Peace and Security: Implications for Women

by Elizabeth Porter, Anuradha Mundkur

Overview

Offering a broad overview of what is being done in conflict-affected countries to advance women’s participation in peace processes, peace building, and decision making, this record examines the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on “Women, Peace, and Security” and presents evidence-based case studies from East Timor, Fiji, and Sri Lanka. As it explores ways to protect women and girls from violence, it suggests key actions that should be taken by development agencies, women’s nongovernmental organizations, and policymakers. The book focuses on the following fundamental aspects: a specifically feminist methodology, a priority on gender equality and women’s empowerment, and the broad notions of human security and peace building.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780702247873
Publisher:	University of Queensland Press
Publication date:	10/01/2012
Series:	Peace and Conflict Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	803 KB

About the Author

Elisabeth Porter is a professor of politics and international studies at the University of South Australia. She is the author of Feminist Ethics, Peacebuilding: Women in International Perspective, and Women and Moral Identity. Anuradha Mundkur is a lecturer and the associate director of the Gender Consortium Centre for Development Studies at Flinders University of South Australia.

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Peace and Security

Implications for women

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By Elisabeth Porter, Anuradha Mundkur

University of Queensland Press

Copyright © 2012 Elisabeth Porter & Anuradha Mundkur
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7022-4787-3

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CHAPTER 1

Peace and security for women

In this chapter, we build the case for why special attention to women's insecurities is justified. We begin by explaining how the context of international relations is altering. The changing nature of war, with a predominance of civil wars, affects men as well as women. Not only is the enormity of armed conflict significant, but so too is the relationship between conflict and poverty. Understanding a little about the context of global insecurities is crucial for grasping the significance of the chapter's second section, in which we explain the severity of gendered insecurities. The human tragedy of violent conflict is extensive, and everyone suffers deeply, but women are affected disproportionately by violence in multiple ways. In particular, they are subject to sexual violence, material hardship and shifting family responsibilities. Despite women's persistent informal peacebuilding, they are marginalised or excluded from formal peace processes. Finally, we outline a feminist response to peace and security. We offer arguments to explain why we give priority to gender equality and justice, culturally sensitive empowerment, human security and broad understandings of peacebuilding.

Global insecurities

The UNSCRs emerged in the context of a shifting geopolitical landscape and international relations. The end of the Cold War saw changes to superpower relations and to the nature of armed violence. Reasons for current violence vary. Conflicts in Kashmir, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continue from the post-colonial period. Other conflicts are armed insurrections against the state, such as in Sri Lanka, the Chechen Republic and Colombia. In Burundi, Somalia and Indonesia, local clan or ethnic leaders contest territory or resources. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are invasions of sovereign states in the name of a war against terrorism conducted by the United States and its allies. Violent conflicts within states 'now make up more than 95 per cent of armed conflicts' (Mack 2005, p. viii). Triggers to violent conflict are numerous; they include disputes over territory and resources in which western capitalists, hungry for diamonds, minerals, oil or a market for weapons, sometimes provide backing to insurgents or those who provoke such conflict. Other triggers are ethnic, religious and sectarian animosities. Many of these conflicts reflect long historical bitterness with deep religious, ethnic and cultural roots. They lead to insurgencies, tribal and clan rivalries and revenge killings. 'Control over lucrative and sometimes illicit trade, such as in drugs and arms' (UNRISD 2005, p. 210), drives other conflicts. State actors, while rarely admitting culpability, also are part of the landscape of conflict, in examples of external invasions and terrorist attacks. Peace itself seems to be more militarised, with soldiers acting as peacekeepers. Indeed, Cynthia Enloe (1993, p. 73) talks of the presence of 'militarised peace'.

