, the style of governance gained respect internationally. It proved successful, besides having a low population density of 18 people per square kilometre. In comparison, the population density of the UK amounts to around 275 people per square kilometre. But, as the example of Taiwan shows (673 people per square kilometre), low population density does not always correlate with the success of virus control. Taiwan’s success story is also not only linked to its geographical advantage of being an island only, but to its rigorous and early actions. Under President Tsai Ing-wen, the government rigorously tracked travel and contact history and independently produced masks to prevent panic buys.

Finland also managed the pandemic well. Under Prime Minister Sanna Marin, the government drove public life down to a minimum in spring, unlike their much-discussed Swedish neighbours. On May 16th, with less than 300 recorded cases, the country went into lockdown. The interior minister, Maria Ohisalo, outlined the importance of sensitive communication and cooperation within the government to successfully master the crisis.

Now, the successes at the beginning of the pandemic have been forgotten: Voices are raised criticising the inadequate measures after the first lockdown. Even though now, most heads of state can be accused of underestimating the tenacity of the virus, the initial reactions to the outbreak of Covid-19 is of enormous importance in assessing leadership: Dealing with and assessing a new acute emergency is the starting point of crisis management. With regards to this, the female-led countries performed better.

A recent study found that female-led nations suffered fewer Coronavirus deaths than their male-led neighbours: In the face of potential fatalities, female leaders made risk-averse decisions and were willing to take more economic risks at the same time. Other male-led countries claimed to have everything under control or actually denied the existence of the virus. Among them the United States, the UK, Russia, and India. Making false statements to promote their own governance turned out to be fatal. They downplayed the threat and waited for a clearer picture to make decisions. The fear of economic damage and its political consequences appeared to be bigger than the fear of the virus. In times of a pandemic, slow actions mean deaths. They undeniably reveal any faked control. Now, the named countries lament an above-average number of fatalities and additionally experienced a significant economic decline.

One could argue that the subject of a crisis shouldn’t be gender or sex but rather about finding an efficient solution to the problem, especially when the theatre of horrors has not yet reached its final act. At least for once, one could sarcastically add, no one is doubting the person in charge for their suitability for the position because of her sex.

Some argue, that connecting good leadership to women is in itself sexist, and that female leadership is a symptom of a successful political system. An important argument, but it falls short in view of the fact that there are only 16 women globally leading a country. Now, humanity is (once again) asking itself the fundamental question of how it weighs central things like the economic system, the environment, or social division. So why not put female leadership in politics up for debate as a fundamental necessity for society?

Research perceives politics as a ‘gendered legacy’ (Lockhart & Mollick, 2013), which has been male dominated. It seems like the pandemic breaks traditional leadership approaches open. It lies within the nature of a crisis that society and politics face a new disastrous event of which the outcome can’t yet be grasped to its full extent. Long-term considerations must be made. The Coronavirus crisis has shown: basic human concerns must be taken just as seriously as the fact that a crisis needs clear decisions to be taken by the leadership. The German Chancellor’s unusual emotional plea for an understanding of the situation was exemplary. She connected the necessary enforcement and empathy. It is therefore not surprising that scholars attribute a more transformational leadership style to women. This includes concern, respect, demonstrating compassion, care and equality. Men tend to have a transactional style, which is more direct and achievement-oriented. A report from 2009 shows that women tend to demonstrate more often than men essential leadership behaviour that improves organizational performance. Regarding the financial crisis in 2008, the research found that women more frequently adopt certain leadership behaviour seen as most important in and after the crisis, e.g. motivate action and inventiveness. These skills will be needed during the recovery of the pandemic, too.

The Coronavirus crisis could be a door opener to follow up on the discussion regarding too few women in politics with action. Societies must ask themselves if there has been a fundamental misinterpretation of which characteristics determine good leadership and to whom they are attributed. Since the beginning of statehood, men are associated with leadership. Women often have been overlooked, even though they have the same necessary skills to lead. Thus, new challenges require us to question our traditional associations once again – especially because in states of emergency societies tend to stick to familiar, often traditional patterns.

However, the re-election of some stateswomen, e.g. Tsai Ing-wen, Angela Merkel or Jacinda Ardern, speaks for itself indeed, and yet society and academia, especially after this crisis, need to contribute to this specific discourse in order to effectively promote this modern political and female leadership in the minds and in practice.

