The Unreported War: Tackling Denialism and Social Stigma towards Victims of Armed Conflict-Related Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-168
Author(s):  
Ropafadzo Maphosa
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Social Stigma ◽  
Rape Myths ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Sexual Crimes ◽  
Gender Based

In addressing the United Nations Security Council at its 7938th meeting, the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, said that the social stigma attached to sexual violence is integral to the logic of using sexual violence as a tactic, a method of war or even torture. The perpetrators of sexual crimes understand that sexual violence attacks one’s individual and collective identity and ostracises survivors, thus untying the strings of family and kinship that hold the very fabric of communities together. As a result, survivors of gender-based and sexual violence often find it difficult to cope with its social repercussions. This article will pursue a detailed discussion pertaining to the severe stigma suffered by survivors of conflict-related sexual violence and how this issue is not adequately addressed in international law. The risk faced by survivors is threefold: first by the action of the perpetrator, then by the reaction of society through stereotypical and patriarchal attitudes, and finally by the courts, which often are not only unresponsive but also perpetuate negative social norms and rape myths leading to double persecution. Due to a lack of evidence and other factors, such as patriarchy and social inequalities, the stigma associated with conflict-related sexual violence is manifested in court rooms through various rape myths about its survivors. Sexual violence is a gendered phenomenon, in that it is often linked to, and stems from, harmful social and traditional practices relating to perceptions of gender and power dynamics surrounding them. In times of conflict, prevalent power dynamics, and the practices linked to them, can be further exacerbated leading to a higher prevalence of sexual violence. Therefore, the core argument advanced in this article is the necessity of combatting stigma and rape myths, and to promote the reporting of sexual crimes by and access to justice for survivors.

scholarly journals International Law, COVID-19 and Feminist Engagement with the United Nations Security Council: The End of the Affair?

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-328
Author(s):  
Catherine O’Rourke
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Seminal Contribution ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Gender Based

AbstractThe gendered implications of COVID-19, in particular in terms of gender-based violence and the gendered division of care work, have secured some prominence, and ignited discussion about prospects for a ‘feminist recovery’. In international law terms, feminist calls for a response to the pandemic have privileged the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), conditioned—I argue—by two decades of the pursuit of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda through the UNSC. The deficiencies of the UNSC response, as characterised by the Resolution 2532 adopted to address the pandemic, manifest yet again the identified deficiencies of the WPS agenda at the UNSC, namely fragmentation, securitisation, efficacy and legitimacy. What Resolution 2532 does bring, however, is new clarity about the underlying reasons for the repeated and enduring nature of these deficiencies at the UNSC. Specifically, the COVID-19 ‘crisis’ is powerful in exposing the deficiencies of the crisis framework in which the UNSC operates. My reflections draw on insights from Hilary Charlesworth’s seminal contribution ‘International Law: A Discipline of Crisis’ to argue that, instead of conceding the ‘crisis’ framework to the pandemic by prioritising the UNSC, a ‘feminist recovery’ must instead follow Charlesworth’s exhortation to refocus on an international law of the everyday.

Advancing the Agenda of the Confederation of Trade Unions on the Prevention of Sexual Violence in the World of Work in Indonesia

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Atnike Nova Sigiro
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
The World ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Set Up

<p>This article was formulated based on interviews with 5 (five) trade union confederations from a number of confederations in Indonesia, namely: Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Nasional (KSPN), Konfederasi Sarikat Buruh Muslimin Indonesia (KSarbumusi), Konfederasi Serikat Buruh Seluruh Indonesia (KSBSI), Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Indonesia (KSPI), and Konfederasi Kongres Aliansi Serikat Buruh Indonesia (KKASBI). This article seeks to explore the efforts made by the trade union confederation in promoting gender equality - specifically in advancing the agenda for the prevention and elimination of sexual violence in the world of work. This article was compiled based on research with a qualitative approach, with data collection methods through interviews and literature studies. The results of this study found that the confederations interviewed had already set up internal structures that have specific functions on issues related to gender equality, gender-based violence, and women’s empowerment; although still limited and on ad-hoc basis. This research also finds that the role of the trade union confederation is particularly prominent in advocating policies related to sexual violence and gender-based violence in the world of work, such as advocating the Bill on the Elimination of Sexual Violence, and the ratification of the ILO Convention No. 190 on Violence and Harassment.</p>

scholarly journals The Comparative Analysis of Sexual Violence and Harassment at the piloting Universities of Cyprus and Lithuania

2021 ◽  
Vol 92 ◽  
pp. 90-117
Author(s):  
Virginija Šidlauskienė ◽  
Rasa Pocevičienė
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Focus Group ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Attitudes And Beliefs ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
University Environment ◽  
University Teachers ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Gender Based

