Preventing Violence Against

Women and Gender Inequality

in Peacekeeping

c o u r s e au t h o r

AnnJanette Rosga, Ph.D.

i n a s s o c i at i o n w i t h

Megan Bastick and Anja Ebnöther

Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF)

S e r i e s e d i to r

Harvey J. Langholtz, Ph.D.

Preventing Violence Against
Women and Gender Inequality
in Peacekeeping

c o u r s e au t h o r

AnnJanette Rosga, Ph.D.

i n a s s o c i at i o n w i t h

Megan Bastick and Anja Ebnöther

Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF)

S e r i e s e d i to r

Harvey J. Langholtz, Ph.D.

 Preventing Violence Against
Women and Gender Inequality
in Peacekeeping

Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii

Method of Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

LESSON 1: INTRODUCTION TO SCR 1325 AND THE PARADOX OF.

THE “WOMEN = PEACE” EQUATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.2 Scope and Roots of Violence Against Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.3 Women, Peace, and the History of SCR 1325 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.4 The Paradox of Identity (or the Trouble with Suggesting
© 2010 Peace Operations Training Institute. All rights reserved. Women = Peace). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Peace Operations Training Institute 1.5 Implementing SCR 1325. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

1309 Jamestown Road, Suite 202 1.6 Conclusion: Re-Thinking what “Gender Mainstreaming” and
Williamsburg, VA 23185 USA
SCR 1325 Require. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
www.peaceopstraining.org

First edition: March 2010 LESSON 2: GENDER: DEFINITIONS AND THEORIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Cover: UN Photo #149571 by Fred Noy
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The material contained herein does not necessarily reflect the views of the Peace Operations Training Institute (POTI), the 2.2 Which are You? Woman? Man? Neither? Both?
Course Author(s), or any United Nations organs or affiliated organizations. The Peace Operations Training Institute is an When Did You First Know and How? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
international not-for-profit NGO registered as a 501(c)(3) with the Internal Revenue Service of the United States of America.
The Peace Operations Training Institute is a separate legal entity from the United Nations. Although every effort has been 2.3 Differences between “Sex” and “Gender” and Some Other Key Terms. . . 43
made to verify the contents of this course, the Peace Operations Training Institute and the Course Author(s) disclaim any and
2.4 “Policing” Sex/Gender: How Sex-Gender Relations Persist . . . . . . . . . . . 48
all responsibility for facts and opinions contained in the text, which have been assimilated largely from open media and other
independent sources. This course was written to be a pedagogical and teaching document, consistent with existing UN policy 2.5 How Claims of “Difference” are Related to Inequality and Violence . . . . . 50
and doctrine, but this course does not establish or promulgate doctrine. Only officially vetted and approved UN documents may
establish or promulgate UN policy or doctrine. Information with diametrically opposing views is sometimes provided on given
2.6 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
topics, in order to stimulate scholarly interest, and is in keeping with the norms of pure and free academic pursuit.
LESSON 3: INEQUALITY: DISTINCTION VERSUS DISCRIMINATION –.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.1 Introduction: When is Sex Relevant?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.2 Distinction versus Discrimination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.3 Equality versus Sameness: “The Dilemma of Difference”. . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.4 Respecting Local Tradition versus Promoting Gender Equality:
When Values Seem to Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.5 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
LESSON 4: VIOLENCE: DEFINITIONS AND THEORIES. . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.2 Defining Violence: Why Definitions of Violence that go Beyond
the Obvious are Important. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.3 Explaining Violence: Definitions and Causes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.4 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
LESSON 5: culture versus rights?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.1 Introduction: Cultural Relativism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.2 When is a Cultural Practice “Violent”?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.3 When is a Violent Practice “Cultural”?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.4 Cultural Rights, “the West” and “the Rest”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.5 Cultural Relativism’s Limits: The Ethics and Politics of Intervention. . . . 110
5.6 Conclusion: Applying These Lessons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
LESSON 6: women’s rights are human rights. . . . . . . . . . . . 117
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
6.2 Different Feminist Approaches to Violence Against Women and
Women’s Human Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
6.3 History of Violence Against Women in International Human Rights . . . . 123
6.4 Ending Impunity for Crimes of Sexual Violence During
Armed Conflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
6.5 Conclusion: Old and New Challenges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
LESSON 7: SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND EXPLOITATION. . . . . . . . . . . . 137
7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
7.2 Background to the Problem of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
by UN Peacekeepers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
7.3 Defining Sexual Violence, Exploitation and Abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
7.4 Some Types of Sexual Violence, Exploitation and Abuse. . . . . . . . . . . . 147
7.5 Prevalence of Sexual Violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
7.6 Conditions in which Sexual Violence and Exploitation are Most
Likely to Occur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
7.7 Consequences and Effects of Sexual Violence in a Post-Conflict
Environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
7.8 Preventing and Avoiding Sexual Violence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
LESSON 8: INSTITUTIONAL VIOLENCE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
8.2 “Gendercidal” Institutions Against Women and Girls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
8.3 Gender-Based Violence and Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
8.4 Vulnerability of Women Migrant Workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
8.5 Women and HIV/AIDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
8.6 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
LESSON 9: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN CONFLICT.
AND CRISIS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
9.1 Introduction: Conflict and Crisis Increase Vulnerability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
9.2 Sexual Violence in Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
9.3 Refugee and Internally Displaced Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
9.4 Changing Gender Roles in Situations of Armed Conflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
9.5 Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Processes. . . . . . . . . 203
9.6 Violence Against Women in Post-Conflict Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
LESSON 10: women building peace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
10.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
10.2 Getting to Peace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
10.3 Peacebuilding, Sustaining Peace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
10.4 Women and Security. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
10.5 Gender Mainstreaming of Peace Support Operations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Appendix A: List of Acronyms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Appendix B: List of UN PeackeeepingOperations. . . . . . . . 236
Appendix C: Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000). . . . 239
Appendix D: Secretary-general's bulletin on.
sexual exploitation and abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Appendix E: Secretary-General’s Bulletin on .
the Prohibition of Sexual Harassment . . . . . . . . . . . 246
End-of-Course Exam Instructions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
To view a video introduction of this lesson by
course author AnnJanette Rosga, you can
either log in to your virtual classroom, go to
w w w. p e a c e o p s t r a i n i n g . o r g / u s e r s / m e d i a _
page/391/, or use your mobile device to scan the
QR code to the left.
Foreword
I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. AnnJanette Rosga, Megan Bastick and Anja Ebnöther,
for this Peace Operations Training Institute course Preventing Violence Against Women and Gender
Inequality in Peacekeeping. This course is based on the book Women in an Insecure World: Violence
against women – facts, figures and analysis, edited by Marie Vlachová and Lea Biason and originally
published in 2005 by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF).
In history’s quest for social justice and equality, certainly the struggle of women world-wide to secure
the same freedoms as men has taken its place as a movement that, on the one hand, has come a long
way but, on the other hand, is a long way from completion. It is only during the past 100 years that most
nations have recognized women’s right to vote. Although women have won many legal battles at the
national level – and been elected to positions of national leadership on almost every continent – the fact
remains that world-wide millions of women still find themselves receiving unequal treatment in terms of
education, opportunity, legal standing, and security.
Since its founding in 1945, the United Nations has stood for a recognition of the equality of all people.
These words are enshrined in the Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations, declaring “We the
peoples of the United Nations determined…to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity
and worth of the human person, in equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small…”
And yet, in 2002 the sad reality came to be known that UN peacekeepers on one mission had used their
positions of trust and authority to exploit the very individuals they were assigned to protect. While this may
(or may not) have been a small number of cases, the situation was immediately recognized as completely
unacceptable, with swift and effective changes required to ensure that future such violations of trust and
duty would not occur.
This course begins with the point that at the outset there must be a fundamental rejection of the ideology
that the exploitation of women (or anyone else) is acceptable. It is not sufficient to simply promulgate
regulations prohibiting sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), but rather there must first be a greater
awareness of those remaining and pervasive areas where women are still exploited. This may sound like
a reasonable proposition, but the challenge here is in understanding how various cultures – including
one’s own culture – still retain vestiges of customs or practices that have discriminated, and continue to
discriminate, against women.
We have tried very hard in the writing of this course to balance the need to have an honest and
transparent examination of the issues world-wide, with the need to not pass judgment on any nation,
culture, or religion. This is not easy to do. One can quickly fall into the trap of feeling that one’s own
customs are valid, while the customs of others should be open to criticism. In order to achieve this
objective balance between the need to discuss discrimination against women with the need to respect
national sovereignty and culture, we have taken the following steps. We have tried to cover both
progress and the need for more progress in all regions – north and south, east and west, developed and
developing, large and small. We have been thorough in footnoting and documentation, in most cases
using UN studies and documents as the references. We have in many cases not indicated the name of
the nation where specific examples are cited, but we have instead referred sometimes only to regions or
continents.
P re v e n t i n g V i o le n c e A g a i n s t W o me n | ix

The prevention of violence against women is both a necessary and difficult topic. We have not shied
away from discussing this problem and trying to contribute to awareness and therefore a solution in some
small way. If the student finds some sections of this course to be troubling, on the one hand we apologize
for that. But on the other hand, we recognize that this course covers a troubling topic that needs to be
addressed. And of course we all recognize that peacekeepers have the potential to act as positive role
models and leaders in their own communities and those they work in, in preventing violence against
women.
Harvey J. Langholtz, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Peace Operations Training Institute
x | P E A C E O P E R A TIONS T R A INING INSTIT U T E
Preface
The Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) promotes good governance
and reform of the security sector. The Centre conducts research on good practices, encourages
the development of appropriate norms at the national and international levels, makes policy
recommendations, and provides in-country advice and assistance programmes. In its work, DCAF
is confronted by the reality that women and men do not enjoy security and safety equally. Moreover,
violence against women impedes the creation of a well-functioning security sector, one that provides
security for all citizens and is open to the participation of all citizens. It is thus critical to look at security
sector reform and governance from a gender perspective, and to recognize and understand the
relationships between gender, security and inequality.
In 2005, DCAF published the book Women in an Insecure World, a comprehensive study on violence
against women in daily life, during armed conflict, and in post-conflict situations. Women in an Insecure
World maps the pervasiveness of violence against women, analyses strategies to prevent and punish that
violence, and highlights the key roles that women play in peace processes and operations. Women in an
Insecure World is a basis for DCAF’s continuing work to provide security sector personnel and institutions
with the knowledge and the tools to effectively address gender-based violence and discrimination.1
This course aims to assist peacekeeping personnel to promote the human rights and security of women
and girls. It does so through lessons emphasizing the nature and scope of violence against women
and girls around the globe, the connections between gender inequality and violence in both public and
domestic spaces, and on interpersonal, community, national, regional, and international levels. Other
lessons cover women’s rights as human rights and the international United Nations mandate to involve
women in key roles within peacemaking and peace-building processes at every stage and every level of
authority. Some of the factual information in the course is drawn and/or adapted from DCAF’s text Women
in an Insecure World. Interested readers may consult that original text for a more comprehensive review
of DCAF’s research on this topic.
AnnJanette Rosga, Ph.D.
The Geneva Centre for the Democratic
Control of Armed Forces (DCAF)
1 M Vlachová and L Biason (eds.), Women in an Insecure World: Violence against women – facts, figures and
analysis, Geneva, 2005, ISBN 92-9222-028-4. The book is available from DCAF via www.dcaf.ch.
P re v e n t i n g V i o le n c e A g a i n s t W o me n | xi
Introduction Method of Study

The following are suggestions for how to proceed with this course. Though the student may have alternate
Purpose and Scope approaches that are effective, the following hints have worked for many.

This course adopts a global perspective, because violence against women and gender inequality are
problems in every part of the world. While it includes peacekeeping contexts, the course examines • Before you begin actual studies, first browse • When you finish a lesson, take the
violence and inequality beyond the boundaries of these contexts, since violence and discrimination in through the overall course material. Notice the End-of-Lesson Quiz. For any error, go back to
conflict and in non-conflict situations are intrinsically linked.
lesson outlines, which give you an idea of what the lesson section and re-read it. Before you
will be involved as you proceed. go on, be aware of the discrepancy in your
Several definitions and theories of sex, gender, inequality, and violence are reviewed. Emphasis is placed
on theories that illuminate how relations of gender inequality are related to violence. Though the focus of • The material should be logical and understanding that led to the error.
the course is on violence against women, gender-specific violence that men face is also discussed. straightforward. Instead of memorizing • After you complete all of the lessons, take time
individual details, strive to understand concepts to review the main points of each lesson. Then,
The course sets out the international legal framework that recognizes and seeks to redress gender and overall perspectives in regard to the United while the material is fresh in your mind, take the
inequality. It highlights the active roles that women play in fighting for human rights, and in building peace Nations system. End-of-Course Examination in one sitting.
and security, and how men can be partners in ending violence against women. Lessons explain how • Set up guidelines regarding how you want to • Your exam will be scored, and if you acheive
the worldwide epidemic of violence against women has forced the international community to rethink schedule your time. a passing grade of 75 per cent or higher, you
traditional boundaries between domestic and public realms. They demonstrate how creative new ways of
• Study the lesson content and the learning will be awarded a Certificate of Completion. If
thinking emerge – about the law, conflict, security, and peace-building – when women’s experiences are
objectives. At the beginning of each lesson, you score below 75 per cent, you will be given
placed in the centre of analysis.
orient yourself to the main points. If you are able one opportunity to take a second version of the
Approach to, read the material twice to ensure maximum End-of-Course Examination.
understanding and retention, and let time elapse • One note about spelling is in order. This course
This breaking down of traditional lines between what is “public” or “political,” and “personal,” “domestic,” between readings. was written in English as it is used in the United
or “private,” extends to some of the course content as well. Some lesson exercises invite students Kingdom.
to consider ways in which their own personal and professional lives may be entwined as gendered
peacekeepers. Readings and case studies provide examples to assist peacekeeping personnel with
considering how they can, both personally and professionally, work to promote gender equality and to
change the attitudes and behaviours that perpetuate violence.

Gender inequality and violence against women affect the lives of every person, regardless of age or Key features of your course classroom:
gender. Gender inequality and violence against women have an enormous social cost, negatively • Access to all of your courses;
affecting families and whole communities. Men and women must be partners in the social change
• A secure testing environment in which to
necessary to address these problems. Furthermore, to understand gender inequality is to understand one
complete your training;
of the central dynamics fuelling many kinds of violence. Even peacekeeping personnel with no particular
interest in violence against women will benefit from what this course has to offer in lessons about the
• Access to additional training resources, including
Multimedia course supplements;
gendered elements of violence, including violence which is not obviously “gender-based.”
• The ability to download your Certificate of
Completion for any completed course; and
• Student fora where you can communicate with
other students about any number of subjects.

Access your course classroom here:

http://www.peaceopstraining.org/users/user_login

xii | P E A C E O P E R A TIONS T R A INING INSTIT U T E P re v e n t i n g V i o le n c e A g a i n s t W o me n | xiii

LESSON 1
INTRODUCTION TO SCR 1325
AND THE PARADOX OF THE
“WOMEN = PEACE” EQUATION
 1.1 Introduction
The end of the Cold War has seen the United
Nations move increasingly from traditional
peacekeeping operations in conflict-ridden
Lesson societies to what are known as multidimensional
peace support operations (PSOs). Traditional
1 peacekeeping operations include the monitoring
of existing ceasefires, humanitarian aid deliveries,
and more interventionist “peace enforcement”
missions that compel warring parties to negotiate
or stop fighting. In contrast, multidimensional PSOs
involve extensive engagement with many sectors of
a reconstructing society (legal and judicial affairs,
political and civilian administration, human rights
and humanitarian aid, etc.) in order to help its
citizens develop the capacity to build sustainable
peace in the aftermath of war.1
LESSON OBJECTIVES This transition from peacekeeping to
multidimensional PSOs has required the United
1.1 Introduction
Nations to do more than simply replace portions
By the end of Lesson 1, the student should be able to:
1.2 Scope and Roots of of its primarily military forces with more civilian
Violence Against personnel (such as police, experts in human rights,
• Identify the three main components of Security Council resolution 1325; gender, child protection, and political and civil
Women
• Explain the arguments that women’s rights advocates have made about affairs). It has entailed a long and still-ongoing
1.3 Women, Peace, and how gender inequality, development, and issues of peace and conflict process of institutional reform aimed at identifying
are related to one another; the differences between a “peacekeeping” and a
the History of SCR 1325
“peacebuilding” orientation, and at improving the
1.4 The Paradox of Identity • Define and explain the paradox of identity; and organization’s performance in its peacebuilding
functions. Peacebuilding, therefore, requires
(or the Trouble with • Identify the main approaches to gender mainstreaming that have been
competency in a variety of complex activities,
taken in UN peacekeeping missions, and identify at least one suggested
Suggesting Women = including:
guideline that might further improve these approaches.
Peace)
[E]nsuring the daily security of citizens; the
1.5 Implementing SCR 1325 establishment of effective reconciliation and
justice processes; the reintegration of fighters
1.6 Conclusion: Re-Thinking
back into society; the return and resettlement
What “Gender of displaced persons; economic reconstruction
and development; the creation of an effectively
Mainstreaming” and
functioning political system; the creation of
SCR 1325 Require police, military, and judicial systems that support
the rule of law; support for the reinvigoration of
civil society; reform of land and property
ownership laws; and the transformation of
1 William J. Durch, “Keeping the Peace: Politics
and Lessons of the 1990s,” in UN Peacekeeping,
To view a video introduction of this lesson by
American Politics and the Uncivil Wars of the
the course author AnnJanette Rosga, you can 1990s, ed. William J. Durch. (New York: St. Martin’s
either log in to your virtual classroom, go to www. Press: 1996): 1-34.
peaceopstraining.org/users/media_page/392/,
or use your mobile device to scan the QR code
to the left.
l e s s o n 1 : I N T R O D U C T I ON T O S e curit y C o u n ci l R e s o l uti o n 1 3 2 5
cultures themselves, including the norms and
beliefs about roles of men and women in
society.2
The recognition of the fact that “roughly half of
all countries that emerge from conflict lapse
back into violence within five years” has led to a
corresponding recognition that long-term, effective
peacebuilding requires more than simply “keeping
warring parties from shooting at each other.”3
In many cases, much more extensive peace
support assistance is required. Where violence
against women is widespread, and where extreme
gender inequalities are accepted features of daily
life, sustainable peace may require fundamental
cultural change.
As one of many larger efforts to improve the
United Nations’ peacebuilding capacities, the UN
Security Council in 2000 adopted resolution 1325
on Women, Peace and Security (hereinafter SCR
1325). SCR 1325 has three key components:
• It expresses in the strongest possible terms
the UN’s official recognition and concern
that armed conflicts increasingly target, and
disproportionately impact, civilians – especially
women and children. And, it identifies the
significance of this fact for the sustainability of
peace and reconciliation efforts worldwide.
• It “reaffirms...the need to implement a fully
international humanitarian and human rights law
that protects the rights of women and girls during
and after conflicts.”
• It emphasizes the need to ensure that women
have full and equal participation at every level
of decision-making in peace and security-
related matters, and specifically describes the
“need to mainstream a gender perspective into
peacekeeping operations” as “urgent.” 4
2 Gina Torry, ed. Security Council Resolution
1325 On Women, Peace and Security -- Six Years
On Report. New York: NGO Working Group on
Women, Peace and Security. October 2006: viii;
emphasis added.
3 Ibid., pp. viii-ix.
4 United Nations Security Council resolution
1325 on women, peace and security. S/RES/1325
(2000). See Appendix C for the full text.
| 17
 SCR 1325 also refers to a press statement by the
Security Council president on 8 March 2000 which
stresses that “peace is inextricably linked with
equality between women and men,” and which
calls for “specialized training for all peacekeeping
personnel on the protection, special needs and
human rights of women and children in conflict
situations.”5
Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information,
Shashi Tharoor poses for a group photo with the panelists in the
discussion on “Ending impunity for violence against women and girls” in
commemoration of International Women’s Day, UNHQ.
(UN Photo #140475 by Devra Berkowitz, March 2007)
This course should be seen as one among many
efforts by UN agencies and affiliated organizations
to answer this call for specialized training related to
SCR 1325. In particular, this course is concerned
with:
• The complex relationships between gender
inequality and violence – especially violence
against women – around the world today; and
• The international legal and political frameworks
that have developed over the past thirty years
or so to address the fact that, in most areas of
the world, women generally do not share equal
decision-making power and access to resources
with men.
The central argument of this course is that the
problem of violence against women cannot be
solved without remedying the global pattern of
women’s lesser power and control over resources
in relation to men. The same is true in reverse:
5 Security Council statement to the press, 8
March 2000: http://www.un.org/News/Press/
docs/2000/20000308.sc6816.doc.html
18 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
discrimination against women, and their situation
of relative inequality in relation to men, cannot
be significantly changed without addressing the
patterns of violence against them in both public and
private spheres.
As this course will detail (especially in Lesson 6),
this basic argument has been laid out and
endorsed by the world’s major international human
rights organizations and by the Member States
of the United Nations through their ratification of
various conventions and treaties.6 Lessons in this
course will define the following terms and explain
these claims:
• Gender-based violence enforces, maintains, and
can itself be a form of gender inequality.
• Gender inequality justifies and legitimates
gender-based violence.
The remainder of this lesson will first, briefly
introduce the scope and roots of violence against
The next section of the lesson, “The Paradox 1.2 Scope and Roots of Violence
women worldwide. Second, it will detail the history
of Identity,” describes a dilemma that confronts Against Women
the entire course: the problem of generalizing
of UN Security Council resolution 1325, a landmark
about women worldwide when no two individual Scope
commitment by UN member states to the increased
women are exactly alike, let alone women from
inclusion of women in all levels and aspects of
different age, culture, class, religious, ethnic, Within the last 15 years, through several
international peacekeeping and peacebuilding
racial, sexual, regional, linguistic, and other identity documents described in more detail in Lesson 6,
operations. This section of the lesson places
groups around the world. The course opens with a the international community has made increasingly
SCR 1325 into the historical context of women’s
discussion of this dilemma, not in order to solve it – clear statements defining violence against women,
peace and human rights activism throughout the
for it is unfortunately insoluble – but in order to call and describing the scope of this violence. The
twentieth century, and it describes the changing
the readers’ attention to certain issues the dilemma nations of the world have acknowledged that
conceptions of women over time within the UN.
will inevitably raise throughout the remainder of the women are vulnerable to violence that may be
Specifically, it discusses the persistent tension
course. physical, sexual or psychological, perpetrated in
between representing women as especially
private spaces (such as in the home), or in public
vulnerable victims of male violence on one hand,
The lesson then resumes the discussion of settings (including places of work and educational
and on the other hand, as active, independent, and
SCR 1325, with attention to its current means of institutions). It has also noted that the state can
powerful agents of change, capable of participating
implementation. This section examines how gender sometimes legitimize such violence, whether
in global political affairs on their own behalf. The
perspectives are presently incorporated into peace actively (with laws that permit rape in marriage, or
section goes on to describe how this tension
support operations via “gender mainstreaming” with violent penalties against women for crimes that
has manifested in international women’s human
and the use of “gender focal points” and “gender are perceived to harm male “honour,” for instance)
rights, and the struggle to combat violence against
experts,” and it defines these terms. The lesson or through inaction (by failing to punish domestic
women.
concludes with some suggestions for how violence or perpetuating ideas that men are more
6 “The human rights of women and of the “gender mainstreaming” and the implementation valuable than women).
girl-child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible of SCR 1325 might productively be improved.
part of universal human rights. The full and equal
participation of women in political, civil, economic, It offers supplementary guidelines for possible There is now international recognition of the fact
social and cultural life, at the national, regional and consideration in peace support operations. that women’s fight for survival begins at a very
international levels, and the eradication of all forms early stage in the life cycle. This can be seen in
of discrimination on grounds of sex, are priority the mortality rate of girls aged 1-4 years, which
objectives of the international community.” (Vienna
in some places is much higher than for boys of
Declaration and Programme of Action, World
Conference on Human Rights, 1993). {WIW 235} the same age group. There are countries in which
l e s s o n 1 : I N T R O D U C T I ON T O S e curit y C o u n ci l R e s o l uti o n 1 3 2 5 | 19
girls are systematically starved, denied medical
care, and neglected by their families because of
a cultural preference for boys. In some regions,
this is likely to be a significant causal factor behind
demographic imbalances between men and
women.
Available statistics suggest that domestic violence
is the most common form of violence against
women worldwide. For example, in the United
States it is estimated that one in four college
women is a victim of domestic violence.7 In
some Asian countries, thousands of women are
reportedly victims of homicide by family members.
In one Latin American country, more than half
of reported crimes are of women beaten by their
spouses.
Women and girls are also especially vulnerable
to sexual violence – to which they are very
frequently exposed in the “safety” of their homes.
For example, a 1988 study of a Nigerian Treatment
Centre indicated that 15% of female patients with
sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) were under
the age of five. In the same sample, 6% were
between the ages of six and fifteen years. Similarly,
a study at the Maternity Hospital of Lima, Peru,
indicated that 90% of young mothers aged 12-16
became pregnant through rape and that a majority
of these girls had been victimized by a close male
relative. In a study carried out in Costa Rica, 95%
of pregnant girls under fifteen were victims of
incest.8
Following sexual assault, girls may face further
victimization at home and in their communities.
They are often morally condemned by communities
if local cultural or religious expectations place
responsibility on females for their own victimization.
In many societies, greater value is placed on girls
who remain virgins, as they are considered to be
worth more in marriage exchanges. The choices
open to girls in these situations are limited, so
they become easy targets for further exploitation
through prostitution, slavery, child labour, and
trafficking.
7 One in Four, http://www.oneinfourusa.org/index.php.
8 Vlachová and Biason, Women in an Insecure
World, 6. The Interactive Population Centre, Forms
of Gender-based Violence and their Consequences
(UNFPA, March 1999), at http://www.unfpa.org/
intercenter/violence/intro.htm.
20 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
All through life, girls and women continue to face
the risk of violence directed at them because of
their gender. In workplaces, women face other
forms of abuse and discrimination ranging from
sexual harassment and unequal pay to poor
maternity benefits, all of which increase their
vulnerability to poverty and thus to conditions in
which they may be more likely to suffer violence
and/or ill health.
Armed conflict, particularly within states, has
perhaps drawn the greatest attention to the issue
of gender-based violence in recent years. Although
the victimization of women in armed conflict
has increased in recent times, so has women’s
participation in wars as part of armed forces or
groups. For example, in revolutionary warfare
or counter-insurgencies, which have occurred
largely in the Southern Hemisphere, women have
increasingly served as part of armed forces,
although in some cases this has resulted from
coercion.
In some conflicts, armed groups target women
and girls for victimization as a calculated policy in
their efforts to destabilize society and gain political,
military or economic advantages. Some of the most
shocking manifestations of this were seen in the
conflicts in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.9
Rape of women aimed at purposely infecting them
with HIV/AIDS has recently added another deadly
dimension to this form of war crime.10 Even when
deliberate infection has not been the goal, it is often
a consequence of rape. There has been a notable
increase in HIV/AIDS infection along the corridors
of armed conflict – one of the net effects of using
rape as a weapon of war.
9 UNFPA, Sexual Violence Against Women
and Girls in War and Its Aftermath: Realities,
Responses, and Required Resources, Briefing
Paper Prepared for Symposium on Sexual Violence
in Conflict and Beyond (21-23 June 2006, Brussels,
Belgium): 4. See also Human Rights Watch,
Women and Armed Conflict; International Justice,
at http://www.hrw.org/women/conflict.html.
10 In a survey conducted by AVEGA, the
Association of Genocide Widows, out of 1,125
women survivors of rape during the Rwandan
genocide, 70% are HIV-positive. See: UNIFEM,
Facts & Figures on HIV/AIDS, at http://www.unifem.
org/gender_issues/hiv_aids/facts_figures.php#16
and http://www.avega.org.rw/.
Women and girls fleeing armed conflict form a
majority of the world’s refugees and internally
displaced persons. Living in these insecure
conditions makes them more vulnerable to sexual
harassment and assault. Even some of their
supposed protectors – peacekeepers and aid
workers – have at times become their victimizers
(see Lesson 9).
Another by-product of armed conflict is the
trafficking of human beings for use as labourers,
for forced prostitution, or as slaves. In some
regions, the trafficking of boys and girls for use as
soldiers has been a prominent phenomenon.11 This
has occurred in, for example, the Mano River area of
Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, and the Great Lakes
Region of Africa.12
Roots
Do the roots of violence against women lie in
inherently violent men and inherently peace-loving
women? Traditional explanations for gender-based
violence often place the responsibility with men,
who disproportionately control political institutions
with the power to build militaries and wage war.
Thus, it is not uncommon to see claims that wars
are started by men who are “naturally aggressive”
and who work in male dominated systems.
11 Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence
against women, its causes and consequences, Ms.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, on trafficking in women,
women’s migration and violence against women,
submitted in accordance with Commission on
Human Rights resolution 1997/44, E/CN.4/2000/68
(29 February 2000), at http://www.unhchr.ch/
Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/0/e29d45a105cd81438025
68be0051fcfb/$FILE/G0011334.pdf; Human Rights
Watch, Uganda: Child Abductions Skyrocket in
North, (Geneva, March 28, 2003), at http://hrw.org/
english/docs/2003/03/28/uganda5451.htm.
12 Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische
Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, Armed Conflict
and Trafficking in Women, Desk Study, (Eschborn,
2004): 13, at http://www2.gtz.de/dokumente/
bib/04-5304.pdf. UNFPA, Sexual Violence Against
Women and Girls in War and Its Aftermath, 5.
Thanh-Dam Truong and Maria Belen Angeles,
Searching for Best Practices to Counter Human
Trafficking in Africa: A Focus on Women and
Children, Report Commissioned by United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization,
(March 2005), at http://unesdoc.unesco.org/
images/0013/001384/138447e.pdf.
l e s s o n 1 : I N T R O D U C T I ON T O S e curit y C o u n ci l R e s o l uti o n 1 3 2 5
Accompanying such claims are their counterparts:
women are “peace-loving”; they abhor violence and
do not seek to conquer others.
Even those who do not believe that tendencies
toward aggression or peacefulness are biologically
based or inherent in the sexes may still argue
that, for cultural reasons (because of how men
and women are raised differently), it is men who
militarize society and women who have the best
potential to bring the world to peace. As will be
seen in the section below, those who advocate
greater participation of women in peace processes
and governance generally have this as their
underlying assumption; they argue that women in
positions of political power are less likely to choose
militaristic problem-solving strategies than are men,
and that there would be less violence and fewer
wars if more women were in charge.
1.3 Women, Peace, and the History
of SCR 1325
The notion that women are less violent and
aggressive than men, and therefore more
interested in, and good at, peacebuilding, is
strong in the traditions of many cultures. Women
may be seen as gentler, more empathic and
compassionate, whether by virtue of gender
socialization processes, biological traits like their
capacity to bear children, or cultural ones like the
related likelihood that they will take a greater role
in raising those children. In the Euro-American
context, associations between women and
peacefulness became particularly widespread in
the post-industrialization era as new class and
family formations developed in which men worked
for wages away from home, while middle and upper
class women stayed at home. In part to resist the
image of women as mere bearers of children (with
no role to play in the public life of governance and
politics), some variants of Euro-American feminism
embraced the positive aspects of the stereotype
of “women as peaceful” as a way to advocate for
increasing women’s voices in public affairs (such as
the right to vote).
One influential example of this comes from a
1938 book called Three Guineas by the famous
British novelist and peace activist, Virginia Woolf.
| 21
Three Guineas is a manifesto against patriarchy,13
nationalism, and war, three societal evils that Woolf
believed were interconnected and dependent upon
one another:
Our country...throughout the greater part of its
history has treated me as a slave; it has denied
me education or any share in its possessions.
Our country still ceases to be mine if I marry a
foreigner. Our country denies me the means of
protecting myself, forces me to pay a very large
sum annually to protect me, and is so little able,
even so, to protect me that air raid precautions
are written on the wall. Therefore, if you insist
on fighting to protect me, or our country, let it
be understood, soberly and rationally between
us, that you are fighting to gratify a sex instinct
which I cannot share; to procure benefits which I
have not shared and probably will not share; but
not to gratify my instincts, or to protect myself
or my country. For...in fact, as a woman I have
no country. As a woman I want no country, as a
woman, my country is the whole world.14
[We women] can best help you [men] prevent
war by not repeating your words and following
your methods but by finding new words and
creating new methods. We can best help you to
prevent war by not joining your society [for the
prevention of war] but by remaining outside your
society but in co-operation with its aim.15
In other words, Woolf thought that ideas of male
superiority over women were connected to
early twentieth-century nationalist ideologies of
superiority over other nations, as well as to the
notion that expending vast amounts of wealth and
countless human lives in military combat could
solve international problems.
13 Any social or political system in which, for the
most part, men hold power and women are largely
excluded from it.
14 Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (New York:
Harvest/HJB Books, 1938): p. 108.
15 Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (2nd printing,
1966): p. 143. (Quoted in Dianne Otto, “A Sign of
‘Weakness’? Disrupting Gender Certainties in the
Implementation of Security Council Resolution
1325.” Michigan Journal of Gender and Law, Vol.
13 (2006), pp. 1-2 of typescript copy.)
22 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
Male superiority
over women
Nationalist Military problem-
ideologies solving strategies
Woolf’s Thesis in Three Guineas
Woolf was not alone. For centuries, women have
had a significant presence in both pacifist and
anti-war movements, even when the wars they
opposed were widely considered holy, as in the
Middle Ages.16 More recently, the early twentieth
century saw some of the largest non-violent protests
against militarism, racism, colonialism, capitalism, and
sexism the world has seen. Although largely forgotten
by subsequent generations, there were enormous peace
protests against World War I.17 In this, as in virtually all
anti-war movements, women have been prominent
leaders and participants. In the very midst of the
First World War, two thousand women held an
anti-war conference at The Hague in 1915. The
still-active Women’s International League for Peace
and Freedom (WILPF) was created as a result of
this gathering.
Woolf claims that men fight to “gratify a sex
instinct” that women “do not share,” and that as
a result, women are capable of preventing war
by “remaining outside” of men’s society. “Finding
new words and creating new methods” is an idea
that many people, both women and men, find
persuasive. In many ways, it is an idea that is
hard to refute, given the predominance of men in
armed conflicts and violent crime. This course will
at various points attempt to challenge such broad
generalizations. Nonetheless, the ideal Woolf
describes of women’s special capacity to prevent
war is one that has inspired a great deal of activism
on the part of women against violence worldwide.
16 Public Opinion and Crusade Propaganda
(Amsterdam: N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger, 1940).
17 In the U.S. alone, “there was a large protest
movement against entrance into the war, leading
Congress to pass punitive legislation for antiwar
statements (2,000 people were prosecuted for
criticizing the war). ...Ultimately, over 330,000 men
were classified as draft evaders.” (Howard Zinn,
Passionate Declarations: Essays on War and
Justice. Perennial/Harper Collins: 2003. 43-44.)
Not least, the ideal has been a strong motivating
force in the history leading up to the adoption of
United Nations Security Council resolution 1325 on
Women, Peace and Security.
UN Security Council Resolution 1325
On 31 October 2000, the Security Council
unanimously adopted the landmark resolution
1325, which, as noted above, calls for the
active participation of women in processes of
peacemaking and peacebuilding worldwide. To
repeat its central points, the resolution takes note
of the particular impacts of conflict on women;
it also urges governments to include women in
peace processes. Most recently, this has occurred
in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sierra Leone, and Sri
Lanka. According to SCR 1325, Member States,
UN agencies, and others must act to ensure
that gender issues are taken into account in all
aspects of conflict prevention, peacekeeping and
post-conflict reconstruction.
What does this mean? By the end of this lesson,
and certainly by the end of this course, you
will have a much better idea of what “taking
gender issues into account” means. At the end
of this lesson, a list of concrete implications
for peacekeeping that “gender mainstreaming”
involves will be provided. Where did the ideas
about women in SCR 1325 come from?
Changing Conceptions of Women Over Time in
UN Documents: Pre-cursors to SCR 1325
Women are the Same as Men
A vast literature exists on women’s links to peace
processes within the United Nations since its
establishment in 1945.18 For more than half a
century, formal equality between men and women
has been recognized and affirmed by the United
Nations Charter (26 June 1945) and by Article 25 of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(10 December 1948). However, in that period of
18 The information on the historical background on
resolution 1325 has been summarized from Sara
Poehlman-Doumbouya (WILPF consultant to the
Peacewomen Project), WILPF, Women and Peace
in United Nations Documents: An Analysis (New
York: 2002).
l e s s o n 1 : I N T R O D U C T I ON T O S e curit y C o u n ci l R e s o l uti o n 1 3 2 5
history very few women participated at the
highest level of decision-making in either national
governments or international organizations.19
For many years, the formal “equality” between
women and men that existed on paper within
United Nations’ recommendations, decisions, and
standards effectively meant that women were
assumed to have the same needs and concerns as
men.
Poster for SCR 1325 (2000), in French. Translation: “Equality between
the sexes: Consolidation of Durable Peace.” (Source: http://www.
un.org/womenwatch/ianwge/taskforces/wps/poster-french.jpg)
Women as Especially Vulnerable Victims
The first resolution specifically recognizing gender
as a factor that could produce differential impacts
on women and men was one that protected women
and children in emergencies and armed conflict,
and it was adopted by the General Assembly
on 16 December 1966. However, this resolution
only identified women as victims in need of help,
rather than as participants who might have unique
contributions to offer in negotiating their own
security.
19 For this reason it is all the more noteworthy that
the United States’ first lady at the time, Eleanor
Roosevelt, championed the cause of women during
and after the Second World War. Less well known
is the fact that during the negotiations leading up
to the adoption of the Universal Declaration on
Human Rights, it was a female delegate from India
who put forward the amendment to Article 25 that
added sex to the list of identity classes protected
from discrimination (along with such terms as
ethnic origin, colour, religion, and belief).
| 23
 Women as Active Agents/Participants
Throughout the decolonization struggles of the
1960s, women made enormous contributions
and sacrifices in countries fighting for national
liberation, even when women’s rights were not on
the agenda of international conferences or at the
General Assembly. Nevertheless, the equality of
rights between men and women was becoming
a controversial issue in the UN Trusteeship
Council and elsewhere in international discussions
and within some national campaigns. A large
network of groups and organizations was slowly
and quietly evolving to promote the concept of
meaningful gender equality, and to persuade
governments that women in the economy and
society should be seen not only as recipients of
aid but as active participants in development and
peace processes. Many of the newly independent
countries recognized and incorporated gender
equality clauses in their constitutions. The first UN
World Conference on Women in Mexico in 1975,
and its associated document, the Mexico Plan of
Action, called for greater representation of women
in international discussions of peace and security
issues.
The Fourth World Conference on Women opens in Beijing, China.
(UN Photo #66728, Yao Da Wei, September 1995)
The decade from 1985 to 1995 brought sharper
attention to the issue of violence against women,
thus returning to a focus on women as victims.
However, throughout, emerging UN documents
continued to emphasize this basic point: women’s
24 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
political and economic equality with men, especially
women’s active participation in decision-making
at all levels from home life to international
governance, together with sustainable global
development, are necessary preconditions for
peace.
By 1995, the Fourth World Conference on Women
in Beijing linked women with special vulnerabilities
to violence, as well as to peace initiatives once
again. But this time, it connected both more directly
and concretely to a demand that more women be
posted to highly ranked decision-making positions
in peace and security.
Bringing it All Together at Windhoek
Thus, the intensity and degree of violence
against women has allowed advocates to gain
ground on their behalf, on the behalf, that is, of
women defined as a population in need of special
protection. However, historically it has been difficult
to change the fact that women were largely missing
from discussions on the means to achieve peace
and security. Women continued to be seen more
as passive victims than as active agents capable of
direct involvement in decision-making about conflict
resolution and peacebuilding.
During a comprehensive review on UN
peacekeeping in Windhoek, Namibia, in 2000,
participants developed a new strategy for
promoting women’s inclusion and participation
in UN peace operations. This is known as the
Windhoek Declaration and the Namibia Plan of
Action on Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in
Multidimensional Peace Support Operations.20
Activism emerging from Windhoek coalesced
with other efforts by women’s rights advocates
that had begun in the spring of 1999 (described in
detail in Lesson 10). Ultimately, this led to several
organizations coming together to successfully
lobby for the drafting and eventual adoption of
SCR 1325. This resolution on Women, Peace and
Security addresses both the special concerns of
20 (S/2000/693) see: http://www.peacewomen.org/
un/pkwatch/WindhoekDeclaration.html. See also
United Nations, Panel on UN Peace Operations,
UN Document A/55/305-S/2000/809 (New York:
UN, 21 August 2000).
women as victims of armed conflict, and it calls This does not mean that SCR 1325 has not been
on signatories to both enforce existing women’s implemented at all; this is far from the case as will
rights and ensure that women are incorporated be seen in sections below. However, it does mean
fully and equally into participation at every level that many barriers of institutional inertia and lack of
of decision-making in positions having to do with political will remain between the ideals articulated
peace and security issues. Thus, women are within SCR 1325 and their full actualization in
described in the resolution both as in need of practice. This is hardly unique to issues related
protection and as important sources of strength to women’s rights. Many of the ideals expressed
and wisdom in providing solutions to the problems in human rights and humanitarian law remain
that endanger peace and security for all. stronger in language than in implementation.
However, this has been true historically of all major
Confronting the Limits of Aspiration social advances: ideals precede their execution,
sometimes by decades or even centuries. This
In spite of this major success, SCR 1325 and its course is designed to help you move the process of
advocates confront two daunting dilemmas. The operationalizing SCR 1325 forward.
first is a dilemma confronting all UN treaties and
resolutions, a dilemma that is called here the “limits
of aspiration.” The second will be described below
as “the paradox of identity.”
In a 2006 report by a coalition of organizations
known as the NGO Working Group on Women,
Peace and Security, the implementation of SCR
1325 is evaluated “six years on” in relation to the
work of a recently established body within the UN
called the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC). The
PBC was set up to “advise and propose integrated
peacebuilding, development and reconstruction
strategies for countries emerging from violent
conflict” and is specifically obliged to implement
SCR 1325 in “the achievement of durable peace
and development.”21 The Six Years On Report Jan Eliasson (second from left), president of the 60th session of the
General Assembly, addresses journalists after addressing a session of the
concludes that:
Organizational Committee of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) on
its first meeting. UNHQ New York. (UN Photo #120708, Eskinder Debebe,
Despite a few rhetorical flourishes, to which June 2006)
women’s rights advocates might refer in an
effort to hold the United Nations accountable to
its commitments, the short, sad fact is that, to
date, there are no structural or institutionalized
mechanisms to ensure women’s participation
or representation in the PBC or to ensure that
women’s needs, capacities, interests and rights
are addressed in the PBC’s work. Six years
after SCR 1325’s adoption, the international
community must recognize this grave and
dangerous omission, and take swift action to
redress it.22
21 NGOWG, op. cit. 2, cover page.
22 Ibid., p. ix.
l e s s o n 1 : I N T R O D U C T I ON T O S e curit y C o u n ci l R e s o l uti o n 1 3 2 5 | 25
1.4 The Paradox of Identity (or the
Trouble with Suggesting Women =
Peace)
The second dilemma confronting efforts to
implement SCR 1325 – indeed, a dilemma
confronting all efforts to redress gender inequality
by specifically naming and describing women’s
rights – is linked to the problem of describing
women as a group at all. Any time one generalizes
about a group of people on the basis of an
identity, like gender, race, religion, age, culture,
or nationality, one inevitably and immediately
encounters the following five problems:
• The apparent erasure of all differences
within that identity group; to speak of women
as a group worldwide is to seem to ignore
innumerable differences among women:
differences in culture, age, race, ethnicity,
heritage, sexuality, caste, family of origin, etc.
• Even when simultaneous multiple identities are
acknowledged, to speak of women primarily
seems to privilege gender as though it is
the most important among all other possible
identities. This is not at all how every woman
feels about her gender. Nor is it necessarily
how most women experience their gender all
the time, any more than most men experience
themselves as specifically male (as opposed to
simply human) all the time.
• The reinforcing of the (false) idea that women will
always and everywhere have more in common
with one another than they will with any given
group of men. As will be discussed in Lesson
2, empirical research has shown that while
men and women do differ consistently in a few
traits (genitalia, reproductive organs, etc.), for
most characteristics, the range of differences
within large separate-sex groups of men or
women tends to be greater than the averaged
differences between the sexes. Thus, when
women are spoken of as a group, the mistaken
idea that they are always more alike as a group
(and more different from men as a group) is
strengthened.
• The supporting of negative stereotypes by
simple opposition. If women are stereotyped
as having X or Y characteristics in any given
26 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
society, the problem is not simply that the
characteristics are described inaccurately. The
problem is describing all women as though they
are the same. Hence, in the very countering
of stereotypes, one can end up replacing one
stereotype with another. For example, the
statement “all women are vulnerable and weak”
might be countered with the claim that “women
can be protective and strong.” Even though
the second statement is less inclusive, both
statements still generalize.
• The supporting of positive stereotypes by
opposition or endorsement. This is the same
problem as above, with a different twist. For
example, if women are stereotyped as being
empathic and peaceful, one counter-strategy
would be to object that many women are
insensitive and violent; another would be to
embrace this stereotype as one worth owning. In
that case, one might argue just as Virginia Woolf
did, that yes, in fact, women are more empathic
and peaceful. Once again, both kinds of counter-
claims end up generalizing, which in turn takes
us back to problems 1-3.
Taken together, these problems make up the
paradox of identity. Systems of inequality in
which one group has been discriminated against
on the basis of an identity are facilitated by
stereotypes about that group. As the Tunisian
scholar Albert Memmi famously wrote in his
1957 book, The Colonizer and the Colonized,
the colonizer produces an artificial image of
the colonized whereby the latter becomes the
“Other.” This perception enables the colonizer to
justify colonization.23 In fighting for equality, the
23 In analogizing his theory to feminism, U.S.
philosopher Nancy Hartsock summarizes Memmi
as follows: “First, the Other is always seen as...
lacking in the valued qualities of the society,
whatever those qualities may be. Second,
the humanity of the Other becomes ‘opaque.’
Colonizers can frequently be heard making
statements such as ‘you never know what they
think. Do they think? Or do they instead operate
according to intuition?’ ...Third, the Others are not
seen as fellow individual members of the human
community, but rather as part of [an] anonymous
collectivity” (160-161). Nancy Hartsock, “Foucault
on Power: A Theory for Women?” in Feminism/
Postmodernism, ed. Linda J. Nicholson (New York:
Routledge, 1990): 157-175 (quoting Albert Memmi,
subordinated group finds it necessary to counter
these stereotypes. However, paradoxically, in
countering the stereotypes, it is difficult for the
group to avoid generalizing about itself in the name
of liberation.
Since there is no way for a course about violence
against women and women’s human rights to
avoid generalizing about women, this introduction
will simply call attention to the fact that such
generalizations carry the inherent risks listed
above.
Why SCR 1325 is Worth the Risks
Given this complexity, one might well ask why SCR
1325 was necessary in the first place. One might
even wonder why this course is necessary. To
answer these questions, we might begin with the
following remarks by former Secretary-General Kofi
Annan, in his 2002 statement to the UN Security
Council:
Existing inequalities between women and men,
and patterns of discrimination against women
and girls, tend to be exacerbated in armed
conflict. Women and girls become particularly
vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation.
Women and children make up the majority of
the world’s refugees and internally displaced
persons. […] Some women may be forced
to follow camps of armed forces, providing
domestic services and/or being used as sexual
slaves. But if women suffer the impact of conflict
disproportionately, they are also the key to the
solution of conflict. […] The world can no longer
afford to neglect the abuses to which women
and girls are subjected in armed conflict and
its aftermath, or to ignore the contributions
that women make to the search for peace.
It is time they are given the voice in formal
peacebuilding and peacemaking processes that
they deserve. Sustainable peace and security
will not be achieved without their full and equal
participation.24
The Colonizer and the Colonized [Boston: Beacon
Press, 1967], pp. 83, 85).
24 UN Secretary-General’s Statement to the
Security Council on Women, Peace and Security,
Press Release, 2002. (WIW p. 109)
l e s s o n 1 : I N T R O D U C T I ON T O S e curit y C o u n ci l R e s o l uti o n 1 3 2 5
One could argue that this statement contains
stereotyped images of women as victims, as
well as of women as especially capable of
peacebuilding. First, the Former Secretary-General
says, women suffer terribly from conflict, and even
more so than men because of systemic gender
inequalities that are worsened by conditions of war.
Second, for this very reason, women must be given
a full voice in formal peacemaking processes. They
are “the key to the solution of conflict.”
With regard to the first point, claims of women’s
victimization do not challenge gender roles in
many societies because they stay comfortably
within stereotypes of women’s relative weakness
compared with men, or their vulnerability to men’s
violence. They also either bring to mind images
of men in their stereotypical roles as protectors
or remind us of men’s other stereotypical roles as
victimizers. However, while it may not undermine
stereotypes to say that women suffer, it is
challenging in many contexts to demand that this
suffering be addressed as an urgent problem with
worldwide consequences of the utmost importance.
The argument here is not that women are
victimized, nor that they are vulnerable because of
weaknesses inherent in the female sex. Rather, it is
that women’s vulnerability is significantly increased
by socially organized systems of gender inequality.
In other words, women’s greater vulnerability,
especially but not solely in conditions of armed
conflict, stems from social structures that tend
to give most men more access to resources and
decision-making power than most women possess
(see Lesson 3).
In a related manner, the second point in the former
Secretary-General’s quote above signals the
struggle for women to be seen as agents, or actors,
as powerful individuals and collectives themselves
able to change social systems and to make policies
that can transform the nature of security and
conflict resolution. The history of women’s limited
representation in positions of power within the
world’s governments, its most powerful economic,
legal and political institutions, and within the United
Nations itself, provides abundant evidence that
formal gender equality in law is only a beginning.
Real gender equality will require significant
institutional change.
| 27
These are the reasons advocates believed that
a resolution like SCR 1325 was necessary, even
those who worried it might reinforce stereotypical
thinking about women as victims or women as
especially peaceful. This course, in turn, risks
generalizing about women, first, because research
has shown that violence is greatest in conditions
of inequality; second, as subsequent lessons will
show, gender-based violence too can be linked to
systemic patterns of inequality between men and
women, even across otherwise widely differing
social and cultural contexts. The Member States
of the United Nations have recognized this fact
and endorsed a number of measures designed
to eliminate gender discrimination and to reduce,
prevent, and punish violence against women.
SCR 1325 is the resolution most relevant to
peacekeepers in this respect, which is why this
course opens with it.
Above all, the adoption of SCR 1325 has
represented at least partial success in the
struggle to achieve international recognition
of the connections between, on the one hand,
gender inequality and violence, and on the other
hand, the specific gender inequalities that have
excluded women from peacebuilding processes.
The remainder of this lesson will discuss some
of the ways in which SCR 1325 has thus far been
interpreted and implemented, as well as the
challenges ahead in improving its implementation.
1.5 Implementing SCR 1325
In a report on the resources required to incorporate
gender perspectives into all phases of peace
support operations, the UN Secretary-General
provided the following guidelines:
[B]eginning with needs assessment missions
through post-conflict peace-building...[gender]
perspectives should be considered in analysis,
policy and strategy development and planning
of peace support operations, as well as training
programmes and instruments developed to
support effective implementation of those
operations, such as guidelines, handbooks and
codes of conduct. All aspects and all levels of
peace support operations require attention to
gender perspectives.25
25 From the Secretary-General’s report on
28 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
The report goes on to list the following specific
contexts in which “attention to gender issues is
critical”:
• Political analysis;
• Military operations;
• Civilian police activities;
• Electoral assistance;
• Human rights support;
• Humanitarian assistance, including for refugees
and displaced persons;
• Development and reconstruction activities;
• Public information;
• Training of troops and civilian police;
• Balance of personnel in interim governments;
• Capacity-building to ensure gender balance in
interim bodies; and
• Explicit routine reports tracking progress related
to the integration of gender perspectives, and
identifying the number and levels of women
involved in all aspects of the mission.
To return to a question posed earlier in this lesson:
what do phrases like “attention to gender issues”
or “incorporation of gender perspectives” really
mean? A detailed discussion of the term gender
will follow in Lesson 2, but for now, a preliminary
answer can be found in the UN’s definition of
gender mainstreaming. Official UN policy defines
gender mainstreaming as:
… the process of assessing the implications
for women and men of any planned action,
including legislation, policies or programmes,
in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for
making women’s as well as men’s concerns and
experiences an integral dimension of the design,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation
of policies, and programmes in all political,
economic and societal spheres so that women
resource requirements for implementation of
the report of the Panel on United Nations Peace
Operations, 27 October 2000 (A/55/507/Add.1),
quoted in UNIFEM, “Security Council Resolution
1325 Annotated and Explained,” pp.6-7. www.
womenwarpeace.org/toolbox/Annotated_1325.pdf
accessed 18 March 2007.
and men benefit equally and inequality is not
perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve
gender equality.26
In applying gender mainstreaming to the
implementation of SCR 1325, the UN has generally
followed one or more of three basic approaches:
• Inclusion of gender mainstreaming tools directly
into the mission’s mandate;
• Integration of a gender dimension to all
substantial activities of a mission; and
• Dispatching experts on gender issues (gender
advisers) to missions.
As of March 2007, the resolutions establishing
seven out of 15 then-current peacekeeping
missions explicitly mention SCR 1325 and “call for
the incorporation of a gender perspective,” “the
establishment of a gender component within the
staff of [the] mission,” and/or “for an expanded role
for women in UN field operations among military,
police and civilian personnel.”27 Most recently,
the UN has experimented with an all-female
peacekeeping contingent. The first such contingent,
made up of 103 policewomen from India, arrived in
Liberia in January 2007 (see Box 10-B in Lesson
10).28 While it is too soon to evaluate the results
26 The United Nations Economic and Social
Council (ECOSOC) Agreed Conclusions 1997/2.
A further explanation of gender policy decisions,
medium term plans, programme budgets,
and institutional structures and processes.
Mainstreaming entails bringing the perceptions,
experience, knowledge and interests of women as
well as men to bear on policy-making, planning and
decision-making. OSAGI, Gender Mainstreaming;
An Overview (New York: United Nations, 2002),
at http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/pdf/
factsheet1.pdf, 1.
27 Information compiled from the following sites
on 27 March 2007: http://www.peacewomen.org/
un/sc/1325_Monitor/RW/theme_PK_Ops.htm and
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/index.asp.
28 The armed police unit will help stabilise Liberia,
which, after years of war, is trying to rebuild its
own police force from scratch. About twenty
men accompanied the group of 103 women to
provide logistical support. India deployed the
contingent, from its Central Reserve Police Force,
after a request from the UN to consider providing
women peacekeepers. The Central Reserve
Police Force women have experience from India’s
insurgency-prone areas, like Jammu and Kashmir
and the North East, as well as in Sri Lanka as a
l e s s o n 1 : I N T R O D U C T I ON T O S e curit y C o u n ci l R e s o l uti o n 1 3 2 5
of the experiment, it will certainly be interesting
to observe how the Liberian peacekeeping force
addresses gender and other issues in the field, as
well as the lessons its all-woman make-up will have
to teach us about gender mainstreaming efforts
generally.
The Special Representative of the Secretary-General, William Swing,
addresses the personnel of MONUC on sexual violence and exploitation.
(Photo MONUC, Kevin Jordan, December 2004)
Including Gender Mainstreaming Tools in the
Mission Mandate
A mission’s mandate establishes the type and
range of activities of the mission. In this approach,
gender issues are included in the mandate of a
peacekeeping operation to the same degree that
humanitarian aid, child protection, political analysis,
and military concerns or human rights issues are
included. While many mandates of peacekeeping
operations have made reference to the impact of
violence on women and girls, it is only recently
that some have begun to include any explicit
commitment to gender equality. In the absence of
concrete directives in the mandate, there can be a
tendency for gender issues to be addressed only
randomly, according to the importance attributed
to them by the head and staff of the mission. As
of March 2007, there are no women serving as
Heads of Mission or Special Representatives of
the Secretary-General (SRSG) in peacekeeping
missions, with only one woman at the level of
Deputy SRSG (in Afghanistan - UNAMA).29
part of the Indian Peacekeeping Force.
29 Until 2000, only 4 women had ever served as
UN SRSGs.
| 29
 WATCH: instruments used to support the implementation of
SIDE BY SIDE – WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY operations on the ground, such as guidelines and
codes of conduct. In the end, the extent to which
gender was integrated throughout the mission is
included in the monitoring and reporting system.
This last requirement is one specifically mentioned
in SCR 1325; the reporting situation in 2000 was
deemed far from satisfactory, and implementation
of the resolution cannot be evaluated without an
improved understanding of the different impacts of
armed conflicts on men and women, as well as an
assessment of how missions are performing.

