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The Forgotten Casualties: The Indirect Gendered Consequences of Explosive Violence on Civilian Populations

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by Miles Cameron Hunter

9 July 2019

One of thousands of Syria’s widows; Hanaa’s husband went missing before their son was even born. She now struggles to support him on her own. (Image credit: 2014 UNRWA Photo by Taghrid Mohammad)

Explosive violence is a feature of most contemporary armed conflicts. It comes in many forms: from mortars and airstrikes, to landmines and suicide bombings. Tragically, it is civilians who face the brunt. There is little sign of this trend abating: the casualty monitor run by Action on Armed Violence observed a 165% increase in civilian deaths as a result of explosive violence between 2011 and 2017.

The impact of explosive violence is far-reaching, triggering numerous indirect consequences beyond an initial blast; this affects everything from the provision of effective healthcare, to education and sanitation. However, this piece focuses on a less-discussed impact of explosive violence: the series of indirect gender-related consequences. Patriarchal societal norms and values in many war-torn regions often result in women being immensely disadvantaged. Meanwhile, the traditional impression that men are the chief actors in war is still overstated, frequently leading to the impact on women going unseen. These views persist even as explosive violence in modern war harms a growing number of women and children. Women regularly find themselves widowed in societies that repress their independence, raising families alone in poverty while often enduring limited access to health and after care services. Greater awareness regarding these gender-based issues is overdue.

For men, the consequences are often more self-evident. As a result, they tend to overshadow the subtler, but no less important, impact on women. The raw statistics suggest that men and boys are more likely to be harmed in an explosive incident than women, especially when looking at landmines or explosive remnants of war (ERWs). According to data from 2015, 86% of explosive incidents where the gender was known involved men. A main reason for this is societal norms and traditional gender roles that are often present in affected areas.

In many of the worst hit regions, such as Syria and Zimbabwe, it is commonplace for men to be the chief breadwinners for the family, while afflicted regions also tend to be more economically disadvantaged. As a result, occupations such as farming and scrap salvaging are notably at risk, with labourers (usually men) forced to work dangerous land to provide for their families.

But there are more indirect gendered-consequences. In societies where it is the norm for a man to provide, a maimed father has a knock-on effect on the family. Often, it is children, generally boys, who are pulled out of school to work instead, facing the same dangers from explosive ordnance. Women also suffer the cost.

Despite being more likely to suffer direct consequences of blasts, men are also in a more advantageous position to cope by receiving treatment and/or finding alternate employment. This is largely due to gender-based bias in many affected societies. Dr Sherry Wren, in association with Doctors Without Borders, has expressed concerns that medical treatment in conflict zones, such as those in Sub-Sharan Africa and the Middle East, is far less accessible to women. Data suggests that sixty-nine percent of surgeries between 2008 and 2014 were on men, leading to fears that women are under-represented in hospitals due to their second-class societal status. It is true that for direct violent trauma, such as gunshot wounds and explosive injuries, seventy percent of surgeries were performed on men. This is not surprising. However, the alarming figure is that even for indirect trauma, such as illness and disease, seventy-three percent of surgeries were performed on men. This is a stark inequality.

The key finding of this report is that women endure many long-term, and often overlooked, indirect consequences of explosive violence. In general, there is already an issue with long-term trauma in post-war states being neglected. However, for women this is exacerbated due to a second-class status in the patriarchal societies that make up the majority of modern conflict zones. Injured women are less likely to have access to aftercare services and generally face more stigma and marginalisation than men if disfigured; according to  UN research into gender-based perceptions of war survivors. There are also health complications unique to women. For instance, a blast can damage the female placenta, leading to direct or indirect complications in childbirth in future: indeed, this is one of the biggest killers of young women according to the WHO.

Women in Non-Western patriarchal societies also suffer from many indirect socio-economic consequences of explosive violence. Those widowed, or who have a husband incapacitated, face a plethora of struggles. They find themselves in a position where they must be chief breadwinner in cultures that frequently militate against women working, while also retaining the responsibility of raising children.

In Syria and Lebanon, fifty percent of families with a female head face food insecurity and are twice as likely to live in deprived informal settlements. Many women struggle to find work due to gender-based stigma. As a result, they risk being dragged into poverty and/or forced into exploitative means of income such as sex work or seeking early marriage for young girls. All of this can cause intense psychological scarring, which although not as immediately evident as physical injury, can be equally debilitating.