Rixa Riess holds a Bachelor in Culture and Economy from the University of Mannheim and is currently studying towards a Master degree in International Relations at KCL. Find her on Twitter @Rixariess.

Women and children first: how the Myth of Protection is harming… men

February 2, 2021 by Strife Staff

By Amber Holland

A refugee appears exhausted while swimming towards the shore after a dinghy carrying Syrian and Afghan refugees deflated about 100 meters before reaching the Greek island of Lesbos, Sept. 13, 2015. (Credit: Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters)

Since the start of the refugee crisis, multiple media outlets have consistently portrayed male refugees as deceitful economic migrants, whilst only women and children are deemed to be fleeing violence. Although an attractive narrative due to the simplicity it involves, our collective failure to recognise men as victims of violent conflict potentially endangers the lives of many, whilst characterising women as eternal victims simultaneously robs them of their agency. Luckily, Feminist International Relations (IR) Theory offers both an explanation and a route to solving this, namely through deconstructing the Myth of Protection.

The Myth of Protection is one of the core philosophies of Feminist IR Theory. Intrinsically linking conflict and gender, it rests on the repeated lie that wars are fought to primarily protect women, children and the extremely vulnerable. This directly contradicts the shocking statistic that 90% of all casualties are civilian, the majority of whom are women and children. From this Myth, comes other fallacies, such as women playing little to no active role in conflict and the idea that inside a state’s borders, women are automatically considered ‘safe’. Both these concepts have been proven false, from the 40% female personnel rate in the Kurdish YPG, to the use of rape as a weapon of war in the DRC earning the grim title of the “rape capital of the world”.

Beyond robbing women of their agency, the Myth of Protection has also resulted in a worrying trend of discounting male victims of violent conflict. This is due to them not falling into the socially acceptable category of ‘vulnerable’, tied to traditional masculine and feminine gender roles. Perhaps the most visceral example of this is seen in the reaction of news outlets to the ongoing refugee crisis. Britain’s newly crowned best-selling newspaper, The Daily Mail, has regularly covered its front page with pictures and news relating to boats crossing The English Channel, although its reaction to stories involving men and children has been quite different. Whereas as harrowing pictures of three year old Aylan Kurdi dead on a beach in Turkey should make readers “shudder in collective horror”, males crossing in the same manner are described as an “influx”, which should make Britain “worried”. As unaccompanied men are portrayed as making the treacherous journey for economic reasons, they are judged as undeserving of our empathy and assistance just by virtue of their gender. Contrastingly, media outlets consistently highlight in their article titles instances that involve the deaths of women and children refugees, implying they are more deserving of our sympathy. When it comes to the continuing exemption of men as victims of violent conflict, the zeitgeist has remained quiet.

Unfortunately, this characterisation of male refugees as economic migrants is observable in influencing both national government and multinational organisation’s policies. Canada, a nation traditionally known for its welcoming attitude towards refugees, decided to exclude unaccompanied men from its fast track programme for 25,000 refugees in 2015. Although later confirming that men could still apply through other routes, it has been suggested that the discounting of lone males from this flagship policy, resulted in many being forced to pick up arms in the Syrian war and exacerbating the conflict. The demonisation of the ‘Other’ male refugee, built in part off the isolated (but nonetheless horrific) case of the Cologne New Year’s assaults on women, has resulted in the assumption that male victims of conflict are something to be feared, even in the upper echelons of power. In the UN’s 2008 Handbook for the Protection of Women and Girls, this dichotomised and gendered view of victims is present, with men characterised as the perpetrators of violence regardless of their refugee status.

Of course, some nuance is needed here. It is important to remember that 35% of women globally have experienced physical and/or sexual violence, and that 38% of all murders of women are committed by their partners. Across the globe, being a woman is still incredibly dangerous. Moreover, it could be argued that the prioritising of female victims of violent conflict is indeed necessary, especially when coming from nations where they lack the political, social and economic agency to protect themselves. However, this gender-differentiated policy can result in paternalistic and infantizing programmes, conceptualising women through virtue of their womb, as opposed to their humanity.

