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US Foreign Policy: The impact of the War on Terror on the Uyghur people

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By Carlotta Rinaudo

Flickr, 2009.

In June 2019 former President Donald Trump publicly signed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, imposing sanctions on Chinese officials responsible for the oppression of the Muslim minority in the Xinjiang region. Behind the closed doors of the G-20 summit in Osaka however, Trump seemed to have a different agenda. According to former national security adviser John Bolton, Trump told Chinese leader Xi Jinping that re-educating the Muslim minority “was exactly the right thing to do”. He then allegedly asked Xi Jinping to help him win the elections in 2020.
Unfortunately, this is not the first instance of inconsistent U.S. policy towards the Uyghur people and Central Asia.  

For centuries, the Xinjiang region was an arid and sparsely populated land, traversed by a network of lonely trade routes that transported Chinese silk to the Roman world. Its inhabitants, the Uyghurs, were oasis farmers and herders who spoke a Turkic language and practiced Sunni and Sufi Islam, sharing cultural and ethnic ties with the other Turkic tribes of Central Asia.

In 1759 the Xinjiang region was annexed by the Qing Dynasty, while the territories of the other Turkic tribes of Central Asia were slowly absorbed by the Russian Empire, thus becoming known as “Russian Turkestan”.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian Turkestan became what today is called Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and the southern part of Kazakhstan. As the Uyghurs watched their Turkic neighbours achieve self-determination, they too demanded independence. China’s reaction to this has grown increasingly assertive over recent years, sparking a heated debate between Washington and Beijing. 

On one side, the Chinese government insisted that Uyghur separatists are engaged in terrorist activities, responsible for various bombings and assassinations, and connected with Chechen rebels, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban. In particular, Beijing focuses on a Uyghur separatist group known as the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). In the 1990s, representatives of ETIM travelled to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and eventually Afghanistan, where they met with Osama Bin Laden in order to gain support for their insurgency in Xinjiang. This framing allowed Beijing to legitimise a massive education program which it claims is necessary to fight terrorism and eradicate extremism in the region. 

But where Beijing says there are “vocational education and training centres”, and “de-radicalisation measures”, Washington instead sees “detention camps”, and “cultural genocide”. In particular, the Trump administration accused China of human rights abuses, torture, systematic rape, and forced sterilization against the Uyghur minority.

In this dire situation, however, what’s often overlooked is the United States’ own complicity in the origins of the very repression that it publicly condemns.
Following the 9/11 attacks, Beijing labelled Uyghur separatists as terrorist threats. In response, President George W. Bush said that China should not use the War on Terror as an “excuse to persecute minorities”. However, by 2002, Washington had changed its tune. Seeking China’s support in its invasion of Iraq, the US listed ETIM as a terrorist group, and assisted in having ETIM recognised as a terrorist threat by the Security Council. In addition, since 2002, the US has detained 22 Uyghurs in Guantanamo Bay. Blinded by its own interests in Iraq, Washington favoured the initial international legitimisation of repression against the Uyghur minority – the same repression it today condemns.


Washington’s inconsistent foreign policy extended well beyond the Xinjiang region. Following the 9/11 attacks, President Bush built a strong relation with Islam Karimov, the first President of Uzbekistan, whose secret police regularly persecuted political opponents, torturing them in sound-proof cells with electric shocks, asphyxiation, and food deprivation. Nonetheless, Washington turned a blind eye to such oppressive violence.

Sitting on the Northern border of Afghanistan, Uzbekistan provided in fact an ideal location to establish a military base and a supply route that could support the American invasion of Afghanistan. Washington’s silence was a trade-off for Uzbekistan’s logistical support against Afghanistan. Once again blinded by its own interests, the US called its foreign policy a “policy of strategic patience”, perhaps an euphemism for what in reality was a policy of “strategic complicity”.

Today, Washington accuses Beijing of practices that are very similar to those committed by Karimov in Uzbekistan. The only difference being that China is a rival superpower, while Uzbekistan was an ally that served American interests in the War on Terror.

As a part of its policies in Xinjiang, Beijing has announced a poverty relief plan that aims to lift Uyghurs out of poverty by sending them to work in various factories all over China.
But again, what Beijing calls “promotion of poverty alleviation”,  Washington today calls “forced labour.”
Ironically, some factories where such “forced labour” occurs are part of the supply chains of American companies like Apple, Nike, and Coca-Cola. American firms are therefore, consciously or unconsciously, benefitting from the same labour that their government claims to be a form of slavery. 