Even when women struggling in the aftermath of explosive violence do find conventional work there are harsh inequalities. In Lebanon, it is reported that women often work longer hours than men for just seventy-seven percent of what their male counterparts earn, while also having demanding maternal duties.

There are many more hardships facing women than those documented in this report. But its findings are demonstrative of clear gender-based issues persisting in civilian populations affected by explosive violence. The notion that men are the primary actors in war still prevails despite the ever-greater toll on women and children. Consequently, the plight of thousands of women affected by explosive incidence often goes unnoticed.  As awareness for their predicament grows, traditional assumptions need to evolve along with the changing nature of war.

Miles Hunter graduated from King’s College London with a BA in War Studies and an MA in Terrorism, Security and Society. He is currently a researcher with the charitable NGO Action on Armed Violence.

Out of Balance: A Review of Women’s Rights in Myanmar

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by Anna Plunkett

27 May 2019

Women Factory Workers Strike (The Myanmar Times, 2011)

Myanmar is a country that has sprung to global attention in the last few years, its seemingly self-led non-violent transition towards democracy was soon tarnished by the systematic ethnic cleansing of the country’s Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State. At the epicentre of these storms has been Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, nicknamed ‘the Lady’. The now State Counsellor had been the global symbol of modern non-violent, pro-democracy struggles from behind the bars of her house arrest. After her release in 2012 she won a landslide election to join the legislature as an MP for the National League of Democracy, a taste of the victory she would achieve three years later in the 2015 election. She soon achieved notice within Myanmar for her preference for traditional dress inspiring a resurgence in this simple but elegant style. However, since taking office she has failed to maintain this saint-like status, losing support both domestically and abroad.  Her fall from moral status symbol to a pariah of the diplomatic circles she was once the darling of provides a stark snapshot into the complexities facing women throughout Myanmar. Women in Myanmar are often portrayed as exotic and beautiful,  with striking images of long-necked tribes and thanaka painted faces used throughout the tourist industry. Yet their access to many leadership positions and even basic rights are fraught with much darker struggles.

Daw Suu was the symbol and leader of the pro-democracy struggle in Myanmar[1] since her arrival in the country in 1987. She gave inspiring speeches from outside the central hospital where she cared for her sick mother, the original reason for her return to the country after settling down with husband Michael Aris in Oxford. Since then, her face has been plastered on street signs, posters, postcards and matchboxes across Myanmar and internationally, despite domestic bans.[2]  In the wake of her rise within the political arena, and in response to the continuing conflicts within Myanmar’s borderlands, a plethora of women’s organisations jumped into existence.[3] Today, almost all ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) have dedicated women’s organisations or arms focused on the promotion of women’s rights, human rights and economic and social welfare. These groups, which have been fighting along almost all of Myanmar’s borderlands for autonomy from the state have been active since before Myanmar achieved independence.  The presence of such wars have isolated the communities in these regions from access to state services and international norms, something these women’s groups and branches focus on attempting to provide to the communities under EAO rule.  The mobilisation of women is not unique to the borderlands, with women’s rights groups forming within the capital and across the central zones. The power of these new women’s groups was seen during the women led factory strikes in 2015 and 2011 over worker protections within Chinese owned garment factories. Women have the capacity and are willing to mobilise around key issues that impact their lifestyles and livelihoods.

Women Fighters in Kachin (Adriene Ohanseian)

However, this organisation and activism is not fully mirrored in the positive progress of women’s rights within this transitioning state. Over the past four years a network of women’s organisations have organised “16 days of activism” to promote basic protections for women within Myanmar and advocate against domestic and other forms of violent abuse against women. An event that struggled to get official state approval in its first year, but has since gained standing with the Pa’O Ethnic Affairs Minister speaking at the event in 2018. The necessity of this activism became clear to one trainer when working within the local communities, by the end of a three-day training programme on domestic abuse almost all participants had identified and spoken about examples of physical or psychological abuse they had personally experienced.[4] Women’s rights continue to sit within a state of almost abject neglect, with the few ongoing state interventions failing to make the changes that are increasingly being demanded from below.