The UN Office of the Special Adviser on Gender

This 30-minute documentary, which was jointly developed by the Australian Government’s
Australian Civil-Military Centre and UN Women, explores the ways in which the
international community have met – and can continue to meet – its commitments on women,
peace, and security. To view the video, either click on the image above or go to:
http://www.peaceopstraining.org/e-learning/course_media_page/1154/side-by-side-women-peace-and-security/
However, when gender mainstreaming tools have
been built into the mandate and strongly supported
through ties to local women’s communities, the
results have been promising. An example of this
can be found in Burundi:
SCR 1545, which established the UN operation
in Burundi (ONUB) in May 2004, makes
specific mention of SCR 1325 and requests
that attention be given to the special needs of
women and children in relation to disarmament,
demobilization and reintegration and the
protection of human rights. Furthermore, it
requests that the Secretary-General ensure that
“ONUB’s personnel give special attention to
issues related to gender equality.” 30
Without a doubt, both the decision to include
gender equality in the ONUB mandate and the
mission’s subsequent active engagement with
women’s organizations were greatly facilitated by
the groundwork laid by their years of activism in
Burundi prior to the establishment of ONUB. Four
years earlier, in spite of having been excluded from
30 Op. cit. 2, p. 39, quoting SCR 1545. S/
RES/1545. New York: United Nations Security
Council, 2004.
formal peace negotiations in Arusha, women and
women’s organizations were already advocating
strongly for the inclusion of their concerns in the
peace process. Continued activism by women’s
groups in Burundi led to a requirement in the new
constitution that 30% of all government seats go
to women, and elections in 2005 landed an even
higher percentage of posts for women. Further
reinforcing these positive precedents, “[in] a
speech on 20 September 2006, Burundi President
Pierre Nkurunziza called on the [Peacebuilding
Commission] and the UN system to make gender
equality a priority, emphasizing that his government
regarded this as crucial to alleviating poverty,” and
thus to avoiding a relapse into violence.31
Integrating a Gender Dimension into All of a
Mission’s Substantial Activities
The second approach to implementing SCR
1325 begins with addressing gender concerns
in the initial phase of a mission: during needs
assessment, operations planning, and policy
development. Once the mission is underway,
gender perspectives are incorporated into the
31 Ibid.
Issues and the Advancement of Women (OSAGI)
undertook a study of 264 Secretary-General’s
reports to the Security Council for the period
between January 2000 and September 2003. The
aim of the study was to analyse to what extent the
reports included gender perspectives, as required
by different official documents, particularly SCR
1325. This analysis revealed that only 18 per cent
of the reports made multiple references to gender
concerns, 15 per cent made minimal reference,
and 67 per cent of the reports made no, or only
one, mention of women or gender issues. The
vast majority of the reports citing gender concerns
mentioned the impact of conflict on women and
girls as victims – not as potential dynamic actors
in reconciliation, peacebuilding, or post-conflict
reconstruction.32
Dispatching Gender Experts to Missions
This approach has been by far the most heavily
utilized in implementing SCR 1325. The UN makes
use of at least two kinds of gender expert positions:
gender focal points and gender advisors. Gender
focal points are responsible for improving gender
balance in peacekeeping operations. As such, they
work on such personnel issues as “recruitment,
promotions, employment discrimination and
sexual harassment.”33 As of March 2007, five
peacekeeping missions had a gender focal point.34
32 Office of the Special Adviser for Gender Issues
and Advancement of Women, An analysis of the
Gender Content of Secretary-General’s Reports to
the Security Council (January 2000 – September
2003) (7 October 2003), 1.
33 See Gender Resources Package: http://pbpu.
unlb.org/pbpu/genderpack.aspx accessed 20
March 2007.
34 http://www.peacewomen.org/un/pkwatch/facts.
Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan salutes the participants at the
conference of justice for people living in post-conflict zones, organised
by UNIFEM and the CIAJ at UNHQ. (UN Photo #37021 by Ky Chung,
September 2004)
Gender advisors, beyond their mandate-specific
tasks, are generally responsible for incorporating
gender concerns in all the activities of the mission.
This may consist of conducting awareness raising
and training on these issues to all staff, including
military and civilian personnel at all levels, initiating
empowerment of local women to increase their
participation in peace processes, and assisting to
launch national mechanisms for gender concerns.
There is also a central Gender Advisor based
in the Peacekeeping Best Practices Unit at the
Headquarters of the Department of Peacekeeping
Operations (DPKO) in New York.
Two gender advisors had been posted to
peacekeeping operations in the year 2000. Four
years later, out of 17 then-current peacekeeping
operations, there were 10 with “a dedicated
full-time gender advisory capacity – which could
mean either a formalized unit with a number of
staff working on gender issues, or a single gender
advisor post.”35
html accessed 27 March 2007. A current list of
Gender Focal Points by country, name and email
address may also be obtained at this site.
35 Ibid. For a list of the names, email addresses,
and in some cases, mission websites of these
advisors, go to: http://www.peacewomen.org/un/
pkwatch/facts.html.

30 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n l e s s o n 1 : I N T R O D U C T I ON T O S e curit y C o u n ci l R e s o l uti o n 1 3 2 5 | 31

Several examples of the work and
accomplishments of gender advisers and gender
units can be cited. For instance, in the UN
Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(MONUC), the senior gender adviser developed
a two-pronged strategy to ensure that a gender
perspective was integrated into the mission’s
policies and programmes, and to interface with
civil society organizations, especially women’s
groups.36 In the UN Transitional Administration
in East Timor (UNTAET), the Gender Unit
assisted the East Timorese Women’s Network in
implementing the Beijing Platform for Action (see
Lesson 6). In Sierra Leone, the gender adviser
was placed in the Human Rights Unit through
an agreement between UNDPKO and the Office
of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
(OHCHR). She created a Women’s Task Force for
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to give
particular attention to gender-based violence during
armed conflict. She also undertook research on
war-related sexual abuses, together with an NGO
whose focus was the promotion and protection of
women’s rights in post-conflict societies.
Despite some of the real successes achieved by
gender advisers in the field, significant institutional
barriers have hampered their work. According to
an Independent Experts’ Assessment conducted
by the United Nations Development Fund for
Women (UNIFEM) in 2002, gender advisers have
regrettably been working without budgets or proper
backup from headquarters; thus, they have often
lacked clarity about their own mandates and felt
isolated from official communication channels.
[S]o far, the range of responsibilities given to
gender advisers appears to exceed both their
authority and their limited resources. […] Aside
from needing adequate staff, gender units need
a strategy and plan of action that comes from the
highest level, indicating a serious commitment
to integrating gender issues in all activities of the
mission.37
36 See Box 10-A: Democratic Republic of Congo –
The Office of Gender Affairs in MONUC (Lesson 10).
37 E. Rehn and E. Johnson Sirleaf, Women War
Peace: The Independent Assessment on the
Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and Women’s
Role in Peace-Building (New York: UNIFEM, 2002),
68.
32 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
While assessments of the “gender expert
approach” to implementing SCR 1325 have been
mixed, some extremely committed individual
experts and their colleagues on missions, working
closely with local civil society organizations, have
been able to accomplish a great deal.
1.6 Conclusion: Re-Thinking
what “Gender Mainstreaming” and
SCR 1325 Require
As this course will argue, the reasons behind the
limits of the “gender expert approach” are complex
and go beyond the simple failure to sufficiently
fund high-level gender advisory posts or write clear
operational mandates for gender mainstreaming.
They have to do with the fundamentally misguided
way in which gender issues can be and have been
conceptualized. While women and girls make up
half the population or more in many post-conflict
countries, the consideration of issues affecting
women have typically been treated as special or
separate – issues to be considered after plans
have already been made. In practice, this approach
creates peace support operations that assume
whole societies are male – or at least that those
societies have only the needs and concerns that
come to mind for some male policy makers who are
designing operations. It assumes that it is possible
to construct a general approach that will work for
everyone, and that women’s needs will vary only
a little bit around the edges. These are the critical
themes of gender mainstreaming and SCR 1325
that are addressed in this course.
Real gender mainstreaming requires a fundamental
change of orientation in this thinking. As one report
puts it:
In every aspect of reconstruction — from
rebuilding roads to rebuilding political
structures — every decision taken, every
project funded, and every policy implemented
will have a gendered impact. The impact may
be to reinforce the status quo, or to change
it, but no matter whether peacebuilders
consciously analyze the gendered effects of their
programmes or not, they are de facto making
decisions about gender. When preparing to
hold elections, for example, planners de facto
reinforce men’s political dominance if they do Of course, here one runs immediately into that
not consciously ask questions such as: do men paradox of identity again. Do all women respond
and women in the society get their information in to one kind of voter education and all men
different locations, or from different media?; do another? Do women really do all the childcare in
men and women require different kinds of voter this community? Are women the only ones with
education or respond to different “get out the physical security needs? However, to begin by
vote” messages?; will women be willing to stand asking these kinds of questions about gender is a
on line and vote next to men?; what provisions crucial first step. The following case example from
will be made for the care of young children Mali provides an excellent illustration of how much
while women stand on line for hours in the hot is gained by including thoroughgoing attention to
sun?; do women have different physical security women in a disarmament programme.
needs when they vote than men do? Whether or
not one thinks it desirable to wait and deal with Such programmes, because they deal with arms –
gender “further down the road,” it simply is not and typically men are associated with armaments
possible, as gender is a part of every action in – have historically been designed with only men
the present. The question, then, is not when to in mind. This case study shows how short-sighted
turn to thinking about gender; it is whether or not and ineffective such designs have been and how
an individual is thinking in an informed manner much more effective they can be when women are
about the gendered impact of every aspect of his taken into account. At the same time, the study
or her work.38 reveals the risks of assuming all women are alike
(see Box 1-A as follows).
Box 1-A: The Relevance of Women’s Role in Micro Disarmament —
The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) Case Study in Mali
Among micro disarmament policies, the exchange of development aid for weapons held by civilians in
post-conflict areas is becoming increasingly popular with donors. Although such policies are often aimed at men,
who generally tend to hold the weapons, UNIDIR’s field research in Mali in March 2003 found that successful
projects tend to involve the avid participation of the entire community, that is, of both men and women.
In Mali, women played an indispensable part in securing a favourable climate for handing over weapons. In
the face of violence, women served to persuade men as their wives, sisters, mothers and in-laws to give up
their weapons. They organized inter-community meetings, involved the media, visited cantonment areas, and
persuaded male family members to hand over their weapons. In a certain village, an elder woman told the
UNIDIR research team that she had threatened her young male family members by saying that she would go
naked in public unless they handed over their weapons. Women played a major role in the early process of
peacebuilding, and the male community members highly appreciated their contribution. Women also tend to
maintain a holistic view of the goal of weapons collection. In Mali, both men and women agreed that the final
goal of weapons collection is to eradicate poverty and bring peace to the community. However, when asked
to elaborate on this thought, men and women reacted differently. For women, the aim of weapons collection
programmes was to bring reconciliation among the various ethnic factions in the community, resumption of free
transportation, and provision of opportunities for young men. Male community members tended to focus on
reducing the number of weapons in circulation. While men could identify correctly the most effective procedures
for collecting weapons, women emphasized that the ultimate purpose of collecting weapons is peacebuilding in
the community.
38 Op. cit. 2, p. 18.
l e s s o n 1 : I N T R O D U C T I ON T O S e curit y C o u n ci l R e s o l uti o n 1 3 2 5 | 33
 This lesson and this course suggest the following
guidelines for re-thinking gender mainstreaming
Women in Mali proved also to be capable of identifying effective aid incentives for weapons collection projects. and the implementation of SCR 1325:
When asked how to judge the success of weapons collection projects, men focused on such material factors as
the number of weapons collected and destroyed, and as well as the reduction of gun-related crime and injuries. • Gender mainstreaming means, first, thinking
They also identified the building of roads and bridges as appropriate incentives for handing over weapons. about women. Second, it means thinking about
Compared to men, women stressed the need to address the root causes of violent conflict. Moreover, women men and women relationally – how a society
deemed projects such as provision of water wells, grain mills and cereal banks, that is the projects that provide arranges its gender roles for the relationships
basic needs for daily lives such as water and food, as the best sort of incentives to be provided in exchange between men and women. Third, it means
for weapons. Women also explained that effective weapons for development projects should be linked to the thinking about how everything you do may affect
underlying causes of small arms and light weapons problems. In particular, they emphasized the importance of
each group differently and/or affect the relational
job creation for young men in economically marginalized communities. This suggests that involving women in
dynamics between them.
project design and evaluation can help donors in the selection of incentives for weapons collection programmes.
• Attention to gender perspectives requires
From the Mali experience it would seem that men and women contribute to each stage of a weapons collection recognition that gender is culturally contextual
process in a complementary manner. Gender consideration in programmes of weapons collection seems and that cultures are themselves not
then a matter of pragmatics. Involving both men and women in the design, implementation, monitoring and homogenous. Every culture has within it a
evaluation is key for effective projects. But how can the contribution of women in this respect be maximized? range of different roles for men and women (see
First and foremost, the international assistance community should make sure that women are involved in the
Lessons 2 and 5). At any given time, people may
decision-making process. Although there is a desire to involve them, they are often left aside when projects are
be entirely, or only partially, going along with
implemented, because they are more tied to their housework. In Mali, once weapons collection began, women’s
role in the process decreased. Therefore, the international community needs to pay more attention to maintaining their society’s accepted gender roles, or they
women’s participation throughout the implementation of such projects. may be resisting them.
• Gender mainstreaming means creating the
One way to encourage women’s participation would be to incorporate participatory monitoring and evaluation widest possible space for men and women to
techniques into weapons collection programmes. These methods, long practised in the fields of health and
have equal access to resources and power, and
development, have the potential to facilitate communication among the actual beneficiaries of the projects. The
to be equally involved in decisions about how
techniques involve group discussion and visual aids such as flow charts, to enable as many members of the
community as possible to participate. It is important to pay attention even to meeting times. In Mali, urban women things will be done.
had less difficulty in participating in disarmament processes than rural women who generally tend to have less • Gender mainstreaming may mean doing things
spare time that can be devoted to meetings. In this case, holding a meeting late in the afternoon (after daytime differently so that more kinds of people can
errands, before the preparation of dinner), for example, might allow more women to participate. When women are participate. It may mean dealing with men and
involved, their ‘heterogeneousness’ should not be overlooked. In Mali, women are altogether narrowly defined as
women separately sometimes and together at
wives and mothers. However, if they are unmarried, or do not fit in the social strata, they might be excluded from
others.
consideration, even by fellow women. An illustrative example is female ex-combatants. During its field research,
the UNIDIR team came upon a few female ex-combatants in a community. When the research team asked to
involve them in an ex-combatants’ discussion group, the male members of the group refused, because ‘they were
women’. Likewise, when women were asked to integrate the female ex-combatants in their discussion group,
they too declined, because ‘those women were fighters, not civilians’. Participatory monitoring and evaluation
techniques are strong tools to involve various beneficiaries in aid programmes. However, one still needs to be
sensitive to local conditions and to refine methodologies according to local context, in order to make all voices
heard.

Source: M Vlachová and L Biason (eds.), Women in an Insecure World: Violence against women – facts, figures
and analysis, Geneva, 2005, p. 198.

34 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n l e s s o n 1 : I N T R O D U C T I ON T O S e curit y C o u n ci l R e s o l uti o n 1 3 2 5 | 35

End-of-Lesson Quiz
1. Which of the following are reasons why Security Council resolution 1325 calls for the
incorporation of more women in peacebuilding activities at the UN? For each statement, place
an X in the appropriate column.
Statement
A. Because equality between women
and men is essential to peace.
B. Because the UN recognizes that men
are better at peacekeeping and
women are better at peacebuilding.
C. Because women have long been
excluded from decision-making
positions related to peace, conflict,
and security matters at the UN, and
women’s equal participation with men
is an important UN goal.
D. Because women and children are
disproportionately impacted by armed
conflicts.
2. What are the three main components of SCR 1325?
36 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
3. Women’s rights advocates first clearly 5. Which of the following is a key element
articulated the relationships between of the official UN definition of gender
gender inequality, development, and mainstreaming?
issues of peace and conflict at the 1975 UN A. Ensuring that an equal number of men and
World Conference on Women in Mexico. women work for every major mission and office
True False These relationships were elaborated in of the UN;
future conferences. Which of the following
B. Identifying which spheres are women’s, and
statements does not correctly describe the
which are men’s, in every society served by UN
claims of these women’s rights advocates?
missions;
A. Violence against women in the home has
C. Assessing the implications for women and men
nothing to do with peace (which concerns
of any planned action, in all areas and at all
violence against men and women in situations
levels;
of armed conflict) or development issues;
D. Consideration of gender as a primary
B. There can be no peace without women’s
factor when filling positions for Heads of
political and economic equality with men
Mission and Special Representatives of the
because inequality breeds violence;
Secretary-General (SRSGs) in peacekeeping
C. There can be no sustainable global missions.
development without women’s political and
economic equality with men;
6. In applying gender mainstreaming to the
D. Peace must include eliminating all violence
implementation of SCR 1325, the UN has
against women, and to achieve it we must also
generally followed one or more of three basic
strive for gender equality and development.
approaches. What are they?
4. Which of the following statements best
exemplifies the “paradox of identity”
discussed in this lesson?
A. Talking about women’s victimization can make
them seem weak and vulnerable; paradoxically,
this can undermine efforts to argue for their
empowerment as leaders;
B. Paradoxically, women can be both peaceful
and violent, and men can be both victims of
violence and its perpetrators;
C. To claim an identity (such as ‘woman’) is 7. In Question 6, which of the approaches has
to argue that one will always be a victim of been most commonly used?
oppression and violence;
D. Women’s rights paradoxically require one
to believe that gender is the most important
feature of one’s identity.
l e s s o n 1 : I N T R O D U C T I ON T O S e curit y C o u n ci l R e s o l uti o n 1 3 2 5 | 37
8. List the different responsibilities of gender
advisors and gender focal points.
10. Gender mainstreaming means:
A. Making it possible for men and women to have
equal access to resources and power;
B. Making sure women make all important
decisions;
C. Prioritizing gender differences over differences
LESSON 2
in age, social group, or religion;
D. Treating the men and women of all cultures
GENDER: DEFINITIONS
exactly the same. AND THEORIES

9. What has been the main problem with the

most commonly used approach to gender
mainstreaming in peacekeeping missions so
far?
A. It focuses on gender to the exclusion of other
important social issues affecting missions;
B. It just has not worked;
C. It has cost too much money;
D. It has treated women (and/or gender) as a
separate issue to be added on after plans have
already been made.

ANSWER KEY
1(A True, B False, C True, D True), 2 (1) Recognition/concern that armed conflicts target, and dispropor-
tionately impact, civilians – especially women and children; says this is significant for the sustainability
of peace and reconciliation efforts worldwide. (2) Calls for full implementation of all international human
rights and humanitarian laws protecting women and girls during and post-conflict. (3) Calls for women’s
full and equal participation at every level of decision-making in peace and security-related matters; says
gender mainstreaming in PKOs is urgent., 3A, 4A, 5C, 6 Including gender mainstreaming tools in the
mission’s mandate, Integrating gender in all mission activities, Sending gender experts to missions,
7 Sending gender experts to missions, 8 Gender advisors: Incorporate gender concerns in all mission
activities; Conduct awareness raising and training on gender issues to all staff; Train military and civilian
personnel on gender issues; Empower local women to increase their participation in peace processes.
Gender focal points: Improve gender balance in peacekeeping operations; Work on personnel issues
such as recruitment, promotions, employment discrimination, and sexual harassment. 9D, 10A

38 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
 2.1 Introduction At their core, gender-based discrimination or
sex-based discrimination are based on an ideology
The goal of achieving full gender equality that denies the equal stature of people of all
world-wide has not yet been reached. At the start genders. And it was this acceptance of a state
of the 20th century there were few nations where of “inequality” that had to be overcome during
Lesson women had the right to full citizenship, including
the right to vote. Most women were wives and
the early days (and throughout) the struggle for
equality. Inequality and violence go hand-in-hand.
2 mothers, few worked outside the home, and – with
the exception of royals born to power – women did
Humans do not generally accept conditions of
inequality willingly. Thus, to enforce unequal
not serve as national leaders. The term “gender” conditions, a combination of violence and ideology
was not often used, and a person’s role in life could is often used. Ideology is a system of ideas forming
be largely defined by their sex – meaning whether the basis of a particular theory of society. An
they were born male or female. But over the course inequality-supportive ideology is one that justifies
of the 20th century some progress was made in the unequal distribution of power or resources on
these areas. Gradually, women did earn the right the grounds, often, of some natural or biological
to vote. This right did not come without a struggle, difference between a dominant and subordinate
and even for some so-called developed nations, it group. For example, slave owners have historically
was not until the second half of the 20th century that justified slavery with ideologies that the people
these rights were finally secured.1 they enslave belong to an inferior race of humanity.
LESSON OBJECTIVES To the degree that the subordinate group believes
During the 20th century there came to be a gradual in this ideology, violence or force is usually
2.1 Introduction awareness of the concept of gender – meaning not necessary to sustain the inequality, for the
By the end of Lesson 2, the student should be able to: the cultural definition and set of assumptions of
2.2 Which are you? subordinate group will be unlikely to resist social
what it means to be a boy or a girl, a man or a arrangements that seem to be based in “the natural
Woman? Man? Neither? woman, within the context of a particular culture.
• Explain the following terms: sex, gender, third gender, masculinity, order of things.”
Both? When Did You femininity, sex roles, and gender socialization; During the later part of the 20th century there
First Know and How? also came to be a developing acceptance and
• Describe several processes by which gender norms are perpetuated; respect for other categories and definitions of
2.3 Differences between • List at least three ways in which gender norms for both men and women sex and gender, beside the traditional definitions.
“Sex” and “Gender” vary within every society, with examples from the student’s own society; And there certainly came to be an acceptance
and recognition that women were fully qualified
and Some Other Key • Explain how violence maintains gender roles; and to serve at the highest levels of government. By
Terms • Describe how sex-difference claims (claims that men and women the early 21st century women had been elected to
are fundamentally different from one another) are related to gender positions as president or prime minister of nations
2.4 “Policing” Sex/Gender: from Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America.
inequality and violence.
How Sex-Gender These nations included populations that were
Relations Persist predominantly Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and
Moslem.
2.5 How Claims of
“Difference” are It would be easy for us today to overlook the vision
and determination of the women – and some
Related to Inequality men – who recognised that anything short of full
and Violence gender equality was unacceptable. It would also Women have held high-ranking political positions in nations around
be easy for us to lull ourselves into thinking that the world. From left to right: President Michelle Bachelet of Chile;
2.6 Conclusion universal gender equality exists today. As this Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany; Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
lesson will demonstrate, the question of a person’s of India; Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel; President Ellen Johnson-
gender, and society’s cultural expectations based Sirleaf of Liberia; Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan; Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom; Secretary of State
on gender, are neither easy to answer nor finally
Condoleezza Rice of the United States.
resolved.
To view a video introduction of this lesson by
1 For a chronology of women’s right to vote
the course author AnnJanette Rosga, you can around the world, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
either log in to your virtual classroom, go to www. Timeline_of_women%27s_suffrage.
peaceopstraining.org/users/media_page/393/,
or use your mobile device to scan the QR code
to the left.
l e s s o n 2 : G e n d e r — D e f i n iti o n s a n d T h e o ri e s | 41
 Where ideology fails, however, violence and force
often take its place or supplement it. Gender
inequality has long been justified – in varying
ways across time and location – by claims of
natural differences between men and women. For
instance, women were denied the right to vote in
the United Kingdom, the United States, and other
European and non-European nations until the early
twentieth century or later. Specifically in the United
Kingdom, when women protested their exclusion
from the vote, many of them were imprisoned. To
protest their imprisonment, several women went
on hunger strikes. When it appeared that the
“suffragettes,” as the protestors were called, were
gaining public sympathy, the British government
passed a law which permitted them to release
women whose hunger strikes were endangering
their health. After the women recovered their
health while free, the government was permitted to
re-arrest them.
Suffragists marching, probably in New York City in 1913. (Source: George
Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress), LC-B201-3643-12, no
known restrictions on publication)
Eventually in the UK, women gained the right to
vote in piecemeal fashion. The advent of World War
I brought, as wars often do, a period of disrupted
gender roles (see Lesson 9). Many men were absent
due to military service, and many women ably took
up their work, making it clear that women were
perfectly capable of doing work formerly thought too
difficult for women. This led in 1918 to suffrage (the
vote) for women who met certain qualifications such
as property ownership, marriage to property owners,
and university education. Completely equal suffrage
to men’s was not granted to women until 1928 in the
United Kingdom, and as late as 1990 in other areas
of Europe.
42 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
This lesson will discuss what is scientifically known It was long thought that sex differences are
about differences between the sexes. It will show unchanging and determined at conception.
Writing Exercise 2-A
that while all known societies have ideologies However, the balance of a baby’s sex hormones
about sexual differences, the beliefs each society (such as testosterone, oestrogen, etc., which both
Write down the first memory that comes to
has about what is natural for women and for men sexes have but in different ratios) can be affected
your mind of your own or another child’s sex/
have varied widely over time, as well as across and by how an infant child is handled physically. The
gender socialization. For many people, this
within different cultures. It will also discuss several relationship between biology and culture is much
memory is one of being told how not to be a
ways in which sex and gender differences are more dynamic and interactive than previous
boy or a girl. (For example, “boys don’t cry”;
learned; how these differences are enforced when research has suggested. We now know that
“boys don’t wear saris”; “girls don’t hit”; “girls
people resist them; and how they nonetheless elements of both sex and gender difference can
don’t play football”; etc.)
do change under certain circumstances. Finally, change as a result of environmental factors, that
the lesson will return at its end to a discussion of culture is shaped by biology as well, and that the
How did you feel? What were the reasons,
how ideologies of sexual difference are related to complexity of these interactions is far from being
if any, behind this rule about why boys and
gender inequality and violence. completely understood.
girls are different, or why they could or could
not do particular things? Did the rule make
2.2 Which are You? Woman? Man? sense to you? Does it make sense to you Sex Gender
Neither? Both? When Did You First today? Genetic differences Behaviours
Know and How? Hormones Attitudes
Emotional and com-
Are you a woman or a man? How do you know? Reproductive organs
2.3 Differences between “Sex” and munication styles
If this seems like an obvious, or even a stupid
“Gender” and Some Other Key Terms Genitals Personality types
question, it is probably because sex and gender
differences are so taken for granted by the time Content of thoughts,
As the above examples suggest, there are a styles of thinking
we reach adulthood in most cultures, as obvious, Secondary sex char-
number of different ways to differentiate male
natural and eternal. However, each of us has had acteristics, such as: Responsibilities
from female and the spaces in between: genitalia,
to learn how to be an appropriate man or woman in hair growth patterns, Social Roles
reproductive organs, behaviours, and kinds of
our culture(s), just as we had to learn how to be a tones of voice, and
labour a culture assigns to each sex/gender. For Dress
girl or boy growing up. Girls may be taught to help distribution of muscle
this reason, it is important to define a few terms. Work/career
their sisters and mothers with cooking while boys mass
may be taken places outside the home with their Skills
Sex versus Gender
fathers. Boys and girls are often given different
kinds of toys to play with or different sorts of chores Masculinity and Femininity2
Typically in English, “sex” refers to those
to do when helping out with family tasks.
characteristics differing between male and
Masculinity and femininity are characteristics,
female which are biological: genetic differences,
If you are the caretaker of children, you may be habits, traits, behaviours, thoughts, beliefs, and
hormones, reproductive organs, external
more recently familiar with this fact since, probably, ways of being in the world that are commonly
genitalia, and what are known as “secondary sex
you will have faced questions from these children believed to belong to men and women respectively
characteristics” such as hair growth patterns,
about the differences between boys and girls. within a given society. For instance, physical
tones of voice, distribution of muscle mass, etc.
Perhaps you’ve had to teach a child about what is strength is a trait commonly believed to belong
“Gender,” on the other hand, refers to things like
appropriate for boys and girls to do, or not to do, to men more than women, while the ability to
behaviours, attitudes, emotional styles, personality
within your society. Often the first question asked empathize emotionally is a trait commonly ascribed
types, thoughts, and responsibilities that different
about a newborn infant is, “Is it a girl or a boy?” to women. In some Western intellectual traditions,
societies consider appropriate for men and women
men have historically been characterized as logical,
depending on their historical period, location, and
Children are often treated differently based on while women are portrayed as intuitive.
traditions. Gender differences have been shown to
sex from the very moment they are born. Indeed,
differ across time and place, while sex differences
with new technologies that permit the identification 2 Expanded and adapted from Reid Smith,
tend to be more similar and stable across cultures “After Hours: Decision-Making among Clients of
of a foetus’s sex prior to birth, different – and
and historical periods. Female Sex-Workers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia,”
discriminatory – treatment may begin even earlier
a Gender and Masculinity Workshop for PSI/
(see Box 3-B on sex-selective abortion in Lesson 3). Cambodia, Family Health International (13-16
December 2006).
l e s s o n 2 : G e n d e r — D e f i n iti o n s a n d T h e o ri e s | 43
There are, within every given society, ranges of
ways to be appropriately feminine or masculine.
There are almost always multiple masculinities
and femininities. Your society’s rules about gender
will vary depending on the situation. For instance,
if economic conditions are such that a father is
unable to earn enough to support his family, a
social rule against women working outside the
home may be relaxed so that the mother can
contribute to the household income. Similarly,
rules against men doing certain tasks like laundry
or cooking may be adapted by this family to
accommodate the mother’s absence.
Writing Exercise 2-B
Take just a couple of moments to write down
two lists of attributes under the headings
masculine and feminine for your society.
How often did you find yourself saying
“it depends”? What did it depend upon:
who is doing the believing, perceiving or
describing? The situation in which a given
man or woman is behaving in a particular
way? Other factors?
Would people in your village, town, city or
country all agree with your characterizations
of masculinity or femininity?
It is equally possible that people within families will
disagree about the rules, and conflict may occur
over which rules should be followed and which
ones broken. For example, teenaged girls may
object to gender rules that restrict their movement
outside the home while their teenaged brothers are
allowed to go out alone.
Generally, though, there are outer limits to the
rules – things that absolutely will not be tolerated
under any circumstances, and things that almost
everyone agrees upon, or if they disagree, they do
not say so aloud. These are what might be called
the dominant or hegemonic rules. These are the
rules everyone assumes or takes for granted.
They are the rules that are hardest to see as rules
because they simply appear to be “normal life.”
44 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
When these rules are broken – and very often
situations of armed conflict create conditions in
which it is impossible not to break them – it can be
very stressful for everyone involved. Such stress
can lead to violence.
Rules about masculinity and femininity are very
often some of a society’s most deeply held and
most invisible social rules.
Femininity refers to the qualities or
characteristics considered appropriate for
women/girls; Masculinity refers to the qualities or
characteristics considered appropriate for men/
boys. What is considered appropriate female
or male behaviour, or what are considered
female or male virtues and qualities, depends
on the cultural context and time. It can also
differ depending on factors such as class, age,
ethnicity and other social differences. This
means that there are multiple femininities and
masculinities in any given context.
The dominant ideologies of femininity expect
women/girls to be subordinate, obedient
and dependent; passive in sexual relations;
virgins, chaste and monogamous; and privilege
motherhood as the primary reason for having
sex. The dominant ideologies of masculinity
expect men/boys to be independent, dominant,
invulnerable aggressors and providers, strong
and virile. However, dominant ideologies can be
changed.3
For the purposes of this lesson, what is most
important is that they are rules, and even though
they may appear to be permanent, inevitable, and
natural, they have changed over time and place
and vary even within every society.
3 Operational Guide on Gender and HIV/AIDS,
Prepared for the UNAIDS Interagency Task Team
on Gender and HIV/AIDS, (2005): 8.
Writing Exercise 2-C: Examples of
Gender Over Time
• Think about very old pictures or
sculptures you have seen that show
women and men of your society.
• Think about histories of the people in
your society you have read. Did men do
different things than they do now? Did
women do different things than they do
now?
• List three ways that expectations of
women have changed in your society over
time (“Then, women were expected to…”;
“Now, women…”).
• List three ways that expectations for men
have changed in your society over time.
Writing Exercise 2-D: Examples of
Gender Across Space
• List three things that are different
somewhere outside your country than
they are inside your country for both men
and women.
• List three things for men, and three for
women, that are different in rural villages
in your country than they are in the
nation’s largest city.
Sex Roles 4 having both male and female sexual organs
Sex roles are simply social and/or professional
roles within a society that are commonly assigned
to one sex or another. For instance, in most nations
around the world, the roles of “police officer,”
“soldier,” and “peacekeeper” have generally been
considered male sex roles – though by taking this
course you are playing an active part in changing
this history, even if you are a man, because you are
reconsidering what it means to be a peacekeeper
in terms of gender. Currently in UN peacekeeping
operations, two per cent of military personnel and
4 The following two paragraphs are expanded and
adapted from Reid Smith, Gender and Masculinity
Workshop for PSI/Cambodia, Family Health
International (13-16 December 2006).
l e s s o n 2 : G e n d e r — D e f i n iti o n s a n d T h e o ri e s
eight per cent of police officers are women5, but
this number will hopefully continue to increase.
Cooking and cleaning are often viewed as part of a
woman’s sex role, while fishing is typically part of a
man’s.
Like genders, masculinities, and femininities,
sex roles change over time, across space, and
within societies. They are also regularly contested
within families and communities. Sex roles can
vary according to caste, class, race, ethnic or
religious group, age, tribal or clan affiliation,
education, region, family history, and many social
and individual factors. Still, pervasive patterns
of discrimination and violence against girls and
women exist in many societies, even with all this
variation. In many cases, gender-specific violence
against boys and men also exists. Such violence
can play a significant role in perpetuating strict
divisions between the sexes and in maintaining sex
roles.
Other Definitions of Sex and Gender
Is it possible to be neither or both male and
female? In many cultures of the world there are
third [or more] sexes/genders. Before considering
gender within the context of culture in the
remainder of this lesson, here are a few terms with
which one should acquaint oneself.
Inter-sex
Inter-sex refers to the physical condition of
or characteristics.6 The term hermaphrodite
is also sometimes used for this condition but
has fallen out of fashion and in any case was
usually limited to the description of cases in
which the external genitalia have both male and
female characteristics. Studies have shown
that approximately two per cent of live births,
approximately 80,000 births per year, are of
children with some degree of sex ambiguity,
whether of external genitalia and/or internal
5 Women in Peacekeeping: The Power to Empower.
International Day of UN Peacekeepers: 29
May 2009, at http://www.un.org/en/events/
peacekeepersday/2009/.
6 The Arabic word “Khuntha” (literally “hermaphrodite”)
refers to physically inter-sexed human beings.
| 45
 reproductive organs.7 There can be mixtures of
genetic and hormonal sex indicators, as well. That
is, one can have the chromosomes of a male but
some or all of the sex organs of a female or vice
versa.8 With few exceptions, standard medical
practice in most places has been to surgically
“correct” those infants who are visibly inter-sex at
birth. Recently, however, there have been social
movements to change this practice – either to
permit the child to choose her/his own sex when
old enough to do so, or to allow the child to live an
inter-sexed life.
PASTT at the Gay Pride Parade in Paris, June 2006. (Source: Kenji-
Baptiste OIKAWA, used with permission per http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Image:PASTT_at_Gay_Pride_2005.JPG)
Transgender
Transgender is a term that describes the condition
of identifying oneself as a sex that is different
from the one to which one was born and to which
others perceive one as belonging. That is, in
biological terms, transgender people usually
belong clearly either to the male or female sex,
but they experience and express themselves
otherwise. They may live as the opposite sex, or
7 Anne Fausto-Sterling, ‘The Five Sexes: Why
Male and Female are not Enough’ (The Sciences,
20-24, 1993), in Rosenblum, Karen E. and
Toni-Michelle C. Travis (eds.), The Meaning of
Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex
and Gender, Social Class, and Sexual Orientation
(2nd edition, St. Louis: McGraw-Hill, 2000), 87-91.
8 To read more about the science of sex
differentiation, see Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000).
Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the
Construction of Sexuality. New York: Basic Books.
46 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
they may present themselves as non-gendered or
ambiguously gendered. Transgender should not be
confused with sexual orientation or homosexuality.
The gender identity of transgender individuals may
or may not have anything to do with the sex of the
persons to whom they are attracted.
Gender Identity
Gender identity is a term describing the gender
one perceives oneself to be, the gender category
with which one personally identifies (i.e., whether
one experiences oneself as male, as female, or in
another less conventional way). The term can also
be used to describe the gender identity to which
others assign one, based on their perceptions of
external signifiers of gender such as hairstyle,
clothing, body language or shape, speech patterns
and vocal intonation.
Sexual Orientation
Sexual orientation refers to the direction of an
individual’s sexual attraction, usually, in terms
of the sex/gender of others toward whom one is
attracted. The most commonly described sexual
orientations are toward members of the opposite
sex (heterosexual), same sex (homosexual [gay
or lesbian]), both/either (bisexual), or neither
(asexual). The terms “sexual preference” and
“sexual identity” are often used to mean similar
things, though “sexual preference” is more typically
used by those who believe that the objects of one’s
sexual attractions are open to some degree of
choice and can change, as opposed to those who
believe it is determined by biology or otherwise
unchanging and unchangeable. “Sexual identity,”
like “gender identity,” implies more about one’s own
perceptions of oneself, the sexuality with which one
identifies.
It is perhaps an oversimplification to lump together
in one category what are fundamentally different
gender identities and sexual orientations, yet
the term “LGBT” for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Transgender/Transsexual people, is often seen.
While this course is on the prevention of violence
against women, it is more broadly on the prevention
of violence against anyone based on their sexuality
or gender, and this certainly includes violence
against LGBTs.
Examples of Violence Based on Sexual Identity
Acts of violence or other forms of human rights
abuse are often used to enforce gender norms.
This becomes especially apparent when the
targets are people who do not fit within either the
two-sex (male/female) norm, or who are perceived
to violate the norm of heterosexuality in some
way.9 For example, in October 1998, two men
took 21-year-old American Matthew Shepard to a
remote area outside Laramie, Wyoming, tied him
to a fence post, beat him, and left him for dead
because of his sexual orientation. In addition, some
Latin American nations have a history of violence
against transgender people. In a February 2000
case, reported to the UN’s Special Rapporteur on
Torture, a transgender sex worker named Vanesa
Ledesma was killed in police custody.
On February 16, police announced her death
in detention, attributing it to “cardiac arrest.”
Ledesma had no heart condition; an autopsy
showed strong evidence of severe physical
torture.10
9 (a) Rebecca L. Stotzer‌, Gender Identity and
Hate Crimes: Violence Against Transgender
People in Los Angeles County, Sexuality
Research & Social Policy, March 2008, Vol. 5,
No. 1, Pages 43–52.
(b) UN Doc. E/CN.4/2002/83, Radhika
Coomaraswamy, Report of the UN Special
Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its
causes and consequences, Cultural practices
in the family that are violent towards women
(2002), paragraph 102.
(c) Amnesty International, Crimes of hate,
conspiracy of silence: Torture and ill-treatment
based on sexual identity, (London, 2001),
at http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/
ACT40/016/2001/en/dom-ACT400162001en.pdf.
(d) Katherine M. Franke, What’s Wrong with
Sexual Harassment?, Stanford Law Review, Vol.
49, No. 4 (Apr., 1997): 691-772.
(e) Human Rights Watch, Hatred in the
Hallways. Violence and Discrimination Against
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender
Students in U.S. Schools (New York: 2001).
Gary David Comstock, Violence Against
Lesbians and Gay Men (Columbia University
Press, 1991).
10 International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights
Commission, “Sexual Minorities and the Work
of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on
Torture: A Paper Submitted to Sir Nigel Rodley,
Special Rapporteur.” 5 June 2001, p. 6.
l e s s o n 2 : G e n d e r — D e f i n iti o n s a n d T h e o ri e s
Homosexual identity is often considered another
form of gender norm violation and is criminalized
by law in many countries. In Uganda, for
instance, individuals convicted of the “crime” of
homosexuality may be imprisoned for up to seven
years.11 The Ugandan government has used this as
a method of controlling activists, even when those
activists are not involved in any form of sexual
activity. According to an Amnesty International
report:
Juliet Victor Mukasa ... organized a radio
broadcast on the right of lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender (LGBT) people to HIV/AIDS
prevention programmes. Unfortunately, the
broadcast was ... cancelled in May 2005 on the
grounds that it breached “minimum broadcasting
standards which are against homosexuality” in
Uganda ... Since then, Juliet, who is chairperson
of the human rights organization, Sexual
Minorities Uganda (SMUG), has faced increasing
harassment. On the night of 20 July 2005, local
government officials from a suburb of Kampala
entered her house while she was out. They
seized documents and other material, apparently
looking for “incriminating evidence” relating to
her SMUG activities. SMUG campaigns for the
right of LGBT people to the freedoms enshrined
in the Uganda constitution and international
human rights treaties, including freedom from
discrimination. ... Another lesbian activist,
who was in the house on the night of the raid,
was arbitrarily arrested and detained by local
government officials and then taken to the police
station. She was subjected to humiliating and
degrading treatment because of her sexuality.
No charges were pressed against her and she
was released, on the condition that she and
Juliet reported back to the police the following
morning. Juliet went into safe housing and the
other activist has left Uganda.12
11 Amnesty International, “Sexual rights are
human rights. Defending women defending
rights” at http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.
php?lang=e&id=ENGACT770362005 accessed
21 January 2007. Amnesty International,
Crimes of hate, conspiracy of silence: Torture
and ill-treatment based on sexual identity
(London, 2001), at http://www.amnesty.
or g /en / libr ar y/asset /ACT4 0 / 016 / 2 0 01/en /
dom-ACT400162001en.pdf.
12 Amnesty International, “Sexual rights are
| 47
These are only three examples among many
that fall along a broad continuum of methods
by which gender and sexuality norms are
enforced by various societies – either officially or
unofficially. Any deviation from the cultural norm
of heterosexuality or societal norms that require
expressions of gender identity be limited to those
which match only the two biological sex categories
of male or female…
…can cause fear and hatred leading to actual
violence, threats of violence and psychological
harm. Rooted in stereotypes stemming from
rigid conceptions of masculinity and femininity,
this violence occurs on many levels ranging
from daily torment and harassment in schools to
hate-driven murder.13
According to a 2002 report by the UN Special
Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Radhika
Coomaraswamy:
…women who ‘transgress the boundaries of
appropriate sexual behaviour,’ including women
who have sex outside marriage, request divorce,
choose their own husbands, or choose women
as sexual partners, are ‘subject to direct violence
of the most horrific kind’ and can be ‘punished
severely’...The killing of women with impunity
for these transgressions is perhaps the most
overt example of the brutal control of female
sexuality.14
human rights. Defending women defending
rights.” http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.
php?lang=e&id=ENGACT770362005 accessed
21 January 2007.
13 The 2005 report of the UN Special Rapporteur
on violence against women included information
about lesbian women “being targeted for rape,
specifically because of their sexual orientation
in order for the aggressor to ‘prove the [victim’s]
womanhood.’” UN Doc. E/CN.4/2005/72,
Yakin Erturk, Report of the Special Rapporteur
on violence against women, its causes and
consequences: Intersections of violence against
women and HIV/AIDS (2005), paragraph 27.
14 Susana T. Fried, “Controlling women’s sexuality,
sustaining dominant culture(s), legitimizing
gender-based violence: the case for due
diligence.” Unpublished paper, on file with author,
p. 5, paraphrasing UN Doc. E/CN.4/2002/83,
Radhika Coomaraswamy, Report of the UN
Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women,
its causes and consequences, Cultural practices
48 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
Such violence is not targeted exclusively against
women. Coomaraswamy’s report continues:
Men who refuse to conform to gender norms of
masculinity may also find themselves targeted
for violence, as indicated by the persistent
harassment and abuse of metis (cross dressing
men) reported by the Blue Diamond Society….15
These examples are provided to illustrate how
“normal” sex and gender categories are defined
and enforced in any given society. As the famous
French sociologist Emile Durkheim noted in the
late 1800s, societies communicate norms to their
members by marking that which is “pathological”
or “deviant”.16 The greatest violence is often
directed at that which societies perceive to be most
frightening or the greatest threat to social norms.
2.4 “Policing” Sex/Gender: How
Sex-Gender Relations Persist17
More often, however, we are taught how to be men
and women in much less direct or violent ways
and in all kinds of situations that seemingly have
nothing to do with sex or gender. Perhaps the way
we are taught to read (by whom, in what places) –
or whether or not we are taught to read at all – will
depend on whether we are girls or boys. If you are
taking this course, you have obviously learned how
to read, probably in more than one language. Thus,
you have likely received a great deal of formal
schooling. Consider your experiences in school
growing up. Did you attend school in same-sex or
mixed-sex settings, or both? Do you remember
whether boys and girls were treated similarly or
differently in relationship to education in your
society? How so?
in the family that are violent towards women
(2002), paragraphs 99 and 100.
15 Susana T. Fried, Two steps forward, one step
back: LGBT and sexual rights activism, March
2006, An online article from: Conscience.
16 Emile Durkheim, The Rules of the Sociological
Method, Tr. By W.D. Halls (New York: The Free
Press, 1982 [1895]).
17 Exercises in this section are adapted from Smith,
“After Hours…” op. cit.
Generally speaking, unless they belong to a society
Writing Exercise/Thought Experiment in which there is a third-gender option, boys and
2-E: How We Learn Implicit Social girls are raised in social groups in which they learn
Lessons to behave as either boys or girls and in which their
peers and authority figures teach them how to
Ask yourself the following questions and write behave as appropriately gendered people. This
down your answers: means learning things they should do, as well as
things they should avoid doing. While much of this
• How did you act in a classroom when a
learning occurs implicitly, there are also explicit
teacher is giving a lecture/lesson?
lessons communicated by teachers, parents,
• Where did you learn to behave this way? religious leaders, and other authority figures about
how to be a “good” boy or girl. Very often, these
• Who taught you to act like this?
lessons are negative in form: “boys should not
• How did they teach you this? clean;” “girls should not have sex before marriage;”
etc.
• Whom do you think decided that this was
the best way for children to behave when a
teacher is talking?
• What else could students be doing while a
teacher is talking?
• Describe one student you know/remember
who did not learn the correct lesson about
how to behave during a teacher’s lecture.
What would happen to her/him?
Obviously, the point of this exercise is that much of
what we are taught about how to interact with one
another in various settings is not taught explicitly
by anyone. While perhaps you were given explicit
instructions on how to behave in a classroom
when a teacher is talking, most of the time, we
Contrary to many stereotypes, both men and women are involved
learn things like this simply by observing what in health care services. A male medic of the Sri Lankan battalion of
others are doing and copying their behaviour. MINUSTAH offers free medical care to a local patient at a Medical Camp
We learn it is the “right” thing to do by receiving in Martissant, Haiti. (UN Photo #159089, Marco Dormino, October 2007)
implicit rewards: we are not punished; we do well in
school. We observe that others who do the “wrong” Many scholars have argued that a good deal
things get punished. The child who talks over the of violence against women is motivated by the
desire – whether individual, familial, cultural, or
teacher, who does not listen, who starts a fight with
national – to keep women within traditional female
another child, or who leaves in the middle of the
sex roles. While every act of violence has individual
lesson usually receives some sort of warning or
punishment. We observe this and learn implicitly features and there are a number of problems
not to do this ourselves. with generalizing across time and place about
very different kinds of violence, there is evidence
Gender socialization works the same way. Almost to support such arguments. Regardless of the
intentions of individual perpetrators of violence, the
all of what we learn about how to be a woman or a
effects of violence against women, when it occurs
man is learned implicitly rather than explicitly, and
it is reinforced repetitively as we go about our daily to those who have in some way transgressed
lives and observe the rewards and punishments traditional sex roles, certainly include reinforcing
others receive for behaving in gender-appropriate those roles.
or gender-inappropriate ways.
l e s s o n 2 : G e n d e r — D e f i n iti o n s a n d T h e o ri e s | 49