In September 2020, the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act was approved by the House of Representatives, in an attempt to impose stricter controls on goods that could be produced by forced labour. In turn, Beijing claims that Washington is instrumentalising the narrative of “forced labour” to ban Chinese imports amidst a ferocious US-China trade competition. Meanwhile, companies like Nike, Apple, and Coca-Cola have already started to lobby the US Congress in order to weaken the bill. It could undermine their supply chain, they say.

This chaotic situation not only demonstrates that the US and China remain heavily interconnected in their supply network, but it also shed lights on the wide-reaching repercussions of the War on Terror. In 2002, when the US’ enemy number one was Al Qaeda, Washington was ready to label Uyghur separatist groups as terrorist groups, and to justify China’s actions against them. But in 2020, when the US’ primary perceived threat is China itself, Washington has removed that same separatist group from the list, accusing Beijing of human rights abuses.

As the Biden Administration aims to reengage in the defence of human rights, a more consistent policy in Central Asia should be established – one that learns from past mistakes. After all, a global policeman should not be driven by their own agenda, but by the values they claim to protect. 

On the verge of Statelessness

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By Prachi Aryal

People from the state of Assam stand in que to verify their documents. Source: PTI

Hannah Arendt in her book ‘The Origin of Totalitarianism’ raised citizenship as the “right to have rights”. In the Indian state of Assam, over 1.9 million people are being denied citizenship, and thus rights, after the Government of India on August 31, 2019 released the National Register of Citizens (NRC) . The list ostensibly attempts to identify illegal immigrants especially those who percolated through the porous border with Bangladesh. The NRC’s update in the state was the first since 1951, following long-standing demands from the indigenous Assamese people. 

Historical Significance of the NRC

The partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 was a crucial event that signified the end of colonialism, the birth of two nations and the emergence of varied national identities for its residents. The cartographic solutions of post-colonial countries have impacted the language of citizenship as they grapple with regulation of the movement of people across territories that are contiguous and porous. 

The Northeast region of India is tucked away in a remote corner of the subcontinent wedged between China, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. The mass exodus of people from Bangladesh (then East-Pakistan) following the Liberation War on 1971 to the state of Assam has fostered a political climate in which questions of ethnic identity, language and migration are central. During the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, East Pakistan seceded from Pakistan and became the independent country of Bangladesh, the Assamese fear of influx of immigrants was accentuated. The rising fear of threats to Assamese identity and indigeneity led to an anti-immigration movement in 1980s. This period witnessed heightened communal riots and bouts of violence that led to the Nellie massacre, killing almost 1800 Muslims. The movement ended with the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985. 

The Assam Accord was a Memorandum of Settlement signed by the Governments of India and Assam, and the All-Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) in New Delhi on August 15, 1985. It established a system that used date of entry to India as the basis of determining citizenship. The Accord legitimized the citizenship status of those who had entered Assam from then East Pakistan before 1 January 1966, while a provision for 10 years of disenfranchisement was set for those entering between 1 January 1966 and 24 March 1971. The accord further recommended that people who had entered after 24 March 1971 would be deported as illegal migrants. 

The implications of the NRC 

The August 31st list has left 1.9 million on the brink of statelessness, of these many are amongst the Muslim minority. The people excluded from the list do not have an alternate Bangladeshi citizenship and are mostly people who come poor backgrounds without access to proper paperwork. 

The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs has amended the 1964 Foreigners (Tribunal) Order to establish tribunals across the country to monitor the complaints of people excluded from the NRC. If they are declared foreigners by the quasi-judicial courts, they can make an appeal to the State High Court or the Supreme Court. 

The quasi-judicial courts have been criticized as being led by inexperienced people who often hold bias against Muslim communities. Moreover, the long battle of litigation puts immense pressure on the minorities in Assam. 

 With annual flooding and calamities hitting the poor in the state of Assam, the reliance on nearly 50-year-old documents as the basis of their citizenship renders them uniquely precarious. The NRC exercise is the worst-case scenario of how in a weak capacity state like Assam, where documents are poorly distributed, excessive reliance on paper to mediate citizenship works as an instrument of exclusion. The people who are unable to prove their citizenship will either be deported or placed in detention camps.

The Problematic created by NRC and CAA

At the heart of the problem of statelessness is the geneses of the NRC and the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA). The CAA mandates that Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Zoroastrians and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan will not be treated as illegal immigrants. Instead, they will be eligible for citizenship after six years of residence in India. This is in accordance with the fear of many constitutionalists and observers that the laws, rule and jurisprudence on citizenship in India has become increasingly inflected by religion. 