What Mary Kaldor (2007) calls 'new wars' take place in contexts of the disintegration of old authoritarian states, in which distinctions between combatants and non-combatants are loosened, so that the exact end of war is hard to define. The war zone has changed from battlefields to ordinary living spaces of markets, villages, schools, churches, temples, mosques, trains and homes. The fighting method of aerial bombardment invariably hits civilians, and the use of the term 'collateral damage' to rationalise civilian deaths is a morally repugnant attempt at abstraction, depersonalising the cruelty of war. More typically, these new wars draw on the ease of gaining small arms and light weapons such as pistols, handguns, rifles and grenades; gangs, militias and paramilitary groups can readily conduct ambushes and raids, and children can use weapons easily. Civilians make up a substantial number of casualties of contemporary violent conflicts, with about ninety civilian deaths to every ten military losses (Kegley & Blanton 2010, p. 509). While 'the direct impact of violence falls primarily on young males ... women and children often suffer disproportionately from the indirect effects ... [W]omen and children are close to 80 per cent of refugees and those internally displaced' (World Bank 2011, p. 6).

The problem is huge. Including those countries that experienced war between 1987 and 2007, where war is defined as 'an armed conflict with at least 1,000 battle-related deaths in a given year, over the past 20 years' (Bastick, Grimm & Kunz 2007, p. 23), the list is shocking. In Africa, it includes Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, the DRC, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mozambique, the Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan and Uganda. In the Americas, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Peru experienced armed conflict. In Asia, degrees of conflict continue in Afghanistan, Burma/Myanmar, Cambodia, India, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Tajikistan. In Europe, armed conflict occurred (and continues in parts) in Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, Russia and Serbia (Kosovo). In the Middle East, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Kuwait, Lebanon, Turkey and Yemen experience violent conflict. Peace and conflict 2010 is a ledger that examines the legacies of wars and the prospects of rebuilding states (Hewitt, Wilkenfeld & Gurr 2010). Its authors show how, 'of the 39 different conflicts that became active in the last ten years, 31 were conflict recurrences' (2010, p. 1). The challenges of living in failed or failing states are enormous, with economic repercussions including costs often borne by neighbouring states, some of which are failing states themselves. What is disturbing is that, with the exception of Afghanistan, Iraq and Nepal, 'the twenty-five states with the highest risk of new failures are in Africa' (2010, p. 2).

In the global south, there is a direct relationship between conflict and poverty. Countries within the area 'have a low gross national income and rate low on the Human Development Index. The UN describes Africa, Asia (excluding Japan), the Caribbean, Central America, Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand) and South America as "developing regions"' (Valasek 2008, p. 20). For example, over three-quarters of Australia's major bilateral aid programs operate in countries that are experiencing, recovering from or vulnerable to conflict (AusAID 2002, p. 6). Many of these countries are fragile states, in which government and state structures lack the capacity to provide security, sound governance and economic growth. Conflict is a central reason for fragility: it reverses development gains and can cause poverty, which then increases the risk of provoking further violent conflict. 'Evidence shows that fragile states also generate substantial and complex social costs including conflict' (Anderson 2005, p. 2). Conflict and fragility affect national and regional security. Ian Anderson's research shows that when considering fragile states, 'leadership matters' (2005, p. 4). He draws attention to the political elite, while we draw attention to the significance of women's leadership as integral to nation-building because 'fragile states have high gender disparities' (AusAID 2007a, p. 23).

The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005) model offers indicators as ways to measure progress in addressing this relationship between conflict and poverty. It focuses on supporting country-led policies to attain growth, reduce poverty and promote the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It 'is most appropriate in contexts with capable, accountable and legitimate states. Where these conditions do not prevail, there has been a tendency within donors to work "around" conflict and fragility, rather than addressing them head-on' (DFID 2009, p. 3). In the following chapters, we see why greater attention needs to be given to fragile states so that building peaceful states becomes fundamental to donor responses. State-building is an integral part of peacebuilding because it develops the capacities, resources and legitimacy of state institutions.