Writing Exercise/Thought Experiment
2-F: Examples of Gender Variation from
Person to Person
• We all grow up with individual minds and
bodies, learning as we grow where we match
gender expectations and where we do not.
Inevitably, we will meet some parts of the
expectations about being a man or a woman,
but not others.
• Identify three things about yourself that meet
“appropriate” gender expectations in your
society.
• Identify one or two things about yourself
that do not meet “appropriate” gender
expectations. Have you done anything to try
to change these things about yourself? If so,
what and why? If not, why not? Either way,
what has happened as a result?
• Are there members of your family or
community who have failed to follow
standard gender expectations? What has
happened to them? Have any of them
followed gender expectations but done so in
unusual or interesting ways?
50 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
2.5 How Claims of “Difference” are
Related to Inequality and Violence
Claims that men and women are naturally different
from one another are related to sex/gender
inequality and violence in two principal ways. First,
such claims often underlie and justify societal
arrangements that disadvantage women. Second,
claims about men’s biological nature are used in an
effort to excuse or tolerate male violence.
Claims that Men and Women are Naturally
Different from one Another Underlie and Justify
Societal Arrangements that Disadvantage
Women
Example 1:
• “DIFFERENCE” CLAIM: Women are weak; men
are strong.18
• CONNECTION TO INEQUALITY/INJUSTICE:
This claim is frequently associated with social
arrangements in which men and boys are
considered more valuable than women and girls.
For instance, in part because boys are believed
to be stronger, they may be assumed to bring
more economic assets to a family. Thus, they
may be favoured with more or better food as they
are growing, or sent to school while girls are kept
home. Ideas about girls’ relative weakness might
correspondingly be associated with perceptions
that they are more of a burden on family
resources. The well-intended wish, “May you
be the mother of a hundred sons,” carries with
it the unintended implications of a higher value
being placed on male over female infants and,
simultaneously, the valuation of women primarily
for their potential as bearers of male children.
• CONNECTION TO VIOLENCE: Such
perceptions and beliefs can function to directly
support practices like sex-selective abortion
18 While there are some senses and situations in
which this claim is true -- for instance, men on
average have greater muscle mass overall than
do women on average -- there are also many
senses and situations in which it is false. Consider
the physical strength necessary to endure
pregnancy and childbirth; or, the fact that when
women perform the same physical activities that
men do, their bodies develop similar strengths
and skills.
and female infanticide. (See statistics on these level (national governments), or global level
practices in Lesson 3.) They can also support (international economic and financial institutions).
violence and discrimination against women who Claims about women’s so-called inferior intellect
choose not to marry, not to have children, or or volatile emotions have historically been used
those mothers who happen only to give birth to in an effort to assert that they cannot manage
daughters. money or work effectively in the competitive public
world of finance.19 Prior to studies disproving such
Example 2: claims (and to studies showing both comparable
intellectual abilities between the sexes and equal
• “DIFFERENCE” CLAIM: Women are more
vulnerability to emotion and hormonal fluctuation),
emotional than men and therefore better suited
statements like these were also often linked to
to raising children and doing household tasks
women’s biological capacity to bear children.
that involve caretaking. Men are more rational
than women and therefore more qualified to
handle money and better suited to providing
economic support by working outside the home.
• CONNECTION TO INEQUALITY/INJUSTICE:
Beliefs such as these have historically been
– and are still in many countries – used to
justify laws that deprive women of property
and/or inheritance rights. They also tend to
support social arrangements in which women
are confined to domestic duties, while men
are permitted more freedom of movement in
public spaces and more access to work outside
the home for wages. Both phenomena (as
will be discussed further in Lesson 8) result in
systematically higher levels of poverty among
women and, frequently, their dependence upon
men for economic survival.
• CONNECTION TO VIOLENCE: Women’s
financial dependence upon men often keeps
them trapped in situations of domestic violence
that they might otherwise be able to leave if
societal arrangements permitted women to
support themselves economically. Furthermore,
During World War II, women in the United States
societies, families, and individuals often use took on many of the jobs that had been done by men,
claims that “women’s nature” requires them to particularly in the manufacturing industry.
marry, raise children, and/or to remain at home
as a justification for violence against women.
19 Aristotle, Generation of Animals (London: William
It is generally acknowledged that in no region of Heinemann; Cambridge: Harvard university
the developing or developed world are women press, AL Peck - 1938): I, 728a. Darwin, C.,
The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation
equal to men in socio-economic standing. Gender
to Sex, 1896 edition, D. Appleton and Company,
gaps continue to persist worldwide in economic New York, 1871: Darwin concluded that the
opportunities: in access to, ownership of, and differences between male and female humans
control over public and private resources such were so enormous that he was amazed that ‘such
as land, money and credit; and in economic different beings belong to the same species’.
decision-making power whether at the micro Paul Julius Moebius, The Physiological Mental
Weakness of Woman, (A. McCorn, Trans.).
level (households), meso level (firms), macro Alienist and Neurologist, 1901.
l e s s o n 2 : G e n d e r — D e f i n iti o n s a n d T h e o ri e s | 51
In most of the world’s nations, when women work
in the wage economy, they regularly receive
lower pay than men for comparable work and
qualifications, and they are often socially and
educationally tracked into lower paying career
tracks. Historically, claims about women’s physical
incapacity to work have often increased along with
competition for jobs in industrialized economies.
For instance, in the United States, women’s
capacity to do work equal to that of men was more
publicly acknowledged when labour shortages
existed. This was most clearly demonstrated when
large numbers of men went off to fight in the First
and Second World Wars. Women replaced men in
jobs that had previously been considered male-only
domains, including manufacturing, construction,
heavy equipment operation, and others. The image
of Rosie the Riveter came to represent this strong
can-do capability. By contrast, when there have
been labour surpluses, such as those following the
return of soldiers after World War II, public attention
focused on women’s supposed physical and mental
frailties and women’s “natural” love for all things
domestic, such as cooking and cleaning.
Studies show that women spend approximately 65
per cent of their time on non-market-compensated
work, compared to less than 25 per cent for men.20
Men could, in principle, do subsistence production,
care and unpaid community work. However, claims
about the fundamental differences between men
and women are often used to argue that these
tasks should primarily be women’s responsibility.
A UNDP study of microfinance programmes in
Myanmar, for example, found that “normative
gender relations [in rural village life] ...assert a
strict division of labour between husbands working
outside the home for the family’s livelihood and
20 “The Social & Political Economy of Care:
Contesting Gender and Class Inequalities,”
prepared by Shahra Razavi and Silke Staab for
UN Research Institute for Social Development
(UNRISD).
Luisella Goldschmidt-Clermont and Elisabetta
Pagnossin-Aligisakis, “Households’ Non-Sna
Production: Labour Time, Value Of Labour
And Of Product, And Contribution To Extended
Private Consumption,” Review of Income and
Wealth, Volume 45 Issue 4: 519-529.
52 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
wives working inside the home, keeping it clean,
washing clothes, raising children, and preparing
food for each meal.”21
Whenever social roles are challenged within a
society, violence may ensue. In the Myanmar study
quoted above, it was social scorn from other men
that helped maintain gender norms between the
sexes – and that sometimes prompted husbands
to beat their wives when traditional roles were
challenged within their households.
Men who perform some woman-identified
house tasks remain subject to community
norms, particularly to the views of other men.
[For a man to wash] a woman’s clothes, and in
particular, her longyi or undergarments [would
be considered humiliating]...For women married
to men with a strong fear of losing face, the
rewards of asserting a desire for help with
housework must be balanced against the risks of
provoking violent repercussions.22
In part, gender inequality is an enabling condition
of violence against women because humans who
are subject to unjust conditions will commonly
resist them, and resistance is, in turn, often met
with violence. In part, conditions of inequality
are themselves enabled and accompanied by a
relative dehumanization of those who are less
empowered.23 Women’s disempowerment can in
many cases make them seem less “human,” and
more available as “legitimate” or acceptable targets
of violence, particularly in nations whose laws
treat violence against women as lesser crimes.
Finally, systems of gender inequality can produce
conditions in which men feel entitled to exercise
violence against women.
21 This was in spite of the fact that women in
Myanmar have long held the legal right to
inheritance, property and divorce. According to
the study, in practice, these rights have only been
accessible to high-status women living in urban
areas. (Reid Smith, A Hen is Crowing: A gender
impact study of two UNDP Myanmar community
development programs. 4 July 2006, p. 6.)
22 Reid Smith, A Hen is Crowing, 8.
23 This will be discussed further in Lesson 4.
Just as conditions of slavery – in which one human
owns another – dehumanize the slave and give
the master a sense of entitlement to treat the slave
with impunity, even conditions of inequality that fall
far short of slavery can produce similar “colonial”
dynamics for those living within its structures.
Structures of inequality can have these effects
on us even when we disagree with them. Our
individual relationships with one another can be
profoundly affected by larger structures in which
we had no part designing, even when we actively
disagree with them ourselves.
Claims about Men’s Biological Tendencies
toward Violence, or their Biological Inability to
Resist Behaving Violently, are Often Used to
Justify Violence, or a Failure or Refusal to do
Anything Seriously to Stop it
There is a second way in which claims about
sex differences between men and women are
connected to violence generally, and to violence
against women in particular. In every human
society in which this has been studied, men
have been found to commit more violent acts
than women.24 Many efforts have been made to
discover a biological cause for this – something
biological about maleness that leads men to be
aggressive. As will be discussed further in Lesson
4, some connections have been found between
male biological traits and aggressive behaviour.
However, no explanation for violence that rests
on biological sex difference alone has been
scientifically validated. That is, the sex difference
alone has not been demonstrated to explain men’s
violence. Too many other variables complicate
the picture. Nonetheless, the belief that men
are inherently more violent is one that is widely
repeated. Sometimes it is stated less directly than
this and is woven into more general sex different
claims like these:
24 The studies have varied in the definitions of
“violence” used, but typically they define violence
as an intentional act of physical/bodily harm by
one or more individuals upon others. As will be
discussed in Lesson 4, there are many other
ways of conceiving violence, in which women
might well be found to play more active roles.
l e s s o n 2 : G e n d e r — D e f i n iti o n s a n d T h e o ri e s
Example 1:
• “DIFFERENCE” CLAIM: Women are weak;
men are strong. It is natural and necessary for
men to express their strength through violence,
and especially to use their strength – violently if
necessary – to defend women and children.
• CONNECTION TO INEQUALITY/INJUSTICE:
This same claim about men and women’s relative
strength and weakness is frequently repeated
to argue that “women and children” (as though
they are the same) need protecting. This implies
that women cannot protect themselves and are
somehow less than fully adult in comparison to
men. Such claims are used in many countries to
justify “protective” legislation that limits women’s
freedom of movement in the name of keeping
them safe. For instance, under the Taliban in
Afghanistan, women were not permitted to travel
in public without a male escort.
• CONNECTION TO VIOLENCE: The implication
of these claims is not only that men are capable
of and responsible for protecting women and
children but that it is men from whom women
and children must be protected. That is, the
very claims of difference about male strength
and female weakness that support honourable
depictions of men as protectors are equally
connected to depictions of men as out-of-
control perpetrators of violence. Thus, the
purported “timelessness” and supposed inherent
naturalness of biological sex differences are
linked to ideas about violence such that male
violence comes to be seen also as timeless,
inherent, natural and inevitable. More complex
and accurate depictions of men and women as
individuals capable of both violent and peaceful
behaviour under different conditions would
enable us to see violence as less inevitable.
Example 2:
• “DIFFERENCE” CLAIM: Men are more violent
by nature than women. They are unable to
control their violent impulses.25
25 Note how this claim contradicts the claim above
that women are emotional while men are rational.
Men’s anger and violence is often not seen as
“emotional” though anger is certainly an emotion,
and the inability to control the expression of anger
in violence can arguably be described as irrational.
| 53
• CONNECTION TO INEQUALITY/INJUSTICE:
Similar to the example above, claims like this one
are used to support all manner of restrictions
on women’s freedom in the name of “protecting”
them against out-of-control male violence, while
men’s freedom is not equally restricted. This is
in spite of the fact that men too are victimised
by male violence (and children are victimised
by adults of both sexes). However, this variety
of “difference claim” can also be used to justify
social arrangements that are unjust to men. For
instance, the military conscription of men (and
only men in most countries that have obligatory
military service) is fundamentally linked to claims
of biological differences between women and
men that associate men with violence.
• CONNECTION TO VIOLENCE: The fact that
so many men are raised to believe they are
inherently more likely to be violent than women
can lead societies, families, and individuals to
excuse male violence when it does occur. The
expression “boys will be boys” reflects this sort
of attitude toward male behaviour that would
otherwise be deemed socially unacceptable.
It is important to remember that, in every society,
there are also men who refuse to use violence in
their families and communities. As noted in Lesson
1, men have participated in and led vibrant anti-war
movements in every historical period. The degree
to which violence by men is celebrated or criticized
in societies varies widely cross-culturally.
2.6 Conclusion
In sum, claims about the fundamental differences
between men and women often support, whether
directly or indirectly, gender inequality and can,
by extension, lead to and support violence
against women. They do this by justifying the
continuation of social and economic arrangements
that insist on separate roles for men and women,
which in turn limit women’s access to power and
resources. Claims about sex/gender difference also
perpetuate myths about the inevitability of male
violence.
54 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
The idea that men and women are different needn’t
function in this way – that is, difference claims
needn’t necessarily lead to injustice, inequality,
End-of-Lesson Quiz
or violence (as will be discussed in the next
lesson). However, the fact remains that historically,
sex difference claims have been used to justify
inequality and violence, and therefore they must be
critically examined here.
Gender roles are learned behaviours that are
culturally contextual. These roles vary widely
between cultures and can include not only male
and female, but also other culturally accepted
categories. Sex difference claims can still lead
to unequal status and opportunity for men and
women, and in some cases even serve as the
foundation for violence against women or others.
But over the past 100 years, at least some of the
assumptions of the link between sex and a person’s
status in society have been abandoned. Today,
women have won the right to vote, and they serve
as heads of state, scientists, military leaders,
astronauts, and other roles previously thought of as
male-only domains.
Eileen M. Collins, Colonel, United States Air Force, and
the first woman to command the Space Shuttle as STS-93
Mission Commander. (Source: NASA photo)
1. Which one of the following statements
best defines the words femininity and
masculinity?
A. The physical and psychological attributes of
women and men, respectively;
B. The characteristics that are commonly believed
to belong to women and men in a given
society;
C. Femaleness and maleness;
D. Gracefulness, gentleness, sensitivity and
warmth for femininity; strength, bravery,
rationality and responsibility for masculinity.
2. The term “sex role” is best defined as:
A. A social or professional role within a society
that is commonly assigned to one sex or
another;
B. A role played by a transsexual or other third
gender individual that differs from her/his
biological sex;
C. Any role played by a homosexual in a
non-traditional sexual relationship;
D. The biologically correct role for one’s sex (e.g.
females play the sex role of mothers; males
play the sex role of fathers).
3. Which one of the following best illustrates
gender socialization?
A. Men and women dancing together at an
embassy social event;
B. A ceremonial performance at the birth of a
male baby to bring good luck and fertility;
C. Separating girls and boys for different career
training at school;
D. Having different names for boys and girls.
l e s s o n 2 : G e n d e r — D e f i n iti o n s a n d T h e o ri e s
4. For each of the following statements, indicate
which are mostly true, and which are mostly
false.
A. Gender differences are similar to sex
differences in that they tend not to change
much over time.
B. Gender differences vary widely across cultures.
C. Within each country of the world, the roles for
men are pretty much the same, regardless of
economic position or other social differences.
The same applies to women.
D. Within a given culture, gender norms seldom
vary according to location or context.
5. When does different treatment of an
individual based on sex usually start in most
societies?
A. When the individual reaches puberty;
B. When the individual chooses a gender identity;
C. When the individual reaches one of the
society’s milestones of adulthood, such as
marriage, legal age of consent or entry into the
workforce;
D. At or before birth.
6. Which of the following statements best
describes the relationship between gender
inequality in society and claims that men
and women are fundamentally different?
A. Claims about the differences between men
and women explain why society is arranged
unequally according to gender;
B. Claims about the differences between men
and women are often used to justify unequal
gender arrangements;
C. Claims about the differences between men and
women are false; therefore, there should be no
gender inequality;
D. Because claims about the differences between
men and women are sometimes true, in some
contexts, a certain degree of gender inequality
is inevitable.
| 55
7. Violence is related to claims about gender
difference in which of the following ways?
Indicate which of the following statements
are true, and which are false.
A. Claims that men and women are different may
be enforced violently.
B. Claims that men are naturally more violent than
women tend to support the idea that women
need protection from men, and vice versa.
C. Gender differences require men and women to
behave differently in reaction to violence.
D. If it were not for claims about gender difference,
violence would not exist.
9. For each of the following items, identify whether it is best described as a sex-related
characteristic or a gender-related characteristic by placing an X in the appropriate column.
(Assume this list is from a society in which men and women are, on average, believed to differ
according to each of these characteristics.)
Characteristic
A. Thick facial hair
B. Breasts that produce milk
C. Skill at football
D. Ability to cook
E. Mathematical skill
F. Ability to manage money
G. Ability to make others pregnant
H. Ability to give birth
I. Ability to raise children
J. Driving skill
K. Public speaking with confidence
L. Willingness to wash dishes and clothing
56 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
8. Which of the following statements best
describes the relationship between violence
and gender roles?
A. Women are unlikely to be exposed to violence
because they are expected to remain in the
home;
B. People who violate traditional gender roles
often use violent means to do so;
C. Men are unable to control their violent impulses
toward women;
D. Violence may be used to punish people who
violate traditional gender roles.
Sex-Related Gender-Related
10. Match each of the following terms in Column A with its corresponding definition in Column B.
Column A Column B
1. Gender identity A. The condition of biological sex ambiguity –
having both male and female sexual organs
or characteristics. (Formerly “hermaphrodite”)
2. Sexual orientation B. The condition of belonging biologically to
one biological sex category but experiencing
oneself as either the opposite sex or as non- or
ambiguously gendered.
3. Inter-sex C. The gender one perceives oneself to be; the
gender category with which one personally
identifies.
4. Transgender D. The direction of an individual’s sexual attraction
toward others, usually in terms of the sex/gender
of those others. Examples include heterosexual,
homosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and asexual.
ANSWER KEY
1B, 2A, 3C, 4(A Mostly False, B Mostly True, C Mostly False, D Mostly False),
5D, 6B, 7(A True, B True, C False, D False), 8D, 9(Sex related: A; B; G; H.
Gender-related: C; D; E; F; I; J; K; L), 10(1C; 2D; 3A; 4B)
l e s s o n 2 : G e n d e r — D e f i n iti o n s a n d T h e o ri e s | 57
LESSON 3
INEQUALITY: DISTINCTION
VERSUS DISCRIMINATION –
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
 3.1 Introduction: When is Sex
Relevant?
Imagine you are part of a peacekeeping mission in
a nation in which you have been told that women
Lesson never drive. Sure enough, you look around and
you do not see any, or very many, women driving.
3 However, you are in charge of hiring some drivers
for the mission, and the UN does not permit you to
discriminate on the basis of sex. Indeed, according
to one way of thinking, sex is not a relevant criterion
for the ability to drive. The capacity to understand
traffic signals, to manipulate clutch and gear-shift
mechanisms, to follow traffic laws, to steer around
obstacles in the road – none of these has anything
to do with whether one’s body produces ova,
sperm, or neither.
On the other hand, sex is not precisely irrelevant
LESSON OBJECTIVES either, is it? Since it is mainly men who drive in
this country, hiring a woman to do so may not be
3.1 Introduction: When is easy, nor will it be an act without consequences,
Sex Relevant? By the end of Lesson 3, the student should be able to: consequences that are very different from those
that would follow upon the hiring of a male driver.
3.2 Distinction versus
• Identify and give an example of the differences between distinction and It may not be easy to hire a woman because, if
Discrimination discrimination as they relate to sex/gender; women do not regularly drive in this country, there
may be a scarcity of women who know how to
3.3 Equality versus • Explain “the dilemma of difference” as it might emerge in an effort to
drive. One only learns how to drive if one is taught
Sameness: “The address past discrimination against women; and
to do so and given opportunities to practise. Even
Dilemma of • List guidelines for use in taking gender issues into account during a if women know how to drive, they may not apply
Difference” peacekeeping mission. for driver positions at the UN. Why not? There
may be any number of stigmas against their doing
3.4 Respecting Local so. A woman who drives may be perceived as
Tradition versus unmarriageable, as sterile, as taking a job away
from a man, as abandoning her family, or simply
Promoting Gender as violating a taboo in some more general way.
Equality: When Values Driving might involve being alone in a car with men,
Seem to Conflict which may also be socially taboo in this country.
It may take her into areas of the country where
3.5 Conclusion women’s travel is frowned upon.
For all of these reasons and more, hiring a
woman driver in a country where women seldom
drive – even if it is possible to do – has different
consequences than hiring a man. It may signal
a lack of sensitivity on the part of the UN to local
customs and cultures. On the other hand, it may
also have positive consequences, signalling to
women that the UN does not discriminate against
To view a video introduction of this lesson by them and that new options are now available to
the course author AnnJanette Rosga, you can
either log in to your virtual classroom, go to www.
women.
peaceopstraining.org/users/media_page/394/,
or use your mobile device to scan the QR code
to the left.
l e s s o n 3 : I NE Q U A L I T Y – D I S T I N C T I ON V E R S U S D I S C R I M I N A T I ON
Consequences will also vary depending on the
culture from which you, as a peacekeeper, come. If
you are a man, and women do not generally drive
in your country, hiring a woman may make you very
uncomfortable. The prospect of riding alone in a
car with a woman driver may be unnerving to you.
Regardless of your sex, you may have been raised
to believe that women are not physically capable
of driving as well as men can drive, so riding with a
woman may make you feel physically endangered.
All of these things make the fact of sex, in a
decision about whom to hire for the position of
driver, extremely relevant.
You have by now completed Lesson 1, on the
UN Security Council’s resolution 1325 and the
emphasis it places on taking gender issues
into account. So you know that wherever your
peacekeeping work takes you, the matter of gender
is something you will have to consider. You have
also completed Lesson 2, in which the terms “sex”
and “gender” were defined, and in which ideas
about absolute differences between two (and only
two) sexes were challenged. Men, women, and
others might not be so predictably different after all,
or, if they are, their differences are both cultural and
biological, and those differences are liable to vary
depending on culture and context.
So how does one “take gender issues into account”
when the very meanings of sex and gender may be
completely different in different places at different
times? When are sex/gender differences really
real? When should real sex/gender differences
matter to you on a peacekeeping mission? This
lesson will confront these questions by discussing
three interrelated opposing pairs of concepts or
choices.
The first contrasting pair is distinction versus
discrimination. This section of the lesson will
examine the differences between these two terms.
It will offer examples to show how distinguishing
between groups of people based on some real or
supposed difference may or may not be related to
discrimination – unjustly treating one group better
than another.
| 61

Writing Exercise 3-A: Compare Notes with the
Philosopher
• If you have access to the internet, this would be an
especially good exercise to write about online in
conversation with other learners taking this Peace
Operations Training Institute course. Consider writing
your thoughts on the Message Board at http://www.
peaceopstraining.org/forums/.
• The next time you take a break from working on this
course, try out the observations suggested in the quote
above from the philosopher, Dr. Frye.
• Go somewhere that you would have to greet someone.
Greet them normally and have a conversation with that
person. All the while, pay close attention to things like:
–– How often, and for how long each time, you make
and hold eye contact;
–– Whether, how often, with what parts of your body,
and in what ways, you touch one another;
–– How far from, or close to, one another you stand
or sit; what are your positions in relation to each
other, higher or lower; do either of you bow or dip
your head, or fold your hands in a particular way?
–– What are your facial expressions like? Smiling,
serious, deferential, stern?
–– How do your voices sound? Do you speak in high,
low, or changing tones? Soft or loud?
• Now, ask yourself whether any of these things varied
according to sex/gender.
• Were there behavioural differences related to other
social categories going on in this context, like age, caste,
familiarity, etc.? What do you think most affected your
interactional behaviours?
• If you do not think there were any (or very many
significant) sex/gender-distinguishing behaviours going
on in this exchange, do you think that is because Dr.
Frye is wrong? Did she just overstate her case, or was
she wrong altogether? How so?
• If your exchange was with a person of the opposite sex
and there were clear differences between the two of you
in your behaviour, what would have happened if either of
you had used the behaviours of the other sex?
• How do you think the other person would have reacted?
How would you have felt? Would the other person’s
reaction have felt more like distinction, or more like
discrimination to you? How so, and why?
62 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
The second pair is equality versus sameness. This
section explores the related dilemma of how to
create a situation of equality among people who
may actually be very different from one another. It
asks whether equality can exist in the absence of
sameness; and it provides some examples of how
this issue might be dealt with in relation to women
in the military.
The third pair brings the first two into practice
with a discussion of gender mainstreaming in
a post-conflict environment. It contrasts two
important UN values: to respect local traditions,
and to promote gender equality. As is common
when abstract values are applied to concrete
situations, it may appear in some cases that to
respect both values simultaneously is impossible,
because respecting the first value involves
acting in ways that violate the second one, or
vice versa. These values may actually contradict
one another at times. This section can offer no
general prescriptions to solve this problem in every
situation. Rather, a specific example is offered to
show how the problem was addressed in another
post-conflict situation.
Finally, Lesson 3 ends with a very brief review of
suggested questions for you to consider, as well as
guidelines you might follow when considering how
to implement SCR 1325’s goal of taking gender
into account. These may be usefully combined with
the questions and guidelines provided in Lesson
5, which will explore issues of cultural difference in
much more depth.
3.2 Distinction versus Discrimination
What makes a system in which women almost
never drive discriminatory, or in this case, sexist?
It might not be. If no one (male or female) drives,
the fact of women not driving is not sexist.
Discrimination always involves inequality, and
inequality is always contextual; it is always
a relative term. Women not driving is only
discriminatory if men, by and large, do drive. The
literal definition of discrimination is: the unjust
or prejudicial treatment of different categories of
people or things.
To drive is to have mobility and the freedom to
move across a wider expanse of space than is
possible without access to a car. (The ability
to drive is not very useful without access to a
vehicle one may drive.) Theoretically, if all women
in a society were given male drivers who would
drive them anywhere they wanted to go, anytime
they wanted to go someplace, the inequality,
and therefore the potential injustice, of not being
permitted to drive would be lessened. However,
one could argue that a woman’s freedom of
movement is still limited by the requirement to enlist
another’s services.
In most cases where women do not drive, though,
men do. This is an example of inequality.
Inequality can be one form of injustice, and
therefore, a situation that permits men to drive but
not women, merely because of their sex difference,
is a discriminatory situation. It is a situation in
which women are to some degree dependent upon
men for their freedom of movement. It may also
be a situation that involves prejudice – another
possible element of discrimination listed in our
definition above.
How is it prejudicial not to permit women to drive?
The root of the terms prejudice and prejudicial is
to pre-judge, to judge in advance. In some places,
women are not permitted to drive because of
factually incorrect beliefs that they are biologically
less capable of good driving than men are. Some
individual women may in fact be bad drivers.
However, as any peacekeeper can attest, one
need not look far to find individual men who are
bad drivers! To pre-judge the driving abilities of all
women based on beliefs about their sex, or even
based on the evidence of poor driving by some
women, is prejudicial and therefore discriminatory.
Returning to the definition of discrimination, one
final element should be highlighted: discrimination
is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different
categories of people or things.
Can discrimination exist without categorical
distinctions? Could one behave discriminatorily
toward an individual just because of particular
features or traits that that individual possesses?
Possibly. Sometimes, people use the term
discrimination in this way. They may say, for
l e s s o n 3 : I NE Q U A L I T Y – D I S T I N C T I ON V E R S U S D I S C R I M I N A T I ON
example, “I feel discriminated against,” to mean
that they believe they are being unjustly treated,
or negatively pre-judged, not necessarily because
they belong to a particular group or category
of people. Someone might say, “I know I was
discriminated against. I was denied a job because
that interviewer heard a rumour about me that
I am always late to work.” This example does
not correctly use the term discrimination as it is
specifically defined in this course.
In this course, discrimination always refers to
negative treatment involving categories of people
or things. In particular, this course is concerned
with discrimination based on the categories sex
and/or gender. This brings us to the opposing
term in our pair: distinction. One cannot have
categories without distinguishing them from one
another.1
Remember the question in Lesson 2: How do
you know you are male or female? Everyone
distinguishes you as one sex or another. In nearly
every encounter we have, our sex is “marked”
or noted in some way, usually in multiple ways.
In a book called The Politics of Reality, U.S.
philosopher Dr. Marilyn Frye points out that in most
cultures of the world, adult humans are virtually
paralysed in social interaction until they know the
sex of the person with whom they are interacting.
In everything one does, one has two complete
repertoires of behaviour, one for interactions
with women and one for interactions with
men. Greeting, storytelling, order-giving and
order-receiving, negotiating, gesturing deference
or dominance, encouraging, challenging, asking
for information: one does all of these things
differently depending upon whether the relevant
others are male or female.
“That this is so has been confirmed in sociological
and socio-linguistic research,” Dr. Frye continues,
“but it is just as easily confirmed in one’s own
experience”:
To discover the differences in how you greet a
woman and how you greet a man, for instance,
just observe yourself, paying attention to the
1 The noun “distinction” is derived from the Latin
verb distinguere, to distinguish.
| 63
 following sorts of things: frequency and duration
of eye contact, frequency and type of touch, tone Box 3-B: Sex-selective Abortion
and pitch of voice, physical distance maintained
between bodies, how and whether you smile, Female infanticide has likely accounted for
use of slang or swear words, whether your body millions of sex-selective deaths throughout
dips into a shadow curtsy or bow. history. UNICEF defines female infanticide
as the killing of a girl child within the first
One cannot have categories without distinction; nor weeks of her birth. Infanticide is practised
can one have discrimination. That is, discrimination as a brutal method of family planning in
always involves distinction, but the reverse is societies where boy children are valued,
not true – one may have distinction without economically and socially, above girls.
discrimination. Whilst infanticide of newborn girls still
takes place, ultrasound technology has
given female infanticide a modern face:
sex-selective abortion. Medical testing for
sex selection, although officially outlawed,
has become a booming business.
For more information on this topic, see
Lesson 8.2 of this course.
Source: Women in an Insecure World: Resource
Package © 2007 Geneva Centre for the
Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF).
3.3 Equality versus Sameness: “The
Dilemma of Difference”
Discrimination always involves distinction,
but distinction needn’t always involve discrimination.
The Sameness Approach
For example, identifying the sex of one’s child
When institutions try to develop policies that create
in order to give that child a sex-specific name is
equality, usually they do so in order to reduce
distinguishing on the basis of sex; it is not, in itself,
or eliminate previous patterns of discrimination.
discriminatory. However, if all the names for boys
They often start by attempting to minimize the
were negative while all the names for girls were
significance of difference, with the goal being to
positive, then one might be able to argue that
treat everyone the same.
discrimination against boys was involved in the
sex-specific naming of children.
You know, surely, from your own life experience,
that the effort to treat people equally is anything but
To distinguish foetuses or infants on the basis
simple. People are individuals; no two are exactly
of sex in a context in which there already exists
alike. Even genetically identical twins raised within
sex discrimination against girls may in fact
the same family will develop different personalities,
make it difficult to disentangle distinction from
different skills, different strengths and weaknesses
discrimination. Making a sex identification in order
over time. If you have children, you know how hard
to perform sex-selective abortion or infanticide (see
it is to treat them equally at all times. Yet this may
Box 3-B) is profoundly discriminatory. It is using
be precisely what they demand of you: they want
sex distinction to determine whether or not a child
the same number of gifts, the same privileges,
is permitted life itself.
identical amounts and expressions of your love and
64 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
time. (Well, perhaps each wants more for herself
or himself, but they may settle for sameness.
Sameness might be deemed fair.)
But what is “the same”? If one child is 12 years
old and another is five, do you give them the same
gifts? What if two children are similar in age, but
one is much taller than the other and there are
height requirements for certain toys or activities?
Do you give the short one different gifts? What if
those gifts are more expensive and the tall one
feels slighted?
Writing Exercise 3-C: Who Had it
Better?
If you have siblings, you probably have at
least one memory of an instance in which
some difference between yourself and a
brother or sister resulted in one of you feeling
you received better or worse treatment than
the other when you were growing up. If you
are an only child, you may have had this kind
of experience with a schoolmate or friend. Try
to remember such an instance and write a
short account of what happened, answering
the following questions:
• How was the different treatment explained
to you? Upon what basis was it justified? If
it was not explained or justified, how did you
explain or justify it to yourself?
• Was it connected to any specific
characteristic(s) that differed – or that were
said to differ – between the two of you?
Your ages? Sex? Skills? Interests or desires
you supposedly did not share?
• If so, how real were these differences? Did
you really have different skills, interests,
desires, or abilities?
• How meaningful or relevant were those
differences? That is, did the explanation or
justification make sense to you? Was there
a good connection between the reason
provided and the different treatment you
received?
l e s s o n 3 : I NE Q U A L I T Y – D I S T I N C T I ON V E R S U S D I S C R I M I N A T I ON
Erasing or Eliminating Distinctions
Since discrimination requires distinction between
groups of people based on some criteria
(like sex, race, caste, religion, or nationality),
anti-discrimination policies might try, for instance,
to eliminate the drawing of distinctions based
on these criteria. One example of this strategy
would be policies that forbid the collection of data
about one’s marital status on job applications. In
some places where there has been a history of
discrimination against married people (because it
is assumed they will have children and therefore
be less willing to relocate for an employer or work
long hours of overtime), corrective policies ban
employers from asking whether job applicants are
married.2
Separating Distinction from Discrimination
Other distinctions are not possible to eliminate
in this way, however. Some distinctions between
groups are based on physically visible criteria like
skin colour or other bodily characteristics. For such
distinctions, another corrective strategy for dealing
with discrimination is to create policies that try to
make the effects of distinctions (or differences)
less negative for the group that has been harmed
by them. For instance, the famous Brown v. Board
of Education of Topeka, Kansas federal Supreme
Court case decision in the United States officially
ended the practice of legally segregating public
schools. Formerly, white children and black children
had been required to attend separate educational
facilities. The anti-discrimination policies developed
in the wake of this famous court case told school
administrators that they could not take race into
consideration when deciding whether or not to
admit a child to their facilities. They did not say,
“You may not ask about racial difference,” or
2 This kind of discrimination has usually
disproportionately harmed women because of
stereotypes that only women’s effectiveness as
employees will be affected by the obligations of
childcare. Thus, since answers to questions about
marital status would affect women’s, but not men’s,
chances of being hired, policies banning such
questions are frequently part of policies to correct
a history of sex discrimination, even though marital
questions have nothing explicitly to do with sex or
gender.
| 65
 “You may not notice or record racial difference.” But
they said, “You may not use racial difference as a
reason not to let someone into your school.”
The “equality approach” to minimizing the
discriminatory or harmful effects of difference
attempts to erase, or make irrelevant, differences
between people by putting in place mechanisms to
guarantee formal equality between them.
As you probably know, however, telling people
not to discriminate does not mean discrimination
ends. Telling people today that a characteristic
is irrelevant when for years they have been
accustomed to seeing that characteristic as very
meaningful and important is not always a sufficient
or effective way to achieve social change.
The Difference Approach
The examples above concern characteristics and
criteria that are perhaps somewhat easier to see
as irrelevant differences. All other things being
equal, the condition of being married or unmarried
is irrelevant to one’s ability to do most jobs, and the
colour of one’s skin is irrelevant to one’s ability to
succeed in school.
Sex/gender differences are still much harder
for many people to see as irrelevant. Indeed,
sometimes they really are relevant, as they would
be for a job in which only men or women could
physically qualify. For instance, a male would not
be hired as a airport security guard to pat down
female travellers. Nor would most women be good
candidates for the job of a sparing partner for a
male boxer.
The trouble is, very often histories of discrimination
themselves have made differences relevant.
Something that might not have been relevant to
begin with becomes relevant once you spend a lot
of years organizing society around the belief that
it is relevant, as the driving example discussed
in the introduction makes clear. Take the case of
the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operation’s
(DPKO’s) justification for increasing women’s
participation in peacekeeping: evidence suggests
that the mere presence of women on a mission
reduces the amount of sexual exploitation of local
women and children by their male colleagues.
There is nothing biological about women or men
that causes men to behave better in the presence
of women. This phenomenon is purely the product
of powerful social and cultural forces. However, to
ignore the fact of these social effects, indirectly an
effect of real sexual difference, would be foolhardy.
Thus, DPKO has wisely chosen to take active
steps to increase the numbers of women on its
peacekeeping missions (see Lesson 7).
The “difference approach” to minimizing the
discriminatory or harmful effects of difference
acknowledges the existence, and relevance, of
differences but attempts to find ways of creating
substantive equality among people in spite of those
differences.
The “Dilemma of Difference”
U.S. legal scholar, Professor Martha Minow,
has used the phrase “dilemma of difference” to
describe the difficult situation that histories of
discrimination create: they seem to leave us with a
choice between two equally undesirable options.
To remedy discrimination by treating everyone
“the same” risks ignoring differences that really do
matter.
To put things right by recognizing the relevance
of difference carries several risks. First, it might
perpetuate differences that ought not have been
there in the first place. For example, having only
men drive because hiring women to do so would be
too difficult and disruptive, would simply implicate
the UN in local discrimination against women.
Second, it risks maintaining stereotypes about the
group that has been discriminated against. For
instance, the idea that women are somehow better
behaved than men, and will improve the conduct
of men on a peacekeeping mission, maintains
stereotypes about both men and women. While
the stereotype about women (that they are better
behaved) seems like a positive one, it implicitly
communicates an additional message: that women
are also less good at the tough tasks of handling
things like war and violence. It is hard to put images
of sensitive, well-behaved women who will be
reassuring to the victims of sexual assault together
in one’s mind with strong, unsentimental soldiers
prepared to strictly enforce the rule of law, using
UN-sanctioned violence to do so when necessary.
Third, and most importantly, the difference
approach often leaves the “norm” to which it is
being compared unquestioned. Most often, the
“norm” remains that of the group historically
responsible for discriminating against the
subordinate group. Thus, “recognizing the
relevance of difference” and creating special
treatment mechanisms to ensure substantive
equality, while possibly effective in the short-term,
misses an opportunity to re-think the “norm” itself.
This point will make more sense after reading the
examples below.