As highlighted by N.G. Jayal, there has been a transformation from the jus soli or birth-based principle of citizenship to a more jus sanguinis or descent-based principle in India. The enactment of CAA signifies a conspicuous deviation from the religion-neutral conception of citizenship contained in the constitution, thereby undermining the principle of jus soli.

Rizwana Shamshad mentions how the current popular discourse of Hindu nationalists in India advocates for the citizenship for Hindu Bangladeshis whilst demanding deportation of Muslim Bangladeshis. This results in the false narrative of identifying Hindu Bangladeshis as ‘refugees’ whilst labelling the Muslim Bangladeshis as ‘infiltrators.’ These narratives are then used for advocacy and campaigning during elections to secure votes by resonating with ‘hyper-nationalist’ emotions.

Furthermore, by rendering people stateless, India stands in violation of various articles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantee freedom to choose residence and enshrine equal rights to minorities. Exclusions by the state based on race and descent also violate the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. 

The uncertain battle ahead

The geneses of the NRC and CAA set out a path of uncertainty for the many minorities in the region of Assam. Through the CAA those who are excluded from the NRC and identify as any religion other than Muslim can get the status of refugee and hence seek citizenship in India. However, the Muslim population will not have any legal recourse to claim refugee status and will be labelled illegal immigrants. The immigrants face risk of indefinite detention and deportation. 

The plight of these 1.9 million people has been overshadowed by the current pandemic. With minimal resources and in constant fear they risk being detained indefinitely without the access to  legal recourse. The concern remains that the move to continue with the NRC, the poor from a weak capacity state will be the most disadvantaged. In trying to maintain popular support along the religious lines, India might create a new cohort of stateless people. 

 

Prachi Aryal is an MA student in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Her research interest is inclined towards Gender, Human Rights, and Cross border conflicts in transitioning nations and how visuals from conflict zones play a role in communicating the realities of conflict to the broader world. She completed her BA in Journalism from the University of Delhi, India.

Gendered Partition of India: An Untold Story

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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. 

The struggle continues: Khulumani Support Group and reparations in South Africa

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By Hannah Goozee

Photo Credit: Khulumani Support Group

More than twenty years after the conclusion of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), survivors of apartheid violence in South Africa continue to struggle for justice. On 28th October 2020, members of Khulumani Support Group, a national organization of over 100,000 members, gathered outside the Union Buildings in Pretoria demanding overdue reparations from the government. The 112 individuals held placards and banners, while singing during daytime   and sleeping on the grass at night. Many of these members are elderly suffering from health conditions, and yet refused to leave until they received an answer:  where are the reparations for apartheid? In this piece I reflect on time spent with Khulumani Support Group in 2019 and suggest that the failure of reparations is symptomatic of the TRC’s political origins and attention to individuals over structures. This individualization of apartheid has resulted in a continued lack of structural and material redress in South Africa.

The South African TRC is often heralded as one of the most successful transitional justice mechanisms. The product of a negotiated settlement between the National Party government and the liberation forces, principally Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress, the TRC was presented as the healing moment for South Africa. Over the course of several years, victims shared their stories of violence and victimhood in public hearings across the country. Additionally, investigations were undertaken into clandestine apartheid activities and amnesty procedures were held for perpetrators willing to disclose their wrongdoings. The TRC concluded in a seven-volume report, with the first five delivered to the President in 1998 and the last two in 2003, with recommendations for societal, political, and economic transformations.   The process, as Mandela declared in the handover ceremony, signalled “the end of one season and the beginning of another”.

For members of Khulumani Support Group, the dawning of a new age was far from a reality. In 2019, I spent six months with members of the East Rand branch of the organization, many of whom were present at the protest in Pretoria. I interviewed nearly forty members for my doctorate, listening to their stories of apartheid, loss, and violence. From my very first interaction, one thing became clear – the pain continues to be lived: from unhealed wounds inflicted by apartheid forces, to lost and damaged properties, not to mention the death and disappearance of loved ones. Not only do they continue to reckon with the legacy of apartheid, but their pain has been exacerbated by governmental promises of reparations, which never materialized. Often, it was during discussions of the TRC and reparations that members became distressed, more so than when describing their apartheid experiences.