Fortunately, possible solutions to the Myth of Protection can be found by returning to Feminist IR theory, and feminism in general. At the core of the Myth of Protection, are the gendered values that are rife in a patriarchal society. Far from helping, the prizing of men as brave fighters, who hold the traits of aggression and force, has resulted in an inability to view them as victims of violent conflict. Instead, there is an expectation that men do not flee from violence, rather staying to fight and protect their values (I refer you to the Pub Brawl Analogy for an excellent deconstruction of this reductionist view). However, anyone can feel terror, and no one is invincible against the barrel of a gun. More importantly, more violence is not the answer to these conflicts.

Feminism, through deconstructing gender and unburdening individuals from the stereotypes they feel they must conform to, offers a route to accepting men as victims of violent conflict worthy of our support. Beyond liberating women and girls, destroying patriarchal norms is also beneficial to men and boys, with a direct correlation observable between the state of gender equality in a nation and lower rates of male mental health issues and suicide.

Under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol, it is established in customary international law, that refugees should not face discrimination by virtue of their sex. By consigning the Myth of Protection to IR history books, this can finally become a reality. With the rate of male refugees steadily increasing, due to their ability to survive the treacherous journey to safety, this cannot come soon enough.

Amber is an MA Conflict, Security and Development student at King’s College London. Her research interests include the relationship between environmental scarcity and international development, and feminist solutions to conflict.

The Arms Trade Treaty & Gender-Based Violence: Challenges Require Data & Willpower

January 7, 2021 by Strife Staff

by Hannah Papachristidis,

‘Non-Violence’ also known as ‘The Knotted Gun’, bronze sculpture by Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd, 1985. (Source: https://untappedcities.com/2020/05/15/art-while-you-walk-in-the-sculpture-gardens-in-nyc/10/ )

The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is the first global arms control instrument to acknowledge, and create obligations around, the connection between international arms transfers and gender-based violence (GBV). The treaty’s adoption in 2013 followed over a decade of campaign work led by Oxfam, Amnesty International and the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), which galvanised international popular support for the instrument as well as political engagement. Within this international campaign was a focus on the inclusion of references to the link between GBV and the arms trade by a group of civil society organisations, including Reaching Critical Will (the disarmament programme of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom), IANSA and Amnesty International.

The ATT is the first arms control agreement that centres around humanitarian concerns and is notable for introducing the notion of responsibility on the part of exporting states. It obliges states to assess whether there is an overriding risk that the export of arms to another country will be used for, or to commit, violations of international humanitarian law or of the Geneva Convention. With regards to GBV, the treaty obliges state parties to assess whether items exported would contribute to or facilitate acts of GBV. It is the only human rights infringement which is addressed through a standalone article.

Acts of GBV take place in both conflict and non-conflict contexts, in both domestic and public spaces. Conventional weapons can, and are regularly, used to inflict discriminatory violence based on a person’s gender. Moreover, the trade, possession and use of arms have specific gender and power dimensions. The link between the arms trade and gender-based violence, therefore, is one which interrogates power relations and social norms. Article 7 of the treaty addresses the obligations of party states with regards to permitted exports and within this article, part (4) states:

The exporting State Party, in making this assessment, shall take into account the risk of the conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1) or of the items covered under Article 3 or Article 4 being used to commit or facilitate serious acts of gender-based violence or serious acts of violence against women and children.

States are therefore mandated to undertake a gender-sensitive risk assessment of all potential exports. In order to produce an effective risk assessment, states need a comprehensive understanding of gender relations in the importing country and the implications for the risk of GBV, as well as data on the occurrences of GBV by the end-user.

It is widely recognised that data on violence against women and gender-based violence is significantly underreported and likely to be unreliable. Levels of reporting are impacted by stigmas surrounding this type of violence and power imbalances in society that create barriers to reporting. According to UN Women, less than forty per cent of women who experience violence seek help of any sort and, of those seeking help, less than ten per cent appealed to the police. Where data relating to gender-based violence is collected, it is further complicated by the issue that there is no universally accepted definition of GBV, meaning that countries collect different data on aspects of the violence. The lack of standardisation in data collection, therefore, means comparisons and global trends are hard to infer. Finally, data relating to how different categories and types of arms and arms users facilitate GBV are even more rare.