Writing Exercise 3-D:

Sameness versus Equality
Now consider some other experiences where you remember receiving equal treatment with a sibling, schoolmate,
or friend. If possible, try to remember examples involving the same person you wrote about in the previous exercise.
Even if it is not the same person, try to come up with at least two examples:
• One in which you received the same treatment as someone who was a little different from you (for example, you
both received notebooks as gifts even though one of you knew how to write and the other one did not yet).
• A second one in which you received different treatment (a different gift or reward) but it did not feel unfair. Perhaps
one of you was permitted to accompany your father on a trip and the other was allowed to care for an animal as a
special privilege or responsibility. The example should be one in which, even though the benefits were different in
kind, they were of equal value; you still felt that the two of you were treated equally.
Ask yourself whether one or the other experience felt better or worse, and if so, why? Did it have anything to do with
whether the treatment you received was the same or different-but-equal?
Make a quick note to yourself in which, for the purposes of the rest of this section, the first example is probably
similar to what is described as “formal equality” while the second example probably resembles what’s called
“substantive equality.”

66 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n l e s s o n 3 : I NE Q U A L I T Y – D I S T I N C T I ON V E R S U S D I S C R I M I N A T I ON | 67

Liberian refugees in a transition camp in Abijan. These girls are learning
“feminine” activities during the conflict, hence reinforcing the gender
stereotype that domestic tasks are reserved for women.
(UN Photo #32504, Eskinder Debebe, August 2004)
Women in the Military
To illustrate this dilemma further, let us consider
the example of women in the military. Throughout
most of history, warfare was a matter of individual
strength and the ability to meet an enemy
one-on-one and kill him. As such, the armed
forces of virtually every nation in the world were
exclusively or predominantly male. While positions
sometimes opened up for women in times of war,
or at other times when male recruits had been in
short supply, there had always been limits placed
on the kinds of roles women were permitted to fill in
military forces.
Is sex difference really relevant to service in the
military? Obviously, many people think so. Over
time, however, and especially in recent years,
women have increasingly demanded and obtained
inclusion in military forces, even into units from
which they had been completely barred, such as
front-line combat forces. Gradually, these women
have had some success, especially in Canada,
the U.S., and in European nations, though there
remains great variation between these countries.
Still, women are a minority in most of the forces
in which they serve, and most nations retain
some sort of ban on women serving in particular
units, usually combat-related. Denmark, Israel,
and Norway, however, have completely opened
their armed forces, including all combat units, to
68 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
women. Norway was the first country to permit
servicewomen aboard submarines, and the
Norwegian Navy had the world’s first female
submarine commander when Commander Solveig
Krey took command of KNM Kobben, the lead ship
of her class of Royal Norwegian Navy submarines,
on 11 September 1995. In April 1979, LTJG Beverly
Kelley became the first woman to command a U.S.
capital ship, when she took command of the U.S.
Coast Guard Cutter Cape Newhagen.
Thus, we have a kind of institution, armed military
forces, with a previous history of discrimination
against women. The question of whether or not
sex is relevant to military service, and therefore
whether women’s exclusion from certain units
within the military is justified, is one that is highly
contested. Clearly, there is great disagreement
about this, given the enormous range of variation
between countries in whether and where women
are permitted to serve in the military.
If one were committed to eliminating sex
discrimination in the military, what might two
different discrimination policies look like from the
“sameness” and “difference” approaches? What
would be the advantages and disadvantages
of each approach? How would the “dilemma of
difference” look?
LTJG Beverly Kelley underway and in command of the
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Cape Newhagen. (U.S. Coast
Guard photo, 1979)
“Sameness Approach” (Formal Equality) Example communicated to other women, both within and
outside the military. One effect will surely be to
The simplest way to remedy the history of reduce the numbers of women who attempt to
discrimination against women in the military, from enlist in the armed forces. This is an example of
a sameness approach, is simply to assert that how a “sameness” or “formal equality” approach
sex difference is irrelevant to military service and to discrimination, on its own, fails to address the
lift all bans on women serving. If the requirement ways that real differences (either biological or
for enlistment previously was that one had to be socio-cultural) significantly impact the presence of
an 18-year-old male who met certain physical women in the military.
requirements (no major disabilities, good vision,
ability to demonstrate a certain level of strength,
etc.), one would simply take “male” out of the list
of requirements. The advantage of this approach
is that, on the face of things, it does appear to
achieve formal equality: men and women are
treated exactly the same. The disadvantage is that
it ignores the fact that, on average, men as a group
and women as a group do have somewhat different
physical characteristics and capacities. The
physical requirements in place for enlistment were
based on male bodies, so leaving them unchanged
may continue to discriminate against women.
For instance, say there is a minimum height
requirement of 175 cm. While there are many
women who would meet this requirement, there
are far fewer women who would meet it than there UNOMIG Military Information Officer from Denmark distributing school
kits - gifts from UNICEF - in a primary school in Gali, Georgia.
are men. Thus, discrimination against women is
(UNOMIG Photo, Justyna Melnikiewicz, 24 May 2004)
not really remedied by this policy change. The
sameness approach, applied in this way, would
ignore a real difference that matters.
There is another way in which this approach
would ignore relevant differences. Without
addressing the fact that the military services have
been historically male, simply changing the sex
requirement fails to address the fact of cultural
differences. The long historical development
of a culture of masculinity would be ignored by
implementing this policy change in isolation from
other supplementary educational changes. This
is what has happened in some modern militaries.
Women have been admitted to the armed forces in
increasing numbers, including into some combat
units, without full acceptance by some individual
members. Long-entrenched patterns of masculine
socialization can remain unchanged, including the
belief that women do not belong in the military,
as well as attitudes or habits of treating women
as sexual objects. Experiences like these are
l e s s o n 3 : I NE Q U A L I T Y – D I S T I N C T I ON V E R S U S D I S C R I M I N A T I ON | 69
“Difference Approach” (Substantive Equality)
Example
In fact, in addressing the history of sex
discrimination in modern militaries, various
armed forces do not use a strictly formal equality
approach, at least in terms of physical enlistment
requirements. As you can see in the table below,
for example, each branch of the U.S. armed
forces has slightly different physical fitness test
requirements for men and women.3
This approach nicely addresses the first
disadvantage of the example above. It
acknowledges some physical differences between
men and women, on average, and adjusts the
physical fitness test requirements to accommodate
those differences. The adjustments are slight, so
recognition is also made of the fact that women
can achieve roughly comparable levels of fitness
and strength to men. In addition, the slightness of
the adjustments surely reassures would-be critics
that the women permitted into the military are not
weaklings. These are its advantages.
3 “Although true comparison is not possible
because the events vary, here’s what a 22-year-old
man and woman must do to ‘max’ (get a perfect
score of 300) the physical fitness test in each
service.” Staff Sgt. Alicia K. Borlik, “Physical
Training Differences Explored,” Defense Link
News. American Forces Press Service. United
States Department of Defense. 13 May 1998.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.
aspx?id=41344 accessed 23 May 2007.
U.S. Armed Forces Physical Fitness Requirements
70 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
The disadvantages of this approach are threefold,
as listed in the table above. First, it risks
perpetuating stereotypes associated with sex
difference. Even though the differences in these
physical fitness test requirements are slight, there
will still be people who feel they are a sign that
women do not belong in the military because they
are “weaker than men.” Some will feel that the
difference between a 70-second flexed-arm hang
and 20 pull-ups is vast (Marines’ test), and that
letting women get by with nearly half the number of
push-ups required of men (Army’s test) is scarcely
a comparable demonstration of strength or fitness.
Thus, second, this method of ensuring “substantive
equality,” via different or what some will call
“special” treatment for women, risks perpetuating
discrimination by seeming to reinforce stereotypes
about superior male strength and inferior female
weakness.
Third, this method of reversing past discrimination
misses an important opportunity to examine
the norms according to which distinctions are
being made in the first place. By leaving the
men’s physical fitness test requirements in place
(presumably unchanged), the U.S. military has
turned the specifics of male bodies into the generic
of a norm that must be relaxed for women. Another
approach might have been to examine the physical
fitness requirements overall and ask whether the
existing norms made sense for both men and
women. To leave the male norm in place assumes
that soldiering continues to be an occupation for
which a primary requirement is physical strength.
Given technological changes over the past 20
years, as well as massive changes in how wars
are conducted, this is not an unproblematic
assumption. Other capacities might well be as, or
more, important than the ability to do 100 sit-ups.
Increasing numbers of women entering the armed
forces might have provided an opportunity to
examine whether different physical (and/or other)
requirements ought to be considered.
A second assumption made by this example is that
uniformity in requirements is actually necessary to
an effective military. It might well be that developing
a range of different kinds of physical fitness tests,
depending on the tasks required for different
positions, makes more sense.
The point here is not that there are no effective
anti-discrimination policies but that the dominant
approaches of “sameness” and “difference” each
have their respective strengths and weaknesses. In
every case, the advantages and disadvantages of
various approaches must be weighed against the
needs of the situation, the players, and the context.
Suggested Questions when Developing
Anti-Discrimination Policies
It will always be worth asking:
• What would some “sameness” and “difference”
approaches be in this situation?
• What are the respective advantages and
disadvantages of each?
• Are there assumptions that both approaches
make that perhaps should not be taken for
granted?
• Does the mandate to bring women into this
process, programme, policy, etc. offer us an
opportunity to creatively re-think how things have
been done up to now? If so, how can we take
advantage of that opportunity?
l e s s o n 3 : I NE Q U A L I T Y – D I S T I N C T I ON V E R S U S D I S C R I M I N A T I ON
3.4 Respecting Local Tradition
versus Promoting Gender Equality:
When Values Seem to Conflict
This section tackles what is often described as
an opposition, the need to respect local cultures
and their values and traditions, and the need
to uphold universal human rights, specifically
women’s right to equality with men. In fact, as will
be much more thoroughly explained in Lesson 5,
this opposition can often be something of a “red
herring”: something that appears to be a problem
but actually misleads attention away from other
truths, like the fact that local cultures always have
many different perspectives within them. There are
individuals and groups working for gender equality
within most communities around the world. All of
the world’s major religions have traditions of gender
equality within their histories, though some of those
traditions have been suppressed at different times
and in different places.
A support group set up by the UNHCR encourages discussions on sexual
and spousal violence among displaced persons and communities.
(Source: ©UNHCR, R.Chalasani)
While it is true that in places where gender
inequality is the norm, there will be local
resistance to any efforts you might make that
seem to challenge that norm, and some of that
resistance may be articulated in terms of tradition,
it is important to remember that all cultures have
internal diversity as well. A significant part of
| 71
 carrying forward the goals of SCR 1325 involves Unfortunately, this particular account of UNTAET’s However, it is equally clear that this Gender Affairs A final example shows both how easy this can
making room for a variety of women’s voices to be Gender Affairs Unit does not provide any Unit went out of its way to consult and coordinate be, and how easily it can go wrong. A UN agency
heard in any community you serve. information about what kinds of conflict with local closely with local residents and civil society sectors working in Southeast Asia set out to develop a
traditions its gender equality promotion activities in all aspects of its work. The remarkable levels micro-finance programme designed to “increase
An example of how promoting gender equality may have encountered. That such local traditions of success by the mission in increasing women’s women’s empowerment.” It required regular
in ways that clearly involved a great deal of local existed seems clear from the claim that there were representation in political leadership and the meetings of community members to discuss
participation comes from the UN’s Transitional in East Timor “deep cultural beliefs in the inequality police force, as well as institutionalizing policies how money would be raised and handled. To the
Administration in East Timor (UNTAET). The text in of women and men.” It seems hard to believe that and procedures to improve accessibility of police agency staff’s dismay, only men were coming to
Box 3-E below describes the Gender Affairs Unit there was no local resistance to at least some of to female victims of violence, could not possibly the meeting. Conversations with men revealed that,
that was set up as part of the UNTAET mission, the Unit’s activities. have been achieved had the Gender Affairs Unit “women in our community do not feel comfortable
and a particularly successful example of gender acted in disregard of all local cultural practices and speaking in public.” Women’s absence was
mainstreaming both within and by a Peace Support values. This speaks to the essential importance of explained in terms of local tradition and culture.
Operation. working closely with local communities in any effort The staff was discouraged and set about trying
to promote gender equality and reduce violence to develop an elaborate plan that would begin to
against women. This is true of any aspect of UN address, and eventually change, these cultural
Peace Support Operations, but it is especially true norms.
Box 3-E: East Timor (UNTAET) of operations involving efforts to change norms of
gender inequality. Somewhere along the way, one staff member
The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), deployed in 1999, was the first to establish
happened to be talking to a woman from the
a well-functioning and successful gender affairs unit. An analysis of the gender situation in East Timor was
conducted during the mission planning phase. It revealed that in addition to suffering specific gender-based violence community, and he mentioned this phenomenon of
during the conflicts, women had long faced a lack of full access to resources and limited decision-making power in
3.5 Conclusion women’s discomfort speaking in public and how it
politics and economic development in East Timor due to deep cultural beliefs in the inequality of women and men. set the micro-financing programme back because
As a result, UNTAET’s mandate explicitly included the task of addressing women’s human rights and refugee needs. In response to the question that opened this lesson
no women were coming to the meetings. The
Under the leadership of UNTAET’s Special Representative of the Secretary-General, the late Sergio Viera de Mello, (“When is sex/gender relevant?”), the answer can
woman told him that yes, it was true that women
a Gender Affairs Unit incorporated gender concerns in the design, implementation, monitoring and assessment of only be “always.” It is always relevant to consider
the mission. were not accustomed to being involved in public
sex/gender – that is, what it means to take gender
activities and most of them feared public speaking.
This “gender mainstreaming” was widely advertised and supported through public speeches and dialogues with into account. It means to consider how sex/gender
But, this was not the problem: she proceeded to
high-level Timorese personalities, political parties and consultative groups. It was further communicated to the differences may or may not significantly affect
explain how the meetings had been scheduled at
community by UNTAET’s media network via newspapers, television and radio programmes and ad campaigns. one’s plans, activities, programming, and policies.
the same time as certain water collection tasks had
The Gender Affairs Unit focused on two key strategies. The first was to increase the number of women participating Recall the quote from Lesson 1:
to be done. Since collecting water from the local
in East Timor’s governmental and administrative bodies. Together with the United Nations Development Fund for well was a task that women did in this community,
Women (UNIFEM), the UNTAET mission organized workshops and training sessions on political and technical … every decision taken, every project funded,
it was effectively impossible for them to attend
skills for potential women candidates. UNTAET also established quotas, provided media support to women, created and every policy implemented will have a
networks among women’s organizations and advocated the inclusion of women’s concerns in party dialogues. the meetings. The woman told the staff member
gendered impact. The impact may be to reinforce
Among other notable accomplishments, these efforts led to women representing 27 per cent of the total seats in that she thought at least a dozen women would
the status quo, or to change it, but no matter
the Constituent Assembly (East Timor’s parliament) in 2001, the appointment of women to high-level ministerial come to the meetings if they were scheduled at a
positions, and the inclusion of women’s rights and the prohibition of gender discrimination in the East Timor whether peacebuilders consciously analyze the
different time. She also told him that many more
constitution. gendered effects of their programmes or not,
would come if there were separate meeting times
they are de facto making decisions about gender.
The second strategy was the launching of a major two-year campaign against domestic violence, together with the scheduled for men and women. While women had
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The incidence of domestic violence in East Timor had reached alarming some fear of speaking in public, this was only true
levels over the years of the long-lasting civil wars. The campaign involved raising public awareness through the This does not mean that men and women will
in the presence of men.
media and training various professionals in how to recognize and deal with domestic violence. always have different ideas, experiences, practices,
strengths, weaknesses, skills, or characteristics
A special police unit called the Vulnerable People’s Unit was created and staffed by women to handle cases of It is rather astonishing that this agency had
relevant to the matter in relation to which you
crimes against women. In addition, a specific police officer was appointed in each district to handle gender-related somehow neglected to discover such simple facts
complaints. In the end, women made up over 30 per cent of the East Timor police service. These measures helped are taking gender into account. It simply means
about women’s lives when they were conducting a
to create an environment in which women could feel safer when making crime reports. In June 2003, the first woman that there is a good chance there will be such
programme to increase women’s empowerment.
to lead a UN police force was appointed UN Police Commissioner to the follow-on UN Mission of Support in East differences, and you should consider what
However, these are the kinds of implementation
Timor (UNMISET). they might be and make sure you have created
failures that happen all the time.
(Adapted from WIW, “Box 3.2: Gender mainstreaming: Experience from the field,” by Lea Biason, Martin Bohnstedt and Nadine mechanisms to ensure equal participation and
Puechguirbal, p. 252.) access, regardless of gender.

72 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n l e s s o n 3 : I NE Q U A L I T Y – D I S T I N C T I ON V E R S U S D I S C R I M I N A T I ON | 73
Suggested Questions and Guidelines
Here are some very simple and basic guidelines
and questions to remember when taking gender
into account:
• It is worth your time to take the trouble to find out
what women’s lives are like in the communities
you serve.
–– What do women do all day?
–– What are their obligations and
responsibilities?
–– What kinds of things happened to them in
the conflict that preceded your arrival?
–– What kinds of organizations have they
created already to serve women’s interests
and needs?
• Remember that not all women have children, not
all women are married, nor will all women have
the same kinds of interests. Thus, it is equally
important to discover what additional kinds of
social groups exist in the communities you serve.
–– Are there any mixed-sex social groups or
organizations? What do they do and what
are gender dynamics like within them?
–– Do older women tend to gather in groups
anywhere? What about young women
or teenage girls? Unmarried women?
Women soldiers or ex-combatants? Other
occupational groups? Sexual minorities or
other minority groups?
–– How do the other major social divisions in
this community affect gender dynamics
(e.g. race, colour, caste, tribal affiliation,
income, patronym, ethnicity)?
–– Have any local groups in civil society
already initiated conflict resolution or
peacebuilding activities? How can your
mission support them?
• Perhaps you can arrange visits with each of
the major sub-groups to learn more about their
experiences, ideas, and needs. Find out what
their major concerns are.
74 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
Finally, taking gender into account also means
asking how gender dynamics affect men in the
communities you serve. Asking the same sorts
End-of-Lesson Quiz
of questions above about different groups of
men would be equally helpful, and it would go
a long way toward ensuring that any activities
your mission undertakes will be accepted and
1. Identify whether the following are examples 4. For each of the following statements, indicate
respected. It also means asking whether and how
of distinction or discrimination as they whether they are true or false.
men and women work together in different groups
under different circumstances.
relate to sex/gender: A. It is always discriminatory to ask someone what
In Europe, boy babies are often dressed in blue religion she or he practices.
and girl babies in pink. B. The “equality approach” to minimizing the
a) Distinction b) Discrimination discriminatory effects of difference puts in
In most countries, women tend to live longer place mechanisms to guarantee formal equality
than men do. between people.
a) Distinction b) Discrimination C. In some countries, an employer is not allowed
to ask job applicants whether or not they are
Men earn more money than women for the married, to prevent discrimination against
same type of work. women on the basis of their marital status.
a) Distinction b) Discrimination
D. The “difference approach” to minimizing
the discriminatory effects of difference
2. Dr. Marilyn Frye wrote that: acknowledges differences but attempts to find
ways of creating substantive equality among
A. Men always behave the same way in social
people in spite of those differences.
interactions, no matter whether they are
speaking to a man or woman;
5. Which country was the first to permit
B. Women use less slang and swear words than
men; servicewomen aboard submarines and to
have a female submarine commander?
C. An adult human behaves differently in
social interactions with a man than in social A. Canada
interactions with a woman; B. Mexico
D. It is easier to speak to someone if you do not C. Norway
know whether they are a man or a woman.
D. United Kingdom
3. Which of the following is a prejudicial
6. The United States military uses the
statement?
“difference approach” in its physical
A. Only women can give birth to children;
enlistment requirements by having:
B. Girls should have feminine names and boys
A. A quota for women;
should have masculine names;
B. Exactly the same physical fitness requirements
C. It may be difficult to hire women drivers in a for men and women;
country where few women know how to drive;
C. Slightly different physical fitness requirements
D. Men are better drivers than women. for men and women;
D. Rules that excuse women from performing
tasks for which they are not strong enough.
l e s s o n 3 : I NE Q U A L I T Y – D I S T I N C T I ON V E R S U S D I S C R I M I N A T I ON | 75
7. Which of the following questions does
this lesson suggest is good to ask when
developing anti-discrimination policies?
A. Are women better at this job than men?
B. Does the mandate to bring women into this
process, programme, policy, etc. offer us an
opportunity to creatively re-think how things
have been done up to now? If so, wow can we
take advantage of that opportunity?
C. How can we make the selection criteria exactly
the same for men and women?
D. How can we give women an advantage in the
recruitment process to achieve more female
staff?
8. Which of the following is correct?
A. “Local cultures” always have many different
perspectives in them. There are individuals and
groups working for gender equality within most
communities around the world;
B. Local traditions oppose gender equality;
C. The best approach to local resistance to gender
equality is to run programmes without involving
local people;
D. Most people in any country share the same
view on matters of women’s rights.
10. Which of the following recommendations
does this lesson make for taking gender into
account in peacekeeping?
A. Only speak to women and girls – not men and
boys, as their concerns have already been
addressed; LESSON 4
B. Find out what women’s and men’s lives are
like in the communities you serve, including
their obligations and responsibilities, their
VIOLENCE: DEFINITIONS
experiences of the conflict, and their social
groups;
AND THEORIES
C. Recognize that women and men will never
agree on what the community’s problems
are, so they should always be assembled in
separate groups;
D. Remember that women in different conflict
zones all over the world have the same
experiences, so their needs may be addressed
with global gender mainstreaming policies such
as SCR 1325.

9. When is sex/gender relevant?

A. When women might face discrimination if you
do not consider it;
B. When men might face discrimination if you do
not consider it;
C. Always: it is always relevant to consider sex/
gender;
D. Never: people should be treated equally
regardless of sex.

ANSWER KEY
1(A, A, B), 2C, 3D, 4(A False, B True, C True,
D True), 5C, 6C, 7B, 8A, 9C, 10B