Another noted how domestic abuse was viewed as a “natural” part of relationships between men and women within many rural communities, this normalisation was attributed to the legacy of violence from the conflict within the borderlands and lack of education within many communities.[5]

The continuing war across Myanmar’s borderlands is compounding the struggle for women’s rights and equal opportunity. Multiple reports have identified rape as a weapon of war utilised by both the military and the EAOs.[6] More women are beginning to come forward, to seek justice and support, however services are stretched trying to provide adequate assistance within a justice system biased against victims. The justice system remains tied to the military dominated government, with cases often taking too much time and becoming so expensive that communities seek redress through alternative, often informal means. Many villages continue to rely upon village headmen or financial redress packages to provide justice over those of offered by the official justice mechanisms.

Despite this, the women of Myanmar are far from just victims within this uneven landscape. Women’s organisations continue to report and advocate on crimes and inequalities, even in the face of growing oppression from the state. In many of the conflict zones women act as the primary household earners, with men away at war or seriously injured by it. Where direct conflict has ended the persistent drugs epidemic in the borderlands, many women face being the sole providers for partners and sons with addictions. Women also play a critical and active role within Myanmar’s ethnic armed organisations, including roles as fighters within women’s units. Women continue to be active within their communities and fight to be heard and included.

Women’s activism within Myanmar’s conflict zones – both within the conflict effort and as primary earners – has materialised due to a belief that women pose less of a threat and are therefore less likely to be arrested. This belief has resulted in women taking on responsibilities traditionally reserved for men, such as village headmen. During the conflict in Karen State, the number of female village heads has surged, as the role became less desirable due to concerns over the violence such leaders face when interacting with the state:

“Village heads … are usually women, because men cannot survive the repeated beatings and punishments by the soldiers [whereas women are beaten and tortured somewhat less often]. Therefore, nobody wants to be a village head throughout the whole region.” Female Village Head

Yet once this danger has passed, women have found themselves removed from these roles in power and leadership. They are blocked from these key leadership positions which increase in desirability as the immediate threat has reduced with the signing of the National Ceasefire Agreement in 2015.

Women Representation in the Peace Process (USAID)

Women have fulfilled a breadth of roles within Myanmar’s war efforts, from fighters to negotiators and mediators to service providers and village heads. Yet as wars within the borderlands begin to reduce so have the roles open to women. Despite the opening of the national dialogues for peace, and the government more broadly under the National League for Democracy, women are failing to achieve representation.  A recent report released by USAID highlighted the underrepresentation of women within the peace process, with many fulfilling technical roles within the peace process but unable to engage with policies under negotiation.  Meanwhile women continue to be victims within Myanmar’s war zones and at home. Despite their organisation and promotion of their plights, reforms to make domestic abuse illegal have stalled in parliament.

Women may be visible within the political arena in Myanmar, and their roles may be varied, but they still lack access to basic rights and this is proving a chokehold not only for them, but for Myanmar’s development overall. Progress is beginning to develop but it is slow and proving to be increasingly ineffective in the wake of increasing demands for women’s rights, participation and activism. Though the state may be slow to respond there is no doubt about the veracity of womens activism in Myanmar, which if the state could harness could prove to be force of will needed to establish change.

Anna is a doctoral researcher in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. She received her BA in Politics and Economics from the University of York, before receiving a scholarship to continue her studies at York with an MA in Post-War Recovery. She was the recipient of the Guido Galli Award for her MA dissertation. Her primary interests include conflict and democracy at the sub-national level, understanding how minor conflicts impact democratic realisation within quasi-post conflict states. Her main area of focus is Burma’s ethnic borderlands and ongoing conflicts within the region. She has previously worked as a human rights researcher focusing on military impunity in Burma and has conducted work on evaluating Bosnia’s post-war recovery twenty years after the Dayton Peace Accords. You can follow her on Twitter @AnnaBPlunkett.

[1] Then Burma, the military SPDC government changed the name in 1989 though Burma was still widely used until the transfer to a civilian government in 2011

[2] This has been reported by ex-political prisoners who were arrested simply for having images of “The Lady” after the 8888 uprising.

[3] For example, see Women’s League of Burma, GEN and WON – all womens networks with large member organisations based on womens rights.

[4] Insight from field interview with women’s rights trainers, conducted by Author in 2018

[5] Testimonies given as part of research on Myanmar’s democratisation process as part of the author’s PhD research. Testimonies were collected by the author on multiple research trips between 2018-2019.