Peaceful societies

After examining the nature of global insecurities, it is useful to outline briefly the nature of peaceful countries. The Global peace index (Institute for Economics and Peace 2009) defines 'peace' as Johann Galtung (1964, p. 2) defines 'negative peace', that is, as 'the absence of violence, absence of war'. Structures and institutions that help to resolve the root causes of conflicts begin to create 'positive peace', which is a long-term sustainable peace. Notions of positive peace imply how a society should be, which entails realising ideals of equality and inclusive, participatory and democratic structures with open, accountable government. 'Working towards these objectives opens up the field of peacebuilding far more widely, to include the promotion and encouragement of new forms of citizenship and political structures which will develop active democracies' (Pankhurst 1999, p. 6).

In 2010, the Global peace index registered New Zealand as the most peaceful country, followed by Iceland and Japan, with Pakistan, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq ranked as the least peaceful (Institute for Economics and Peace 2010). This index investigates drivers that influence the creation of peaceful societies. A summary of the 2010 findings provides a useful snapshot. Western Europe is the most peaceful region, with the majority of the region's countries ranking in the top twenty overall. The Asia-Pacific exhibits wide variation, with New Zealand, Japan and Australia peaceful, but there are significant differences in South-East Asia, with Taiwan, Vietnam and Indonesia in the top seventy, and security concerns with Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines. Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea are ranked the lowest in this region. War-ravaged Iraq is the lowest ranked, in addition to occupied Palestine/Israel and Lebanon. 'Sub-Saharan Africa is the region least at peace' (2010, p. 17). Clearly, these annual rankings change as internal and external drivers impact on security. One chief message of this index confirms our argument: that gender inequality is an important indicator of how well countries divide resources and opportunities among men and women, and thus gender equality enhances the possibility of enduring peace and security.

Gendered insecurities

Given this brief overview of global insecurities, what does it mean to talk of gendered insecurities? It means that armed conflict sometimes affects men and women in similar ways, in subjecting them to trauma, devastation and loss; and sometimes it affects women and men differently, in the consequences of war, in choices to fight or to build peace and in opportunities to be involved in peace processes. In conflict-affected countries, many men are warriors, resistance fighters, warlords, militia, paramilitaries, guerrilla fighters, rebels, tribal soldiers, mercenaries or trained military personnel. Some wars include disenfranchised youth (mainly boys) who become soldiers or are forced to be child soldiers. Those men who are not directly involved in fighting often make decisions about conflicts, including giving orders to kill, rape, plunder or destroy property. Particularly in rural or mountainous areas, older men are left behind with women, children, the ill and the disabled, and many people are reduced to a state of radical insecurity brought on by the devastation and consequences of war, including extreme poverty.

Certainly, some women and girls choose to be combatants or active supporters to resistance fighters or soldiers, while others are cajoled or forced to become soldiers or sex slaves attached to fighters. 'Women and girls have fought in armed conflicts in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, the DRC, East Timor, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Guatemala, Iraq, Lebanon, Mozambique, Namibia, Palestine, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Uganda' (Mazurana et al. 2005, p. 2). Other women have been (or continue to be) involved in liberation struggles in Colombia, the DRC, East Timor, El Salvador, Eritrea, Guatemala, Mozambique, Namibia, Palestine, Sierra Leone and Uganda. Girl soldiers are used particularly in the Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire, the DRC, Liberia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Uganda (Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers 2008). However, in most conflict-affected countries, women are the primary carers of children and adults who need care and thus bear the brunt of the destruction of crops, food supplies and community networks that result from armed conflict. There is ample evidence that, in sharing this responsibility for nurture, many women are willing to thrust aside, even temporarily, ethnic, tribal, clan, religious and sectarian differences that underlie conflicts in order to work together to ensure that everyday needs can be met. In visiting many conflict zones, Sanam Naraghi Anderlini (2000, p. 20) found that women often adopt strategies 'to take a unified stance on issues that affected everybody'.