Reparations were a prominent feature of the 1995 Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, the legislation which formally established the TRC. In addition to uncovering gross violations of human rights and the granting of amnesty in exchange for full disclosure, it was also recognised that reparations would be necessary for a peaceful transition to be achieved. The Act defined reparations as including “any form of compensation, ex gratia payment, restitution” and distinguished between urgent interim reparations and a long-term reparations policy. The TRC’s Reparations and Reconciliation Committee was tasked with implementing the former, and making recommendations for the President on the latter. Crucially, the Act also provided for the creation of a President’s Fund to hold the reparations payable to victims.

While the TRC identified Urgent Interim Reparations as a priority once it was established in late 1995, governmental delays and logistical challenges meant that payments only began in 1998. By this time, much of the Commission was wrapping up its work. These interim reparations were designed for individuals identified as victims and in need of urgent support. By 2001 the process was complete, with payments made to merely 14,000 individuals, a fraction of those in need of support in the aftermath of apartheid.

The final report included recommendations for much more substantial reparations, including further urgent reparations, but also higher amounts for individual grants, symbolic reparations, community rehabilitation, and institutional reforms. The President’s Fund was identified as the means to provide the payment of individual grants, which the RRC  estimated to be R23 023 per annum and to continue for six years. These grants were to be paid to victims identified by the TRC, and the relatives and dependents of victims.

However, the TRC classified only 21,000 victims during its process. The TRC defined victims narrowly: individuals or the relatives of individuals who suffered gross violations of human rights. Through individualizing victimhood, the TRC made invisible the everyday violence and abuse experienced through apartheid laws and society by millions of South Africans. Those I spoke to the East Rand emphasised the context and everyday life of apartheid; violence was structural and endemic. However, even working within the TRC’s definition of victim, Khulumani Support Group projects that reparations should be paid to 120,000 individuals or their next of kin. The group also rejects the cut-off date imposed by the TRC, which meant that only those who had self-identified as victims by 14th December 1997 are entitled to reparations. This overlooked the communities which continued to experience violence late into the 1990s, such as the East Rand. Most fundamentally, the group argues, is the continued lack of an inclusive and comprehensive reparations policy from the government.

What came of the RRC’s recommendations? In short, very little. Instead, in 2003, President Thabo Mbeki announced a one-off payment of R30 000 for victims identified by the TRC. This is about a quarter of what was recommended by the TRC, and did not include any access to medical, social, or educational services. Despite the fact that contributions from both South African and foreign governments to the President’s Fund have amassed to approximately R1 billion, no further reparations have been made.

The failure of reparations is reflective of the restrictive mandate to which the TRC was bound. Scholarly critiques of the process recognise that the mandate severely curtailed the TRC’s ability to reflect on the daily reality of apartheid, and the structural violence that was imposed through laws and regulations. The impact of this mandate translated into both its identification of victims and its lack of enforcing power. The TRC could only make recommendations, it had no powers of implementation beyond the Urgent Interim Reparations. The failure then is more a reflection of the political context in which the TRC emerged – a struggle between the outgoing apartheid government and the incoming ANC-dominated democracy. Political compromise meant that attention was deflected from the structures which protected and even entrenched white supremacy in South Africa. The system of apartheid was never questioned. Beneficiaries of this system were notably absent from the TRC debates and forums. Moreover, the focus on actionable gross violations of human rights meant that those in positions of responsibility escaped from prosecution. As scholar and political commentator Mahmood Mamdani has asked “why was the leadership of apartheid not held responsible for it? The answer is political, not ethical.”  Where the TRC focused on both individual perpetrators and individual victims, it made invisible the structural violence of apartheid. The individualization detracted from the socio-economic and political drivers of violence. The continuing reluctance of the South African government to engage with and provide redress for apartheid is evidenced by their intentions to use the remainder of the President’s Fund for vague community development programmes rather than reparations.

From this neoliberal understanding of justice which dominates the international human rights agenda – that is a focus on individuals – ideas of social justice and transformation are silenced. In South Africa, the consequences continue to be felt today. Reparations is just one, albeit crucial, example. As a recent statement from Khulumani’s central organizing committee explains, “for Khulumani and for the country, reparations remain an unpaid debt. The delays have augmented the impacts of the unaddressed wounding of thousands of our people. We have an obligation going forward to finally help people to recover so that they can move forward into a life in which they can avail themselves of opportunities as they arise.” Until then, the struggle continues.

Hannah Goozee is a PhD Candidate in the Department of War Studies, researching the role of trauma in conflict and peace. Hannah holds an MA in International Conflict Studies with Distinction from King’s College London, and a First Class MA (Hons) in International Relations from the University of St Andrews.  During her MA she held a research position at the International Centre for Security Analysis (ICSA), and has also undertaken research for the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) in Brazil.

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

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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.