[6] See reports by Karen Human Rights Group and Kachin Women’s Association Thailand respectively: https://reliefweb.int/report/myanmar/suffering-silence-sexual-violence-against-women-southeast-myanmar-december-2018 https://kachinwomen.com/reports/

 

A Balancing Act? Women’s Participation in Indian Politics

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By Saawani Raje

17 May 2019

Indian Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman with military chiefs (Indian Express)

On 9 August 1942, Aruna Asaf Ali walked into a highly charged gathering of thousands of Indians at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Mumbai and unfurled the tricolour flag launching the ‘Quit India’ movement against British rule. A prominent political leader in the Indian nationalist movement, she later went on to become the first mayor of Delhi in 1958.

Female leadership of this kind was not without precedent in India. As early as 1925, Sarojini Naidu became the president of the Indian National Congress, the main nationalist party in India before and after independence. Since then, the number of women in leadership positions in Indian politics has only increased. Indira Gandhi became the first female Prime Minister of India in 1966 and the second democratically elected female leader in the world. Sonia Gandhi, President of the Congress Party from 1998 to 2017 was one of the most powerful women in India and led her party to power twice at the Centre in two general elections. Other prominent female figures include Jayalalitha Jayaram– the first female Opposition leader in India, Mayawati, the leader of the third-largest party in India in terms of vote share, and Mamata Banerjee, the only female Chief Minister in India today.

Significantly, both the Defence Minister and the External Affairs Minister in India today—Nirmala Sitharaman and Sushma Swaraj— are women, holding portfolios that have been traditionally male-dominated. While cause for celebration, these examples are the exceptions to the rule when it comes to female participation in politics and decision-making.

This piece explores the juxtaposition of women’s participation in politics in India—as voters and as political leaders. It argues that using examples of powerful women leaders to point to the success of female empowerment in India ignores more structural and systemic limitations women in politics face in India today.

Women as voters 

Women have played a key role as voters since the first election in India. With the introduction of Universal Adult Franchise, women were given equal voting rights to men since India became independent in 1947.  However, in a stunning manifestation of the entrenched patriarchy, many women, especially in North India, wanted to be registered on the electoral role as “wife of” or “daughter of” instead of under their own names. The electoral officials did not allow this and Ornit Shani estimates that out of a total of nearly 80 million potential women voters in independent India, nearly 2.8 million failed to disclose their names and therefore could not be included in electoral rolls.

Women’s participation as voters in the decades after Indian independence remained low—female voter turnout lagged behind male turnout by 11.3% in 1967. This gap began to narrow in the 1990s, falling to 8.4% in 2004 and further reducing to 4.4% between 2004 and 2009. The past election in 2014 saw the closing of this gender gap to its narrowest on record—only 1.8%. In fact, in half of all Indian states and union territories, the female turnout surpassed the male turnout. This trend was repeated in the recent state elections held between 2012 and 2018 where women voters surpassed the male turnout in twenty-three Indian states.

Women casting their vote in a recent election (LiveMint)

This has made female voters a significant voter block for the leading political parties in the run up to the elections—and women and women’s issues have started to come to the fore in election rhetoric. At a recent rally in Rajasthan, Congress President Rahul Gandhi said that his party would seek to appoint women as Chief Ministers in half the states it rules by 2024. Another example is the controversy surrounding Gandhi’s statement that the Prime Minister had “asked a woman to defend him”, referring to Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s speech in a parliamentary debate about the contentious Rafale deal. The BJP responded with alacrity. Prime Minister Modi immediately rebuked the Congress leader for his “insult to the women in the country,” while BJP President Amit Shah demanded that Gandhi apologise for the remark. This seems to reflect an increase in the power of women voters. Women are now a significant enough voting block for political parties to turn comments like these into a battleground for their rhetoric in the run-up to the election. In contrast however, women continue to be underrepresented in policymaking roles within politics.

Women as political leaders 

Women have occupied positions of power in Indian politics. Women made up almost five percent of elected representatives in the first Lok Sabha (lower house) in 1952 as compared to two percent in the US House of Representatives and three in the UK Parliament during the same period. However, over the next seven decades, women’s growth in policymaking roles has stagnated. Women make up only 11.2% of the members of the Lok Sabha after the 2014 elections[1] and only 9% in state legislatures. India ranks fifth in women’s political representation in parliament in South Asia, behind Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal.