The sociocultural contexts of higher education institutions form the background for gender-based violence in professional structures and environment of academia. The article presents the comparative analysis of sexual violence and the reasons for its (non-)disclosure at the universities in Lithuania and Cyprus. The findings of focus group interviews conducted within the framework of the Ending Sexual Harassment and Violence in Third Level Education (ESHTE) project, co-funded by the European Union, have been summarized in the present research. The focus group participants from each partner university involved university teachers, administrative staff, counselors and university students. The research was conducted during a 3-month period between 2017 and 2018. The main aim was to investigate university staffs’ and students’ experiences in the disclosures of the cases of sexual violence and harassment (SVH) in university environment and campus, as well as their awareness of  existing procedures and policies in handling the cases of SVH. Their personal experiences, attitudes and beliefs of SVH, as well as any suggestions they have towards the improvement of disclosures of SVH are discussed in the article.

scholarly journals Punishing Survivors and Criminalizing Survivorship: A Feminist Intersectional Approach to Migrant Justice in the Crimmigration System

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (14) ◽  
pp. 67-89
Author(s):  
Salina Abji
Keyword(s):  
Women Survivors ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Analytical Strategy ◽  
Migrant Populations ◽  
The Us ◽  
Canadian Context ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender

Scholars have identified crimmigration – or the criminalization of “irregular” migration in law – as a key issue affecting migrant access to justice in contemporary immigrant-receiving societies. Yet the gendered and racialized implications of crimmigration for diverse migrant populations remains underdeveloped in this literature. This study advances a feminist intersectional approach to crimmigration and migrant justice in Canada. I add to recent research showing how punitive immigration controls disproportionately affect racialized men from the global south, constituting what Golash-Boza and Hondagneu-Sotelo have called a “gendered racial removal program” (2013). In my study, I shift analytical attention to consider the effects of the contemporary crimmigration system on migrant women survivors of gender-based violence. While such cases constitute a small sub-group within a larger population of migrants in detention, nevertheless scholarly attention to this group can expose the multiple axes along which state power is enacted – an analytical strategy that foundational scholars like Crenshaw (1991) used to theorize “structural intersectionality” in the US. In focusing on crimmigration in the Canadian context, I draw attention to the growing nexus between migration, security, and gender-based violence that has emerged alongside other processes of crimmigration. I then provide a case analysis of the 2013 death while in custody of Lucía Dominga Vega Jiménez, an “undocumented” migrant woman from Mexico. My analysis illustrates how migrant women’s strategies to survive gender-based violence are re-cast as grounds for their detention and removal, constituting what I argue is a criminalization of survivorship.The research overall demonstrates the centrality of gendered and racialized structural violence in crimmigration processes by challenging more universalist approaches to migrant justice.

scholarly journals Commentary: Women’s Empowerment and Addressing Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in the DRC

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 44-47
Author(s):  
Eileen Alma
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
State Actors ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
National Police

In the last two years, ethnically motivated sexual and gender-based violence rose in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a country marked with ethnic-based tensions and conflict over the control of its extractive industries over decades. According to the 2018 Report of the United Nations Secretary General to the United Nations, sexualized violence cases emerged and spread in several provinces in 2017 with at least 804 cases of conflict-related sexual violence in this period, affecting 507 women, 265 girls, 30 men and 2 boys. Despite progress by the international community actors to end these abhorrent practices, this marks a significant increase from the previous year and the delay in national elections has exacerbated conflict. Both non-state actors and state actors are identified perpetrators of sexual violence, including the Congolese National Police.

scholarly journals Effectiveness of the Communities Care programme on change in social norms associated with gender-based violence (GBV) with residents in intervention compared with control districts in Mogadishu, Somalia

BMJ Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. e023819 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Glass ◽  
Nancy Perrin ◽  
Mendy Marsh ◽  
Amber Clough ◽  
Amelie Desgroppes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Effect Size ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Care Programme ◽  
Provision Of Services ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Control ◽  
Intervention District

ObjectiveDetermine the effectiveness of the Communities Care programme (CCP) on change in harmful social norms associated with gender-based violence (GBV) and confidence in provision of services with residents in intervention compared with control district. We hypothesised that residents in the intervention district would report a decrease in support for harmful social norms and increase in confidence in services in comparison with control district.SettingThe study was conducted in Mogadishu, Somalia.ParticipantsIn the intervention district, 192 community members (50% women) completed baseline surveys with 163 (84.9%) retained at endline. In the control district, 195 community members (50% women) completed baseline surveys with 167 (85.6%) retained at endline.InterventionCCP uses facilitated dialogues with community members to catalyse GBV prevention actions and provides training to diverse sectors to strengthen response services for GBV survivors.ResultsResidents in the intervention district had significantly greater improvement in change in social norms: (1) response to sexual violence (b=−0.214, p=0.041); (2) protecting family honour (b=−0.558, p<0.001); and (3) husband’s right to use violence (b=−0.309, p=0.003) compared with control district participants. The greatest change was seen in the norm of ‘protecting family honour’ with a Cohen’s d effect size (ES) of 0.70, followed by the norm ‘husband’s right to use violence’ (ES=0.38), and then the norm of ‘response to sexual violence’ (ES=0.28). Residents in intervention district had a significantly greater increase in confidence in provision of GBV services across diverse sectors than the control district (b=0.318, p<0.001) with an associated effect size of 0.67. There were no significant differences between residents in intervention and control districts on change in personal beliefs on the norms.ConclusionThe evaluation showed the promise of CCP in changing harmful social norms associated with GBV and increasing confidence in provision of services in a complex humanitarian setting.