76 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
 4.1 Introduction
As you will recall, this course opened (in Lesson
1) with the argument that the problem of violence
against women cannot be solved without
Lesson addressing global patterns of gender inequality. In
order to fully explain and support this argument,
4 the meaning of each of its key terms (violence,
gender, and inequality) must be clear. Lessons
2 and 3 defined the terms gender and inequality,
respectively. This lesson takes up the third term,
violence.
If you are part of a Peace Support Operation, by
definition you have been sent someplace that has
suffered from the effects of violence. It may seem
absurd to suggest that you need a lesson in how
to define violence, the effects of which are likely to
LESSON OBJECTIVES be apparent all around you. However, the kinds of
violence that are obvious – for instance, physical
injuries resulting from armed conflict – represent
By the end of Lesson 4, the student should be able to meet the following only one form of violence on a wide spectrum of
4.1 Introduction objectives: actions, conditions, and even inactions that may be
defined as violent.
4.2 Defining Violence:
• Define and provide examples of: direct violence, structural violence, and
Why Definitions of Violence against women takes many different
cultural violence;
Violence that go forms, a range of which will be discussed in
• Provide a basic summary of the major approaches (bio-psychological, subsequent lessons. Not all of these kinds
Beyond the Obvious
political, and socio-cultural) to understanding what causes violence; of violence take the shape of obvious, direct,
are Important
physical injury. Rather than simply using one word,
• Identify and compare theories that describe contrasting relationships
violence, to describe all forms of harm experienced
4.3 Explaining Violence: between power, dominance, and violence; and
by women, it will be helpful to introduce more
Definitions and specific vocabulary. The terms introduced in the
• Review the evidence for and against the most prominent theories linking
Causes violence to maleness. next section of this lesson will permit a clearer
description of different kinds of harm related to
4.4 Conclusion gender inequality. In turn, more specific descriptive
terms will contribute to a more developed and
complex understanding of the causes of violence in
everyday life. Section 4.3 of this lesson reviews the
major theoretical approaches that different experts
have taken in attempting to explain violence.
Section 4.3 also reviews the evidence for the
various theories and concludes with a discussion
of how these theories relate to the problem of
violence against women.
To view a video introduction of this lesson by
the course author AnnJanette Rosga, you can
either log in to your virtual classroom, go to www.
peaceopstraining.org/users/media_page/395/,
or use your mobile device to scan the QR code
to the left.
L e s s o n 4 : V i o l e n c e – d e f i n iti o n s a n d th e o ri e s
4.2 Defining Violence: Why
Definitions of Violence that go Beyond
the Obvious are Important
Beyond the most obvious types of physical
violence, how and what one defines as violent
often has much to do with where one is standing,
the purposes for which one is making a definition,
and whether or not one is trying to explain, justify
or account for the violence. Similarly, the kind of
definition one uses will also determine the range
of activities and conditions that can be seen
as violent. Narrow definitions limit the range of
things that can be defined as violent, while wide
definitions can potentially include much more.
Consider the following three scenarios, asking
yourself as you read each one: “Is this a description
of violence? If so, what makes it violent? What is
the specific action or situation of violence?”
1. A married couple with two children has decided
not to have any more children. The husband’s
mother, however, is pressuring him to have
more children because children are highly
valued in their society, and the family’s social
standing will be improved. The husband
reluctantly agrees and decides to stop wearing
a condom when he and his wife have sex. His
wife resists this – she does not want to risk
pregnancy. He pressures her but does not
physically harm her. She gives in.
2. A man’s wife leaves him to go live with another
woman, and he accuses her of homosexuality,
which is illegal in their country. She is
subsequently stoned to death based on his
accusation.
3. A pregnant woman goes into labour in a rural
village. She is assisted by a female home birth
attendant, but there are problems. It is clear the
woman needs transportation to the hospital,
but women do not drive in this country. They
must find a man who will loan them a car and
drive them to the hospital. This takes two
hours. By the time they reach the hospital, the
pregnant woman and her foetus have both died
from loss of blood. The doctors at the hospital
say that if they had arrived even an hour
sooner, their lives could almost certainly have
been saved.
| 79
Why might it matter whether or not you define
what is going on in each of these scenarios as
violent? One key reason is that there will very likely
be disagreement among those of you taking this
course as to what constitutes violence in general,
as well as what constitutes violence against women
in particular. Certainly there will be a multiplicity of
perspectives on this subject among the members
of any community in which you are working as a
UN staff peacekeeper. In the second half of this
course, where lessons focus mainly on violence
against women, you may find yourself disagreeing
with how the course characterizes certain
practices or with the argument that unequal gender
arrangements are necessarily related to violence.
Portrait of Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistani woman who became
a world-renown education and women’s rights activist
after she was gang raped as clan vengeance in her native
village for crimes allegedly committed by her brother.
(UN Photo #117501, Eskinder Debebe, May 2006)
Recognizing that such disagreements are
inevitable, this lesson is intended to assist you
in two ways. First, while the course often refers
to “violence against women” or “gender-based
violence” in general, it is important to remember
that violence not only takes many different forms
but is also defined in different ways. The most
80 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
obvious kind of physical harm (like wounds from
an armed conflict) are not usually a source of
disagreement. Other kinds of actions – like some of
those presented in the scenarios above – are much
more controversial. Disagreements about whether
a particular practice is violent or not can sometimes
become both heated and confusing. They become
heated because people often have strong feelings
about both gender relations and violence; they
become confusing because people often use the
same word (violence) to mean very different things.
To the degree that participants can be specific
about what it is they disagree over, conversations
can be more productive for everyone involved. The
approaches to violence, and additional vocabulary
introduced here (e.g. structural violence, cultural
violence), will provide some useful tools with which
to explore different perspectives on more contested
issues.
Second, this course largely limits itself to explaining
how gender inequality and violence are related.
However, the variety of forms violence takes
obviously means that a variety of explanations
could be put forward to account for it. Consider, for
example, the difference between explaining why a
man kills his co-worker as compared to explaining
why genocide has occurred in Rwanda. In fact,
most violent events and processes arise out of
several conditions in combination. This lesson
will provide you with a brief review of explanatory
theories for violence in general so that you can
consider them together with (or in contrast to)
the central argument of the course that violence
against women is related to gender inequality.
While the review here is hardly complete, it will
give you a sense of the kinds of other theories that
are available to explain different forms of violence,
and some of the strongest scientific evidence for
and against them. This should help you to evaluate
some of the claims made in later lessons of the
course; it will also give you some ideas about how
to study the topic further if you wish.
4.3 Explaining Violence: Definitions
and Causes
However true it may be at the most abstract level,
to say that gender inequality causes violence
against women is too general and simplistic a
statement to help us understand most individually
occurring violent events in which women or girls
are harmed. We need an understanding of the
causes of violence that allows us to make specific
links between gender inequality and violence
against women. We also need a definition of
violence that allows us to know when an act of
violence has occurred. In this section, we will
look at a variety of perspectives on the causes of
violence and the definitions of violence on which
they rely.
To understand what causes violence requires
knowing what violence is in the first place. What
kinds of practices, actions or situations are violent
(leaving aside, for a moment the question of whether
it is gendered violence)? There are different kinds of
actions that might be deemed violent, depending on
the perspective we use. For the purposes of clarity,
it is useful to divide definitions of violence into two
categories: narrow and wide.
Narrow Definitions of Violence
Narrow definitions refer to direct violence. That
is, they tend to focus on acts between individuals
in which one inflicts physical harm upon another.
This is perhaps the most common kind of definition
of violence. In fact, it is safe to say that when
most people use the term violence alone, they
have some form of direct violence in mind. Direct
violence involves injury, damage, or harm whose
causes and effects are largely clear and intentional.
Its definition is similar to that provided by the
Oxford English Dictionary for violence in general:
“The exercise of physical force so as to inflict injury
on or damage to persons or property; action or
conduct characterized by this.”
Using a narrow definition of direct violence,
one would conclude that only Scenario 2 above
contains a description of violence. The violence
in that scenario would be identified as limited to
the actual stoning of the woman for her alleged
homosexuality.
L e s s o n 4 : V i o l e n c e – d e f i n iti o n s a n d th e o ri e s
The World Health Organization’s Poster for Violence Against Women
(Source: Source: http://www.who.int/gender/documents/en/
PosterviolEnglish2407.jpg)
Wide (or Wider) Definitions of Violence
Wide definitions of violence, as the term suggests,
are those that include a much wider range not just
of acts but of processes and situations, as well as
failures to act. (For instance, the failure to intervene
to prevent acts of genocide would be defined as an
act of violence using wide definitions.) Using wide
definitions, all three scenarios above can be said
to include descriptions of violence. The majority
of theories of violence discussed in this lesson
employ wide definitions of violence.
If we used a wide definition of violence that
included social pressure, Scenario 1 above would
also be an instance of violence, in that the mother,
the husband, and perhaps even the wife were
subject to the social pressure on families to have
more than two children.
Why Considering Definitions and Theories of
Violence is Important
Note that defining something as violent usually
assigns a negative value to it; it is often the first
step toward trying to reduce or eliminate that
practice. Defining actions or processes as violent
raises the level of urgency and importance they
carry, and often also suggests the kinds of actions
(or inaction) that should be taken against them.
Using a definition of violence that includes social
| 81
pressure for Scenario 1, it would be necessary
to take action to reduce or eradicate the social
pressure on the mother, husband, and wife that
a married couple have many (more than two)
children. Using a narrow definition, limited to direct
violence (intentional physical injury), no action
would need to be taken because no violence would
be seen to have occurred in the first place.
Definitions of violence are important to think
about carefully because they are powerful: they
determine what we see as violence, and therefore
whether or not we respond to it as such. While
definitions of violence are available on their own,
they also appear either implicitly or explicitly in
explanations – or theories – of violence. Theories
of violence attempt to provide an explanation for
why violence occurs. Naturally, these theories
vary according to the definition of violence one
is attempting to explain. If one is explaining an
interpersonally inflicted act of physical injury, the
range of explanations will be very different from
those offered to explain an anti-war protest or the
failure to intervene in genocide. The abundance
of theories explaining violence has to do with the
very many kinds of social phenomena to which
the label “violence” is applied, and so too with the
many definitions of violence that they can employ.
Because of this intimate link between definitions
and theories of violence, we will consider the two
together in this section. As noted, there are far too
many theories to mention in one lesson. Instead,
three influential types of theories will be introduced:
bio-psychological, political, and socio-cultural.
As you read, remember that the object of this
lesson is to provide a background from which to
articulate the relationship between gender and
violence in such a way that it is useful and effective
for you in your work with UN Peace Support
Operations.
Bio-Psychological Theories of Violence
Many theories linking violence to (human) biology
have been offered across time and place. One
popular biological theory has been that violent
tendencies are genetically heritable. However, no
credible studies of humans thus far have been able
to show genetic transmission of tendencies toward
aggressive or violent criminal behaviour.
82 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
There are also biological theories of violence that
explain it in terms of human instincts or as the
manifestation of evolutionary drives that ensure
survival, reproduction, and the ability to protect
one’s family. In these theories, males are generally
identified as the aggressive sex that has been
endowed with aggressive characteristics due to a
long chain of evolutionary events. These theories
are speculative. They are also often powerless
to explain phenomena that contradict their basic
premise that violence is a matter of male biology
and evolution. For example, they cannot account
for the existence of women who engage in
violence, whole communities that eschew violence,
or the existence of long traditions of pacifist men.1
While strictly biological theories locate the cause
of violence solely in the natural makeup of the
body, bio-psychological theories suggest an
interactive relationship between violent behaviour
and the brain. In this field, some researchers
study the effects of particular kinds of brain
injuries on the ability to control violent impulses.
Psychiatrist Sandra Bloom and psychologist
Michael Reichert contend that brain physiology is
altered through exposure to violent trauma and,
in turn, produces abnormally violent responses
to otherwise untroubling stimuli. For example, if
the “fight or flight” response that humans have
to danger – the surge of adrenaline and other
chemicals – is repeatedly induced by violent
trauma, the neural pattern of the victims’ brains can
be permanently altered such that it over-responds
to particular stimuli. Such individuals can become
easily irritable, impulsive and aggressive. The
physiological changes in the brain induced by
exposure to violence have the potential, according
to these researchers, to lead trauma victims to be
more likely to act out violently themselves.
1 Furthermore, theories, particularly of violent
instincts, have been largely discredited. “The
theoretical assumption that violence is instinctual is
often argued as if it were more ‘scientific’ than the
assumptions derived from the ‘softer’ behavioural
sciences, such as psychology and the social
sciences (despite the fact that these concepts can
be tested against empirical data). Today, in fact,
such ‘biological’ notions as ‘violent instincts’ are
seen as pseudo-biology by biologists themselves”
(Gilligan, 211).
Expanding their theory beyond this particular of each before puberty, then a sudden dramatic
fact about brain chemistry, Bloom and Reichert increase in each at puberty, with the levels of both
contend that much interpersonal violence can be remaining high throughout adolescence and young
correlated with trauma. Correlations, of course, adulthood, then together diminishing gradually but
are not the same as causes, and there are many steadily from middle age onwards. It strains the
victims of trauma who do not go on to perpetrate imagination to believe that this similarity is simply a
violence themselves. However, the evidence linking coincidence. There is also increasing evidence that
physiological changes to trauma is strong and the neurotransmitter serotonin is another biological
offers biological support for the idea that violence inhibitor of violent behaviour, both homicidal and
begets more violence. Note, however, that the suicidal. It may be relevant that men on average
theory restricts itself to defining violence in terms of appear to have lower levels of serotonin than
interpersonal events and relationships. women do.
Given the inconclusiveness of the above theories
of biologically-based violence, the only biological
factors that so far can be said to play a consistent
role in violent behaviour across time, place,
circumstance and culture are age and sex: that
is, young males are universally more likely to
be involved in any violence that happens to be
occurring in a given locale or at a particular
historical moment. This is also true across all
mammalian species: studies have reported males
to be more aggressive on average than females.
Most biological studies thus far attribute this
pattern of violence to a combination of hormones
(e.g. testosterone) and neurotransmitters (e.g.
serotonin) that are differentially present in men
and women. While testosterone is present in both
males and females, it is often called “the male sex
hormone” because males tend to have much higher
concentrations of it than do females. Testosterone
is said to “facilitate and stimulate aggressive
responses to environmental stimuli,” while
Participants in a workshop on domestic violence in Valle,
estrogens and progestogens (so-called “female Honduras. The workshop is intended to show the links
sex hormones,” because they exist in higher between gender, poverty, abuse and disease. (UN Photo
concentrations in females) are seen to inhibit such #138806, Mark Garten, June 2006)
responses.
Nonetheless, like other purported biological or
Age becomes a factor in the biology of violence psychological causes of violent behaviour, such
insofar as these sex differences change over the single determinants fail to explain cross-cultural
lifespan. James Gilligan, a sociologist who has variation and innumerable exceptions to the
spent more than 25 years working with violent apparent rules about sex differences and violence.
male criminal offenders in the United States, offers If human biological factors simply determined
a chart comparison that shows how this is so. violence, there would be no cross-cultural variation
Plotting the average rate of committing murder and no exceptions to the rule of aggressive males
over the lifespan against the average level of and peaceful females. In fact, most of us can think
circulating testosterone reveals an astonishing of important exceptions.
similarity between the two: relatively low amounts
L e s s o n 4 : V i o l e n c e – d e f i n iti o n s a n d th e o ri e s | 83
Gilligan’s conclusion upon review of the available
data supporting biological theories of violence is
that:
[The] potential to engage in violent behavior is
built into the very structure and functioning of our
central nervous system, which can be “triggered”
by the social environment. Unless it is triggered,
this potential will remain dormant and quiescent.
This approach brings together biology and (social
or cultural) environment in a way that gives a role to
biology and allows for social and cultural variation.
Interactions between Alcohol and Violence
What is the relationship between the use of alcohol
(its biological effect on the body) and violent
behaviour? On one hand, we may all have seen
situations in which the ingestion of alcohol was
followed by a physical fight.
The relationship between alcohol and violence
is complex. For example, biological studies in
several species, including humans and other
primates, have provided some evidence that
quick ingestion of alcohol in small amounts will
temporarily increase aggressive behaviour, while
consuming large amounts will temporarily decrease
it. Research by anthropologists on alcohol use and
violence across cultures has shown that the role of
alcohol in violent behaviour depends on drinkers’
expectations and on cultural norms.2 Even binge
drinking is commonly observed in some cultures
without violent aftermaths. A self-fulfilling prophecy
has been observed here in a variety of settings:
When an individual or a culture expects alcohol
use to be followed by violence, it more often is.
When violence is not the expectation, or when
it is not accepted or approved of, it tends not to
follow alcohol use. Consequently, as with biological
2 Raul Caetano, John Schafer, Carol B. Cunradi,
Alcohol-Related Intimate Partner Violence among
White, Black, and Hispanic Couples in the United
States, Alcohol Research & Health, Vol. 25,
2001. Kathryn Graham and Samantha Wells,
‘Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked in
Tonight!’ Aggression Among Young Males in
Bars—A Question of Values?, The British Journal
of Criminology 43:546-566 (2003)
84 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
explanations of violence, the effects of alcohol on
the body do not conclusively determine or cause
violent behaviour.
In conclusion, there is little evidence to suggest
a directly causal and determining relationship
between biology and violence, whether one is
considering human evolution, heredity, brain
physiology, hormones, or the effects of alcohol.
It is possible that biology plays some kind of role
in the enactment of violent behaviour with regard
to sex and age, but even then it is important to
consider how biology and the (social or cultural)
environment may influence one another. Gilligan’s
conclusion that the human potential for violence
exists, but remains dormant unless triggered,
offers one perspective that gives a contributing
but non-determining role to biology in concert with
society/culture.
Before considering other theories of violence, it
is important to note that the definition of violence
used in most of the biological literature either
implicitly or explicitly refers only to direct violent
behaviour in a narrow sense. In contrast to
biological theories, most of the political and
socio-cultural theories of violence that follow
employ wide definitions of violence, which include
primarily interpersonal, institutional, and/or cultural
factors.
Political Theories of Violence
In a culture of domination everyone is socialized
to see violence as an acceptable means of
social control. Dominant parties maintain power
by the threat (acted upon or not) that abusive
punishment, physical or psychological, will be
used whenever the hierarchal structures in place
are threatened, whether that be in male-female
relationships, or parent and child bonds.3
Theories of violence that link it to power
relationships are known as “political theories” of
violence; they explain the causes of violence in
terms of political relationships. Political
3 bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody:
Passionate Politics, Cambridge, MA: South End
Press, 2000: 64.
relationships are those having to do with how
societies are governed and with relationships of
people to status and authority.
To explain violence against women with a political
theory of violence is to argue that it can be reduced
through changes in how societies are governed.
When the member states of the UN have signed
and ratified the international treaties that proclaim
women’s equality to men and their fundamental
human rights, they have also been indirectly
ratifying their support for this political theory of
violence. They are calling on the governments of
the world to change their laws and social structures
such that women’s equality is ensured, and in so
doing, they are affirming that women’s inequality is
a major cause of violence against women.
The above quote from the feminist scholar bell
hooks4 uses terms such as “culture of domination,”
“dominant parties,” and “hierarchical structures”
that suggest that even individual violent acts
between family members are bound up with
much more than simply physical harm and
individual intention, as narrow definitions of
direct violence would maintain. These words point
to an understanding of violence that is clearly
related to power. The sociologist C. Wright Mills
once contended that, “All politics is a struggle for
power; the ultimate kind of power is violence.”
This equation of violence with power is a common
one. It can even be seen as underlying the quote
above by hooks, where she writes that “dominant
parties maintain power by the threat...[of] abusive
punishment...” This is the understanding most
people take for granted of the relationship between
power and violence: that violence is the most
extreme and powerful manifestation of power itself.
Many political theorists equate political power with
the effective organization of violence. Indeed, one
element of the definition of a functioning State is
that its government possesses a monopoly over
the use of force within its territorial boundaries.
For instance, a state is said to be failed when
multiple competing armed forces are running amok
within its borders, or when it cannot effectively
control or respond to violence exercised by its
4 This author chooses to spell her name without
traditional capitalization.
L e s s o n 4 : V i o l e n c e – d e f i n iti o n s a n d th e o ri e s
citizenry. A successful state is one whose populace
grants it the authority to be the sole exerciser of
legitimate force. Most of us who live in countries
with functioning governments accept, and even
expect, those governments to include police forces
and militaries with the authority to use violence to
maintain order and protect us. Most of us see the
potential for such uses of violence as legitimate,
even though we may disagree widely about the
particular circumstances within which the use
of violence is necessary or acceptable. On the
other hand, we generally expect direct violence
by non-State actors (people who are not police
officers or soldiers acting appropriately in the line
of duty) to be illegal and punishable by criminal
penalties.
Kenyan women demonstrate against rape in Darfur, Sudan.
(Source: African Renewal, United Nations; Photo by Khalil Senosi,
http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol21no2/212-violence-
aganist-women.html)
In sharp contrast to this standard formulation
of violence as “the ultimate kind of power,” the
political theorist Hannah Arendt argued the
opposite proposition: that “violence appears where
power is in jeopardy.” Arendt’s thesis was strongly
informed by her upbringing and experiences
under two totalitarian regimes: Stalin’s and
Hitler’s. She wished to draw a distinction between
different kinds of governance, totalitarian and
democratic. Totalitarian and dictatorial regimes
require complete subservience to the State; that
subservience is (at least in part) coerced through
the use and threat of violence. Instead of seeing
violence as an extreme form of power, Arendt
argued that violence becomes most necessary
when power is weakening or absent.
| 85
 In an extremely influential book-length essay
entitled On Violence,5 Arendt laid out a theory of
democratic power that describes it as “the human
ability to act in concert.” In other words, Arendt
saw power as something distinct from qualities like
strength and control. Unlike strength and control,
power, as defined by Arendt, can never be the
property of an individual, for it belongs solely to
groups. The only way an individual can exercise
power is to be “in power” which means, to be
“empowered by a certain number of people to
act in their name.” An individual person in power,
Box 4-A
This is one reason why non-violent protest movements can
be such effective means for creating social change. Their
central principle is simply non-cooperation with authority.
An example of non-violent protest involving the tactic of
laughter or humour is the Greenham Common Women’s
Peace camp in the UK. This was a nearly decade-long
action by women’s peace activists in which successive
waves of women lived in camps surrounding a nuclear
cruise missile site to protest its placements there.
Throughout the years, the protestors engaged in many
actions designed to “make fun” of the idea that the base
represented “security” for Europe. These included such
events as a “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” in which women dressed
themselves up in teddy bear costumes and attempted
to enter the missile site. Additionally they covered
themselves in honey so that when soldiers attempted
to remove them from the site, they became covered in
the sticky substance themselves. It was undoubtedly an
upsetting, embarrassing, and infuriating experience for
those soldiers placed in charge of protecting the base, but
the action demonstrated well how laughter and contempt
can be extremely effective ways to undermine respect
for authority. Following nearly 10 years of the protest
camp, the missile site was eventually shut down when on
8 December 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and
Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev signed the
Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty to rid
Europe of nuclear and conventional ground-launched
ballistic and Cruise missiles.
For news accounts and interviews with some of the protestors, as
well as video footage of the site, visit http://www.yourgreenham.
co.uk/
5 Hannah Arendt, On Violence (New York:
Harcourt, Brace and World, 1969).
86 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
however, may possess authority but only when
it is granted by others; authority is “the right to
command and…to be obeyed […] Its hallmark
is unquestioning recognition by those who are
asked to obey; neither coercion nor persuasion is
needed.”
Thus, Arendt wrote, whenever violence is used,
it should be understood as a sign that the user of
violence has lost the legitimate authority to exercise
power on behalf of others and is, by definition,
acting without the consent of the governed.
Violence is not itself power. It is more akin to a
tool, according to Arendt. It is used as a substitute
for power, because like any other tool, it simply
multiplies natural strength.
Imagine the example of a military officer in
command of her troops, or a teacher at the head of
his classroom. In both instances, the leader is far
out-numbered by those over whom s/he exercises
authority (soldiers and students). Alone, using force
or violence, neither one could hope to govern or
control the actions of the group. If you have ever
been in a situation in which you are supposed to
exercise authority over others, and you have begun
to lose control, you will understand this example
acutely. Subordinate officers may show signs of
disrespect for their commanding officer; students
may talk to one another in class instead of listening
to their teacher. Arendt captures this well when
she writes: “To remain in authority requires respect
for the person or the office. The greatest enemy
of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest
way to undermine it is laughter.”
An example of this relationship between violence
and power can be found in the April 2007 arrest of
Iranian women’s rights activists Nahid Keshavarz
and Mahboubeh Hossein Zadeh. They were
imprisoned in the women’s ward of Evin prison in
Iran.6 Keshavarz and Zadeh have been active in
a movement to collect signatures for something
called the “One Million Signatures Campaign.”
This campaign demands changes to laws which
activists believe are discriminatory toward women
6 Bahman Aghai Diba, “Iranian Women in Evin
Prison.” 9 January 2006. http://www.iranian.ws/
cgi-bin/iran_news/exec/view.cgi/5/12077 accessed
18 June 2007.
in Iran. Keshavarz and Zadeh were charged with
“threatening national security” and imprisoned for
more than two weeks before a worldwide campaign
to pressure the government for their release was
successful.7
In Arendt’s terms, the fact that the government felt
the need to exercise force in response to these
citizens’ efforts to change their country’s laws can
be seen as an example of power in jeopardy. To
eliminate people’s freedom of movement through
imprisonment is arguably a form of direct violence.
That is, violence (arrests and imprisonment)
appeared when the group’s (the Iranian nation as
represented by its government) ability to act in
concert (to proceed with its affairs uninterrupted
by internal dissent, unchallenged in its authority
to determine the laws governing women’s rights)
was in jeopardy. That the government wished to
communicate that its power was in fact jeopardised
is apparent by the charges of “threatening national
security.” The security of Iran’s nationhood was
identified as under threat by women organizing for
non-discriminatory laws. Thus, challenging gender
inequality in this instance led directly to the State’s
exercise of force.
As represented by C. Wright Mills and Hannah
Arendt, both of the relationships between
violence and power described above implicitly
bring to mind situations in which there are only
two relevant sets of actors. On one hand, there
are those who exercise power and/or who use
violence. On the other hand, there are the victims
of this first group – those who are either subject
to power and/or victims of violence. Put another
way, the two models suggest roles only for actors
(those-who-act) and those who are acted-upon.
7 “Imprisoned Members of the One Million
Signatures Campaign Released Wednesday 18
April 2007.” <http://weforchange.net/english/spip.
php?article64&var_recherche=Nahid_Keshavarz_
and_Mahboubeh_Hossein_Zadeh> accessed 18
June 2007.
L e s s o n 4 : V i o l e n c e – d e f i n iti o n s a n d th e o ri e s
The Milgram Experiment: Extending the
Relationship between Power and Violence to
Include the Authority-Obedience Dynamic
For the purposes of this course, it is important to
note a third possible relationship between violence
and power that usefully extends the two above.
This third model builds upon the feature of power
that Arendt so clearly identified: its connection to
authority, and in turn, obedience.8 To review, Arendt
defined authority as:
the right to command and...to be obeyed. [...] Its
hallmark is unquestioning recognition by those
who are asked to obey; neither coercion nor
persuasion is needed.
In Arendt’s model, based as it was on her efforts
to describe power in an alternative to totalitarian
regimes, democratic power and authority function
together to command obedience through the
respectful consent of willing citizen-subjects,
not through coercion, force or violence. Yet,
ironically, there was abundant evidence that
large numbers of people had willingly consented
to the very totalitarian regime whose violence
had forced Arendt to flee Europe.9 Just as she
8 While explanations of violence that rely on the
dynamic between authority and obedience are
often grouped with psychological or socio-cultural
theories of violence, this lesson addresses them in
the context of political theories for reasons that will
shortly become clear.
9 Born in 1906 into a well-established,
non-religious, German Jewish family, Arendt was
raised in Königsberg, which became Kaliningrad
when the town was ceded to the Soviet Union
at the end of WWII, and its German population
dispersed. As a young Jew working for a Zionist
organization Arendt was arrested, escaped,
and ran away from her homeland in 1933. She
made her way to Paris and from that moment on
remained, in effect, a stateless person, a woman
without a country, for 18 years. In 1941, after
France fell to the Nazis, Arendt escaped from an
internment camp in unoccupied Vichy. She fled first
to Spain, then to Lisbon, and finally to New York,
where she became a U.S. citizen in 1951. (Jerome
Kohn, “The World of Hannah Arendt,” <http://
memory.loc.gov/ammem/arendthtml/essay2.html>.)
| 87
theorized the citizens of democratic nations do,
countless citizens of Germany and other aligned
nations recognized and respected Nazi governing
authority; they did not require coercion to carry
out its genocidal campaign against Europe’s Jews,
homosexuals, disabled people, political dissidents
and others deemed undesirable.10
When Arendt arrived in the United States after
World War II, the question consuming many social
scientists was precisely why it was that so many
otherwise seemingly normal and decent people
had willingly participated in the evil acts of the
Holocaust. One researcher in particular became
famous for his exploration of this question. This
was a psychologist at Yale University named
Stanley Milgram. He hypothesized that if people
would commit even acts of extreme brutality at the
command of authority, the social psychological
dynamic of authority and obedience must be
overpowering indeed. He set out to test his
hypothesis with a set of experiments that measured
participants’ willingness to administer what they
thought were painful electric shocks to victims,
simply because a scientific authority figure told
them to do so. He began the experiments in the
summer of 1961, just a few months after the trial
of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann had begun
in Israel. In his account of the study several years
later, published in the book Obedience to Authority:
An Experimental View, Milgram wrote that he
10 The question of whether this fact suggests
Arendt would have described Nazi governance
as an example of power, or whether her failure
to do so is somehow contradictory, is far beyond
the scope of this lesson. Clearly, she did not
view the Nazi regime as democratic, while her
1969 treatise on violence cited here is centrally
concerned with a discussion of democratic power
and violence. She does not, in that text, discuss
the relationships of violence and power to the
phenomenon of willing participation in totalitarian
regimes. Her writings on the latter phenomenon
are extensive and considered by many to be the
definitive texts on totalitarianism, xenophobic
nationalism, and the processes by which modern
bureaucratic structures enable individuals to evade
accountability for their participation in immoral
acts supposedly carried out ‘by institutions’ larger
than themselves. See especially, The Origins of
Totalitarianism (1951) and Eichmann in Jerusalem:
A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963).
88 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
had designed the experiments to answer this
question: “Could it be that Eichmann and his million
accomplices in the Holocaust were just following
orders? Could we call them all accomplices?”
The experimenter (V) orders the participant (L) to give
what the participant believes are painful electric shocks
to a learner-subject (S), who is actually an actor. The
participants believed that for each wrong answer, the
learner was receiving actual shocks, but in reality there
were no shocks. Many participants continued to give
shocks as directed by the experimenter, despite pleas of
mercy from the learner-subjects. (http://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Image:Milgram_Experiment.png#file)
The Experiment
The basic aim of Milgram’s experiment was to see
how far people would go in administering violence
according to the commands of an authority.11
The following brief description of the experiment
is easier to understand if you follow along with the
diagram on page 103. Forty research subjects,
or “participants” (L in the diagram), were asked
by the “experimenter” (V in the diagram) to
11 Milgram published a description of the
experiment and his findings in the Journal of
Abnormal and Social Psychology (“Behavioral
Study of Obedience,” 1963).
administer a painful electric shock to a subject, or
“subject-learner” (S in the diagram), each time the
subject-learner answered a question incorrectly.
The level of the electric shock had to be increased
as the incorrect answers accumulated, all the way
up to a level at which the subject would cease
responding at all. The participants had control of
the level of electric shock they were administering
at every moment, and they could see and hear
the response of the subject as they experienced
the shock. Participants were told that the shocks
were painful but not permanently damaging, but the
panel they operated in the actual experiment had
labels that ranged from “mild” to “danger: severe
shock,” and finally “XXX.” The subject-learners
were actually actors who performed as if they were
experiencing increasingly severe levels of pain but
Re-enacting the Milgram experiment. Photo appeared in Nick Douglas’
did not in reality suffer any shocks. article, “ABC Re-Conducts the Milgram Experiment” in the Huffington
Post, 23 December 2006. Original Photo by Teatrino Clandestino (Source:
The findings of this experiment were quite http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eat-the-press/milgram-experiment.jpg)
surprising. People surveyed prior to the
and the one who was the victim of that action.
experiment predicted that the participants would
In the Milgram experiment, however, there are
stop administering shocks when it was apparent
three actors: the experimenter who gives the
that they were inflicting too much pain on the
orders, the participants who execute the orders,
subject-learners. However, the findings ran
and the subject-learners who are subjected
contrary to this prediction. In fact, participants were
to the combined actions of the experimenter
much more willing to administer extreme levels of
and the participants. Participants, in this case,
shock at the prompting of the experimenter.
simultaneously engaged in the violent action of
administering the electric shock and were subject
The Findings
to the commands of the experimenter in authority.
Milgram conducted some associated surveys Many participants felt that they were the victims of
violence perpetrated by the experimenter, even to
of Yale University students and faculty, asking
the point of feeling that they had not had any real
them to predict how the experiment would go.
The surveys predicted that few if any participants hand in administering the shocks; they felt they
would proceed with the experiment beyond the were not to blame for the violence.
“Very Strong Shock” level, regardless of polite but
We can see that there is a complex relationship
firm commands by the experimenter to continue.
between power and violence operating for the
In striking contrast to these predictions, all 40 of
participants in the Milgram experiment. From
the participants continued to administer shocks
one point of view, they were not responsible for
well beyond the “Very Strong Shock” point. No
the violence they enacted because they did not
subject stopped before reaching 300 volts. Only 14
have the ultimate power in the situation. From an
of 40 refused altogether to obey the experimenter
alternative point of view, the participants failed to
at some point. The remaining 26 participants
recognize and exercise the power they actually
“obeyed the orders of the experimenter to the end,
did have to resist the experimenter’s commands
proceeding to punish the victim until they reached
(remember that they knew they were participating
the most potent shock available.”
in an experiment, and that there was no threat of
Recall again that in the two examples discussed punishment whatsoever in the situation). They had
prior to Milgram, there were only two actors been told they were free to leave at any time.
involved: the one who took the violent action,
L e s s o n 4 : V i o l e n c e – d e f i n iti o n s a n d th e o ri e s | 89
This relationship between power and violence is
well exemplified by the phenomena of rape camps
and military training in Bosnia and Rwanda. In these
situations, men were forced to victimize women to
prove their masculinity to peers and commanders,
and they were forced to perpetrate all manner of
atrocities as a way of demonstrating obedience to
their military superiors.12 Like the situation between
participants and experimenters in the Milgram
experiment, soldiers are in a position of perpetrating
violence against women and are subject to
the authority of their commanding officers who
request that the soldiers carry out these actions.
In many cases, soldiers also perpetrate violence in
response to peers. Because this occurs in a military
environment, where respect for authority is taken for
granted, and consent to that authority is a regular
part of the soldiers’ experience, it is often the case
that no explicit threat of punishment has been
made. It is simply “known” that one must carry out
these acts in order to survive, to be accepted, and
so on. Therefore, although there is no explicit threat,
there is an implicit sense of power operating on and
over the soldiers.
Writing Exercise 4-B
See if you can remember a time when
you used physical force against someone
(perhaps a child or a spouse or an animal),
or a time when physical force was used
against you as a child or as an adult. If
you cannot recall any such instance, try
to remember a time when you observed
someone else using physical force against
another.
What precipitated the use of force? Was the
child or spouse or animal disobedient in any
way? Do you think the use of force was, as
Mills asserted, “the ultimate kind of power”?
Or was it a sign that the force-user felt his/
her power was slipping? Both? Neither?
12 Bülent Diken and Carsten Bagge Laustsen,
Becoming Abject: Rape as a Weapon of War,
Body & Society, Vol. 11, No. 1, SAGE Publications
(2005): 111-128. Elisabeth Jean Wood, Variation in
Sexual Violence during War, Politics & Society, Vol.
34, No. 3, SAGE Publications (2006): 307-342.
90 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
Socio-Cultural Theories
As the name suggests, socio-cultural theories
of violence link violence to social and cultural
dimensions of life. Social explanations of violence
might stress competition for scarce resources or
conflict between particular social groups. Cultural
theories might emphasize the meaning that
particular forms of violence have within a given
society, describing violence as a kind of serious
game or as a ritualized release of built-up tension.
This section will consider the theory of violence
articulated by Norwegian academic Johan
Galtung. Galtung is well-known and often cited
by academics, but his work is generally ignored
or unknown by practicing peacekeepers and
diplomats. Galtung’s theories, as put forth in his
1967 Theory and Methods of Social Research
and numerous other publications, neatly contain
references to many other socio-cultural theories of
violence as well, and will provide a useful frame for
discussing violence against women in subsequent
lessons of this course.
Galtung’s theory of violence uses a wide definition,
articulating sub-definitions of structural violence
and cultural violence along with direct violence.
In fact, Galtung’s definition of violence is probably
among the widest possible to use, for he sees
violence as “avoidable insults to basic human
needs, and more generally to life, lowering the real
level of needs satisfaction below what is potentially
possible.”
For Galtung, structural violence addresses the
ways in which social structures or institutions
prevent people from fulfilling their basic needs.
This is clearly an extremely wide definition of
violence and includes institutionalized systems of
inequality such as racism, sexism, nationalism,
classism and ethnocentrism, as well as poverty,
inadequate water supplies, and insufficient
health care. For Galtung, direct violence is tied
to structural violence, in that structural violence
can lead to conflict and thence to direct violence,
whether within the family or in terms of hate crimes,
genocide, or war.
By cultural violence, Galtung means: 4.4 Conclusion
…those aspects of culture, the symbolic sphere Galtung’s socio-cultural theory of violence is the
of our existence – exemplified by religion and framework used for discussing violence against
ideology, language and art, empirical science women in the next section of the course because
and formal science (logic, mathematics) – that it is very closely aligned with some of the United
can be used to justify or legitimize direct or Nations’ highest aspirations for human rights and
structural violence…Cultural violence makes human development.
direct and structural violence look, even feel,
right – or at least not wrong.13
According to Galtung, both direct and structural
violence create needs-deficits. When either happen
suddenly, we can talk of trauma. His underlying
assumption is simple: violence breeds violence.
Violence is needs-deprivation; needs-deprivation
is serious; one reaction is direct violence. There
could also be a feeling of hopelessness, a
deprivation/frustration syndrome that shows up
on the inside as self-directed aggression and on
the outside as apathy and withdrawal.14
This type of explanation for violence is
widespread and common to many sociological
and psychological theories of violence. What is Professor Johan Galtung (second from the left) and friends in
specific to Galtung’s argument, and other similar Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka. (Source: Sarvodaya Shramadana,
theories of cultural violence, is the contention that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:In_Kilinochchi_With_
there are clear and direct relationships between Prof_Johan_Galtung.jpg, December 2004)
how societies organize their cultural meaning
systems and the level and types of violence these
societies engage in. For example, the concept of
cultural violence can be helpful for thinking about
complex violent events like war rape. It allows us to
identify how a rapist can in fact experience himself
as a victim of violence (of the force that he feels
requiring him to carry out the act, and the implicit
threat in its existence), even as he is raping a
woman. This concept gives us a way to talk about
his victimization by cultural norms of masculinity
and soldierhood without equating his experience
with the injury of direct violence experienced at his
hands by the woman.
13 Johan Galtung, Cultural Violence, Journal of
Peace Research, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Aug., 1990): 291.
14 Ibid.
L e s s o n 4 : V i o l e n c e – d e f i n iti o n s a n d th e o ri e s | 91
End-of-Lesson Quiz
1. Which of the following is incorrect?
A. Narrow definitions of violence refer to direct
violence;
B. Wide definitions of violence include not just
acts but processes and situations, as well as
failures to act;
C. There are different kinds of actions that might
be deemed violent, depending upon what
definition of violence one uses;
D. There is one standard definition of violence.
2. Violence is inherited. True or false?
3. Biological factors alone have not been
found to cause violence – rates and kinds
of violence vary too much across culture
for this to be true. However, there are two
biological factors that appear to play a
consistent role in violence across history,
locations, and cultures. They are:
A. Sex and alcohol use;
B. Age and sex;
C. Body size and sex;
D. Androgens and estrogens.
92 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
4. One afternoon, Antonio and Omar got
together to talk and drink a few beers. After
several hours of pleasant conversation,
the two men had a disagreement. Based
upon the research on alcohol and violence
presented in this lesson, which of the
following statements best describes what
could happen next between Antonio and
Omar?
A. It depends entirely on Antonio and Omar’s
individual personalities. If either one has a
personality with violent tendencies, they may
have a violent fight. Alcohol has nothing to do
with it;
B. It depends largely on how their cultures view
alcohol. If either one comes from a culture
in which drunkenness and violence are
associated with one another, then Antonio and
Omar may be more likely to get into a physical
fight than if both came from cultures where
people almost always act happy and silly when
they are drunk;
C. It depends largely on Antonio and Omar’s
parents’ alcohol use. If their parents were
alcoholics, they are more likely to get into a
fight than if their parents were not alcoholics;
D. It depends largely on what kind of alcohol they
were drinking. Hard liquor makes people more
violent than wine or beer.
5. Match each of the following terms in Column A with its corresponding definition in Column B.
Column A Column B
1. Direct violence A. Invariant, a permanence, remaining essentially the
same for long periods of time. This type of violence
is used to justify the other two forms of violence
and make them appear that they are right, or at
least not wrong.
2. Cultural violence B. An event, such as maiming.
3. Structural violence C. A process of ups and downs that includes the
exploitation of one group by another.
6. Identify which of the following statements about violence are mostly true and which are mostly
false. For each statement, place an X in the appropriate column.
Statement Mostly True Mostly False
A. How violence is defined depends on who is
doing the defining and the purposes for which
one is defining it.
B. According to Arendt, violence is triggered when
people with power are in jeopardy of losing their
authority to exercise legitimate power.
C. Violence behaviour is built into the structure of
our central nervous system, so it must be
released periodically to maintain good health.
7. For each of the following situations, identify whether it is best described as direct violence,
cultural violence, or structural violence by placing an X in the appropriate column.
Direct Cultural Structural
Situation
violence violence violence
A. The belief that to be a good woman, one must
marry and have several children
B. Killing
C. The belief that boys must know how to fight
with one another and must never hit girls
D. When people are so disadvantaged that they
die from it, e.g. starvation
E. Destruction of farmland so people cannot
grow certain crops
F. The exploitation of the poor by the powerful
L e s s o n 4 : V i o l e n c e – d e f i n iti o n s a n d th e o ri e s | 93
8. Wright Mills argued that “all politics is a
struggle for power; the ultimate kind of
power is violence.” Hannah Arendt:
A. Challenges this view, saying instead that the
ultimate kind of violence is power;
B. Agrees with Mills’ ideas about power and
violence;
C. Challenges this view, saying instead that
violence is used as a substitute for power;
D. Challenges this view, saying that politics is also
a struggle to end violence.
10. Which of the following best expresses
Galtung’s definition of violence?
A. The avoidable insults to basic human needs;
lowering the real level of needs;
B. Killing someone because they killed one of your
relatives;
C. Acts of force done in order to gain political
LESSON 5
power;
D. Religion and ideology used for the purpose of
culture versus rights?
justifying the use of force.

9. How did psychologist Stanley Milgram

explain the fact that a large number of
people were willing to administer what they
believed to be painful electric shocks to
others during his experiments in the 1960s?
A. Milgram believed that people are inherently
aggressive and no one should be surprised
that a large number of people were willing to
deliver painful electric shocks to others;
B. Milgram explained that two-thirds of the
people who volunteered to participate in the
experiment were people who were hostile and
had destructive personalities;
C. Milgram believed that people tend to obey the
commands of authority figures even when they
know that their actions could harm others;
D. Milgram explained that the revolutions
occurring during the 1960s led to feelings of
frustration and anger among citizens. Giving
painful electric shocks to others seemed to
calm citizens and allow them to regain a sense
of control over their lives. ANSWER KEY
1D, 2 False. No credible studies of humans thus
far have been able to show genetic transmission of
tendencies toward aggressive or violenct criminal
behavior., 3B, 4B, 5 (1B, 2A, 3C), 6 (A Mostly True,
B Mostly True, C Mostly False), 7(Direct violence: B,
E; Cultural violence: A, C; Structural violence: D, F),
8 C, 9C, 10A

94 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
 5.1 Introduction: Cultural
Relativism
Part of training for your job on a United Nations
mission likely included something to do with
Lesson preparing for life in a different culture: You are
going to a new place where people may have
5 customs, practices and beliefs very different
from your own – you should prepare yourself to
Regardless of whether and how someone’s
habitual practices are cultural, is it ever right to
demand that s/he change them? If so, when is it
right, and how should it be done? As noted above,
when classes on cultural difference and sensitivity
are taught, they usually emphasize the importance
of respecting (and not interfering with) the practices
of others in a culture different from one’s own.

experience some form of ‘culture shock,’ in which It is not too hard to respect other cultures when
you may become upset or angry or disgusted by the differences at issue are, for example, how
something people find perfectly normal in this new the strangers eat their food, how people dress, or
place. One goal of lessons like these is usually walk, or what they do with which hands. Maybe
to emphasize how important it is to understand you’ve encountered one or more of the cultural
strange new customs, practices, and beliefs from miscommunication traps that come up when one is
the point of view of the people who have always new to a culture: you do something innocently that
lived in that place. The main message of such is perceived as offensive in the new place. Usually
lessons is this: we all have our own cultures that such mistakes can be fixed with a few apologies.
are strange to others, so it is extremely important People understand these kinds of cultural
LESSON OBJECTIVES that we learn to respect one another’s cultures differences.
even when we find them strange or disturbing.
What if the “cultural difference” you’ve encountered,
By the end of Lesson 5, the student should be able to meet the following
5.1 Introduction: Cultural objectives:
As you surely already know by now, these are though, is one that involves someone getting
Relativism incredibly important lessons for peacekeepers: to hurt? And if someone’s getting hurt, how do you
learn to see from another’s point of view, to avoid know whether the action that is causing the pain is
5.2 When is a Cultural • Define the concept of cultural rights and describe their place in the being judgmental of others, and to respect other cultural or not? Should this matter? If so, how? If
Practice “Violent”? history of the different generations of international human rights; cultures. This kind of open-mindedness to the not, why not?
cultures of others can be, and sometimes is, called
5.3 When is a Violent • Define the term cultural relativism and summarize what is meant by the “cultural relativism.” It may help to consider a couple of scenarios that
Practice “Cultural”? phrase “the debate between cultural norms and universal human rights”; may or may not clearly involve cultural difference,
In its broadest possible meaning, “cultural because dilemmas in which one must determine
• Provide an example of an activity whose definition has changed over
5.4 Cultural Rights, “the relativism” simply refers to an attitude or philosophy whether or not to intervene to protect another
time, from being seen as a routine or traditional practice to being seen
West,” and “the that all cultures are equal and that all values and from harm can certainly arise even within a single
as a harmful form of gender-based violence. Explain the process by
practices are relative (or related) to the particular culture. Such a dilemma may come up in the
Rest” which such definitional changes can occur; and
cultures from which they spring. Therefore, those area of childcare, for instance. In some cultures,
5.5 Cultural Relativism’s • Identify a list of key questions and guidelines that can be used practices should first be understood and evaluated one would never see a child beaten or struck.
to evaluate cultural norms and practices from the perspective of from within their own cultural contexts.1 Some cultures forbid striking children in anger
Limits: The Ethics
contemporary human rights standards, while simultaneously respecting with the same level of ferocity that others forbid
and Politics of the importance of local perspectives. homosexuality. In others, there may be a wide
Intervention range of acceptable childcare practices.

5.6 Conclusion: Applying 1 “A simplified working definition of culture

These Lessons
To view a video introduction of this lesson by
the course author AnnJanette Rosga, you can
either log in to your virtual classroom, go to www.
peaceopstraining.org/users/media_page/396/,
or use your mobile device to scan the QR code
to the left.
is that it is a system of both implicit and explicit
meanings, beliefs, values and behaviours shared
by members of a community or a group, through
which experience is interpreted and carried out.
Culture determines the way we act, the manner in
which we relate to others and the way that we think
about and interpret events happening around us.”
(UN Standard Generic Training Module 5B “Cultural
Awareness” http://www.un.org/depts/dpko/training/
sgtm/sgtm.htm accessed 3 December 2006)
L e s s o n 5 : cu ltur e v e r s u s right s ? | 97
 5.2 When is a Cultural Practice
“Violent”?
Writing Exercise 5-A
Turning Legitimate Acts into Illegitimate
Imagine two scenarios and write out your responses to each. (This would be a good exercise to discuss with Violence: The Case of Domestic Violence
others online if you have access to the internet.)
Some define violence in terms of whether the act
Scenario 1: You are the neighbour of a family in which one parent regularly punishes the children by hitting them, is legitimate or not. In a society in which violence is
while you are opposed to any violence in childrearing. One day, you hear the youngest child screaming horribly. generally seen as illegitimate, if an act is legitimate
He runs outside and you see that he is shirtless and his back is bleeding from being whipped with a belt. His (or legal), it will not be termed violent, but may
parent runs out after him and drags him (still screaming and crying) back into the house. You are terribly upset. instead be called forceful or lethal (as in “lethal
Do you intervene? If so, how? What do you do? What do you say? When? Do you involve others? Why or why injection” for the death penalty). On the other hand,
not? If you choose not to intervene, why not? Are there circumstances under which you would intervene? If so, if the act is illegal, or seen by the person defining
what are they? If not, why not? the act to be illegitimate, it will more likely be called
violent.
What difference(s) would it make if:
This same principle – that how an act is defined
• The second parent supports (or opposes) the first parent’s punishments? has to do with whether or not its definer views the
• You know the physically-punishing parent was (or was not) raised this way too? act as legitimate – applies to terms like “human
rights and culture,” “cultural practice,” “traditional,”
• Many members of the parents’ religion do (or do not) support this method of childrearing?
“religious,” etc. Furthermore, it has to do with the
• The physical punishment were less (or more) severe? meaning of the term in question for the definer’s
audience. For instance, to call something a
• You know the police (or a child protection agency) would (or would not) take your report seriously and respond traditional practice in the company of tribal leaders
to this action as a crime? who greatly value traditional practices is to identify
• You were a man or a woman? If your neighbour were the same or opposite sex? that practice as legitimate, even good. To call the
same practice traditional in a room full of urban
Scenario 2: You are a parent who believes that when lessons are very important for children to learn, only teenagers who think everything that originated
physical punishment will communicate them effectively. You particularly believe that because boys will grow up longer than five years ago is “ancient history,” is to
to be men who are often exposed to great violence, whether or not your sons learn to tolerate violence at your suggest that practice is illegitimate, old-fashioned,
hands may make the difference between life or death. You do not enjoy hurting your sons, but you believe it and bad.
is necessary to teach them and to prepare them to be men. One day, your neighbour, whom you do not know
very well, comes over to your house in the middle of a lesson you are trying to teach your youngest son. This Thus, the power of terms and their definitions is
neighbour is yelling at you to stop hitting your son and threatening to call the police on you. You are terribly upset. always highly dependent upon, at a minimum:
How do you respond? • The identity of the definer (Who is doing the
defining? Is it a person or an institution? How
What difference(s) would it make if: much authority and/or power does s/he/it
• The neighbour were not yelling but talking reasonably? possess? Over whom?);
• The audience(s) to whom the definer is speaking;
• The neighbour approached you to discuss her/his concerns at a different time?
and
• Your spouse supports (or opposes) your punishments?
• The persons about whom the definer is speaking.2
• You were (or were not) raised this way too?
• Many members of your religion do (or do not) support this method of childrearing?
• You think the police (or a child protection agency) might (or probably would not) take your neighbour’s report
seriously and respond to your action as a crime?
2 The word “actor” here is not used to refer
• You were a man or a woman? If your neighbour were the same or opposite sex? to people who act theatrically, as in movies and
plays, but in the more general sense of those who
take action of any kind.
98 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n L e s s o n 5 : cu ltur e v e r s u s right s ?
Definer
Act/actors Audience(s)
Box 5-B: The Zero Tolerance Campaign, Glasgow
The Zero Tolerance Charitable Trust is an independent
charity that campaigns for the prevention of male violence
against women and children. The Trust, which was
established in 1995, works mainly in the UK and Europe
but also has links with organizations throughout the
world. The first Zero Tolerance campaign was launched
in Edinburgh in November 1992 by the Edinburgh District
Council’s Women’s Committee. The campaign was
prompted by a local survey by Edinburgh Council that
showed violence against women was a priority issue for
women in Edinburgh. It was the first crime prevention
campaign in Britain to tackle the issue of male violence
against women and children.
The original six-month campaign used four posters to
raise the general public’s awareness about the reality and
prevalence of child sexual abuse, rape and sexual assault
and domestic violence. Based on research and rooted in
the experience of women and children, the posters used
black and white photography and text to challenge existing
attitudes. Using billboards, mass distribution of posters and
partnerships working with key organizations including the
local press, the campaign generated overwhelming interest
and support at a local and national level. The campaign
was designed to run in four phases with separate poster
executions. The first three posters tackled specific
aspects of violence against women – with the third poster
dealing with domestic violence and challenging the widely
accepted myth that domestic violence only occurs in
working-class households. In addition, this poster identified
emotional and sexual abuse as forms of domestic violence.
Partnerships with the local and national media proved a
key component in the success of the first campaign and
have been used in all subsequent campaigning. At the
same time, local events were organized. These included
seminars for professionals working in key areas and
debates, which the general public could attend.
| 99
 For instance, in the United Kingdom (as in many
countries), violence against women at home by
boyfriends, husbands, or other family members is
Interest and demand for further Zero Tolerance campaigns gathered momentum and resulted in the establishment not uncommon (although it is a criminal offence).
of the Zero Tolerance Charitable Trust in 1995. The Trust has gone on to develop further campaign packages, to Box 5-C: Facts and Figures on the Magnitude of
Prior to organized efforts to end it, violence against
commission research, to lobby the government, to establish an information database and to develop education Intimate Partner Violence
intervention and training programmes. The Excuses Campaign (1995–1996) directly challenged the excuses used women at home had no particular name. Now
by men to avoid taking responsibility for their violence. The Justice Campaign (1996–1997) raised awareness definers like the “Zero Tolerance Campaign” define
about the justice system’s failure to deliver equality and justice to women and children experiencing violence. The Violence by intimate partners occurs in all countries and
such practices as illegitimate “domestic violence.”3
Respect Campaign (1998-present) highlights the issue of consent in personal relationships – challenging boys cultures, although some populations are at greater risk
In this way, the campaigns help to change the ideas than others. The overwhelming burden of partner violence
with the responsibility of ensuring consent in sexual relationships so that the onus does not continue to fall on about violence against women at home amongst a is borne by women at the hands of men.
girls, and to challenge girls by helping them to assert themselves in their personal relationships.
wide public audience of United Kingdom residents.
• Studies show that 40-70% of female murder victims
In 1998, the Trust published a major research study into are killed by their husbands or boyfriends, frequently
young people’s attitudes to violence, sex and relationships. In this case, of course, the actors – both
This involved over 2,000 young people aged 14–21 years perpetrators and victims of this violence – are also in the context of an ongoing abusive relationship. In
in Scotland and in England. Key findings include: members of the audience. They too become part some countries, nearly one in four women report sexual
of the audience of people who have previously violence by an intimate partner and up to one-third
• 1 in 2 boys and 1 in 3 girls find it acceptable to hit a
ordinary or acceptable actions re-defined as of girls report forced sexual initiation. (World Health
woman in certain circumstances (e.g. if they nag);
illegitimate and unacceptable for them. They may Organization)
• Boys and girls find forced sex more acceptable than
hitting; or may not agree with these re-definitions at first. • Between 16 and 41% of women are physically assaulted
Over time, some will come to agree, some will not. by a male partner in an intimate relationship, according
• More than half the young people think that women
provoke violence in a range of contexts (e.g. by the to studies conducted between 1986-1997 in Cambodia,
way they dress, by flirting); and Box 5-C reviews statistics for similarly re-named Canada Egypt, India, Israel, Kenya, Korea, New
and de-legitimated violence against women, Zealand, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the
• Over half the young people knew someone who had “intimate partner violence,” around the world.
been hit by their male partner, and exactly half knew United States, and Uganda.
someone who had been sexually assaulted. • One in six women in the Czech Republic is subjected to
violence at home; one in five in Switzerland; one in five
For more information and to see examples of the Zero
Tolerance posters, visit this website: 3 bell hooks defines patriarchal violence women in Namibia; four out of five women in Pakistan.
www.zerotolerance.org.uk/campaigns/campaigns.php. in the home as: “...based on the belief that it is
• One in every four Russian families lives in a cycle of
acceptable for a more powerful individual to control
others through various forms of coercive force. domestic violence. An estimated 36,000 women in
This expanded definition of domestic violence the Russian Federation suffer beatings from intimate
includes male violence against women, same-sex partners every day. Every 40 minutes a Russian
violence, and adult violence against children. The woman’s life is claimed by domestic violence.
term ‘patriarchal violence’ is useful because unlike
the more accepted phrase ‘domestic violence’ • One in four adults experience domestic violence in
it continually reminds the listener that violence Great Britain. Every four days, one woman is murdered
in the home is connected to sexism and sexist by her intimate partner. The British Crime Survey in
thinking, to male domination. For too long the term 2000 estimated that it takes an average of 35 incidents
domestic violence has been used as a ‘soft’ term of assault before a woman chooses to go to the police,
which suggests it emerges in an intimate context and only one in three cases of domestic violence is
that is private and somehow less threatening, less
reported.
brutal, than the violence that takes place outside
the home. This is not so, since more women are • In the Netherlands, a study in 1988 estimated one in six
beaten and murdered in the home than on the girls suffered sexual abuse before the age of 16 with
outside. Also most people tend to see domestic almost half of the abuse taking place within the core
violence between adults as separate and distinct
family.
from violence against children when it is not. Often
children suffer abuse as they attempt to protect a
mother who is being attacked by a male companion
or husband, or they are emotionally damaged
by witnessing violence and abuse.” (bell hooks,
Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics,
Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000: 61-62).

100 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n L e s s o n 5 : cu ltur e v e r s u s right s ? | 101


Box 5-C: Facts and Figures on the Magnitude of
Intimate Partner Violence
• Studies demonstrate that even pregnant women are
exposed to domestic violence. An assessment in a
hospital in the United Kingdom indicated that three
percent of 500 pregnant women experienced violence
during their pregnancy. In the United States, it is
estimated that 324,000 women each year experience
intimate partner violence during their pregnancy.
• Domestic violence gravely affects the entire family,
especially children. In the United States, a national
survey of more than 6,000 families found that 50% of the
men who frequently assaulted their wives also abused
their children.
• According to the National Survey on Demography and
Health conducted in Columbia in 2002, 41% of women
reported that they had been physically assaulted by their
partners. 70% of the cases of intimate partner violence
in Colombia occur within married couples. According to
the Forum on Intra-Family and Partner Violence, 69%
of the cases of domestic violence in Colombia’s capital,
Bogotá, have their origins in jealousy.
• According to a United Nations Development Fund for
Women report, 45 nations have explicitly enacted laws
against domestic violence; 21 others are drafting new
laws and many have revised criminal legislation to
include domestic violence.
Those who argued against the use of such negative
language preferred more neutral phrases like
“female genital surgery.” In response, advocates
of the term FGM said “surgery” conveyed too
much legitimacy, as though the practice were
a necessary medical procedure carried out by
doctors in a hospital, for the well-being of a patient.
Yet, in some cultures, the practitioners of what
will temporarily be called here “female genital
cutting” (FGC), may be viewed in their communities
as health-care providers (see Box 5-E). FGC is
carried out under a wide array of conditions, from
relatively safe and clean to extremely dangerous to
a girl or woman’s health. Part of the problem was
the attempt to find a single term for multiple kinds
of practices carried out for different reasons, in
different cultures, and under different conditions.
Box 5-D: Female Genital Mutilation
The World Health Organization estimates that 6,000 girls a day (more than 2 million per year) are genitally
mutilated. It has classified female genital mutilation (FGM) into four types:
• Type I: Excision of the prepuce, with or without excision of part, or all of, the clitoris.
• Type II: Excision of the clitoris with partial or total excision of the labia minora.
• Type III: Excision of part or all of the external genitalia and stitching/narrowing of the vaginal opening (infibulation).
• Type IV: Unclassified, which includes pricking, piercing or incising of the clitoris and/or labia; stretching of the
clitoris and/or labia; cauterization by burning of the clitoris and surrounding tissue.
Genital mutilation causes lasting psychological trauma, extreme pain, chronic infections, bleeding, abscesses,
tumours, urinary tract infections and infertility. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the immediate
and long-term health consequences of FGM vary according to the type and severity of the procedure performed.
Immediate complications include severe pain, shock, haemorrhage, urine retention, ulceration of the genital
region and injury to adjacent tissue. Haemorrhage and infection can cause death. Long-term consequences
include cysts and abscesses, keloid scar formation, damage to the urethra resulting in urinary incontinence,
dyspareunia (painful sexual intercourse) and other sexual dysfunction as well as difficulties with childbirth. The
impact of this practice on the psychosexual and psychological health of girls and women is profound.
The practice is not exclusive to one religion or social class. It is older than Christianity and Islam. Egyptian
mummies are said to display characteristics of mutilation. As recent as the 1950s, partial or total removal of the
clitoris was prescribed in parts of western Europe and the United States in response to hysteria, epilepsy, mental
disorders, masturbation, nymphomania, melancholia and lesbianism. Today, girls and women are subjected to
genital mutilation in at least 28 countries, mostly in Africa, but, as immigrants are taking the practice with them to
their destination countries, the practice is spreading even to the developed nations of Europe and North America.
It is carried out for several reasons, including restriction of female sexuality and as a rite of passage not only into
womanhood but also into marriage. Girls who do not undergo the procedure are considered unable to marry.