In addition to family and community support, women also share the reality that in militarised cultures in which guns, uniforms, checkpoints and fear are normal, protection and aggressive masculinity overlap and extend from the battlefield into the home. Domestic violence often is extreme in militarised cultures, part of the prevailing 'structural violence' (Vlachová & Biason 2005). Increasingly in wars, many women are targeted for sexual assault. This is part of a deliberate strategy of ethnic cleansing, seeking to impregnate women from a different culture group, and 'is meant to humiliate, demoralise, and eventually destroy an ethnic group' (Wolff 2006, p. 103). It also is viewed as a natural spoil of war in which women are used, abused, assaulted and raped as part of attacks on villages (Anderson 2010). Shockingly, it is also part of the abhorrent behaviour of some security forces, including peacekeepers (Bastick, Grimm & Kunz 2007). Stories of sexual violence during war are horrifying. It is important to address issues of violence against women, while Srebrenica and Kosovo give horrible reminders of systematic killings of men and boys: gendered insecurities can affect anyone. However, women suffer disproportionately and in different ways.

Gendered insecurities include:

• economic insecurities with poor access to economic development and lack of land and property rights;

• sexual insecurities with sexualised violence;

• children born as a result of war rape;

• child abductions and trafficking;

• health insecurities with HIV/AIDS and lack of attention to specific health needs, particularly in childbirth;

• social insecurities with women-headed households, girl-headed households and orphans; and

• psychological insecurities with gender-based persecution that accompanies asylum status, trauma and gendered hardships faced as refugees, returnees and internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Landmines also continue to endanger lives, particularly those of women and children, who traditionally traverse long distances to collect firewood and water. In attending to these extensive concerns, the interdependence between gender inequality, women's access to justice and specific needs for security must be carefully analysed as part of a holistic approach to human security.

Specific attention to sexual violence is essential. A global overview that documents conflict-related sexual violence in fifty-one countries that have experienced war over the past twenty years in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe, including the Middle East, notes that 'armed conflict has involved sexual violence against women and girls, and also against men and boys' (Bastick, Grimm & Kunz 2007, p. 13). In 2009, sexual brutality was reported as severe in Burundi, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, the DRC, Liberia, Myanmar, Rwanda, North and South Kivu, Somalia and Timor-Leste (UNSC 2009a, pp. 2–3). Conflict-related sexual violence occurs at all stages of conflict – during peak times of violence, during population displacement and also during transitions to democracy. Sites of violence are many: homes, fields and forests where women collect firewood, beside creeks where they collect water, in detention or refugee camps and on military sites. Sexual assault is a routine part of a fighting culture, with women as strategic targets. Perpetrators of violence are wide-ranging, potentially from militia, paramilitary groups and official armed forces to peacekeepers and humanitarian workers. HIV/AIDS is spread when sexual violence is rampant. While all women potentially are targets, 'in some armed conflicts, certain people, such as single women, homosexuals, women heads of household and displaced women and children have been particularly vulnerable to sexual violence' (Bastick, Grimm & Kunz 2007, p. 14). In places where there has been a long history of resistance movements, such as in Northern Ireland, South Africa, Argentina and Timor-Leste, women who are part of movements or have known partners in these movements are vulnerable. The next chapter examines how to prevent violence and protect women and girls from such violence.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Peace and Security by Elisabeth Porter, Anuradha Mundkur. Copyright © 2012 Elisabeth Porter & Anuradha Mundkur. Excerpted by permission of University of Queensland Press.
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Table of Contents

Contents

Abbreviations,
Introduction,
Chapter 1 Peace and security for women,
Chapter 2 UN Security Council resolutions on 'women, peace and security',
Chapter 3 Protecting women and girls from violence, and preventing conflict,
Chapter 4 Ensuring gender perspectives in peacekeeping,
Chapter 5 Increasing participation of women in decision-making and peace processes,
Chapter 6 Gender-inclusive relief and recovery,
Chapter 7 Timor-Leste,
Chapter 8 Fiji,
Chapter 9 Sri Lanka,
Appendix,
Acknowledgements,
Endnotes,
Bibliography,
Index,