There are many reasons for this underrepresentation. A significant factor is patriarchal attitudes towards female leadership in politics, where women politicians are often seen as fulfilling certain gender-specific roles. An exemplar of this is Indira Gandhi’s rise to the Congress party leadership—a move orchestrated by senior Congress leaders who saw Gandhi as a puppet willing to do their bidding. According to the Economic Survey 2018, other major obstacles faced by aspiring female representatives include domestic responsibilities, female illiteracy, financial disparity, lack of confidence and an increase in threats of violence.

An initiative to combat this disparity was implemented in 1993 as part of the 73rd amendment of the Indian constitution, whereby 33% of all seats in local self-government institutions were reserved for women. Since the enactment of this legislation, the representation of women in local administrations has increased to 44.2%. A study commissioned by the Poverty Action Lab showed that this increase in female representation heightened police responsiveness to crimes against women, improved children’s nutrition and education, improved male perceptions of female leaders, increased the aspirations of girls, and helped women get elected in subsequent elections.

In spite of this, deep-rooted structural problems remain. In 1996, the Women’s Reservation Bill was introduced which proposed to reserve 33% of the seats in the Lok Sabha for women. The bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha (upper house) in 2010 but lapsed in 2014 with the dissolution of Parliament. Passing this bill was also an election pledge of the current government but, five years later, there remains little sign of it becoming law. This bill has been left languishing for 22 years, and the representation of women therefore remains severely limited. The women voters turning out in large numbers actually have very few women to represent their issues and views in law-making bodies.

The political imbalance

Female representation in Indian politics thus remains conflicted and suffers from deep structural and systemic difficulties. The many examples of female leadership in Indian politics do tell a story of female empowerment—but celebrating this without looking deeper into existing disparities risks only half the story being told. To really address the gender disparity in Indian politics, the focus instead needs to turn to the representation of women as decision-makers and policymakers—the keepers of real political power in the world’s largest democracy.

Saawani is a PhD candidate at the King’s India Institute and a recipient of the King’s India Scholarship. Her PhD research is primarily a historical examination into civil-military decision-making during crises in independent India. After graduating from the University of Cambridge, she obtained an MA in South Asia and Global Security. She was previously a Research Associate at the Centre for Policy Research in Delhi, on the Oxford University Press Handbook on Indian Foreign Relations. While at King’s, she has been the Programme Manager for the FCO Diplomatic Academy South Asia Conference and has been teaching undergraduates at the Department of War Studies. Her wider research interests include diplomatic history, foreign policy, diplomacy and the study of contemporary conflicts. You can follow her on Twitter @saawaniraje.

Strife Series on United Nations Peacekeeping, Part IV – Lessons Through a Gender Lens: The Efforts and Failures of UNMISS

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By Caitlyn OFlaherty

UN peacekeepers control South Sudanese women and children before the distribution of emergency food supplies in a PoC site in Juba (Credit Image: Adriane Ohanesian/Reuters)

Shockingly gruesome violence has defined South Sudan since civil war broke out in 2013, only two years after it gained independence. Over 50,000 people have been killed since, including tens of thousands of civilians. Over 4 million have been displaced.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) was established in 2011 to foster development but has faced broader responsibilities. The evolution of UNMISS’ role presents an opportunity to understand the changing demands and challenges facing peacekeepers today. UNMISS grapples constantly with the difficulty of operationalizing its mandate to protect civilians—especially women. Its presence has been controversial but has brought the needs of and the need for women to the forefront of peacekeeping efforts.

Women and girls are disproportionately affected by violent conflict, and this civil war is no exception. One in four women in South Sudan experience some form of gender-based violence on a daily basis. Thousands of women have been raped by government and opposition forces.

Though women only represent three percent of soldiers and ten percent of police deployed to UN missions worldwide, the numbers are slightly higher in South Sudan. As of August 2017, four percent of UNMISS’ military forces—14 percent of police personnel and 26 percent of civilian personnel—were women. From inception to 2014, the mission was led by a woman, Hilde Johnson. Two women have been contingent commanders: Adzo Sowlitse, the first woman to command a Formed Police Unit, and Lt Col Katie Hislop, Commander of the UK Engineering Task Force.