Sources: C. M. Rennison, Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner
Violence 1993-2001 (Washington, 2003); Amnesty International,
AI-Index: ACT 77/034/2004 and webpage; WHO, World Report
on Violence and Health 2002; Geneva Centre for the Democratic
Control of Armed Forces, Women in an Insecure World: Violence
Against Women - Facts, Figures and Analysis (Geneva, 2005).
When Actors and/or Audience Members
Disagree with Definers: The Case of “Female
Genital Mutilation”
When international women’s human rights groups
began campaigning against practices involving
the cutting of girls’ genitals that were especially
common in several African countries, there were
intense debates over what to call these practices.
The phrase “female genital mutilation” (FGM) was
initially resisted because “mutilation” is a term
with extremely strong negative connotations. Few
terms could so vividly convey the judgment that this
practice is illegitimate.
At the beginning of April 2007, Eritrea issued a
“Proclamation to Abolish Female Circumcision”, stating
that it seriously endangers women’s health and violates
their human rights. (Source: WOMANKIND Worldwide,
http://www.womankind.org.uk/media/Anti-FGM.JPG)
Another term for the practice of surgically altering
genitals, “circumcision,” makes the power of
definitions and language even clearer. Circumcision
is a term used for both male and female genital
alteration.4 Many of the cultures that practice FGC
4 In males, circumcision is a more uniform
procedure involving the removal of the foreskin
of the penis. It may be done at any age. In
some countries (especially the U.S.), it is almost
exclusively done shortly after birth; in others it is
done, as with female FGC, at or around puberty, or
between the ages of 4 and 16.
Source: World Health Organization, Female Genital Mutilation: An overview (WHO Geneva, 1998).
also circumcise the genitals of male children.
In other countries, notably the United States,
circumcision of male children is routine while
circumcision of female children, regardless of
how minor the procedure, is illegal.5 In order to
successfully make FGC a priority human rights
issue for the world community, many opponents of
FGC felt it was necessary to make a clear linguistic
separation between the genital alteration practices
carried out on boys and those carried out on girls.
Thus, female “circumcision” (like “surgery” and
“cutting”) was replaced by the term “mutilation.”
5 In a handful of U.S. states, the surgical
alteration of even an adult woman’s genitals is
legally prohibited, while other forms of cosmetic
surgery (e.g. breast reduction or enlargement) for
women is perfectly legal (Anika Rahman and Nahid
Toubia, eds. Female Genital Mutilation: A Guide to
Laws and Policies Worldwide, 2000: 236-7).
There is clearly good reason for this insistence on
separating female and male circumcision practices.
The wider range of practices involved in altering
female genitals (as described in Box 5-D) includes
infibulation and other procedures with serious
and even life-threatening health risks. Supporters
of male circumcision contend it is a relatively
painless and ultimately harmless procedure with
some health benefits. Although this is debated, no
type of male circumcision widely practised today
is life-threatening, seriously debilitating, or risks
causing infertility to those who undergo it, as do
widely practised forms of FGC.
As with FGC, male circumcision has been identified
as a cultural, religious, and/or traditional practice. It
is a significant ritual for many Jewish communities
and is practised in some Muslim communities

102 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n L e s s o n 5 : cu ltur e v e r s u s right s ? | 103

as well. However, it is also a procedure done for
largely aesthetic reasons. The overwhelming
majority of boys born in the U.S. are circumcised
shortly after birth. Thus, many U.S.-born citizens
find uncircumcised penises strange-looking or
disgusting in appearance (just as many citizens of
African nations where FGC is routine find women
with “un-cut” genitals unappealing).
Traditions, cultures and aesthetic values can and
do change, however. In many countries in which
male circumcision was formerly widespread, it has
fallen out of favour.
...the circumcision rate among American males
is somewhere between 70 and 80 percent.
This is in contrast to other Western countries,
which have much lower rates. In Canada, the
rate had been comparable to the U.S., but fell
to less than 20 percent in the 1990s, following
a re-evaluation of the efficacy of circumcision
[as a disease prevention technique] by the
Canadian medical community. Canada’s story
is repeated in Australia and Great Britain, which
have comparably low rates today. In some
Western countries, such as Finland, the practice
is virtually nonexistent. ‘The United States
stands alone as the only country in which the
overwhelming majority of newborn males are
circumcised, purportedly for health reasons.’
(Davis, 511-512).
Boxes 5-E and 5-F portray some different and
changing attitudes to FGC.
104 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
Box 5-E: FGM Supporters
“Cutting girls is something our people have
done for hundreds of years,” says Nashiru,
the senior FGM surgeon in the Maasai
[a nomadic people of central Kenya and
northern Tanzania] community of Ol Donyo
Nyokie. “No one can convince us that it is
wrong.” Like all six FGM practitioners who
carry out hundreds of procedures every
year in and around the community, Nashiru
sincerely believes in the virtues of FGM.
The women believe that an uncut woman
has sexual feelings for every man she
comes across and is likely to stray from
her marriage. In fact, they see FGM as a
tool to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS in their
community.
“When you cut a girl, you know she will
remain pure until she gets married, and that
after marriage, she will be faithful,” Nashiru
explains. “But when you leave a girl uncut,
she sleeps with any man and brings the
disease into the community.”
Asked about cleanliness during the
procedure, the women said nowadays they
used a different disposable razor blade for
each girl, instead of the traditional use of
one knife to cut several girls. In addition,
they now used gloves and had replaced the
cowhide base sheet with a plastic one.
Many educated Maasai men and women
still favour the practice of FGM, not
because they are uninformed about the
risks involved but for fear of the social
repercussions should they reject the custom.
An uncircumcised woman remains a girl in
the eyes of the community, however much
education she may have or whatever status
she may attain in the outside world. For
a woman who refuses to be circumcised,
the risk of isolation is great, the chances
of finding a Maasai spouse are reduced
to almost nil, and her status in society will
always be that of a child.
Source: <http://www.irinnews.org/webspecials/
FGM/45986.asp> accessed 3 February 2007.
Box 5-F: FGM Resisters
Genet Girma and her bridegroom Addisie Abosie did the unthinkable in their community when they wore placards
clearly stating their positions on FGM. “I am not circumcised, learn from me,” Genet’s placard read. Her groom
wore a matching one that said, “I am very happy to be marrying an uncircumcised woman.”
Genet was the first known woman in Kembatta, Ethiopia, to marry in public who refused the mutilation of her
genitals that is considered a rite of passage for all girls and young women in that part of the country. Between
the ages of 16 and 18, young women in that region are subjected to excision - the removal of the clitoris, as well
as of the inner and outer labia. Genet said in an interview conducted during a visit to New York in January 2003
that before her wedding in 2002, she ran away from home rather than undergoing the ordeal. Both her family and
that of Addisie rejected the couple and would not attend their wedding. Because of Genet and Addisie’s courage
in so openly confronting the practice, some 2,000 other people attended the ceremony, which was televised and
covered extensively in Ethiopia’s main newspaper. Their families accepted the couple several months after their
wedding, when they were expecting their first child. Since their wedding and public stand against FGM, many
other couples followed suit.
Genet and Addisie’s stand on FGM was a result of educational and advocacy work at their school of the Kembatta
Women’s Centre, which taught them the harmful effects of the practice. The couple said they were able to use the
information the centre gave them to make the link between FGM and their respective mothers’ difficulty in giving
birth. Several years before he got married, Addisie decided that, unlike all the men in his community who took it
for granted that their brides were cut, he would not expect his wife to have undergone the procedure. The turning
point for him came when he attended the birth of his mother’s sixth child. She gave birth 14 times, but only 11 of
the children survived. At the time, Addisie was a teenager, sitting outside the room waiting for the arrival of his
latest sibling. His mother’s labour lasted for four days and Addisie left before the actual birth because, he said,
he could not bear to stay when he heard the traditional birth attendant ask for a blade. A few years later he went
to the same birth attendant, also a bone setter, to treat a soccer injury. He asked her why she had requested
the blade all those years ago. The birth attendant told him that as a result of excision, his mother’s genitals were
scarred so badly they had lost their elasticity and the only way to help the baby out was to cut through the scar
tissue.
Making this link between FGM and its physical consequences was also key to a success story in the fight against
the practice in Senegal. Ginger Adams Otis recounts how a programme that is on its way to eradicating FGM
in Senegal is about to be replicated in other African countries. A non-governmental organization called Tostan
has combined health education and human rights awareness to inform Senegalese about the dangers of genital
mutilation. Tostan’s founder and director Molly Melching has devised programmes that will be available to other
health workers and community leaders. Currently, there are about 4,000 Senegalese villages out of 13,000
that still practise FGM. Ms. Melching estimates FGM could be eradicated from Senegal within two to five years.
Tostan’s programme began by educating women in basic health and human rights issues. Teaching methods
included song, dance and theatre because most women in Senegal have little formal schooling. The human rights
dimension of classes changed the way local women viewed their right (and the right of their daughters) to physical
integrity. As Ms. Melching affirmed, the programme essentially explained the health factors of FGM, which helped
many women understand the linkages between the practice and the experiences of chronic pain and fevers
during their childhood after the ceremony. These fevers were caused by infections that wear down otherwise
healthy young girls and sometimes end their lives. As women gained more knowledge about the female anatomy,
more of them came to question the need for female genital mutilation.
L e s s o n 5 : cu ltur e v e r s u s right s ? | 105
 5.3 When is a Violent Practice overwhelming majority of human rights documents
“Cultural”? and reports describing the kinds of killings in Box Box 5-G: Dowry-Killings and Stove Deaths
5-G, these incidents are described as “honour
Consider the different ways in which the killing killings,” “dowry-murders,” or “bride burnings,” In some nations, women may be killed because the dowry or bride-wealth that they bring to a marriage is deemed
of women is discussed within conversations and and/or they are classified under the category of insufficient by the groom’s family, and an affront to family honour. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund
documents concerning women’s human rights. In “harmful traditional [or cultural] practices.” By (UNICEF), 5,000 women die in dowry killings every year in India. Although these are not normally recorded as
Boxes 5-G and 5-H are selected statistics about contrast, the kinds of killings described in Box 5-H honour killings, they have a similar pattern. Further, many ‘ordinary’ forms of domestic violence against women,
the numbers of women killed either by family are usually called “crime,” “homicide,” “domestic fatal and otherwise, involve perceived transgressions against a male’s sense of personal honour. This often
violence” or “serial killings.” Nothing in this generates pathological possessiveness and homicidal jealousy towards female partners and close relatives.
members or intimate partners (usually husbands or
boyfriends), or by strangers for no apparent reason language suggests there is anything cultural at all
‘Stove deaths’ is a term that refers to the punishment of a wife by setting her ablaze. Her death is then often
other than that the victims were women. In the about this violence.
blamed on an accident, such as the explosion of a stove, or on a suicide attempt. Juliette Terzieff, writing in
Women’s eNews, explains that the reasons for burning women vary, but most cases centre around the failure
to give birth to a son, the desire to marry a second wife without having the financial means to support the first,
and long-running animosity with mothers-in-law. Juliette Terzieff reports that between 1994 and 2002, some
Box 5-G: Honour Killings 4,000 women were doused in kerosene and set alight by family members in one region. Less than four per cent
survived.
Honour killings are murders that occur in defence of perceived individual, family or community honour. In the case
of honour killings of women and adolescent girls, the victim is generally perceived to have behaved in a sexually
immoral, undignified or provocative manner. ‘Immoral’ behaviour may take the form of marital infidelity, refusing
to submit to an arranged marriage, demanding a divorce, flirting with or receiving phone calls from men, failing to
serve a meal on time, or ‘allowing oneself’ to be raped. In one notorious case, a young woman’s throat was cut
because an admirer had arranged for a song to be dedicated to her on the radio. Box 5-H
As such examples indicate, honour killings of women and adolescent girls reflect enduring patriarchal traditions. Domestic Violence and Killing of Women in Developed Nations
Paradoxically, women are viewed ‘on the one hand as fragile creatures who need protection and on the other
According to the 2002 World Health Organization’s World Report on Violence and Health, 40 to 70 per cent of
as evil Jezebels from whom society needs protection,’ in the words of Canadian journalist Sally Armstrong. In
patriarchal tradition, since the male is the sole protector of the female, he must have total control of her. If his female murder victims were killed by their husbands or boyfriends, frequently in the context of an ongoing abusive
protection is violated, he loses honour because he failed to protect her. relationship.

Honour killings of women have reached crisis levels in some countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and This is in contrast with male murder victims: in the United States, for example, only four per cent of men murdered
West Asia. In one country, a 1999 Human Rights Report cited 888 women murdered in this manner in a single between 1976 and 1996 were killed by their wives, ex-wives or girlfriends. In Australia, between 1989 and 1996,
province. A report by an independent, national human rights commission stated that at least 461 women were the figure was 8.6 per cent.
killed by family members in 2002 in just two of one nation’s four provinces. In the first eight months of 2003, at
least 637 women and girls were reported murdered in honour killings in one nation. Even low estimates suggest Source: World Health Organization, World report on violence and health (WHO Geneva 2002).
that at least three women are killed for ‘honour’ every day. Sometimes the attacks leave the female victim not
dead, but disfigured for life, through attacks by fire, gasoline, or acid. One organisation dedicated to monitoring Serial Killings of Women in Developed Nations
these killings recorded 3,560 hospitalisations of women after such attacks. Authorities generally turn a blind eye
to the crimes. ‘We deal with these cases every day,’ says one lawyer and woman activist Nahida Mahbooba Elahi, Serial killings of women, although far less frequent than domestic murders, have nonetheless influenced how
‘but I have seen very few convictions. The men say the wife did not obey their orders, or was having relations
women live their lives throughout the developed and developing worlds. In the late nineteenth century, “Jack
with someone else. The police often say it is a domestic matter and refuse to pursue the case. Some judges even
the Ripper” stalked the streets of the poor London district of Whitechapel, fuelling a trend – the serial murder of
justify it and do not consider it murder.’
prostitutes – that remains prominent today. In the twentieth century, many serial killers preyed on women in the
In courts of law, the ‘honour defence’ is institutionalised in some Middle Eastern and Latin American countries, United States, among them Richard Speck, Albert DeSalvo (the Boston Strangler), Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway and
allowing fathers or husbands to walk away from murder. In 12 Latin American countries, exoneration of a rapist Richard Ramirez (the Hillside Strangler). Other developed societies, both capitalist and communist, have known
is possible if he offers to marry the victim and she accepts. The family of the victim frequently pressures her to male serial killers of women. They include Germany (where Bruno Ludke killed at least 80 women from 1928 to
marry the rapist, which they believe restores the family’s honour. 1943), Poland (Lucian Staniak, who killed 20 women in the 1960s), and France (Thierry Paulin and Jean-Thierry
Mathurin, who targeted elderly Parisian women between 1984 and 1987).
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that 5,000 women are killed annually in honour crimes
worldwide, such as in Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Sweden,
Turkey, Uganda and the United Kingdom, among others. Police believe there may be as many as 12 honour
killings in the UK every year.

106 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n L e s s o n 5 : cu ltur e v e r s u s right s ? | 107

Why is this? Taking serial killings, for example,
cross-cultural crime statistics show that until very
recently, serial killing has been a phenomenon
almost entirely specific to developed nations
(Belgium, France, Germany, the United Kingdom,
the United States, etc.). While neither domestic
violence nor serial killings exclusively target women
and girls, nor are they committed exclusively
by men, specific attention to killings of women
in domestic and serial contexts is justified for
two main reasons. First, the relatively lower
vulnerability of women to murder in general (in
most western societies, women account for
one-quarter to one-third of murder victims) means
that serial and, especially, domestic killings figure
disproportionately in women’s murder statistics.
Second, when both domestic murderers and
serial killers target victims of the opposite sex, it
is overwhelmingly men who target women. These
killings, and related crimes such as rape and
sexual torture, tend to carry powerful overtones
of misogyny or hatred of women in general. In
part because these acts reflect a broader hostility
to women, they cause fear among the general
population of women in developed societies, far
beyond that justified by statistical measures alone.
As a result of both the crimes themselves and the
ways that media amplify them, women in developed
nations fear violence at the hands of men far more
than men fear violence by other men or by women,
even if men can also be victims of domestic
homicide and serial killers. Arguably, these are
cultural phenomena producing fear with real effects
on women’s freedom of movement in public, while
domestic violence is a much more likely source of
danger to women’s health and safety at home.
According to philosophy professor Uma Narayan,
the so-called ancient cultural/traditional practice of
“dowry murders” is an utterly modern phenomenon.
While dowry is a traditional practice in some
communities, Narayan traces the epidemic of
dowry-related murders to the 1970s development
of a market economy and its related expansion
of consumer culture.6 To describe these murders
in terms of culture or tradition adds little of
explanatory value, asserts Narayan. Instead, she
6 Uma Narayan, Dislocating Cultures: Identities,
Traditions, and Third World Feminism (1997): 85–109.
108 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
argues that such killings should more accurately
be seen as “the most extreme form of violence that
a situation of domestic violence can take in India
(where the method of killing more often than not is
by fire).”
Of course, if one uses Johannes Galtung’s
definition of cultural violence (see Lesson 4),
domestic violence everywhere would be seen as a
form of direct violence legitimated or justified by a
widespread cultural acceptance of violence against
family members. If that violence is dispropor-
tionately targeted against women, as it is in all
countries in which statistics on domestic violence
have been collected, then Galtung would further
argue that every such country’s culture contains
within it assumptions about women’s lesser degree
of humanity. Many scholars of domestic violence
against women agree that it is, at least in part,
enabled and perpetuated by cultural beliefs about
women’s lower status in relation to men. Examples
exist in both developed and developing nations of
male killings of women in the name of patriarchal
honour, as well as of criminal justice systems
being lenient toward men who have been violent
toward women for violating their honour through
disobedience or adultery.
Hence, the question must be repeated: why would
some forms of violence against women persistently
be called cultural and other forms crime? What
might be the consequences of calling serial killing
a “harmful traditional practice,” or the product of
deeply held cultural beliefs about women? How
might we see dowry-murders differently if they
were called simply murder or homicide? Why aren’t
all male murders of women out of jealousy or
injured pride called honour killings? For that matter,
why aren’t honour killings of men by men – such as
murders arising out of vengeance or blood feuds
between enemies – considered gender-based
violence? The answers to these questions are all
entangled with the politics of naming. Thorough
answers would be lengthy and complex, but some
beginnings may be made.
5.4 Cultural Rights, “the West” and
“the Rest”
Fights over terminology in debates over cultural
relativism and human rights are seldom only
about finding words that people can agree will
accurately describe the practices in question.
In the case of female genital cutting and other
human rights issues, vocabulary debates reflect
much more substantive conflicts: 1) over histories
of colonialism; 2) over current and ongoing
inequalities in money, power and resources
between nations and regions of the world; and 3)
over how these histories and inequalities intersect
with the international human rights movement. To
trace these conflicts, it will be helpful to discuss the
concept of “cultural rights” and their place in the
history of international human rights more generally
within the past 50 years or so.
First, Second, and Third Generation Human
Rights
The history of international human rights is often
told in terms of rights “generations.” In this history,
first generation rights are defined as those
having to do with property, bodily security (freedom
from torture, unjust imprisonment, etc.) and political
participation (freedom of assembly, speech,
etc.). They are largely (though not exclusively)
termed “negative rights” because they describe
things that governments are not allowed to do to
citizens. That is, first generation rights hold that
States may not torture or imprison their citizens
without trial or infringe upon an individual’s right
to participate in civic and political life. Such rights
are historically (and culturally) associated with
French and U.S. rights declarations. They conceive
of individuals first and foremost as having the
right to be independent of one another and of all
group affiliations or obligations. This is because
these declarations emerged from cultural contexts
in which it seemed most important to the rights
definers to free themselves from oppressive
religious and political regimes. First generation
rights are enshrined within the UN’s International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),
which entered into force in 1976.
L e s s o n 5 : cu ltur e v e r s u s right s ?
Second generation rights are those which
address socioeconomic issues such as the right
to health care, education, housing, food and
clean water. These rights are laid out in the UN’s
International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which entered into
force in 1976. They are sometimes referred to as
“positive rights” because they more often entail
obligations for States to take active, positive steps
toward ensuring that their citizens receive benefits
that will provide them with adequate health care,
education, food, shelter, etc. Instead of simply
refraining from doing something as negative
rights require, positive rights require States to do
something.
Because of global disparities in wealth and
resources between nations, there have been
significant differences in levels of support for
the different kinds of human rights by various
nations. Poorer nations of the global south have
been far more interested in pressing for steps to
ensure worldwide respect for economic rights,
for instance, since global economic inequality
makes it very difficult for poor countries to afford
the resources necessary to ensure other rights
(such as rights to health care, clean water and
education). Less economically powerful nations,
sometimes criticized for failure to protect civil and
political rights, have sometimes turned attention
to economic rights because richer nations are
vulnerable to criticism on this front. The U.S. does
not provide its citizens with a universal right to
housing, for instance, and many U.S. cities have
serious problems with homelessness.
Third generation rights refer to environmental
rights, the right to self-determination for nations
and peoples, and the rights of indigenous
minorities. This generation of rights emerged in
part from the many anti-colonialist movements and
wars throughout the global south, but it has also
gone beyond post-colonialism to include various
movements against racism and group-based
persecution.
| 109
“The West and the Rest” - Colonial Legacies
Histories of colonialism are implicated in conflicts
over human rights in at least two ways. First, while
the concept of general minimum standards for the
behaviour and treatment of others is one which
appears in all human societies, the articulation of
those standards in the language of individual rights
is one that has been especially powerful in Western
European nations and their colonies. Ironically,
many of the laws protecting individual rights were
originally developed in nations that simultaneously
had laws permitting the holding of slaves, the
colonization and subjugation of other peoples, and/
or the unequal treatment of citizens based on race,
sex, wealth, religion or other statuses. This history
has led many in the world to distrust the sincerity,
power, and legitimacy of human rights norms they
perceive as having contaminated origins.
Instances like these, because they resonate with
both powerful historical truths like colonialism,
and powerful current truths like real differences
in economic power, have the effect of erasing or
suppressing other more complex truths – truths
like, for instance, the fact that opposition to FGM
is widespread within many of the cultures that
practice it (see Box 5-F).
Unfortunately, misinformation around the world is
perpetuated by continual repetition of this falsely
over-simplified version of the “cultural relativism
versus human rights” debate that often turns into
a “West versus Rest” debate. Among the worst
effects of this stereotyped debate is that it suggests
that human rights are the property of the West and
that culture is the property of the rest. Seldom does
reality bear much resemblance to this simplistic
dichotomy.
Writing Exercise 5-I
Most people belong to more than one culture. There are ethnic, religious, occupational, organizational, linguistic,
gendered, regional, national, urban, rural, caste and age-group cultures. Identify three cultures to which you
belong (for example: military, Muslim, male; or UN, Spanish-speaking, football-player).
1. Describe one characteristic and one practice for each culture, that:
• You take pride in, or from which you draw support or a positive sense of belonging;
• You disagree with, that causes you some discomfort, or that you wish you could change.
2. Consider each characteristic and each practice. Ask yourself:
• Does everyone in this culture share this characteristic or engage in this practice?
• Do the official leaders of each group (if there are leaders) identify this characteristic or practice as central to
the culture’s identity? Is it as important to the leader(s) as it is to you?
In sum, when people speak about (or for) each of the cultural groups to which you belong, do you always agree
with them? When, and under what conditions, do you feel at one with a given cultural group? When, and under
what conditions, do you feel more separated from it?

Second, such distrust can sometimes be reinforced

in the present-day by current and ongoing global
inequities between the world’s more and less
economically developed nations. This may happen,
for instance, if the citizens of a poorer nation feel
that richer nations are using a human rights issue
to justify denying them needed economic aid. As
noted above, examples of this have occurred with
regard to the practice of female genital mutilation in
many places. In Senegal, shortly before a 1999 ban
on FGM went into effect:
…one village reportedly circumcised 120 girls
en masse, to express their defiance. Senegalese
critics charge[d] that the law was passed only
to cater to American sensitivities and to woo
American grant money. The Senegalese law
was passed one month before the U.S. State
Department’s annual report on human rights
was released, a report that is used as a guide to
allocating aid.7
When human rights are viewed as merely political
weapons for powerful nations to wield against
their less powerful neighbours, the value of human
rights as a language to help people improve their
lives is clearly diminished.
7 Dena S. Davis, ‘Male and Female Genital
Alteration: A Collision Course with the Law?’,
Health Matrix: Journal of Law-Medicine, Vol. 11,
Summer 2001.
Eleanor Roosevelt holding a Spanish version of the
United Declaration of Human Rights. (UN Photo #117539,
November 1949)
5.5 Cultural Relativism’s Limits:
The Ethics and Politics of Intervention
Cultural relativism is a critical starting point in
cross-cultural encounters: it requires us to at least
begin by respecting, carefully considering, and
trying hard to understand one another’s cultures
and perspectives, perhaps especially when they
initially seem abhorrent to us.
It does not require us to abandon all of our
capacities for critical, comparative reflection,
nor to hold any one culture’s perspectives above
another’s simply because it is more local. Cultural
relativism does not mean that a cultural perspective
will necessarily be valued more highly than, or
to the exclusion of, the human rights norm. In
considering the relationship between claims based
on culture and universal human rights, we must
ask, are there such things as universal human
rights which are themselves culture-free?
Are Human Rights Universal?
The answer to this question depends upon what
one means by universal. There is, of course, a
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted
and proclaimed by the United Nations General
Assembly on 10 December 1948. The power of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
is its very claim to universality, to be “a common
standard of achievement for all peoples and all
nations.” There are also regional agreements
on human rights, including the 1950 European
Convention on Human Rights, the 1969 American
Convention on Human Rights, and the 1981 African
Charter on Human and People’s Rights.
Furthermore, long before the establishment of
the United Nations, even in the absence of laws
codified in writing, every society in the world has
had minimum standards for the treatment of others
within its membership. While not called “human
rights,” such standards of care and obligation to
others might reasonably be seen as similar in spirit
and effect to present-day human rights.
In this sense, human rights clearly are universal.
However, universal does not mean culture-free.
Every human rights agreement has arisen out
of particular times, places and cultural contexts.
Those instruments that have achieved widespread
agreement, like the documents mentioned above,
have undergone more or less cultural adaptation
over the years of their drafting, negotiation, and
subsequent interpretation by the UN Human Rights
Committee and other bodies. Adaptation occurs
at many levels of the process by which an original
human rights idea or draft document becomes an
internationally accepted, interpreted and applied
body of law. Speaking of the UN, Elisabeth
Reichert writes:
Whenever the United Nations issues a resolution,
convention, or other document on human rights,
the background leading to completion of the
document has included diverse opinions and
views. The document does not simply materialize

110 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n L e s s o n 5 : cu ltur e v e r s u s right s ? | 111

 out of thin air and without extensive debate. The
underlying goal of the United Nations is to create
universal rules that all countries...can apply to
their particular situations. 8
Thus, it is somewhat misleading when debates
about human rights are framed as debates
between cultural norms and universal norms. It
would be more accurate to say they are debates
between competing sets of cultural norms.
Louise Arbour (second from right, at table), United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights, participates in a meeting with victims
of violence at the APRODH office in Burundi. (UN Photo#145989, Mario
Rizzolio, May 2007)
Peacekeepers and Culture
As a UN peacekeeper, the indigenous population
from the nation to which you are deployed
may regard you as a representative of your
country of origin and may also perceive you as
a representative of “the West.” While it is true
that peace operations may not deliberately aim
to change the culture of the places in which they
operate, often peacekeepers will have some
impact on the culture of their host community. As
you know from your own lives, there is no culture
in the world that is singular, homogenous, and
unchanging. In this era of globalization, cultures
are filled with cross-cutting memberships, and
they are constantly interacting and changing. It is
truly an important part of “UN culture” to respect,
nourish, and support a wide diversity of cultures in
8 Elisabeth Reichert, Understanding Human
Rights: An Exercise Book (Thousand Oaks, CA:
SAGE Publications, 2006), p.103.
112 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
the world, hence the existence of agencies like the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organisation (UNESCO) and treaties like the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (ICESCR).
5.6 Conclusion: Applying These
Lessons
This lesson introduces just a few of the
complexities that arise for peacekeepers in
considering how each and every one of their tasks
may intersect with the problem of gender-based
violence. This is one of the implications of the UN’s
commitment to gender mainstreaming. Gender
mainstreaming requires truly evaluating how
each and every task involved in peace support
operations may either:
• Contribute to gender-based violence and
reinforce or worsen gender inequalities if not
carefully designed to avoid doing so; or
• Promote and assist in violence prevention and
reduction efforts and encourage gender equality.
To make such evaluations almost inevitably
involves learning much more about the cultures in
which one is conducting peace support operations.
It also involves grappling with questions of cultural
difference that are much more challenging than
adjusting to strange cuisines or remembering which
hand to shake.
Are peacekeepers in the culture-changing
business? Yes and no. Yes, insofar as they/you
are likely trying to live the best life you can (which
may entail changing things about your own cultural
practices, and/or about the cultures to which
you belong). Yes, insofar as peacekeepers try
to improve the conditions for people in whatever
places they are sent to work, and this sometimes
involves addressing harmful cultural practices
(examples of which will be discussed below
in this lesson). No, if culture-changing means
trying to render all cultures the same. No, if
culture-changing means imposing norms, or even
laws, in ways that are insensitive to all of the effects
of those norms and laws.
Below are a series of questions and guidelines
for identifying, evaluating, and resolving situations
in which there appear to be conflicts between
different sets of cultural, religious, legal, and/or
human rights norms.9
Questions:
• Who defines the cultural norms?
• Who benefits from those norms? From those
definitions?
• Who loses or suffers?
• Whose voices are being heard?
• Whose voices are silenced?
Guidelines:
• Examine closely the history of the cultural
practice. What is the background or history
leading to the cultural norm that appears to
conflict with a particular human right? What
apparent rationale or reasons are there for the
cultural norm?
9 Adapted from Elisabeth Reichert.
L e s s o n 5 : cu ltur e v e r s u s right s ?
• Examine who has the power to determine and/
or change the cultural norm. Who created the
norm? Have the people affected by the norm
had any voice in deciding whether or not to
have the norm applied to them? If not, why
not? If so, were their voices given free and full
hearing? Have other options been presented and
considered by all involved? Has a democratic
process of any kind been part of establishing
and maintaining the cultural norm in question? If
not, are there good reasons for the absence of a
democratic process? What are they? Are those
reasons persuasive to you? Why or why not?
• Evaluate the cultural norm/practice from the
perspective of a contemporary human rights
standard. What are the contemporary human
rights standards against which the cultural
practice should be compared? Are there
competing standards to be considered? What
are the various arguments for and against each
standard? For and against the prioritization of
one standard over another? How would you
make the human rights standard persuasive to
someone whose cultural practices would have
to change if it were followed? How might the
cultural practice be defended and/or adapted in
ways that do not violate human rights standards?
| 113
End-of-Lesson Quiz

1. Research into young people’s attitudes to
violence, sex and relationships in the United
Kingdom in the 1990s found that:
A. There is not much violence in the United
Kingdom;
B. Boys thought it was acceptable to hit women
but girls did not;
C. Boys and girls both thought forced sex was
unacceptable;
D. Over half the young people knew someone who
had been hit by their male partner and exactly
half knew someone who had been sexually
assaulted.
2. Which one of the following most accurately
defines cultural relativism?
A. The belief that because all cultures exist in
relation to one another, practices and values
in one culture will influence the practices and
values in another;
B. The philosophy that all cultures are equal,
that all values and practices are related to
the cultures from which they spring, and
therefore, those values and practices should
first be evaluated from within their own cultural
contexts;
C. The widespread acceptance of western cultural
practices among non-western cultures;
D. The philosophy that all cultures are equal,
that all values and practices are related to the
cultures from which they spring, and therefore,
those values and practices can never be
judged by outsiders.
3. Imagine you are writing a new policy to
address a local traditional practice that does
not permit women to attend public meetings.
Which of the following strategies should you
adopt in order to most effectively address
the culture’s current widespread acceptance
of the practice?
A. Educate citizens on the unethical nature of
excluding women from public meetings;
B. Begin by requiring public officials to pass laws
against the practice;
C. Redefine the practice of exclusion from public
meetings as a form of violence against women;
D. Set up a series of meetings with local
community groups to discuss the history of the
practice and ask them about its rationale.
4. Indicate whether the following statements
about universal human rights are true or
false.
A. Universal human rights are by definition
culture-free.
B. The concept of basic human rights can be
said to be universal since every society has
some minimum standards for the treatment of
humans.
C. Human rights described in the UDHR and
other major UN treaties are universal because
representatives from almost every country
in the world have been involved in drafting,
negotiating, and/or interpreting those treaties.
5. Which of the following statements best
describes the relationship between human
rights groups and cultures that practise
female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C)?
A. Both human rights groups and citizens of
cultures that practise FGM/C agree that this
practice is harmful, outdated, and must be
discontinued;
B. While human rights groups are against FGM/C,
cultures that practise it still remain in complete
support of this traditional cultural practice;
C. Human rights groups and cultures that practise
FGM/C have come to an agreement that
FGM/C is an acceptable, traditional cultural
practice because of the commitment most
human rights groups have to cultural relativism;
D. While the majority of human rights groups
oppose FGM/C, citizens of cultures that
practise FGM/C are often divided as to whether
they support or oppose it.
7. Match each “Rights Generation” in Column A with the type of rights it includes in Column B.
Column A
1. First Generation Rights
2. Second Generation Rights
3. Third Generation Rights
6. Indicate whether each of the following
statements about the killings of women in
domestic and serial contexts is true or false.
A. Women are killed so much more often than
men in domestic contexts and by serial killers
because they are weaker than men and
therefore unable to defend themselves.
B. When domestic and serial killers target
opposite sex victims, it is overwhelmingly men
who target women.
C. Typically, domestic and serial killings of women
are justified by traditional cultural practices
and cannot be evaluated outside of their local
contexts.
D. Unlike serial killings, domestic murders are
often personal and unrelated to the broader
political oppression of women.
Column B
A. Rights related to socio-economic issues like the
right to health care, education, housing, food, and
clean water. Things the government must do, or
“positive rights.”
B. Rights related to property, bodily security, and
political participation, such as freedom from
torture, free speech, etc. Things the government is
not allowed to do, or “negative rights.”
C. Rights related to the environment, the right of
self-determination for nations and peoples,
the rights of indigenous minorities, including
movements against racism.

114 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n L e s s o n 5 : cu ltur e v e r s u s right s ? | 115

8. Cultural relativism is important to critical
analysis and policy-making because it allows
us to __________, which may initially seem
abhorrent to us.
A. Privilege local norms;
B. Legitimate otherwise violent acts;
C. Consider cultural perspectives;
D. Abandon our capacities for comparative
reflection.
9. “Gender mainstreaming” includes
evaluating how every task involved in peace
support operations might:
A. Make women peacekeepers feel;
B. Encourage gender equality;
C. Improve the economy;
D. Support the government.
116 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
10. Which of the following is the best method of
evaluating a cultural practice or norm that
appears to be in conflict with human rights
norms?
A. Examine who has the power to determine or
change the norm, in order to see which voices LESSON 6
have been privileged and which have been
silenced; women’s rights are
B. Examine how frequently the practice is
currently engaged in, so as to determine how human rights
immediately intervention is required;
C. Examine the implications of this practice,
in order to assess the severity of its
consequences and current risks it poses;
D. Examine the norm or practice against the
standard of universal human rights, in order
to determine how much it deviates from
universally accepted norms.
ANSWER KEY
1D, 2 B, 3D, 4(A False, B True, B True), 5D,
6(A False, B True, C False, D False), 7(1B, 2A, 3C),
8C, 9B, 10A
 6.1 Introduction
Women’s rights are human rights. Why title a
lesson with such an apparently obvious statement?
Of course they are. Women are human. Ergo,
Lesson women’s rights are human rights. Why does this
even need stating?
6 It needs stating because when international human
rights were effectively born after the Second
World War, they were asserted to be universal,
applicable to all people equally and everywhere.
Yet, as was initially discussed in Lesson 5, it
eventually became apparent that “first generation
rights” – the civil and political rights so central to
the histories and constitutions of France and the
United States – were not rights whose traditional
forms of protection ensured the capacity for
LESSON OBJECTIVES civil and political participation by all people. The
standard (negative) model for protecting civil and
political rights – forbidding States to stop people
from voting, or to arrest or torture them for political
By the end of Lesson 6, the student should be able to meet the following
6.1 Introduction objectives: participation – simply did not address things like
violence by non-State actors (such as domestic
6.2 Different Feminist violence) or the failure to ensure people had
Approaches to • Describe the most significant accomplishments of the women’s enough to eat so that they would have the strength
international human rights movement since 1975; to engage in civic and political life.
Violence Against
• Identify the major legal and political documents relevant to women’s
Women and Women’s
international human rights and list each one’s key provisions; and Recognition of such limitations led to the
Human Rights development of “second generation rights”
• Discuss the central ways in which violence against women has (economic, social and cultural rights), among
6.3 History of Violence been addressed and/or neglected within international human rights other improvements. More importantly, however,
Against Women in frameworks. the increasing involvement of women from all
International Human over the world in the international human rights
movement has begun to change the very meaning
Rights
of universality.
6.4 Ending Impunity for
Crimes of Sexual 6.2 Different Feminist Approaches to
Violence During Violence Against Women and Women’s
Armed Conflict Human Rights
6.5 Conclusion: Old and One of the key first moves of all libratory social
movements of the last two and a half centuries
New Challenges
has been to show that histories, philosophies,
principles, and laws which purport to be neutral,
or to serve and represent everyone equally, in fact
contain bias or serve and represent some people
more effectively than others. It was among the
To view a video introduction of this lesson by
primary means by which the organized transatlantic
the course author AnnJanette Rosga, you can
either log in to your virtual classroom, go to www. trade in African slaves was eventually ended.
peaceopstraining.org/users/media_page/397/,
or use your mobile device to scan the QR code
to the left.
L e s s o n 6 : w o m e n ’ s right s ar e huma n right s
Opponents of slavery worked over many decades
to show how the rhetoric of the Rights of Man in
fact excluded black Africans, and laws permitting
slavery were in direct contradiction with laws
throughout Europe and the United States that
proclaimed dignity and equality for all.
Similarly, the struggle for women’s equal rights
in law began with a reaction to the proclamation
of the principle of universal individual rights in
the American and French Revolutions of the late
eighteenth century, the Declaration of the Rights of
Man and of the Citizen. Women’s movements even
then questioned the validity of this declaration in
societies where women clearly did not have rights
equal to those of men – among the most basic,
they could neither vote nor own property; they did
not have equal rights in marriage or divorce.1
In attempting to address the exclusions built into
early models of so-called “universal” human
rights, whose original bearers were actually only
European property-owning men, excluded groups
like slaves, women, the poor, formerly-colonized
peoples, racial, and religious and ethnic minorities
have generally followed one or both of two basic
strategies. The first of these might be called an
additive strategy, by which efforts are made to add
excluded members to the dominant group so that
the dominant group’s rules are extended to more
people. The second approach could be termed a
transformative strategy. In this approach, which can
include the adding of excluded members but is not
so limited, the central effort is to change the very
rules, norms and definitions used by the dominant
group. The goal is to transform the very definition of
what will count as normal or legal in the first place.
1 See Olympe de Gouges, The Rights of Woman
and the Female Citizen (1791). De Gouges also
wrote L’Esclavage des Nègres (Negro Slavery), an
anti-slavery play, in 1774. However, in part because
of its controversial subject matter, and in part
because its author was a woman, the play was not
published until just before the French Revolution
in 1789. De Gouges was executed by guillotine in
1793 for her passionate advocacy of human rights
and activism against injustice. See also Mary
Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman
(1792).
| 119
 In the history of movements for women’s
international human rights, the additive strategy
has often been called affirmative action, while the
term “gender mainstreaming” seems to describe
something more like the transformative strategy.
These strategies are neither mutually exclusive nor
entirely separable. However, they do have some
different tactics and effects, so it makes sense to
discuss them separately here.
Women from all corners of the Ivory Coast gather to celebrate
International Women’s Day at the Palace of Culture, Abidjan.
(UN Photo # 68442, Ky Chung, March 2005)
Affirmative Action
The affirmative action approach to women’s
human rights emphasizes the importance of equal
representation of women in all aspects of public
life: government, policy-making, high level positions
in business and economic institutions, as well as in
key non-governmental organizations. Supporters
of affirmative action believe that at the very least,
the presence of more women in political office will
make it harder to ignore women and the issues of
concern to women.
Some countries have taken steps to ensure an
increase in the political representation of women
in politics. For example, in Rwanda, 49 per cent
of parliamentarians are women, almost reaching
parity of men and women; in South Africa, the
African National Congress (ANC) has a policy
of 35 per cent female representation in politics,
aiming eventually to reach 50 per cent female
120 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
representation. Efforts are constantly made in
South Africa to improve women’s representation
and leadership (see Boxes 6-A and 6-B).
The affirmative action strategy is based on the
assumption that having women in senior political
and decision-making positions will achieve a
corresponding increase in political and social
action to combat gender-based violence and other
forms of discrimination against women. It assumes
that female leaders will have women’s interests
in mind and that they will make policy decisions
based on women’s interests. It also assumes that
a critical majority of women basically share similar
enough interests and concerns to make their
increased decision-making power advantageous
for all women.
Gender Mainstreaming
The gender mainstreaming approach has pushed
for gender to be discussed by all and not to be
seen as an issue that falls only within the domain
of women. Since the 1990s, there has been an
explosion of Ministries of Gender or Women,
particularly in the aftermath of the UN Fourth
Conference on Women in Beijing (discussed
further below). As discussed in Lesson 1, gender
mainstreaming requires that all employees, both
male and female, consider questions such as the
following:
• How have our policies and procedures been
influenced by assumptions about gender?
• Do we have (or lack) certain policies or
procedures because we failed to consider either
women’s or men’s perspectives?
• Might we have defined a given policy or
procedure in the way we’ve defined it because of
certain assumptions about gender?
• How might a given policy or procedure
differentially affect people based on gender? Is
this differential impact desirable? (e.g. does it
compensate for gender inequalities?) Or does it
contribute to gender inequality in ways that are
not desirable?
• Could we reduce this differential impact in
some way by re-thinking the way the policy or
procedure is designed or implemented?
Box 6-A: South Africa - The Principle of Inclusion
The first women political body within the African National Congress (ANC), the Bantu Women’s League, was
founded in 1931. However, it took two decades fighting against the restrictive passes for black women before
women’s political potential had been recognized by the male leadership of the ANC and the first women joined
executive bodies. The anti-apartheid struggle brought together women from across the social and racial
spectrum, and the tradition of local activism became a good training ground for their inclusion into politics.
As Cheryl Carolus, former South African High Commissioner in London, stated, “We were not going to allow
ourselves to be treated badly, after we had made equal contributions and sacrifices to the struggle for liberation.”
In the years leading up to the 1994 elections, women activists formed the influential National Women’s Coalition
that cut across racial, social and political lines. Having observed other women’s liberation movements fall by
the wayside when the peace talks began in other countries, the South African women were determined to
secure their place in the official negotiating teams. Realizing that they had a historic opportunity to contribute to
reconciliation through participating in drafting the new constitution, the coalition mobilized broad political support
including South African women’s organizations on the grassroots level and began to advocate for women’s
inclusion into negotiation teams to reach a more proportional political representation.
Women successfully fought for participatory mechanisms in the constitution to ensure that the government would
not neglect their needs. For instance, the constitution guarantees the right of women to inherit and own land,
which enable sustainability of female heads of households in rural areas. Female parliamentarians played a major
role in creating a primary health care system accessible to all women and children. Furthermore, they initiated
special aid projects for single mothers and other groups at risk; they improved women’s access to small business
and financing opportunities; and they introduced laws and policy programmes to deal with women issues such as
marriage and divorce, as well as the elimination of domestic violence and sexual assault.
The drafting of the constitution was a critical step for South African women in the struggle against discrimination.
It provided a lifetime opportunity to establish a system of laws that would influence the process of women’s
emancipation and enable them to advocate for the human rights of other vulnerable groups of the population.
The work of the coalition also opened a door to women’s participation in power and decision-making structures.
The adoption of a quota system proved to be highly effective and resulted in 25 per cent representation of women
in parliament and fair representation across all levels of government, which makes the South African political
system one of the most democratic on the continent. The public, sceptical at the beginning of the process, has
become more positive about the process of women’s empowerment. Today, if women are not part of an important
political body or activity, the governmental officials are immediately queried by the media and non-governmental
organizations as to the reasons for this exclusion. These achievements are the result of women’s capability of
self-organization within political parties, as well as on a multi-party level and their ability to effectively co-operate
with civil society, especially with women’s NGOs. Though South Africa is still a country with many societal
problems, nevertheless, there is a broadly shared opinion that the economic, political and social progress recently
made is also to be ascribed to the fact that women were given the opportunity to contribute to development.
As noted above, these approaches of gender more effective for organizations accustomed to
mainstreaming and affirmative action are not decision-making by men alone or predominantly.
mutually exclusive. In fact, they support and sustain When gender mainstreaming is conducted
one another. The mainstreaming of gender is, in effectively, often the result is a recognition that
itself, a strategy that can ultimately bring about more women need to be included in positions
greater representation of women in politics and of influence and decision-making. Just as when
decision-making positions. In turn, affirmative more women are included in positions of influence
action can make gender mainstreaming easier and and decision-making, often it becomes easier for
L e s s o n 6 : w o m e n ’ s right s ar e huma n right s | 121
 people to answer gender mainstreaming questions
effectively because of the greater number of
perspectives that having women at the table
provides.
Box 6-B: Women’s Achievements in South Africa
• Women occupy 30 per cent of the seats in parliament;
• Women occupy 20 per cent of the seats in the nine
provincial legislatures;
• Women occupy 18 per cent of the seats in local
municipalities;
• There are 9 female ministers and 8 female deputy
ministers;
• Women account for almost 7 per cent of directors on
boards of South African companies; and
• There were a large number of female nominees in the
information technology sector for the African Achiever
Awards in 2002.
Sources: S. N. Anderlini, Women at the Peace Table – Making a
difference (New York: UNIFEM, 2000); Business Day Newspaper
(8 August 2002), at http://www.bday.co.za
Successes Achieved by Affirmative Action and
Gender Mainstreaming
By combining these two approaches within
efforts to improve international human rights
responses to violence against women, advocates
for women’s human rights (both male and female)
have achieved a number of key successes.
International women’s human rights movements
have successfully identified violence against
women as a problem that interferes with women’s
ability to exercise all of their rights: civil, political,
social, cultural and economic. They have shown
that such violence happens both in public and in
private, that it is carried out both by the State and
by non-State actors, and that regardless of the
perpetrator, the State has a positive obligation to
ensure that this violence does not interfere with
women’s rights. That is, it is not sufficient for the
State merely to refrain from violating human rights,
but States must also take positive steps to respect,
protect and fulfil the human rights of their peoples.
This includes passing laws that make it clear to
122 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
private citizens that violence against women will
not be tolerated. It includes enforcing those laws
and taking whatever steps are necessary to ensure
citizens understand that violations of the law will
not go unpunished. It also includes bringing a
States’ entire body of laws into compliance with the
guarantee of equality between the sexes, because
discriminatory treatment of women by the State is a
message to citizens that women are less valuable
and, therefore, that it is acceptable to treat them
with less care and respect than men.
By eliciting the commitment of States to certain
norms and standards, international, national, and
local women’s rights movements have thereby
created space and legitimacy for local efforts
to address violence against women and girls.
These movements have been successful in their
arguments that human rights are non-divisible
and non-negotiable, and thus, women should own
their bodies and be entitled to make decisions
concerning themselves or, at worst, be consulted
and not treated as minors or juveniles.
In observance of International Women’s Day on 8 March
2007, participants march from the centre of Monrovia
to the Temple of Justice, home of the Liberian Supreme
Court, where they staged a peaceful sit-in protest
against gender-based violence. (UN Photo #140514,
Eric Kanalstein)
Problems with Affirmative Action and Gender and women.” Article 2 declared that “Everyone is
Mainstreaming entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in
this Declaration, without distinction of any kind,
In attempting to redress the wrongs perpetuated such as race, colour, sex, language, religion,
by the establishment of a model of a “universal political or other opinion, national or social origin,
(rights-bearing) man” that excluded so many property, birth or other status.” Women were
people, various groups have ended up divided otherwise specifically referred to only in relation
against one another. The history of liberation to marriage: “Men and women of full age, without
movements in the 19th and 20th centuries is a any limitation due to race, nationality or religion,
history of groups attempting to widen the category have the right to marry and to found a family. They
universal to include themselves. In the case of are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during
women’s rights, early activities tended also to be marriage and at its dissolution.”
married to property-owning men or to otherwise
have sources of income that allowed them not
to have to work for wages. This meant that their
perspectives tended not to include the concerns
central to most poor women.
Throughout the history of women’s rights, civil
rights, anti-colonial movements, and other
struggles for liberation, efforts to expose the
exclusions built into ruling groups’ rules have
themselves always ended up involving exclusions
of their own. Over time, as feminists from many
different economic classes, races, countries, and
cultures have challenged one another and worked
together, they have begun to learn that this is
because there is no such thing as a total vision,
a complete perspective that will include everyone
perfectly. There are only imperfect models that
try to combine as many partial perspectives
as possible, as well as models that build within
themselves the flexibility to change when
oppressive exclusions are identified. This is why it
is so important to include a variety of perspectives Incorporating gender perspectives in water initiatives to improve
sustainability. It is clear that effective, efficient and equitable water
in any important decision-making process you
resources management is only achieved when both women and men
undertake as part of Peace Support Operations. are involved in integrated water resource management. (Source: UNDP
website, http://www.undp.org/water/crosscutting/gender.html)
6.3 History of Violence Against This principle of non-discrimination was further
Women in International Human Rights developed in the 1950s-60s in a number of legal
documents affirming women’s equal rights in
It was only in the second half of the twentieth specific political, social and economic aspects of
century that women’s rights were formulated in
their lives. For example, in 1954, the Convention
international law, primarily through the United on the Political Rights of Women was approved,
Nations. Indeed, the equal rights of women and affirming the right of women to vote and to hold
men are proclaimed in the Charter of the United public office. In addition, the education rights
Nations. In 1948, the General Assembly of the of women were affirmed by the adoption of the
United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Convention against Discrimination in Education
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The in 1962, which calls for a free and compulsory
preamble reaffirmed “the equal rights of men
L e s s o n 6 : w o m e n ’ s right s ar e huma n right s | 123
 primary education and access to secondary the right to vote would mean little if women could
and higher education. The International Labour not leave home due to malnutrition or fear of
Writing Exercise 6-C: Contests Over Rights and Resources
Organization (ILO) has built up a set of standards violence. The equality, development and peace
In contests over rights and resources, people often get caught in thinking that there is only one solution to the since 1919 regulating women’s working conditions, triad continued to be the framework for assessing
problem: there will be one winner who will emerge with all the rights and/or resources, and there will be one loser such as the guarantee of equal wages, protection progress toward women’s equality at subsequent
who will emerge with nothing. This is often why groups with disproportionately large shares of rights or resources from night work and harmful substances, and the international conferences on women (such as in
so strongly resist any efforts to change the distribution of these rights or resources. They fear they will be left with safeguard of maternity benefits.2 Women’s rights Copenhagen 1980, Nairobi 1985, Beijing 1995,
nothing. within the family were also guaranteed through and post-Beijing evaluations by the UN held in New
the Convention on the Nationality of Married York in 2000 and 2005).
This phenomenon is also one reason oppressed groups sometimes end up divided against one another when Women in 1958 and the Convention on Consent
it might seem they should share perspectives and work together. In attempting to convince the more powerful
to Marriage, Minimum Age and Registration of
holder of rights and resources that sharing them will not mean themselves ending up with nothing, they attempt
Marriages in 1962. Furthermore, women were
to:
protected from particular forms of exploitation such
• Make themselves as much like the powerful group as possible, to show they are not very different, and not so as slavery and prostitution in the Convention for
threatening; and the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the
Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others in 1949.
• Show that opening up the powerful group to include a few more members from one of the oppressed groups
In 1966, the International Covenant on Economic,
will not entail losing very much.
Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the
The following exercise demonstrates these strategies. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR) were adopted, reaffirming the principle of
Imagine your child comes home from school to tell you that some children have taken over all of the area where it non-discrimination on the basis of sex.
is possible to play football. They refuse to let your child or any of the other children from school play there.
CEDAW
The group that has taken over the play area all speak language X; they are all about 12 years old; they all come
from a wealthy neighbourhood. Your child also speaks X, as do several of his friends, but they are slightly
younger (around 10 years old) and come from a slightly poorer neighbourhood. Your child asks your advice about From 1975, the UN developed a more holistic
what to do. Which of the following options do you advise and why? (If none of these, which other option do you approach to address women’s rights. There was Ayse Feride Acar (far left), Chairperson of the CEDAW, speaks at a
a growing recognition that women’s secondary CEDAW round table discussion. Far right is José Antonio Ocampo, Under-
advise or take and why?) Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs. UNHQ, New York.
status in political, economic, social and cultural
(UN Photo #50418 by Mark Garten, October 2004)
1. Talk to the group in charge and ask them to allow just the other X-speaking children to play, on the grounds realms all combined to interfere with their full
that it is not that many more players and since they all speak the same language, they will understand one participation in society. At the first UN World As part of this more holistic approach, the rights
another easily and can play well together, even though some of them are younger. Conference on Women in Mexico in 1975, a of women, which had until then been dispersed in
strategy was formulated to interlink the three a multitude of separate conventions, were brought
2. Organize with all the excluded players to talk to the group in charge about finding a way to share the play
concepts of equality, development and peace. together within a single comprehensive document
area or to take turns using it.
This strategy was then pursued throughout the that aimed to cover all aspects of discrimination in
3. Organize with some or all of the excluded players to beat up the group in charge, then take over the play following UN Decade for Women (1975-1985). This women’s lives. This document was the Convention
area themselves. meant that women’s ability to realize their rights on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
was understood to depend upon the combination against Women (CEDAW). Its adoption in 1979
4. Seek help from some authority at school to resolve the situation. of their equality with men; the development of their by the UN General Assembly was a milestone.
societies; and conditions of peace. The articulation It called on states to acknowledge the economic
Many options are possible, of course. The point is that the first and third options are among the easiest and
fastest ways to deal with the situation. And, in the history of social conflicts over rights and resources in the world, of this strategy represented the recognition that and social contributions of women in society, and
they are in fact the options that have often been taken for precisely this reason. It often seems strategically best women’s rights could not be pursued in a vacuum; it denounced discrimination against women as
in the short run to make compromises that exclude others, or that use violence to accomplish one’s ends. a barrier to their full participation in society and
2 For instance the ILO elaborated the Maternity
as impairing the development of families and
Protection Convention (No. 3) (1919) (revised No.
Very often the group in charge takes actions to ensure that these options appear to be the only ones possible at a communities.3
103, 1952) Convention No. 45 Concerning the
given time or in a given context, by making the costs of pursuing more inclusive or less violent alternatives seem Employment of Women on Underground Work in
too high. Mines of All Kinds (1937), ILO Night Work (Women) CEDAW is the most wide-ranging of all
Convention (revised 1948), Protocol of 1990 to international legal documents on women. It covers
Have you seen these patterns play out in your experience working in UN peace support operations? If so, how?
the Night Work (Women) Convention (revised the eradication of discrimination in political life,
How have they been resolved in the end? What would you do or advise differently, now that you have more
1948), ILO Equal Remuneration Convention (1951)
knowledge and experience?
and ILO Workers with Family Responsibilities 3 M. Rendel, “New Alternatives for Old
Convention (1981). Challenges,” 33.