The challenges surrounding assessing the risk of GBV for arms exports are widely recognised by the international community. A paper presented by Ireland to the 2017 Conference of State Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty (CSP), lambasted Article 7(4) for being ‘overly broad, unenforceable and unverifiable’. In 2019, the theme of the CSP5 was gender and arms-related gender-based violence. The CSP5 President’s working paper outlined issues around implementing GBV risk assessments including the vague language in Article 7(4) and the importance of sharing national practices with regards to undertaking this risk assessment. The ATT Monitor report reflecting on CSP5 emphasised again the “uneven understanding among States Parties of what constitutes or facilitates an act of GBV, the ways in which the ATT addresses GBV and how GBV can be incorporated into Articles 6 and 7 risk assessment obligations”. Whilst the ATT may have been groundbreaking for its references to GBV, it is clear now that this obligation should have been more specifically defined such to allow for uniform implementation.

The organisations which campaigned for the inclusion of GBV obligations in the ATT have moved to take on an active role monitoring the implementation of these obligations. In particular, many of these organisations have reflected on these challenges and have produced resources and guidelines on best practice for implementation. Reaching Critical Will, for example, has published a range of resources on the effective implementation of GBV obligations. Many of these have a strong focus on the need for more comprehensive data collection and sharing practices. Their 2016 report revealed that no country explicitly includes GBV in their end-user documentation and most countries rely on human rights reports rather than specific assessments of GBV. As such, there is often little evidence of the link between arms transfers and GBV because the data used does not interrogate the occurrence of systemic gender-based violence by the end-user. The report provides guidelines for export officials, including examples of how arms facilitate GBV and indicators of GBV that could be used for a risk assessment.

A similar ‘practical guidance’ report was published by Control Arms, which outlines a four-stage approach to incorporating GBV into export assessments. Their report also outlines an extensive library of information sources and datasets corresponding to indicators relating to the prevalence of GBV and state commitments. As with the RCW report, this report is written to provide export officials “with a framework within which to systematically consider GBV in export assessments”. These two reports provide foundational knowledge for states which do not have existing expertise on GBV risk assessments and go some way to cement understanding on the link between GBV and arms transfers.

A recent report by Greenpeace focused specifically on Germany’s arms exports and gender-based violence. The report emphasises the importance of gender-sensitive human rights assessments rather than a general human rights focus and the need for the German government to include a specific criterion relating to the risk of GBV in its risk assessment as well as to improve internal training on the relation of GBV to arms transfers. Greenpeace draws upon research by both RCW and Control Arms to present cases of ‘best practice’, which include Latvia’s questionnaire on the prevalence of GBV in the recipient country and the UK’s updated licensing criteria legislation which includes reference to the risk of GBV.

As Control Arms, Greenpeace and RCW highlight in their publications, gender-based violence is systematically under-reported. In terms of data collection, it is a hidden violence. Consequently, it is not enough to rely on a gender-neutral human rights assessment to assess the risk of GBV within the export of arms. That GBV is the only human rights concern to be addressed with a standalone article in the ATT, highlights the need for governments to specifically focus on overcoming tendencies to overlook GBV. Despite elevation within the treaty however, this need is hindered by the vague language of Article 7(4) and the lack of an agreed definition of GBV weakens systematic global monitoring.

For civil society and advocates of the treaty, the ATT has been disappointing. The UK’s continued exports of weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the Yemen war, in the face of clear evidence that the Saudi-led coalition continues to target civilians and violates international humanitarian law, has been a significant failure for the ATT’s progress. With implementation of the most basic export assessments failing as in the case of the UK, it can be easy to disregard the importance of other components of the treaty. Perhaps, however, if there was a more comprehensive evidence base and a strong practice of collecting gender-disaggregated data, the clear evidence of the importance of GBV to arms transfers would be more difficult to ignore.

The international civil society has created a wealth of resources addressing the implementation of obligations around gender-based violence in arms transfers. Although the challenges are significant and will take time to surmount, it is critical that states step up, heed the guidance presented to them, invest in gender-specific expertise, and take their responsibilities seriously.

Hannah Papachristidis is a project officer at Transparency International Defence & Security, where she manages research outputs for the 2020 Government Defence Integrity Index. She holds an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University and is an Emerging Expert at Forum on the Arms Trade.

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