UNMISS has grown to include 16,987 troops but still cannot  seem to control the chaotic growth of PoC camps. Over 200,000 internally displaced civilians are sheltering in UN bases turned into “Protection of Civilian” (PoC) sites. The mission’s quick growth has perhaps outstripped its capabilities, exacerbating anti-UN sentiment among civilians, and the strained relationship with government.

Although arguably innovative, the PoC sites cannot guarantee residents’ safety. Four PoC sites have been overrun or shelled, over 180 internally displaced persons have been killed during attacks on the sites, and hundreds of women have been raped on or near UN-protected territory. Doctors Without Borders found that three-quarters of those surveyed living in PoC sites had lost trust in UNMISS. Safety in PoC sites has been unreliable, and site management has demanded a majority of mission resources. This has prolonged the time women spend surviving—and raising families—in tents, in such persistent states of vulnerability.

Notably though, UNMISS was the first UN mission to deploy Women’s Protection Advisors across the country. UNMISS former gender adviser Major Bettina Stelzer emphasised women peacekeepers are able to access communities in ways men cannot. To capitalise on this, UN police train women leaders in community watch groups to gather sensitive information about sexual abuse in the camps. Along with serving as mentors and role models, it is critical to understand how women peacekeepers can provide necessary support and open up channels of communication that could inform UNMISS activities.

There remains a deficient connection between UNMISS and the community. This was placed in stark relief during an attack in July 2016.  Over 300 people were killed in the capital city, Juba, with foreigners and locals assaulted alike. The UN compound, less than a mile away, refused to respond. Peacekeepers abandoned posts, according to the UN’s fact-finding mission. Retired Major General Patrick Cammaert, who led the investigation, concluded that troops were risk-averse and inward-looking—regularly staying in camp rather than going out on foot patrols.

Another incident exemplifying deficiencies of response and diffusion of accountability came in February 2018, when 46 UNMISS peacekeepers were recalled following allegations of sexual exploitation of sheltering women. Without prosecutory mechanisms, the UN cannot effectively prevent or punish misconduct. Complaints of sexual assault by government soldiers in or near camps are also common. Growing resentment among residents towards the UN mission is evidence of slow and inefficient action by authorities. A small, wooden “jail” has been established in a PoC in Malakal to hold alleged rapists awaiting investigations that may never occur.

Even without systematic reforms to the Department of Peacekeeping, creative efforts to make environments safer could mitigate threats. These should include the reduction of masculine military tactics and the expansion of desecuritised peacekeeping—strategies like digging nearby wells to prevent unguarded walks to distant water or developing 911 numbers for civilians and providing cell phones. These must also include purposeful recruitment of women into peacemaking, -keeping, and -building efforts.

In terms of policy, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 calls for more women involved in peace agreements and peacekeeping operations. However, according to a 2015 review, fewer than three percent of signatories to peace agreements are women, and women are frequently kept out of high-level negotiations. Judging from the consistently low levels of participating women, the UN has not taken seriously recommendations to incentivise the appointment of more female troops.

Embedded in these simple suggestions is a danger of further burdening women by essentialising them as inherently peaceful. Such justification for women’s participation is laden with specific expectations rather than based in their fundamental right to participate.

Evidence shows that security efforts are more successful when women are included in peace processes. Involvement of women’s organisations makes peace agreements 64 percent less likely to fail. Peace agreements on the African continent which failed to maintain peace for even a single year—in Uganda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Sudan—all had in common a complete lack of women at the negotiating table.

The UN should focus on protection strategies for women made vulnerable in PoC sites. PoC sites are, as evidenced by the number of IDPs who continue to voluntarily reside within them, an important, if imperfect, tool. Along with strengthening practical protections for civilians, UNMISS should continuously increase involvement of female troops, whose nuanced perspectives are a necessary part of peacekeeping. Their unique access will allow for the equally necessary elevation of the experiences of local women, whose participation, safety, and empowerment are critical to the sustainability of peace.