124 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n L e s s o n 6 : w o m e n ’ s right s ar e huma n right s | 125

education, employment, access to financial credit,
health, family, marriage and other aspects of
economic and social life. It also advocates the
changing of any cultural norms or stereotypes
that maintain women’s inferiority, and it includes
measures to suppress prostitution and the traffic of
women.
CEDAW defines discrimination against women as:
… any distinction, exclusion or restriction made
on the basis of sex, which has the effect or
purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition,
enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of
their marital status, on a basis of equality of men
and women, of human rights and fundamental
freedoms in the political, economic, social,
cultural, civil or any other field.
By signing and ratifying this convention, state
parties commit to implementing CEDAW. They
must do this by changing their existing laws and by
enacting new laws where necessary.
The Nairobi Forward Looking Strategy
By the 1980s, the international community had
accumulated an impressive set of normative
documents reducing de jure discrimination
(discrimination before the law), yet de facto gender
inequality (inequality in fact) in societies persisted.
As a result, international strategies shifted to focus
on how to remove de facto discrimination. This
meant emphasizing ways of changing how women
were viewed in societies where gender inequalities
persist. Studies of inequality showed it was often
tied to deep-seated beliefs about the fundamental
differences between women and men and, in turn,
to long-standing practices of organizing societies
into different social roles. In these arrangements,
women’s roles were consistently less valued and
less powerful in terms of access to resources and
policy control. Such histories and beliefs were
overriding any de jure legal changes that called for
the end of discrimination and for gender equality.
To achieve real change, socially constructed
gender stereotypes would have to be addressed.
At the 1985 world conference in Nairobi to review
the achievements of the UN Decade for Women,
UN Member States agreed to something called
126 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategy. This
document reaffirmed that gender equality was an
internationally agreed-upon goal. It also declared
that equality meant not only women’s legal
equality with men but also that women bear equal
responsibilities in society and are entitled to equal
opportunities to enjoy their rights and to develop
their potential talents and skills.4
The Forward Looking Strategy called for equal
rights, for example, in marriage and divorce; the
affirmation of women’s autonomy and power
through property rights; women’s equal involvement
in development; and the promotion of women to
positions of power. The Forward Looking Strategy
also called on States to include within their national
economic accounting estimates of the value of
women’s unpaid work in the home, as well as
the sharing of domestic responsibilities. Finally,
it urged States to promote women’s paid work
through equal employment opportunities. It outlined
detailed recommendations for governments, calling
on them to establish and enforce wide-ranging
legal measures for the promotion of equality
between women and men and to build concrete
infrastructures to provide education, health,
career-support and other services to achieve that
end.
The Development of Women’s Human Rights in
the 1990s
The 1990s might well be called “the violence
decade” in international women’s human rights. It
is marked both by the emerging global awareness
that violence against women in its multiple forms
may be the most severe impediment to the
realization of women’s rights, and by efforts to
address this fact. Thus, a broadened concept of
women’s rights in this period focused on violence
against women. UN-sponsored human rights
conferences and resolutions responded to this
by condemning violence against women and
elaborating international measures for protection.
4 157 countries and 300 NGOs attended the
Nairobi Conference. F. Verucci, “Women’s Rights
in International Conventions, Their Integration into
Human Rights Mechanisms,” in F. Tabak (ed), New
Alternatives for Old Challenges, 48.
The Committee that monitors States’ compliance The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence
with CEDAW expressed in its General against Women emphasized the duty of States
Recommendation No. 19 in 1992 an official to prevent, investigate and punish such crimes
interpretation of violence against women as a form through a principal known as due diligence and
of discrimination, defining it as “violence directed to avoid re-victimization through gender-sensitive
against a woman because she is a woman or that laws and enforcement procedures. This latter
affects women disproportionately.” State parties requirement took into account the experiences
to CEDAW were urged to include manifestations of many women victims – especially of sexual
of violence against women in their reports, as well violence – who were “re-victimized” when they
as to implement measures for the prevention of, reported violence against them. For instance,
protection from, and punishment of such acts. The a woman who was raped may then have been
Committee further stated that violence against subjected to invasive and humiliating interrogation
women may breach international law whether the about her attire and prior sexual experiences.
State is party to the convention or not, and whether
or not the act is perpetrated by authorities or by
private persons.
The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence
Against Women
In 1993, the UN General Assembly adopted
the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence
against Women. The Declaration’s wide-ranging
definition of violence against women includes all
public and private forms of violence: any act “that
results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual
or psychological harm or suffering to women,
including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary
deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or
in private life.”5
Most importantly, the scope of the forms of violence
became more specific without being an exhaustive
list. It encompassed violence in the family such
as battery, sexual abuse, dowry-related violence,
marital rape, female genital mutilation and other
harmful traditional practices, non-spousal violence
and violence related to exploitation. Violence
occurring in the community was also targeted, such
Poster from the Justice Campaign.
as rape, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and (Source: The Zero Tolerance Charitable Trust, http://
intimidation at work or in educational institutions, www.zerotolerance.org.uk/campaigns/campaigns.php)
trafficking and forced prostitution. Finally, it also
included violence perpetrated or condoned by the In 1994, the Commission on Human Rights
State. mandated a Special Rapporteur on Violence
against Women to study the roots and
consequences of violence against women. The
Special Rapporteur now collects information
5 United Nations Declaration on the Elimination from governments, intergovernmental and
of Violence Against Women (New York, 1993), Art. non-governmental organizations and prepares
1; see also Art. 2 for the scope of various forms of recommendations on measures to eliminate
violence. violence against women. The Commission adopted
L e s s o n 6 : w o m e n ’ s right s ar e huma n right s | 127
several resolutions condemning violence against
women, denouncing trafficking in women and girls,
and encouraging gender equality, including the full
integration of women’s rights into the human rights
monitoring mechanisms of the United Nations.
The Vienna World Conference on Human
Rights
It was also in 1993 that the Vienna World
Conference on Human Rights provided important
recognition of women’s rights as human rights.
Until this time, in spite of all the progress that
had been made with CEDAW and the Forward
Looking Strategy, much of the work done on
behalf of women’s human rights had been taking
place in a kind of parallel universe alongside
traditional international human rights. While human
rights were integrated in law and in rhetoric, the
institutional structure of the UN itself tended still to
treat women’s human rights as something separate
and distinct from human rights generally.
The Vienna Declaration, adopted as it was at a
general human rights world conference rather than
a conference on women’s human rights, held a
special significance. It proclaimed that women’s
rights were an “inalienable, integral and indivisible
part of universal human rights,” including economic,
political, civil, social and cultural rights.6 This
means that all human rights standards must take
into account the differential impact of human rights
abuses on women. Combined with the Declaration
on the Elimination of Violence against Women,
it also provides women with the legal framework
and vocabulary to articulate the violence they
experience in human rights terms.7 In addition, the
Vienna Declaration reaffirms that States have a
responsibility to protect and ensure these rights
and that they will be held accountable for their
failure to do so.
6 United Nations, Vienna Declaration and
Programme of Action (part I, § 18), UN Document
A/CONF.157/24 (Part I), chap. III (Vienna, 25 June
1993). 171 countries and 2,000 NGOs attended the
Vienna Conference. F. Verucci, “Women’s Rights in
International Conventions,” 49.
7 C. Bunch and S. Frost, “Women’s Human
Rights: An Introduction,” in Routledge International
Encyclopedia of Women: Global Women’s Issues
and Knowledge (Routledge, 2000).
128 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
The Fourth UN World Conference on Women in
Beijing
In 1995, the Fourth UN World Conference
on Women was held in Beijing, and it further
strengthened this normative framework. The
Beijing Platform for Action – the document
that resulted from this conference – further
elaborated the nature and scope of violence
against women. It also acknowledged that there
can be no development without equality, and
so long as violence is tolerated, both equality
and development will be impeded. Then UN
Secretary-General Boutros-Boutros Ghali stated
that equality remained elusive as discrimination
continued, appealing to States for their determined
commitment in making equality a reality.8
Building on the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies,
the Platform for Action gave priority to 12 critical
areas: poverty, education, health, violence against
women, armed conflict, economic structures, power
sharing and decision-making, mechanisms to
promote the advancement of women, human rights,
the media, the environment, and the girl-child.
The identification of the girl-child as a critical area
of concern was new. It responded to the ways
in which attention to children’s rights sometimes
failed to attend to rights violations suffered solely
or disproportionately by girls. By highlighting the
need of the girl-child, advocates hoped it would be
possible to combat the bias against girls in early life
found in many societies – bias that in turn reduces
their opportunities for development. This was
part of the Platform for Action’s effort to continue
addressing the abuse of women in a holistic
manner: by attending to violence faced by girls, it
might be possible to begin to break the patterns of
violence which cycle throughout women’s lives.
The Beijing Platform for Action also brought to
the foreground previously taboo subjects such
as domestic and sexual abuse, rape, forced
pregnancy, sexual slavery, the role of degrading
or pornographic materials in acts of violence
against women, sexuality rights, and discrimination
based on sexual orientation. It provided an
improved global framework for progressing toward
8 UN Press Release, Secretary-General’s
Statement to Fourth World Conference on Women,
WOM/BEI/8 (3 September 1995).
gender equality and empowerment of women,
requiring States, international organizations and
NGOs to mainstream gender in all their policies
and programmes. In other words, it added a
transformative strategy to the additive approach of
requiring affirmative action that CEDAW put forth.
With regard to violence against women, three
strategic objectives were adopted: to undertake
integrated measures in the prevention and
elimination of violence; to study the causes and
consequences of violence and the effectiveness of
preventive measures; and to eliminate trafficking in
women and to assist its victims. By endorsing the
Beijing Platform for Action, States committed to:
• Implement international human rights norms and
instruments relating to violence against women; CEDAW members (left to right) Ms. Meriem Belmihoub-Zerdani,
• Review legislation that focuses on prevention Ms. Dubravka Šimonović, Ms. Françoise Gaspard, in Cairo, Egypt.
December 2005. (Source: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/
and prosecution of offenders;
TechnicalCooperation/tcprogphotos.htm)
• Protect women from violence; and
In the Millennium Declaration in 2000, States
• Provide access to just and effective remedies for further explicitly pledged to combat all forms of
violence. violence against women and to implement the
CEDAW as part of their global vision for the
The conference was attended by approximately new millennium, in which they also recognized
8,000 members of NGOs and media outlets who gender equality and women’s empowerment as
witnessed the representatives of 189 governments key aspects to poverty elimination and to the
as they formally committed to the implementation true achievement of sustainable development.10
of the Platform for Action. This commitment was Furthermore, a move toward the end of impunity
hailed as a major achievement around the world.9 for crimes of gender-based violence had been
underscored by the international recognition of
Women’s Human Rights at the Dawn of the New rape and sexual violence as capable of being
Millennium crimes against humanity, war crimes and as acts of
genocide in the Rome Statute of the International
Marking the gravity of the problem of violence Criminal Court of 1998.
against women, in 1999, the General Assembly
proclaimed 25 November as the International Day
for the Eradication of Violence against Women,
commemorating those who have suffered or
are suffering from violence and representing a
time for the international community to assess
progress and reaffirm commitments to eliminate
gender-based violence.
9 UN Press Release, Declaration and Platform
for Action Break New Ground in International
Efforts for Advancement of Women to Year 2000, 10 United Nations, Millennium Declaration, A/
WOM/BEI/40 (15 September 1995). RES/55/22 (18 September 2000).
L e s s o n 6 : w o m e n ’ s right s ar e huma n right s | 129
 6.4 Ending Impunity for Crimes of
Sexual Violence During Armed Conflict
Pak Yong Sim was taken at the age of 17, from
a village in North Korea and brought to Pyong
Yang. Then she was transported to Nanjing
in China, then to Shanghai. She travelled with
the troops all the way to Singapore and then to
Burma where she stayed in a comfort station
in the mountains of Burma for two years. She
was forced to have an abortion and she was
never thereafter able to have children. She was
released from the prisoner of war camp in 1946
and finally returned home. She served seven
years as a comfort woman.
– Indai Sajor, Speech in the Asia Pacific War
Conference in Vancouver, 2003
The Security Council meeting unanimously voting to condemn violence
committed against civilians in armed conflict, particularly women and
children, at UN HQ in New York. (UN Photo #117293 by Evan Schneider,
April 2006)
Laws Protecting Women from Violence in
Armed Conflict
International humanitarian law is the body of law
that applies in times of armed conflict. The principle
instruments of IHL are the four Geneva Conventions
and their three Additional Protocols which protect
the wounded, shipwrecked, POWs, and civilians,
and also the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907,
which govern how hostilities are to be conducted.
There are also numerous conventions restricting
or prohibiting the use of specific weapons; for
example, the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition
of the use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of
Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction.
130 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
International humanitarian law protects persons
who are not, or who are no longer, taking an active
part in hostilities. These rules protect both women
and men, either as combatants, persons hors de
combat (captured combatants including the sick and
wounded), or as civilians. International humanitarian
law also regulates the means and methods of
warfare. It requires that parties to an armed conflict
must distinguish between civilians and combatants
at all times and must not direct attacks against
civilians and civilian objects. Further, international
humanitarian law contains specific provisions that
aim to protect women from the effects of hostilities
and from abuse in armed conflict.
Redress for Crimes of Sexual Violence:
Post-War Tribunals and the ICC
Recent developments at both national and
international levels in the prosecution of those
responsible for war crimes have been a very
important step forward in the fight against impunity
for crimes of sexual violence in war.
Appalling atrocities against women took place as
a systematic part of the commission of the Second
World War. Yet the experience of female victims
was not formally recognized in the international
criminal tribunals that followed. In 1946, the
International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg
and the International Military Tribunal of the Far
East, located in Tokyo, were established to try
German and Japanese government officials for
violations of international law committed during
the war. The charters of the tribunals established
jurisdiction on crimes against peace, war crimes
and crimes against humanity. The Allied Control
Council Law No. 10 (CCL10) signed by France, the
Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United
States in 1945, which provided the legal basis to
prosecute individual war criminals in Germany,
specifically listed rape under Article 2 as a crime
against humanity. Yet, neither the Nuremberg nor
the Tokyo Charter explicitly mentioned any form
of gender-based crime within their jurisdiction
despite evident cases of rape and sexual violence
perpetrated during the war. As a result, the
post-Second World War tribunals failed to advance
justice for female victims of violence as they neither
brought charges for sexual violence nor provided
any type of redress for such crimes.
As discussed in previous lessons, rape and The use of sexual violence in wartime – whether
other forms of sexual violence were used in the used as a method of warfare or for any other
1990s conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in the reason – is now recognized as a serious violation
1994 genocide in Rwanda. By this time, public of international humanitarian law.
understanding had shifted from the traditional view
that rape was primarily a collateral and inevitable In Rome in 1998, the experience of the ad hoc
excess of war, to an understanding that rape is a tribunals contributed to the agreement to establish
strategically employed part of war violence and an International Criminal Court (ICC). The Rome
thus a public and political affair. Acting under Statute of the International Criminal Court has
Chapter VII of the UN Charter (which deals with been signed by 139 countries and ratified by 105
threats to peace and security), the UN Security countries (as of 17 July 2007). Of the 105 States
Council established ad hoc International Criminal Parties to the Rome Statute: 29 are African States,
Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and 13 are Asian States, 16 are from Eastern Europe,
Rwanda (ICTR). 22 are from Latin America and the Caribbean, and
25 are from Western Europe and other states. The
The ICTY and ICTR have convicted persons of Statute entered into force on 1 July 2002. On 11
rape and other forms of sexual violence as war March 2003, 18 judges, seven women and 11 men
crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of were elected and took their oaths of office. The
genocide and have been crucial in developing establishment of the ICC was hailed a watershed
recognition and understanding of different for the enforcement of international criminal law.
forms of sexual violence in conflict as crimes
under international law. The ICTY’s so-called
“Foca indictment” was the first international
criminal charge to identify rape as torture and to
consider other forms of sexual violence (such as
forced nudity and sexual enslavement) as inhuman
treatment.11 The ICTR recognized that rape and
sexual violence could be used as an instrument of
genocide. In convicting Jean-Paul Akayesu, the
trial chamber stated that:
with regard to…rape and sexual violence,
the chamber wishes to underscore that they
constitute genocide if committed with the specific
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a particular
group, targeted as such. These rapes resulted in
physical and psychological destruction of Tutsi
women, their families and their communities.
Sexual violence was a step in the process of
destruction of the Tutsi group – destruction of the
spirit, of the will to live, and of life itself.12
11 In Foca, a village in southeast
Bosnia-Herzegovina, which in April 1992 was taken
over by Serb forces, Muslim and Croat inhabitants
A women walks beside a poster against sexual
were arrested, killed and beaten. Women were exploitation and violence, during a one-day workshop
subjected to torture, raped, and detained in houses organized under the aegis of the National Council for
that served as brothels for soldiers.
Children, Khartoum, Sudan. (UN Photo #138055 by Fred
12 International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda,
Noy, January 2007)
Prosecutor v. Akayesu, Judgement, Case No.
ICTR-96-4-T, §731-732 (2 September 1998), at
http://www.ictr.org/default.htm
L e s s o n 6 : w o m e n ’ s right s ar e huma n right s | 131
Rape and other forms of sexual violence are
codified within the ICC Statute as war crimes and
crimes against humanity. The ICC may assert
jurisdiction over persons aged 18 and above and
hold them criminally liable for war crimes, crimes
against humanity, or genocide, regardless of
whether they are government officials, heads of
state or government or members of parliament.
Under the doctrine of command responsibility,
military commanders and other superiors may
be held legally accountable for criminal offences
perpetrated by forces under their effective
command or authority and control.
Further, the International Criminal Court marks
important achievements in integrating gender
concerns in international justice through numerous
provisions. First, gender balance among judges
is addressed within Article 36 (8), which requires
“fair representation of female and male judges”
who possess “legal expertise on specific issues,
including but not limited to, violence against women
and children.” These conditions also apply to
the staff of the Office of the Prosecutor and the
Registry. In addition, based on the experiences of
the ICTY and ICTR, the ICC has included gender
sensitive procedures to ensure that victims of
sexual violence are protected and treated with
special attention to their needs. For example, a
Victims and Witnesses Unit has been established
within the registry, which applies protective
measures and security arrangements that include
counselling and other appropriate assistance. It
particularly includes staff with expertise in trauma,
including trauma related to crimes of sexual
violence. During trials, victims and witnesses to
crimes involving sexual violence are guaranteed
protection. For example, they are allowed to give
testimony in a courtroom closed to the public.
6.5 Conclusion: Old and New
Challenges
The legal protection of women is a central goal of
human development, affirmed by the Millennium
Development goals set by 189 governments at
the dawn of the new century. Comprehensively
considered, the legal frameworks described
above, including international human rights law,
international humanitarian law, and international
criminal law, offer adequate protection to women
in peacetime and in armed conflict, if only the
laws are upheld. However, despite recent signs
of progress, there are a number of challenges to
women’s realization of their rights. These include
harmonization of international law with local law,
the conflict of international law with social and
cultural norms, and the lack of political will to apply
international law.
At the turn of the century, new issues have
come to prominence that gravely undermine
the enjoyment of women’s rights. These include
the unprecedented amount of trafficking of
women and children; the intersection of women’s
rights violations with the HIV/AIDS pandemic;
the feminization of poverty; threats to women’s
reproductive rights; and the gendered impact of
environmental degradation.
Among the obstacles to women’s rights,
States have additionally indicated women’s low
participation at the decision-making levels, the
persistence of stereotypical attitudes about women
and discriminatory practices against them, and
persistent occupational segregation. Violence
against women, in particular domestic violence,
remains prevalent in all countries. In every nation,
women are disproportionately affected by high
poverty levels. Very often this is exacerbated
by race and/or caste, with women of colour and
women of lower castes being most likely to suffer
from poverty. Obstacles to access health care
are exemplified by high maternal mortality rates,
particularly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Due to globalization, trafficking in persons has
dramatically increased in the last decade, with
women and children as primary victims. Trafficking
and a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS have been
noted in countries in Africa, Latin America and
Central and Eastern Europe. In addition, in many the normative level the needs of women are
countries, discriminatory legislation still prevents generally adequately addressed, the challenge
women’s full enjoyment of political, civil, economic lies in ensuring respect for and effective
and social rights. Finally, many States report a implementation of existing law and standards.13
gap in the implementation of policies and laws
once they are enacted. Very often institutions This challenge continues today. It remains that not
have vague or deficient guidelines about how to only is there a gap between policy and practice
implement legislation and policies, and they have but that also public attitudes and mindsets have
poor capacity and knowledge about how to do so. not followed the same pace of change as the legal
and institutional structures. Undeniably, however,
In 2000 and 2005, the UN Commission on women’s rights standards are today explicitly
the Status of Women provided an opportunity drawn in international human rights law. These are
for the stock-taking of the implementation of valuable standards to be used by all as guidelines
the Beijing Platform for Action. Broad debate for governments and international institutions,
critically evaluated the accomplishments of instruments for the civil society to lobby and press
governments and highlighted the obstacles to governments on their commitments, or as a tool for
implementation of the existing international legal change in the larger society.
measures and conventions on women’s rights.
Achievements have included: improvements
in education, poverty reduction, advances in
women’s health, social and legal status, and
the participation and political representation of
women. Progress has also been recorded in data
collection that makes note of gender differences.
Fighting violence against women has become
a key priority in most countries, which seek to
combat this problem through comprehensive
combinations of legislative changes, action plans,
support measures for victims, awareness-raising,
education and sensitization measures, training,
and the prosecution, punishment and rehabilitation
of offenders. Most importantly, the role of men
and boys in preventing violence has been
Three young women patients wait to check in for treatment, under a
increasingly addressed. Governments also adopted
tent in the compound of the Fistula Unit of Zalingei Hospital. In Sudan,
several strategies on the national, regional and obstructed labor is considered one of the major problems that lead to
international levels to fight trafficking in women. maternal morbidity and mortality. West Darfur region is one of the most
affected regions in Sudan because of the lack of paved roads, medical
Looking back, the struggle for equality in women’s staff and deficient health infrastructures. During the UNFPA-supported
rights has come a long way. Yet, as the recent surgery campaign held from 15 to 27 May 2007, 56 patients came to the
Fistula Center. Forty-seven underwent successful operations. Zalingei,
assessments show, despite the achievements
Sudan. (UN Photo # Fred Noy, May 2007)
at the international level, there has been
insufficient progress on country implementation of
women’s rights. This was underlined by Radhika
Coomaraswamy, former Special Rapporteur on
Violence against Women, who emphasized that:
13 United Nations, International, Regional and
… the international community has made great National Developments in the Area of Violence
strides in setting standards and elaborating against Women, Report of the Special Rapporteur
a legal framework for the promotion and on Violence against Women, its Causes and
protection of women from violence. While at Consequences, R. Coomaraswamy, Addendum 1,
UN Document E/CN.4/2003/75 (Geneva, 2003).

132 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n L e s s o n 6 : w o m e n ’ s right s ar e huma n right s | 133

End-of-Lesson Quiz
1. From 1975, the UN developed a new
approach to women’s rights. This approach
can be described as:
A Holistic: women’s rights could not be effectively
addressed individually, as discrimination in
political, economic, social and cultural realms
combined to interfere with their participation in
society;
B. Particularist: women had particular needs with
regards to rights as compared to men;
C. Separatist: women should be considered
separately from men in human rights decision
making, as their problems were different;
D. Universalist: women were seen to have the
same rights as men.
2. The Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW):
A. Defines gender-based violence;
B. Brings together the previously existing rights of
women established in separate conventions;
C. Allows discrimination against women with
regard to education, employment, marriage,
access to financial credit, political life, health,
and family when women consent to it;
D. Also prohibits discrimination against men.
134 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
3. Which of the following most correctly
states the definition of violence against
women provided in the Declaration on the
Elimination of Violence against Women of
1993?
A. Acts or threats that result or are likely to result
in physical and sexual harm or suffering
occurring in public life;
B. Acts that result or are likely to result in physical,
sexual or psychological harm or suffering
occurring in private life;
C. Acts that result or are likely to result in physical,
sexual, and psychological harm or suffering
occurring in public life;
D. Acts or threats that result or are likely to result
in physical, sexual, or psychological harm or
suffering in private and public life.
4. Which of the following is not an example
of gender bias that takes place in the legal
system with regard to cases of violence
against women?
A. Female victims are allowed to testify in a
separate room from the accused;
B. The crime of rape may be “erased” if the
perpetrator agrees to marry the victim;
C. Male witnesses are given more credibility than
female witnesses;
D. Violence by men against their wives may not be
considered a crime.
5. Which of the following was not a focus of the
Beijing Platform for Action?
A. Reviewing legislation on prevention and
prosecution of offenders in cases of violence
against women;
B. Highlighting previously taboo forms of sexual
violence;
C. Eliminating trafficking in women;
D. Promoting women’s self-defence schemes.
6. The Beijing Platform for Action of 1995
identified the “girl-child” as an object of
concern in order to:
A. Shift attention from adult women to girl children;
B. Highlight children’s rights in the arena of human
rights;
C. Address discrimination and violence faced by
women in early life;
D. Address women’s roles as teachers and
mothers of female children.
7. According to international humanitarian
law, rape in war is:
A. An inevitable collateral effect;
B. A phenomenon that began with the
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwandan conflicts;
C. An act that has become problematic with the
entry of women in combat;
D. A violation of the Geneva Conventions.
L e s s o n 6 : w o m e n ’ s right s ar e huma n right s
8. The Statute of the International Criminal
Court is notable for:
A. Holding military commanders and superiors
accountable for war crimes;
B. Being the first instrument to identify violence
against women as a war crime;
C. Establishing specific percentage quotas for
gender equality among courtroom staff;
D. All of the above.
9. True or false? Some of the issues adversely
impacting women’s rights that have emerged
or significantly worsened at the turn of this
century include:
A. HIV/AIDS
B. Inadequate funds to achieve women’s rights
C. Trafficking in women and children
D. Environmental degradation
10. Recent evaluation of progress in women’s
rights suggests that:
A. States have not taken up the cause of women’s
rights;
B. States have made substantial gains in
establishing and enacting women’s rights
legislation;
C. States have made substantial commitments to
women’s rights, but practice lags behind policy;
D. States have made substantial commitments
to international women’s rights but have
not incorporated men and boys into their
programmes.
ANSWER KEY
1A 2B, 3D, 4A, 5D, 6C, 7D, 8A,
9(A True, B False, C True, D True), 10C
| 135
LESSON 7
SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND
EXPLOITATION
 7.1 Introduction

Box 7-A: UN Peacekeepers Face

Child Sex Claims
Lesson
7
The Sydney Morning Herald
January 3, 2007

UN peacekeepers and civilian staff have raped and abused children as young as 12 in southern Sudan,
according to London’s Daily Telegraph.

The newspaper, in a story posted on its Web site, said it had gathered accounts from more than 20 young victims
in the town of Juba of UN civilian and peacekeeping staff forcing them to have sex. …The Telegraph said the first
signs of sexual exploitation of local youths in southern Sudan emerged within months of the peacekeepers’ arrival
in March 2005. The UN Children’s Fund UNICEF drafted an internal report detailing the problem, it said. The
newspaper said Sudan’s government had gathered evidence including video footage of UN workers having sex
7.1 Introduction with young girls. …The government has been resisting letting the reinforcements into Darfur, calling it an attempt