Accountability for Sexual and Gender-based Violence During Mass Repression and in Conflict

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-324
Author(s):  
Daniela Kravetz
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
National Courts ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Domestic Level

Abstract This article examines how national courts in Argentina and Guatemala are applying the international criminal law framework to address sexual violence perpetrated during mass repression and in conflict. It focuses on the emerging domestic jurisprudence in both countries and explores the challenges to prosecuting sexual and gender-based violence at the domestic level and the lessons learned from these experiences.

“IT'S TOO MUCH!”: VICTIMS OF GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE ENCOUNTER THE MOROCCAN STATE

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Katja Žvan Elliott
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
The State ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Proper Training ◽  
State Agents ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Set Up

AbstractBy using the narrative approach and linking it to feminist research ethics and critical race methodology, this article seeks to understand how non-literacy and poverty hinder low-income women's access to justice and how these women experience the Moroccan state. The state here acts as an oppressive and marginalizing entity in women's lives, but also offers the potential for empowerment. This ethnographic study tells the stories of three victims of gender-based violence to demonstrate that the state needs to (1) set up an efficient and responsive infrastructure for those lacking know-how and money; (2) institute proper training of state agents for implementation of laws and to prevent them from acting on personal opinions and attitudes with regard to women's rights; and (3) strengthen procedures so that state agents can respond expeditiously to the needs and grievances of citizens.

scholarly journals Globalizing Justice, Homogenizing Sexual Violence: The Legacy of the ICTY and ICTR in terms of Sexual Violence

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 214-219
Author(s):  
Kelly-Jo Bluen
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The One

In their contribution to the AJIL Symposium, Robinson and MacNeil remark that a prolific legacy of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is that “it is now commonsense that rape is and must be a war crime.” This line distills the complexity of the legacies of the tribunals regarding sexual and gender-based violence. On the one hand, it articulates the critical role of the tribunals in cementing the idea that sexual violence, hitherto largely relegated to indifference in international criminal law and policy frameworks, is worthy of international attention. Simultaneously, it encapsulates the ways in which the tribunals’ jurisprudence has been received globally to narrate a narrow conception of conflict-related sexual violence as a “weapon of war” or committed as part of “strategic” conflict-related goals. In fact, there is little that constitutes common sense about sexual violence in conflict, nor is it always, or even most predominantly, committed as a war crime, crime against humanity,or in pursuit of genocide as envisaged by international criminal law. Various studies suggest that sexual violence in war takes many forms and causalities with differentiation across and within conflict contexts.

scholarly journals Work-related mobility and experiences of gender-based violence among female sex workers in Iringa, Tanzania: a cross-sectional analysis of baseline data from Project Shikamana

BMJ Open ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. e022621 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoé Mistrale Hendrickson ◽  
Anna M Leddy ◽  
Noya Galai ◽  
Jessie K Mbwambo ◽  
Samuel Likindikoki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Relative Risk ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Female Sex Workers ◽  
Recent Experience ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Gender Based

ObjectivesTo examine how work-related mobility among female sex workers (FSWs) is associated with gender-based violence (GBV) in Iringa, Tanzania.DesignCross-sectional analyses were conducted on baseline data gathered between October 2015 and April 2016 from FSWs participating in Project Shikamana, a community empowerment-based combination HIV prevention intervention.SettingParticipants were recruited for the baseline study using venue-based time-location sampling in two communities in Iringa, Tanzania.ParticipantsFSWs were eligible for participation if they were 18 years or older and had exchanged sex for money within the past month. Four-hundred ninety-six FSWs participated in the baseline survey.Primary and secondary outcome measuresAny recent experience of GBV was examined by recent work-related mobility among FSWs. Any recent experience of GBV was also disaggregated by severity for analyses. All bivariate and multivariate binary and multinomial logistic regressions adjusted for intraclass correlations among women recruited from the same venues.ResultsForty per cent of participants experienced recent physical or sexual violence, and 30% recently experienced severe physical or sexual violence. Thirty-three per cent of participants recently exchanged sex for money outside of their district or region, and 12% were both intraregionally and inter-regionally mobile for sex work. Intraregionally and inter-regionally mobile FSWs had 1.9 times greater odds of reporting recent GBV (adjusted OR: 1.89; 95% CI: 1.06 to 3.38; p=0.031) compared with non-mobile FSWs and a 2.5 times higher relative risk for recent experience of severe GBV relative to no recent GBV (relative risk ratio: 2.51; 95% CI: 1.33 to 4.74; p=0.005).ConclusionsMobility for sex work may increase FSWs’ exposure to GBV, particularly more severe GBV. The vulnerability of mobile FSWs to violence, particularly severe forms, demands inclusive services that are accessible to mobile FSWs.

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