 

Caitlyn OFlaherty is an M.A. candidate in Ethics Peace and Global Affairs at American University. Her particular research interests center on issues of migration, displacement, and human security. She is a freelance journalist and a member of the administrative support team for the Out of Eden Walk Project. You can follow her on Twitter @COFlaherty44

Image Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/09/failed-peacekeepers-sudan-160908091206526.html

Frustrating anniversaries: International Women's Day and international action on women, peace, and security

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By Melissa Guinan:

Radhika Coomaraswamy, lead author of the Global Study on the Implementation of UNSCR 1325
Radhika Coomaraswamy, lead author of the Global Study on the Implementation of UNSCR 1325

Each year around March 8, International Women’s Day, op-ed pages and Twitter streams burst with celebrations of women’s achievements, calls to action on women’s rights and gender equality. This year, speeches and reports gave a nod to two important anniversaries in 2015: the twentieth anniversary of the 4th World Conference on Women and Beijing Platform for Action, and the fifteenth anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325), the international agreements that formed the basis of work in gender and security policy. But on a day of rhetoric about the great strides made for women’s rights, we need to take a moment to examine where rhetoric takes the place of action.

In 1995, the 4th World Conference on Women held brought the attention of international leaders to the impact of conflict on women. The resulting Beijing Platform for Action includes a section which affirms that “violations of the human rights of women in situations of armed conflict are violations of the fundamental principles of international human rights and humanitarian law” among an ambitious set of goals on education, poverty, health, and political power. This article will focus on the peace and security aspects of the Platform for Action, which were affirmed with the passage of UNSCR 1325 in 2000. This resolution aimed to mitigate the effects of conflict on women and promote their inclusion in all efforts in peace and security. In the mid-2000s, some governments, often after tireless lobbying from civil society groups, began creating National Action Plans (NAPs) as a way to unify national efforts on women, peace, and security issues.

By the late 2000s it was clear that the diplomatic efforts and NAPs lacked energetic implementation, and the Security Council passed six additional resolutions on women, peace, and security (1820, 1888, 1889, 1960, 2106, 2122). Activists worried that each subsequent resolution, accompanied by little substantive change, were only diluting international commitments. They had succeeded in getting the topic on agendas, but was that enough?

Despite many improvements, and the brave work of civil society and involved policymakers, the situation for women around the world falls way behind the hopes of the international community. Women represent less than 4% of the participants in peace negotiations.[1] Twenty-two years after the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, one in three women experience physical or sexual violence, mostly from an intimate partner.[2] Women are underrepresented in the halls of power in security policy and according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, hold only 21.8% of parliamentary seats worldwide.

Activists and gender champions – influential policy makers who understand and promote the nexus between gender equality and safe, thriving societies – work tirelessly in a system where issues of gender equality often remain at the margins, as a paragraph in an international agreement, or a diplomatic statement. Each milestone comes about in an environment where, too often, gender concerns remain “ad hoc, dependent of a few committed individuals or small-scale units. Women are still an afterthought in many instances… the feel-good project to make donors and diplomats look good. A box to be ticked, a meeting to be had, a paragraph to be written.”[3]

Typically, anniversaries are a moment to celebrate or remember. But in this year, advocates and policy makers are holding up past commitments and demanding more. Recently, Executive Director of UN Women Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka wrote:

“Looking today at the slow and patchy progress towards equality, it seems that we were madly ambitious to expect to wipe out in 20 years a regime of gender inequality and outright oppression that had lasted in some cases for thousands of years. Then again – was it really so much to ask? What sort of world is it that condemns half its population to second-class status at best and outright slavery at worst? How much would it really cost to unlock the potential of the world’s women? And how much could have been gained! If world leaders really saw the Beijing Platform for Action as an investment in their countries’ future, why didn’t they follow through?”

Frustration at the inefficacy of efforts for gender quality is logical: international actors are treating at the margins a stated goal that can only be achieved by comprehensive and societal level change. Six structural barriers are impeding arguments and efforts for gender equality, particularly in peace and security issues:

First, it is much easier to give lip service to women’s issues as a public diplomacy project than it is to take action. Governments and policymakers can point to UN resolutions, national action plans, and the diplomatese of “reaffirming,” “recognizing the need,” and “welcoming” action without ever spending the resources and political capital – and while avoiding the inconvenient domestic realities of persistent gender inequality and violence against women.

Second, such a pervasive inequality requires a comprehensive solution, a challenge in any sphere of the policy world. The issues around gender by definition touch on almost everything in society, from sexual and gender based violence to media representation, and from girls’ education to the number of female CEOs. Even in the security field, UNSR 1325 covers the wide range of prevention, protection, participation, and relief and recovery. While the creation of gender advisor positions and pinpointed efforts like the UK’s Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative are impressive initial efforts, governments are challenged to face broad policy questions with comprehensive answers.

Third, funding challenges plague good faith efforts. According to the OECD Development Assistance Committee’s March 2015 report on UNSCR 1325 implementation, with the exception of the Netherlands, no National Action Plans include commitments to dedicated budget allocations. NATO’s action on UNSCR 1325, which it has stated is a priority, relies on member state donations in a political and fiscal environment in which most allies fail to meet defence spending goals of 2% of GDP. If funding remains ad hoc throughout governments and institutions, so too will action.

Fourth, empirical data lags behind diplomatic efforts. There is growing recognition that “rather than an exercise in political correctness, the integration of gender issues is being recognised as a key to operational effectiveness, local ownership and strengthened oversight,”[4] but only a small collection of quantitative studies exist to help convince sceptics. The academic literature on the issue “remains on the margins of the international security studies field and suffers from the lack of good empirical data” whether because much of the material is “anecdotal and lacks a systemic and analytical focus” or because existing data is not disaggregated by gender.[5] Researchers are actively addressing this problem, but improved data collection and analysis necessarily will take years.

Fifth, gender inequality persists even within societies and institutions working globally for equality. Women are underrepresented at almost all levels of domestic and international security policy making, a crisis of participation felt even more severely by women from the developing world, minority women, and the LGBTQI community. Activists and policy makers face a paradox of how to work within the current foreign policy and national security system to affect change, while understanding that a truly comprehensive approach to gender equality might just transform how policy making is conducted.

Finally, there is no enforcement mechanism to make nations act on any of their commitments for gender equality. Member states are bound to UNSCR 1325 only by Article 25 of the UN Charter, which says that states need to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council. In the peace and security field, normative goals like gender equality will fall behind geostrategic concerns and security crises in a battle for attention, resources, and political capital.

Because of these six structural barriers, policymakers mark another anniversary having made great gains in getting women, peace and security issues on the agenda, but with much still to be done. This year they will again revisit the 1995 and 2000 agreements, with an implementation report on the Beijing Platform for Action released in December 2014 and an upcoming High Level Review to assess implementation of UNSCR 1325. At the September 2014 launch of a Global Study project to support the High Level Review, UN Women’s Mlambo-Ngcuka was hopeful but realistic, stating that “too often, policy gains, rather than real impact, has been our indicator of success. This must change. We must take stock, and ensure that plans are action-oriented and adequately funded. Simply put, we need more results for women and girls.”

Similarly, the key challenge from the frustrating anniversaries of 2015 will be to the international community to decide if it is truly committed to the cause of women and girls and to translate a diplomatically invested norm into real global change. Faced with structural and societal barriers, any action will require significant political investment. As Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström said at a March 3 speech on UNSCR 1325, “ultimately, what it takes is political will. No matter how many documents we sign. If the will to act is not there, we will not move forward.”

Melissa Guinan is a 2014-2015 Fulbright-Schuman Scholar currently in residence at the Institute for European Studies at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, in Belgium. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame (USA), and former program officer at The Chicago Council on Global affairs, she is a member of Women in International Security, Young Professionals in Foreign Policy, and Women in War and International Politics (WIWIP) based out of King’s College London. You can follow her on Twitter @MelissaGuinan.

NOTES

[1] GIZ, “Promoting Women’s Participation in Peace Negotiations and Peace Processes” (2014) http://www.genderingermandevelopment.net/files/images/Tool%20Kit%20Promoting%20Women%27s%20Participation%20in%20Peace%20Negotiations%20and%20Peace%20Processes.pdf

[2] World Health Organization, “Global and Regional Estimates of Violence against Women” (Geneva, undated) http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/85239/1/9789241564625_eng.pdf

[3] Sanam Anderlini. Women Building Peace: What They Do, Why It Matters (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Pub, 2007), 230.

[4] Kristin Valasek, “Security Sector Reform and Gender” (Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2008). http://www.osce.org/odihr/30655?download=true

[5] Kathleen Kuehnast, Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, and Helga Hernes, eds. Women and War: Power and Protection in the 21st Century (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2011), 2-6.