7.2 Background to the LESSON OBJECTIVES to recolonize the vast northern African nation.

Problem of Sexual Sexual abuse charges have surfaced for decades in UN peacekeeping missions and among civilian and other
By the end of Lesson 7, the student should be able to: humanitarian staff operating in world hot spots. But the United Nations began seriously pursuing offenders in
Exploitation and Abuse
the past two years after reports of widespread abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it has 17,000
by UN Peacekeepers troops. Since January 2004, the United Nations has investigated abuse allegations against 319 military and
• Define and provide examples of the terms “sexual violence,” “coercion,”
civilian personnel in all its missions, the world body said in late November. It has disciplined 179 soldiers, civilians
7.3 Defining Sexual “sexual exploitation,” and “human trafficking”;
and police since then…
Violence, Exploitation • Define the terms “prostitution” and “survival sex” and discuss how each
and Abuse may flourish in UN peacekeeping contexts. Explain how each can be Source: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/01/03/1167777136236.html
related to gender inequality and violence against women;
7.4 Some Types of Sexual
• Identify and provide examples of the key conditions in which sexual
Violence, Exploitation The article above provides a compelling and However, sexual violence by peacekeepers is
violence is most likely to occur; and
and Abuse disturbing statement of why this lesson on only one form of such violence on a continuum
• Describe positive uses for those power and gender norms, sometimes sexual violence is of particular relevance to of forms of sexual violence that can be found
7.5 Prevalence of Sexual inculcated by individuals in military, sporting and other male-dominated peacekeepers and to all staff of Peace Support around the globe. This lesson will define the major
Violence environments, for preventing and responding to sexual violence. Operations. Violations of the rights of people types of sexual violence, exploitation and abuse
whom peacekeepers have been sent to protect are and describe their prevalence and effects. It will
7.6 Conditions in which discuss what is known about the perpetrators of
especially damaging to public confidence in peace
Sexual Violence and processes, the rule of law, and international conflict sexual violence, exploitation and abuse, as well
Exploitation are Most resolution mechanisms. Even comparatively tiny as the conditions in which they are most likely to
numbers of violations by a few wrongdoers can do perpetrate. The lesson will also review in some
Likely to Occur
profound and lasting damage to the reputations detail the dynamics of power, gender inequality
7.7 Consequences and of whole organizations and every one of their and coercion that accompany sexual harms. It will
members. One bad act can undermine the positive end with an exercise that invites you to consider
Effects of Sexual
effects of a hundred good acts. Sexual violations, effective ways of responding to an incident of
Violence in a in particular those against children, are many times sexual violence and coercion.
Post-Conflict more powerful in their negative consequences to
Environment victims, to communities, and to the organizations
represented by perpetrators.
7.8 Preventing and To view a video introduction of this lesson by
the course author AnnJanette Rosga, you can
Avoiding Sexual either log in to your virtual classroom, go to www.
peaceopstraining.org/users/media_page/398/,
Violence or use your mobile device to scan the QR code
to the left.
l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n | 139
7.2 Background to the Problem of
Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by UN
Peacekeepers1
In October 2002, the UN faced a series of sexual
abuse and sexual exploitation accusations against
some peacekeepers and humanitarian personnel
by displaced and refugee women in West Africa.2
This situation allowed the organisation to realise
the system’s weaknesses, both in terms of
preventing, detecting, and monitoring gender-based
violence committed by its personnel, as well as the
lack of facilities and resources for victims to be able
to make accusations.
On 9 October 2003, the Secretary-General’s
Bulletin, “Special Measures for Protection from
Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse”3 declared:
• UN forces conducting operations under UN
command and control are prohibited from
committing acts of sexual exploitation and
sexual abuse, and have a particular duty of
care towards women and children, pursuant to
section 7 of Secretary-General’s bulletin ST/
SGB/1999/13, entitled “Observance by United
Nations forces of international humanitarian law.”
• The Secretary-General’s Bulletin ST/SGB/253,
entitled “Promotion of Equal Treatment of Men
and Women in the Secretariat and Prevention of
Sexual Harassment,” and the related
1 This section is taken from the Peace
Operations Training Institute course Gender
Perspectives in United Nations Peacekeeping
Operations by Ximena Jimenez.
2 Security Council, A/57/465: Late in November
2001, the Office of Internal Oversight Services
(OIOS) was asked by the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
to review allegations of sexual exploitation of
female refugees by international and national aid
workers, specifically regarding United Nations and
non-governmental organization (NGO) staff and
peacekeepers in three West African countries:
Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The allegation of
widespread sexual exploitation arose from a report
by two consultants who had been commissioned by
UNHCR and Save the Children (UK) to study the
question of sexual exploitation and violence in the
refugee communities in the three countries.
3 UN Secretariat ST/SGB/2003/13
140 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
administrative instructions, set forth policies
and procedures for handling cases of sexual
harassment in the Secretariat of the UN.4
In March 2005, then UN Secretary-General Mr.
Kofi Annan declared:
The revelations last year of sexual exploitation
and abuse by a significant number of United
Nations peacekeeping personnel in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
shocked and angered us all and have done
great harm to the name of peacekeeping. These
abhorrent acts are a violation of the fundamental
duty of care that all United Nations peacekeeping
personnel owe to the local population that they
are sent to serve.5
On April 2005, Under-Secretary-General for DPKO,
Mr. Jean-Marie Guéhenno, made a presentation to
the Special Committee on PKO regarding SEA in
which he said:
The problem of sexual exploitation and abuse
will only be solved by joint action – action by the
Secretariat here at headquarters, by the TCCs
and the General Assembly as a whole, and by
the managers and leaders in peacekeeping
operations on the ground.
On 31 May 2005, the Security Council
condemned “in the strongest terms all acts of
sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeeping
personnel. In its Presidential Statement, the
Council recognised shared responsibility of the
Secretary-General and all Member States to
prevent abuse and enforce UN Standards.”
4 ST/SGB/253 has since been replaced by the
Secretary-General’s Bulletin ST/SGB/2008/5,
entitled “Prohibition of Discrimination, Harassment,
including Sexual Harassment, and Abuse of
Authority”. See Appendix E.
5 SG Mr. Annan said: “I invited Prince Zeid Ra’ad
Zeid Al-Hussein, the Permanent Representative
of a major troop- and police-contributing country
and a former civilian peacekeeper himself, to act
as my adviser and assist me in addressing this
grave problem. When the Special Committee on
Peacekeeping Operations asked me to produce a
comprehensive report with recommendations on
sexual exploitation and abuse by United Nations
peacekeeping personnel, I asked Prince Zeid to
undertake its preparation.”
In a statement read out by then Council President
Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Ellen Margrethe Løj (Denmark) -- following its
by UN Peacekeepers first-ever public meeting devoted exclusively
to sexual exploitation and abuse -- the Council
• “The problem of sexual exploitation and condemned, in the strongest terms, all acts of
abuse by United Nations peacekeeping sexual exploitation and abuse committed by
personnel is an abhorrent one. It peacekeepers and reiterated the importance of
represents a violation of the duty of ensuring that they were properly investigated and
care owed by peacekeepers to the local appropriately punished.7
population that they are sent to serve.”
• “The problem of sexual exploitation
and abuse will only be solved by joint
action – action by the Secretariat here
at headquarters, by the TCCs and the
General Assembly as a whole, and by the
managers and leaders in peacekeeping
operations on the ground.”
• “The Council condemned, in the strongest
terms, all acts of sexual abuse and
exploitation committed by peacekeepers
and reiterated the importance of ensuring
that they were properly investigated and
appropriately punished.”
At a one-day workshop on SEA, hosted by the National Council on Child
• “It was inferred, however, that given Welfare, in Khartoum, Sudan, a participant holds up a copy of the Daily
the apparently prevalent nature of the Telegraph article about SEA allegedly committed in South Darfur by UN
personnel. (UN Photo #138056 by Fred Noy, January 2007)
exploitation, both by civilian, as well as
military personnel, the levels of abuse
had probably been more serious than Declarations by and before the Security
previously thought.” Council Related to Gender-Based Violence
and Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by UN
Peacekeepers
That same day, Mr. Jean-Marie Guéhenno stated:
The Security Council would consider including
I am grateful for the privilege of addressing the relevant provisions for preventing, monitoring,
Security Council on one of the fundamental
investigating, and reporting misconduct cases
challenges facing peacekeeping today. The
in its resolutions establishing new mandates or
problem of sexual exploitation and abuse by renewing existing mandates. In that regard, the
United Nations peacekeeping personnel is an UN Secretary-General is called to include, in
abhorrent one. It represents a violation of the his regular reporting of peacekeeping missions,
duty of care owed by peacekeepers to the local a summary of the preventative measures taken
population that they are sent to serve.6
to implement a zero-tolerance policy, and of the
6 Since 1 December 2004, investigations outcome of actions taken against personnel found
have been completed into allegations of sexual culpable for sexual exploitation and abuse.
exploitation and abuse involving 152 peacekeeping
personnel (32 civilians, three civilian police, and
117 military). During the initial investigations, five
UN staff members were summarily dismissed, nine rotated home on disciplinary grounds including six
more underwent additional disciplinary processes, military commanders.
and four were cleared. On the side of uniformed 7 Security Council Press Release, SC/8400.
personnel, two members of Formed Police Units 31 May 2005. See the full text of Presidential
and 77 military personnel were repatriated or statement S/PRST/2005/21.
l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n | 141
Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein (Jordan), the
Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Sexual
Exploitation and Abuse, made a report entitled, “A
comprehensive strategy towards the elimination
of sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping
operations” in which he said:
It had become obvious that sexual exploitation,
predominantly prostitution, in at least
some United Nations operations appeared
widespread. The scale of sexual abuse – when
the exploitation became criminal – had been
somewhat more difficult to gauge. It was
inferred, however, that given the apparently
prevalent nature of the exploitation, both by
civilian, as well as military personnel, the levels
of abuse had probably been more serious than
previously thought.
For a peacekeeper to exploit the vulnerabilities
of a wounded population, already the victim of
all that was tragic and cruel in war was really no
different from a physician who would violate the
patient entrusted to their care or the lifeguard
who drowned the very people in need of rescue.
Actions of that sort punctured violently the hope
embodied by the very presence of the person
who was there to help those in need.
Sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping
operations was a most serious and tragic
issue, especially for the victims, many of whom
were young women living in the most difficult
conditions. And it carried with it the most serious
consequences for the future of peacekeeping if
Member States proved themselves incapable of
solving the problem.
Important Measures to Prevent, Control,
and Investigate SEA by UN Peacekeeping
Personnel8
First and foremost, personnel must create a culture
and environment in peacekeeping operations that
does not permit sexual exploitation and abuse. This
requires joint action by both DPKO and Member
States.
8 Ibid.
142 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
Over the past year (2004) field missions have
put in place a wide array of measures to prevent
misconduct and to enforce UN standards
of conduct. For instance, on the prevention
side, missions in Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone,
and Liberia provide induction training on
UN standards of conduct relating to sexual
exploitation and abuse.
There was a network of focal points on sexual
exploitation and abuse in all missions to facilitate
receipt of allegations, as well as telephone
hotlines in Sierra Leone and Liberia. At
Headquarters, the Department had established
a task force to develop guidance and tools for
peacekeeping operations to address sexual
exploitation and abuse effectively.
The Security Council condemns, in the strongest
terms, all acts of sexual exploitation and abuse
committed by UN peacekeeping personnel. The
Council reiterates that sexual exploitation and
abuse are unacceptable and have a detrimental
effect on the fulfilment of mission mandates.
The Security Council, while confirming that the
conduct and discipline of troops is primarily the
responsibility of Troop-Contributing Countries,
recognises the shared responsibility of the
Secretary-General and all Member States to take
every measure within their purview to prevent
sexual exploitation and abuse by all categories of
personnel in UN peacekeeping missions, and to
enforce UN standards of conduct in this regard.
The Security Council underlines that the
provision of an environment in which sexual
exploitation and abuse are not tolerated is
primarily the responsibility of managers and
commanders.
The Security Council urges the
Secretary-General to ensure that the
recommendations of the Special Committee,
which fall within their respective responsibilities,
are implemented without delay.
Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein further states in
his report:
Missions in Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, the
Congo, Ethiopia, Kosovo and Timor-Leste
had established lists of premises and areas
frequented by prostitutes, which were now out of
bounds to all personnel. There was a network of
focal points on sexual exploitation and abuse in
all missions to facilitate receipt of allegations, as
well as telephone hotlines in Sierra Leone and
Liberia.
At Headquarters, the DPKO had established a
task force aimed at developing guidance and
tools for peacekeeping operations to address
sexual exploitation and abuse effectively. For
instance, the Department was developing a
database, in coordination with the Office of
Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), to track and
monitor allegations and investigations, as well as
follow-up action.
Together with the Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs, the DPKO was
co-chairing an inter-agency task force aimed at
creating an organisational culture throughout
the United Nations system that would prevent
sexual exploitation and abuse. His Department
was cooperating closely with the OIOS, which
was in charge of investigating allegations of
sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping
missions.
DPKO hoped to establish a dedicated capacity to
address conduct issues in the form of personnel
conduct units at Headquarters and in the
field. Those units would be an essential tool for
preventing misconduct, monitoring compliance
with United Nations standards, and ensuring
swift follow-up on disciplinary cases. In an
organisation that aimed towards professional
standards, that was no longer a luxury, but a
must.
In Secretary-General’s Bulletin “Special measures
for protection from sexual exploitation and sexual
abuse,” section 3 is entitled: “Prohibition of sexual
exploitation and sexual abuse.”9
9 ST/SGB/2003/13. 9 October 2003. UN
Secretariat. Secretary-General’s Bulletin: Special
l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n
Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein of Jordan, the Secretary-General’s
Special Adviser on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, addresses an open
meeting of the Security Council on sexual exploitation and abuse by
United Nations peacekeeping personnel. UNHQ, New York. (UN Photo
#112530 by Ryan Brown, February 2006)
According to this section, sexual exploitation
and sexual abuse violate universally recognised
international legal norms and standards and have
always been considered unacceptable behaviour.
Such conduct is prohibited by the United Nations
Staff Regulations and Rules.
In order to further protect the most vulnerable
populations, especially women and children,
the following specific standards (which reiterate
existing general obligations under the United
Nations Staff Regulations and Rules) are
promulgated:
• Sexual exploitation and sexual abuse constitute
acts of serious misconduct and are therefore
grounds for disciplinary measures, including
summary dismissal;
• Sexual activity with children (persons under the
age of 18) is prohibited regardless of the local
age of majority or age of consent. Mistaken
belief in the age of a child is not a defence;
• Exchange of money, employment, goods or
services for sex, including sexual favours
or other forms of humiliating, degrading, or
exploitative behaviour, is prohibited. This
includes any exchange of assistance that is due
to beneficiaries of assistance;
measures for protection from sexual exploitation
and sexual abuse. See Appendix D.
| 143
 • Sexual relationships between United Nations
staff and beneficiaries of assistance, since
they are based on inherently unequal power
dynamics, undermine the credibility and integrity
of the work of the United Nations and are
strongly discouraged;
• Where a United Nations staff member develops
concerns or suspicions regarding sexual
exploitation or sexual abuse by a fellow worker,
whether in the same agency or not, and whether
or not within the United Nations system, he or
she must report such concerns via established
reporting mechanisms;
• United Nations staff is obliged to create and
maintain an environment that prevents sexual
exploitation and sexual abuse. Managers at
all levels have a particular responsibility to
support and develop systems that maintain this
environment.
The standards set out above are not intended to be
an exhaustive list. Other types of sexually exploitive
or sexually abusive behaviour may be grounds
for administrative action or disciplinary measures,
including summary dismissal, pursuant to the
United Nations Staff Regulations and Rules.
UNMIS police conduct a gender and children protection sensitisation
workshop with senior police officers from Bahr el Jabal State, in Juba,
Sudan. (UN Photo #116898 by Arpan Munier, November 2005)
144 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
7.3 Defining Sexual Violence,
Exploitation and Abuse
As you would expect after completing Lesson
5, definitions of sexual violence, exploitation
and abuse are like any definitions of violence:
contingent upon a number of factors including
local contexts, involved parties, and international,
regional and national legal systems. This lesson
uses the definitions provided by the UN Secretary-
General’s October 2003 Bulletin on Special
Measures for Protection from Sexual Exploitation
and Sexual Abuse.10
The Secretary-General’s Bulletin defines “sexual
exploitation” as, “any actual or attempted abuse
of a position of vulnerability, differential power, or
trust, for sexual purposes, including, but not limited
to, profiting monetarily, socially or politically from
the sexual exploitation of another.” Furthermore,
“sexual abuse” is defined as, “the actual or
threatened physical intrusion of a sexual nature,
whether by force or under unequal or coercive
conditions.” Both sexual exploitation and sexual
abuse are forms of sexual violence.
The Bulletin reiterates that sexual exploitation and
sexual abuse constitute acts of serious misconduct
and are therefore grounds for disciplinary
measures, including summary dismissal. The
Bulletin makes clear that UN personnel may not
engage in sexual activity with persons under the
age of 18, regardless of the age of sexual consent
in the country, and that it can be no defence in this
regard to be mistaken about the true age of the
child. The Bulletin applies to all UN staff (including
agencies, funds, and programmes); all partners
who enter into contracts with the UN (including
NGOs, consultants, contractors, day labourers,
interns, etc.); and all uniformed personnel (including
civilian police and military observers).
As these definitions suggest, coercion can
transform any sexual act into sexual violence.
Many people mistakenly confuse coercion with
physical violence, like beating, punching, the use
of weapons, etc. In fact, coercion can also take
psychological forms. Intimidating, frightening or
threatening someone – for instance, suggesting that
10 Ibid.
physical harm may take place if someone does not • Forced abortion;
comply with one’s sexual wishes, or blackmailing
• Violent acts against the sexual integrity of
her/him with a threat to harm her/his reputation, job,
women, including female genital mutilation and
or economic prospects – are all forms of coercion.
obligatory inspections for virginity; and
The threatened consequence needn’t even be
real. If a targeted individual has reason to fear • Forced prostitution and trafficking of people for
real consequences, that individual is experiencing the purpose of sexual exploitation.
coercion. If a person uses coercion to get another
to accept or engage in sexual acts, that person has
perpetrated sexual violence. Finally, sexual violence
has also taken place if the person targeted is unable
to freely consent to a sexual act – for example while
drugged, intoxicated, sleeping, mentally retarded, or
otherwise unable to fully understand the situation.
The following is a list of some specific forms that
sexual violence can take:11
• Rape within marriage or dating relationships;
• Rape by strangers;
• Systematic rape during armed conflict;12
• Unwanted sexual advances or sexual
harassment, including demanding sex in return Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan meets with victims of sexual
for favours;13 violence. (Source: UN Phoot #77090, Evan Schneider, 27 May 2005)
• Sexual abuse of mentally or physically disabled
Sexual violence may be used as a tool to punish
people;
individuals for perceived violations of social norms
• Sexual abuse of children; or religious, ethical, or moral codes. While the act
itself may be (or appear) sexual, the “underlying
• Forced marriage or cohabitation, including the
purpose is frequently the expression of power and
marriage of children;
dominance over the person assaulted.”14
• Denial of the right to use contraception or to
adopt other measures to protect against sexually Power and Inequality are Key
transmitted diseases;
It will be useful here to recall the three ways of
11 Global Perspectives on Sexual Violence: relating power and violence discussed in the
Findings from the World Health Organization’s “Political Theories of Violence” section of Lesson
2002 World Report on Violence and Health 4 (represented by C. Wright Mills, Hannah
(National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2004: Arendt, and Stanley Milgram). Whether you see
available from www.nsvrc.org and www.pcar.org) violence primarily as power’s most extreme form
12 World Health Organization (2002) World Report
on Violence and Health, Geneva, p. 149. (Available of expression (Mills), as a sign that power is in
at http://www.who.int/violence_injury _prevention/ jeopardy and in need of re-assertion (Arendt), or,
violence/world_report/en/) as something that arises as a function of authority-
13 “Sexual harassment” is defined elsewhere obedience dynamics (Milgram), relationships
by the UN as, “any unwelcome sexual advance, between power and sexual violence are
request for sexual favours or other verbal or
undeniable.
physical conduct of a sexual nature, when it
interferes with work, is made a condition of
employment or creates an intimidating, hostile
or offensive work environment.” (Administrative
Instruction ST/AI/379 of October 1992) 14 Ibid. p.5.
l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n | 145
 It is not only that the purpose and/or effects
of sexual violence, in many cases, may be to
demonstrate power and dominance over the
assaulted individual (or that individual’s family or
community members). Often, the mere presence
of power inequality has the potential to facilitate
everything from sexual harassment in the workplace
to initially‑consensual‑but‑then‑coerced sexual
relations between lovers, to rape by strangers,
and to the use of rape, forced impregnation, and
deliberate HIV-infection as weapons of war.
UNOCI staff members take part in SEA (Sexual Exploitation and Abuse)
awareness training. Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. (UNOCI Photo/Ky Chung,
March 2005)
Virtually anyone can commit sexual violence,
exploitation and abuse. However, as a rule, those
who have more power are far more likely to be
perpetrators, and those who are less powerful
are much more vulnerable to becoming victims.
Individuals working as peacekeepers, civilian
police, or other Peace Support Operations staff will
nearly always have more power than, and often
power over, the people they are working to protect
and assist.
Paradoxically, one of the most striking features
of many cases of sexual exploitation, abuse, or
violence is that the perpetrator does not perceive
himself to have done anything wrong or harmful
to the so-called victim.15 As you will read below
15 In this lesson, the male pronoun is consistently
used for perpetrators and the female pronoun
for victims. This is not because women never
perpetrate sexual violence, nor because men and
boys are never its victims. It is due to the fact that,
146 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
in the section on rape myths, sometimes this is
because the perpetrator (even of rape) does not
consider harming a woman sexually to be possible
or a problem. He may believe women are the
sexual property of men, or that men are rightfully
entitled to sex whenever and wherever they want it,
regardless of the wishes of their partners. However,
in cases of sexual harm, men have genuinely
perceived the encounters as less harmful than their
victims have done.
This is at least partly because of a psychosocial
phenomenon by which humans are rarely as aware
of their power as they are of the ways in which they
lack power. One tends not to notice one’s ability
to carry out one’s own wishes without interruption
or impediment. One is far likelier to notice, to
remember, and to feel harmed in lasting ways by
experiences of being stopped from doing the things
one wants to do. Thus, even police officers and
soldiers often experience themselves as relatively
powerless. This is true in spite of the fact that most
citizens think of them as fairly powerful (and in a
post-conflict situation, they may find them terrifying
as well).
Indeed, from the perspective of most soldiers and
police officers, their power is very limited. They are
neither politicians nor high-level administrators with
major decision-making authority in most cases.
They can often not control their shift assignments,
their geographic postings, or much else about
their working lives. However, as noted above, in
the context of peace support operations, they
will almost always have more power in relation to
the local populace than those people will have in
relation to UN or other international personnel.
since the overwhelming predominance of sexual
violence cases do involve male perpetrators and
female victims, the otherwise preferable practice
of using gender-equivalent or gender-neutral
pronouns would substantially misrepresent reality.
7.4 Some Types of Sexual Violence,
Exploitation and Abuse
Rape
Rape is what often comes to mind when one
hears the phrase “sexual violence.” It refers to a
person forcing another person to have sex with
them. Different legal jurisdictions further define
the term in various ways. Sometimes the crime is
limited to forced penile-vaginal or anal intercourse;
sometimes to forced vaginal or anal penetration
by any object; or it may include oral sex according
to some legal codes. The key element is that it
involves the use of violence or threat of violence
by a person against someone for sex against that
person’s will and without their consent.
In one nation, a practice known as bauk (gang
rape) is carried out by young males against women,
most often women who are low-status because
they are prostitutes or are perceived to be sexually
promiscuous. According to a researcher for CARE
International, Tong Soprach, with commercial sex
workers, bauk generally occurs after one (or two)
youth(s) negotiate a price with a commercial sex
worker, or solicit a woman’s affection and arrange
a proposed destination for sexual intercourse. The
woman is taken to a hotel or guesthouse, where
numerous other young men are waiting (or will
soon arrive). The youths coerce the woman into
having sex with them all without permission, often
accompanied by violence.16
In a focus group with boys for another WHO study,
the majority of group members admitted having
participated in bauk. One participant described his
experience:
My elder brother [and I]… took a girl for sex.
But when we were ready for sex, there were ten
other people waiting to have sex with her. After
the fourth man, she refused to go further with
the fifth one. Then, we beat her and forced her to
agree. This means doing bauk.17
16 Tong Soprach, Playing Safe Project. CARE
International in Cambodia & Gender and
Development for Cambodia. Cambodia 2004.
17 A Model for Adolescent-friendly Sexual and
Reproductive Health Services in Cambodia
(Wilkinson, 2003): 17.
l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n
Maria Do Rosario Racoes (right), United Nations Integrated Mission in
Timor-Leste (UNMIT) Head of the Vulnerable Persons Unit of UN Police
in Dili, talking to a victim of rape and witness of a murder. Dili, Timor-
Leste. (UN Photo #150522 by Martine Perret, August 2007)
Soprach concluded that “the perpetrators do not see
their actions as being shameful enough to be worth
hiding,” and noted that this was a generalization that
could be extended to the issue of rape generally in
Cambodia, as it relates to male-female relationships.
Soprach continued, “[T]he concept of sexual
consent [is] an idea that is still largely absent from
the language of…men.” This observation echoed a
similar one made by another organization’s report,
this one about marital sex:
…women are still perceived by many as objects
for sex…seem to have little power to negotiate
sexual relations with their husbands…[and it is
culturally expected that they] should be sexually
available to their husband at all times.18
Survival Sex
Faela [not her real name] is 13 and her son
Joseph is just under six months old. Sitting
on the dusty ground in Bunia’s largest camp
for Internally Displaced People [in eastern
Democratic Republic of the Congo], with Joseph
in her arms, she talks about how she ensures
that she and her son are fed. ‘If I go and see the
soldiers at night and sleep with them then they
sometimes give me food, maybe a banana or
18 Hammarberg, Katarina, 2004. Rape:
Attitudes and Solutions in Cambodia, ADHOC,
DanChurchAid, Phnom Penh: 9.
| 147
 a cake,’ she explains. ‘I have to do it with them
because there is nobody to care, nobody else to
protect Joseph except me. He is all I have and I
must look after him.’ (Holt, BBC News, 2004)19
This account describes a phenomenon that
has come to be called “obligation” or “survival”
sex. It can occur in many contexts where Peace
Support Operations are active, because it arises
particularly out of poverty existing side-by-side
with considerable wealth. While peacekeepers
and associated staff may not think of themselves
as wealthy in their home countries, UN salaries
typically make them wealthy in comparison to the
communities they serve.
What is so wrong with having sex with someone
who is hungry and giving that person food in
return? For one thing, in the example above, the
person offering to exchange sex for food was under
18 years of age, and thus a child according to the
age limit set by the UN Convention on the Rights
of the Child. Having sex with a child violates UN
policies and possibly also local laws. Perhaps,
though, you come from a country where girls are
allowed to marry at the age of 14 or 16. You might
find this definition of childhood unreasonable. Or,
what if the person offering sex for food is an adult
woman? Isn’t what she does with her own body her
own decision to make? After all, isn’t that one of the
arguments made by advocates of women’s rights?
The easy answer to these questions is that what
you think about any of these things is irrelevant:
laws are laws, and UN policy is UN policy. As a
UN employee, your obligations and responsibilities
would be clear and not optional. You would have a
duty to care that you would have no doubt learned
about in training for your position. You would also
have surely been trained on the kinds of activities
which are prohibited for all UN personnel involved
in Peace Support Operations, among them sexual
activity of any kind with persons under 18, and
the exchange of money, employment, goods, or
services for sex. Even consensual adult sexual
relationships between UN staff and those who
19 Quoted in Otto, D. (2007) “Making sense
of zero tolerance policies in peacekeeping sexual
economies” in Sexuality and the Law, Munro,
V. and Stychin, C. eds., Abingdon, Routledge-
Cavendish, 259-282.
148 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
benefit from UN or other humanitarian assistance,
while not absolutely prohibited in all circumstances,
are strongly discouraged. This is for the very
reasons that are laid out above: humanitarian and
peace support operations take place in contexts
of great poverty, desperation and traumatization.
By definition, UN and other aid workers will have
access to vastly more power and resources than
aid recipients, so non-exploitative relationships will
be very difficult, if not impossible, to establish and
maintain – even with the best of intentions.
Having said all of this, on the ground, it may be
that you will encounter at least one of the following
situations:
• You will see or hear about others violating UN
policies in relation to sexual conduct;
• You will be confronted with the decision of
whether or not to break one of these policies
yourself;
• The UN’s policies will be the topic of disgruntled
conversation among your colleagues and/or
members of the communities you serve.
Therefore, it may be useful to take this opportunity
to think through how you might handle such
situations if and when they arise.
Writing Exercise 7-B: Duty to Care
Imagine you are a man working in or near a refugee camp that has been established because of an armed conflict
nearby. UNHCR is running the camp. Conditions in the camp are difficult and poverty is extreme. Many agencies
are trying to help, but there just isn’t enough aid to meet the need. People are still going hungry.
You have been on this mission for more than four months. During the days, when you’re busy working, you manage
okay. You feel like you’re helping at least a little, but you’re also looking forward to going home. At night though,
you’re tired, lonely, and more than almost anything else, you’re bored. If your religion and health permit, sometimes
you drink to pass the time, or you play cards with the other personnel.
You’re aware that some of the other men go to bars where they visit prostitutes. You’ve never joined them because
it’s against the rules and you’re afraid of getting HIV. Or maybe you’re married and you’re trying to be faithful to your
wife. You’re also aware of the fact that women and girls sometimes come around the men’s sleeping quarters at
night, and that some of the men have sex with them.
One night, when no one else is around, one of these women comes to your door or your tent. She tells you that
she has three children who are nearly starving. One of them is sick and she needs money to pay a doctor. There’s
a UNHCR medic, but she only comes around once every two weeks -- that’s too long to wait. The woman can pay
someone to get a local doctor to travel out to the camp, but she has no way to access cash. There are simply no
jobs available for refugees at this time. You know she’s right about all of these conditions and you feel torn.
You could just give her some money, but the danger is that you’ll become known as the local bank. Tomorrow there
could be a whole line of women outside your quarters begging for handouts. You could talk to someone at UNHCR
for her, but you know as well as she does that resources are scarce and there’s probably not much anyone else can
do for her.
Then there’s the fact that you haven’t had sex for a really long time, much longer than you’re accustomed to going
without sex. You’ve grown bored with masturbation. Or, say you come from a country or culture where masturbation
is seen as something only little boys do, and it makes you ashamed to do it. If you are from such a country or
culture, you might also believe that your semen must be released at least once per week for you to be healthy. You
could have feelings as though you’re actually going to be ill from not having sex in such a long time. Even if you
know this is a scientifically baseless superstition (which it is, by the way – nothing bad happens even to men whose
semen is never released!), you might still harbour a sense of fear and unease about this that you can’t quite ignore.
Here is a woman offering you sex. No one is around. No one will know but you and her. She is clearly in genuine
need. Helping her would be a good thing to do, right? What could possibly be so wrong about having sex with a
woman in this situation? You think to yourself “Isn’t the rule against it like a lot of rules made up in New York City or
Geneva, by people who don’t know what it’s really like in the field?”
What do you do?
l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n | 149
 Human Trafficking
In considering this question, please take the time to write out some of your thoughts in response to the following
supplementary questions: Trafficking of (usually) women and children for
sexual exploitation is both itself a form of sexual
1. How might the following provisions of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) apply to this violence – in that it involves forcing people to
situation? engage in sexual activity against their will – and
• Article 25.1: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself consists of a series of activities that place victims
and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and at risk for multiple forms of sexual assault along
the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of the way. According to the international Palermo
livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish
Trafficking in Persons, trafficking in persons
• Article 25.2: Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. means: “the recruitment, transportation, transfer,
harbouring or receipt of persons...by means of
2. What does your “duty to care” mean to you in this situation? How can you best fulfil that duty? threat or use of force or other forms of coercion,
of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse
3. More generally, what does the “duty to care” mean in a situation in which the very employer who has assigned of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the In Savannakhet, in Laos, a woman covers her daughter’s face to protect
you this duty has not provided you with the means to provide that care? Feeding people is “outside your giving or receiving of payments or benefits to her identity. This girl was trafficked when she was 16 years old and
mandate.” But the organizations whose mandates it is have obviously been unable to fully meet that mandate achieve the consent of a person...for the purpose spent 7 years as a domestic at the residence of a Bangkok business man,
for reasons that are far bigger than anything you can control in the world. You are just one individual in a much of exploitation.” Exploitation is further defined
where she was tortured and beat. (UNICEF Photo, Jim Holmes)
larger situation, and here you are, confronted by a woman in desperate need. The UN did not give you an as including, “at a minimum, the exploitation of Trafficking becomes even more prevalent in
allowance with which to feed people who show up asking for food. So what does the “duty to care” really mean the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual conditions of conflict and crisis because people
under circumstances of insufficient resources with which to truly aid the people one is meant to care for? exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery are so desperate to escape hunger, destitution
or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the and violence that they will take risks that would
Now, having considered these questions, ask yourself the following: removal of organs…”20 ordinarily be unthinkable. If there is any hope that
it may bring improved conditions, potential victims
4. What would having sex with this woman do to her? Even if you’re gentle, even if the sex itself seems enjoyable The victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation are may:
to you and you think it’s also enjoyable for her, what do you think it might do to someone’s spirit (not just her often raped or otherwise assaulted as part of the
body) to have received help but only on condition of sex? Is this violence? Cultural, institutional, or direct? process of ensuring their submission en route to • Accept “job offers” abroad without fully knowing
Psychological or spiritual violence? a destination where they will be forced to work in or understanding the circumstances;
the sex industry. They are also often subjected to • Agree to work in a brothel abroad for a period
5. Maybe you think the sex could help her feel better, rather than injuring her. Perhaps you think the act of sexual violence in the course of their work within of time, thinking they will be able to escape
exchanging a service for help would be better for the woman’s pride than it would be to receive a handout. that industry. once they arrive, and/or believing they will be in
Prostitution, after all, is a job for many women (and some men). Isn’t this effectively a form of employment?
control of the conditions of their work when this
Like survival sex, trafficking for all forms of is not actually the case;
If you think any of the above might be the case (and even if you don’t), ask yourself the following set of questions: labour exploitation becomes possible and thrives
in conditions of extreme poverty combined • “Voluntarily” accept work in a coercive
6. If you found yourself forced from your home, forced to live someplace in the middle of a huge camp of displaced with transnational inequality. When one nation commercial sex establishment because it offers
and desperate people where there was not enough food, no jobs, and no prospects that your situation would or region’s economy is far stronger than a the only hope of survival, or of supporting one’s
be improving any time soon, what would you do? If your children were starving; if you were starving; if someone neighbouring nation or region’s, conditions are family members; or
you loved was sick and the only way you could think of to get them help was to have sex with a stranger for ripe for both trafficking and migrant smuggling, as • Find themselves in situations in which they are
money, would you do it even if that stranger was someone much richer than you, much more powerful, from citizens of the poorer location believe fleeing to more vulnerable to being kidnapped into the sex
another country? If you did have sex for food, or for money in this situation, how would feel afterward about more economically secure areas – or participating industry, such as being forced out of their homes
yourself, in front of your children or your wife, or other members of your family? Would you feel violated in any in illegal enterprises – will provide them with and separated from family and community.
way? greater access to resources.

7. Finally, consider the fact that in making this decision about whether to have sex with a stranger, that stranger
might actually rape you. If you’re a man thinking of sex with a woman to get food or money, you might be having 20 UN A/55/383, November 2, 2000: Palermo
trouble imagining this last possibility. Assume that the woman who had the resources would have a few men Convention on Organised Crime, “Protocol to
Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in
helping her. Imagine that you would have to have sex with a woman in front of these four or five uniformed men
Persons, especially Women and Children,” Article
from her country and that they might well decide to join in, and things could get violent. How does this affect 3a. For the text of the Convention see: <http://www.
your decision, if at all? uncjin.org/Documents/Conventions>.

150 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n | 151

Potential perpetrators and accomplices – male or
female – may be willing to engage in activities they
know to be illegal out of economic desperation, or
merely out of a sense of hopelessness or that the
rules no longer matter, such as:
• Transporting women and girls across borders
in the boots of their cars for money, goods, or
favours;
• Convincing female friends or family members
to go along with individuals they know or
suspect to be involved with exploitative labour
(sexual or otherwise), and/or organized criminal
enterprises, in exchange for a fee; or
• “Looking the other way” if they are in a position
to prohibit or report trafficking-related activities,
in exchange for a bribe, sex, or some other
remuneration.
Systemic gender inequality makes women and
girl children especially vulnerable to trafficking for
sexual exploitation for at least two reasons. First,
as noted in earlier lessons, gender inequality can
itself be a form of cultural sexual violence21 as
when women are seen as the sexual property of
men so that selling them sexually to others as part
of a trafficking scheme would not fundamentally
violate this aspect of cultural norms. Second,
gender inequality greatly facilitates direct sexual
violence within trafficking for all of the same
reasons it does so elsewhere. When girls and
women are seen as less than fully equal to men
and boys, hurting them is easier because to do
so is less of a social taboo; their lesser value
and importance also gives them, structurally,
lesser access to resources with which to protect
themselves.
Prostitution?
Women working in the commercial sex industry
are at especially high risk for rape and other
forms of sexual violence. This is in part because
the men who purchase sex, having paid a fee,
may view themselves as therefore entitled to do
anything they want to the women they have paid.
21 See Lesson 4: cultural violence is “used to
justify or legitimize direct or structural violence…
Cultural violence makes direct and structural
violence look, even feel, right – or at least not
wrong.”
152 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
It is also in part because commercial sex workers
are typically seen as having lower social status,
often because prostitution is illegal and because it
is often poverty (and the belief that they can earn
relatively higher wages in this industry) that draws
women into the profession. Where illegal, the
illegality of prostitution also increases sex workers’
vulnerability because they are perceived to be safer
targets for violence – perpetrators view prostitutes
as unlikely to call the police since they may be
arrested themselves for an illegal activity.
Is prostitution, by its very nature, a form of sexual
violence? Different people have different ways
of answering this question. Some argue that
sexual services should be seen as similar to
other kinds of human services, like food service,
massage, acupuncture, etc., and that they should
be de-stigmatized and legalized as a result. From
this perspective (often called a regulationist
approach), changing the way prostitution is viewed
socially would decrease the problems that often
accompany prostitution, including discrimination
against commercial sex workers and the increased
risks of sexual violence and sexually transmitted
diseases like HIV that they face on the job.
Other aspects of the regulationist position (though
not all regulationists agree) include the argument
that prostitution could be a liberating profession
for women. A profession in which women could
truly control, and profit from, their own sexuality –
given worldwide histories of male control of female
sexuality – might be one that advances women’s
freedom. This would only be so, however, if the
occupation could be made safe and healthy and if
women had reasonable access to equally well-paid
alternate forms of labour.
So long as commercial sex work remains illegal
in most places, remains one of the only kinds of
employment available in these areas, and/or exists
alongside a relative absence of jobs for women
that pay liveable wages, it is impossible to claim
that the women who voluntarily work in the industry
are doing so in conditions of complete freedom.
Many regulationists would note that the same
could be said for men or women who choose to
take jobs in occupations that place them at high
risk of illness or injury, such as illegal migrant work
on farms that use dangerous chemical pesticides,
with construction crews, deep-sea fishing vessels,
miners, or workers in other dangerous professions.
When economic conditions are such that people
feel forced to take jobs that involve breaking the
law, and/or that place them at high risk of violence,
questions of coercion and exploitation inevitably
arise.
In sharp contrast to the regulationist perspective
on prostitution, abolitionists believe that all
prostitution is by definition exploitative and harmful
to women. Some go so far as to argue that
prostitution is always and everywhere a form of
violence against women. From this perspective, the
commercialization of sex and of women’s bodies
is a fundamental violation of human dignity. The
only way to eliminate violence against women,
and to address gender inequality, according to
abolitionists, is to abolish prostitution altogether.
This would require universal criminalization
of prostitution and the vast improvement of
mechanisms for arresting, prosecuting and
punishing those who purchase and/or profit from
commercialized sexual activity.
Regardless of your own views on prostitution,
varieties of it are likely to be widespread in the
areas around Peace Support Operations. For the
purposes of this course, four points are vital to
make. First, to repeat, the Secretary-General’s
Bulletin prohibits the exchange of money,
employment, goods, or services for sex. This
includes any and all utilization of the services of
prostitutes.
Second, in the context of a post-conflict
environment, you can be assured of the
overwhelming likelihood that any commercial
sexual activity in the area is in some way
exploitative and that it has been preceded by,
or is currently accompanied by, some form of
violence or trauma to the women and girls involved.
Post-conflict environments are simply not ones
in which a decision to enter a commercial sex
occupation is likely to be made without the woman
feeling in some way coerced into that decision.
(Girls under the age of 18, by definition, are legally
unable to consent to commercial sex work.) Even
if violence, trauma, and coercion are not visible to
l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n
you, this does not mean they are not present. The
owners of commercial sex establishments, and
indeed, commercial sex workers themselves, have
strong economic and legal incentives to hide all
evidence of violence, trauma and coercion.
Third, should you decide to purchase the services
of a prostitute against all the laws and policies of
the UN, your own nation, and the host country, you
need to know this fact: you will not be able to tell
whether a sex worker/prostitute has been trafficked
or not. This is a fact based on considerable
research, including interviews with civilian police
and peacekeepers.22
UNMIK police interviewing possible victims of human trafficking in
Kosovo. 7 June 2006. (Source: UNMIK Photo, Afrim Hajrullahu)
Trafficking victims will not necessarily appear
injured or traumatized. They may be clean and
healthy-looking. They may even appear to enjoy
working in the brothel, or wherever they work. They
may have very convincing stories about why they
are there and about how it is good for them to be
doing this job. They may say they are free to come
and go as they please. They may even be able to
demonstrate this apparent freedom of movement.
Of course, all of these things may be true! The
point is, you will almost certainly not have any
reliable way of determining this.
You may know the brothel owner. You may know
and like his family. You may know police officers or
soldiers or other men who go to a particular night
22 Please note that the course author
conducted a year of research on sex trafficking in
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
| 153
bar and have visits with the women there. You may
trust them, and they may say it is safe and that
the women are not trafficked. None of these facts
are evidence that the sex workers are working
voluntarily. They may still be victims of trafficking.
You will have no way of knowing for sure. If they
are victims of trafficking and you purchase their
services (or if you know of other UN staff members
who do and fail to report it), not only will you be
in violation of UN and other policies on sexual
conduct, but you may well be an accomplice in
transnational organized crime, as well, and subject
to criminal prosecution.
Fourth and finally, even if you feel confident that
the woman is not a trafficking victim, it is important
to recall that you are still in a context of extreme
economic and power inequality, one that is rife
with trauma and recent violence. Under these
conditions, a good ethical guideline might be to ask
yourself, “How sure can I really be that what looks
like prostitution here is not just another form of
survival sex?”
7.5 Prevalence of Sexual Violence Percentage of Women Over 16 Years Old who Reported Being
Sexually Assaulted in 1992-1997 (Selected Cities)
Sexual violence is a difficult phenomenon to
measure accurately. First, as the definition above
makes clear, it can be defined to include a very
wide array of activities. Second, many of these
activities occur in private or hidden spaces; they
may be associated with other illegal acts such
as trafficking or prostitution and thus deliberately
concealed; or, they may be so accepted within
their given context that no one would think to
report them as violence. Finally, definitions used
by different researchers in different places make
it challenging to combine or compare figures from
multiple studies. Nevertheless, enough studies
have been done to permit the estimation of certain
forms of sexual violence.
The following tables provide data on sexual
assaults of women over the age of 16 in several
cities around the world. They also provide
information on population-based surveys of adult
women reporting sexual victimization by their
intimate partners, as well as violence experienced
by women involved in prostitution.

Percentage of Adult Women Reporting Sexual Victimization (Attempted or

Complete Forced Sex) by an Intimate Partner: Selected Population-Based
Surveys Conducted in 1989-2000

Violence in Prostitution (in Percentage)

154 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n | 155

 Violence in the Lives of People in Prostitution (in Percentage)
A summary of key findings presented in the WHO
Report, “Global Perspectives on Sexual Violence”
is provided in Box 7-C. A recent review of sexual
violence research in the United States reports an
estimate that “at least 20% of all females in the
United States will be the victims of sexual violence
during their lifetimes.”23
7.6 Conditions in which Sexual
Violence and Exploitation are Most
Likely to Occur
Every event of sexual violence involves a complex
confluence of factors that varies depending on
context; isolating which factors are involved in any
one event can be difficult. More useful than asking
what causes sexual violence is the question, what
are the conditions that make sexual violence more
rather than less likely in a given time and place?
Chances are, there will always be a combination
of structural, institutional, individual, cultural, and
situational factors at work. This does not mean
that a given perpetrator has all of these factors in
mind when he carries out an act of sexual violence.
Rather, it means any act of sexual violence
emerges out of a complicated web of things that,
combined or intersecting differently, may have
produced other outcomes instead.
23 Brian P. Marx, ‘Lessons Learned from the
Last Twenty Years of Sexual Violence Research,’
Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 20.2 (February
2005): 225-230.
156 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
Cultural Conditions
Cultural conditions here refer to the kinds of
meanings assigned to men, women, sex, and
gender roles in a given society and their known or
hypothesized relationships to sexual violence. A
comprehensive review of research worldwide is far
beyond the scope of this course, but a sampling
will provide a snapshot of what kinds of findings
emerge from studies in different places.
“Rape Myths”
A U.S. sociologist, Gibbons, reviewing available
research24 on sexual violence perpetrators in
1984, noted that rapists and other convicted sex
offenders had been shown to hold more hostile
views toward women than other men and that they
more frequently found images of violence against
women sexually stimulating. Furthermore, the
offenders more often expressed agreement with
“rape myths.”
“Rape myths” are inaccurate beliefs held by people
within a society that make rape seem non-serious
or acceptable as an activity. Examples of rape
myths include the following statements:
• Women often make false claims of rape;
• Women often say “No” to sex when they mean
“Yes”;
24 Donald C. Gibbons, “Forcible Rape and Sexual
Violence,” Research in Crime and Delinquency,
21.3 (August, 1984): 251-269.
Box 7-C: Summary of Sexual Violence Prevalence Findings from “Global Perspectives on Sexual
Violence,” of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2002 World Report on Violence and Health
• In some countries, up to one-third of adolescent girls report forced sexual initiation.
• Mass rape of women and girls is used as a weapon of war; between 10,000 and 60,000 women and girls were
raped during the wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995.
• Sexual violence against men and boys is a serious and understudied problem. Studies show that 5-10 per cent of
men report a history of childhood sexual abuse.
• Women are subjected to sexual violence in health care settings, including sexual harassment, genital mutilation,
forced gynaecological procedures, threatened or forced abortions, and inspections of virginity.
• Hundreds of thousands of women and girls throughout the world are forcibly trafficked and prostituted each year.
• Sexual violence in schools occurs at an alarming rate; in Canadian schools 23% of girls experience sexual
harassment. (p.2)
• Nearly one in four women may experience sexual violence by an intimate partner in her lifetime.
• The practice of marrying off children as young as seven or eight is not uncommon. Forced marriage brings with it
forced sexual initiation for children.
• Findings from international studies show that 20% of women report a history of childhood sexual abuse.
• Evidence suggests that males may be even less likely than females to report sexual assaults to authorities due to
shame, guilt, fear of not being believed or of being denounced.
• Currently and formerly incarcerated men widely report rape by fellow inmates, prison officials, and police in many
countries. (p.6)
• Women who are raped often ask for it (they want A study of sexual behaviour among Cambodian
to be raped); military service members25 found the following
beliefs about gender and sexuality held by male
• Rape is usually a crime of passion; or
soldiers:
• It is okay for a boy/man to make a girl/woman
have sex with him if she has flirted with him or Frequent sexual intercourse is considered
led him on. masculine in Cambodia as it is in many cultures.
Frequent means three times per day or even
These statements are adapted from two different more. A low sexual drive or apparent lack of
surveys conducted in Australia in 1995 and 2001 to desire, may be construed as not masculine
evaluate the degree to which Australian men and or even a sign of incipient homosexuality... At
boys agreed with attitudes supportive of sexual the same time, there is a belief among some
violence. The findings that a “significant minority uniformed servicemen...that only the missionary
of Australian males agree with violence-supportive position [front-to-front, man on top] is normal,
beliefs and myths, and [that] males continue to that Khmer wives would not agree to other
show more violence-supportive attitudes than sexual positions and that “severe positions” are
females” are presented in Box 7-D. impolite, disrespectful or even dangerous [to
women].
25 Ian Ramage, “Strong Fighting: Sexual Behavior
and HIV/AIDS in the Cambodian Uniformed
Services.” Prepared for Family Health International/
IMPACT Cambodia, December 2002.
l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n | 157
 to constructions of male honour in which that the ability to endure pain and suffering, can have
honour is dependent upon particular relationships a negative side effect: teaching men and boys that
Box 7-D: Summary of Findings Regarding Australian Males’
to women and femininity.26 Usually, these violence is normal.
Attitudes Supportive of Sexual Violence
constructions of male honour involve:
• Over a third of men (37%) disagreed with the statement that “women rarely make false claims of rape.” [A]thletes are over-represented among the men
• Strict rules about the separation of men and
who commit acts of sexual assault and domestic
• One-fifth of men (19%) agreed that “women often say ‘No’ when they mean ‘Yes’.” women (except in certain domestic settings)
violence. Two American studies found that while
such that women are perceived as contaminants
• One in six agreed that “women who are raped often ask for it” and “rape is usually a crime of passion” (Office of sports team members make up two or three
in male spaces and any perceived signs of
the Status of Women, 1995: 144-150). per cent of the university population, they are
femininity among men are violently repressed or
responsible for 20 to 30 per cent of reported
• Men have narrower definitions of domestic violence than women; they are less likely to include forms of suppressed.
incidents of violence against women. Another
psychological abuse, and they attach a lesser degree of seriousness to most forms of domestic violence (ibid,
• Women’s virginity is seen as male property that study found that athletes report significantly
p.11).
must be guarded, and non-virgin women are greater agreement with rape-supportive
• About one in seven boys and young men in Australia also express beliefs supportive of sexual violence. viewed as less valuable. statements than men in general.27
• A recent national survey of 5,000 young people aged 12 to 20 found that 14 to 15 per cent of males agreed with • Women’s sexuality generally is viewed as the
The Cambodian study28 of sexual behaviour among
the statement that “it is okay for a boy to make a girl have sex with him if she has flirted with him or led him on” property of first her male family members and
men in the armed forces, again, linked frequent
(National Crime Prevention 2001: 64-70). then her husband; rape is viewed as a crime
heterosexual sex with commercial sex workers – as
against those male family members, not as a
• “Young males are less likely than young females to consider particular behaviours to be domestic violence, more well as risky sexual behaviour in relation to HIV –
crime against the woman.
likely to see them as normal conflict, less likely to rate a range of forms of violence as very serious, and more with dominant masculinity, if not directly with sexual
likely to agree with statements which condone violence” (National Crime Prevention, 2001: 58-64). • Men are understood to be entitled to relatively violence.
free sexual access to women’s bodies; or a
Source: Michael Flood, “Engaging Men: Strategies and Dilemmas in Violence Prevention Education Among Men,” double sexual standard exists where men are The culture of masculinity in the military is widely
Women Against Violence, 13 (2002-2003): 26. permitted far greater sexual freedom than recognized in armed forces around the world.
women. In some countries, soldiers are considered the
These beliefs contribute to the widespread use To review, research from many sources suggest epitome of masculinity and this belief is widely
of commercial sex workers and function to some that the key cultural conditions in which sexual In some cases, there may be individual men in reinforced in popular culture. Masculinity and
degree like “rape myths” in that violence against violence against women is most prevalent are male-dominated organizations, such as fraternities, [frequent] sexual activity are strongly linked
prostitutes (such as the practice of bauk, or gang those in which men are most likely to hold sports teams, or military units, who accept a and in Cambodia, the dominant military culture
rape, described above) is common and facilitated beliefs that make such violence seem normal or version of masculine honour that may facilitate equates visiting sex workers and multiple
by the cultural separation of women into two acceptable. A comprehensive report by the World sexual violence. partners with being a real, strong man.
categories: wives and prostitutes. Wives are viewed Health Organization, entitled “Global Perspectives
as sexually conservative and physically delicate, on Sexual Violence,” confirms this. It lists the Michael Flood, an Australian sociologist who has Structural, Economic and Institutional
while prostitutes are available as outlets for following among its “risk factors found to increase written extensively on the issue of male violence, Conditions
men’s pent-up sexuality (whose expression, often men’s risk of committing rape” transnationally: has observed that “sport is an important site for
aggressive – in “severe positions” – is considered teaching boys and men some of the key values Sexual violence has been found to be much more
• Holding attitudes and beliefs that are supportive associated with dominant masculinity, such prevalent in societies with high degrees of gender
necessary to their masculinity). As one police
of sexual violence and hostile towards women; as extreme competitiveness, aggression and inequality, regardless of the level of economic
officer was quoted, in speaking about how he has
and dominance.” He points out that other features of development. Women report being more fearful
to treat his wife in contrast to how commercial sex
workers can be treated: • Magnification of male honour and entitlement. sporting culture, such as the high value placed on than men, and less likely to go out in public
after dark, in societies with high levels of sexual
I have to respect [my wife] and I also have Male Honour and Entitlement violence.
to treat her well. Also, I am afraid of making
her have problems with her health after sex. I What does male honour mean? Surely male honour 26 National Sexual Violence Resource Centre,
Global perspectives on sexual violence: Findings 27 Michael Flood, “Engaging Men: Strategies and
mean that if I have sex with my wife with severe alone cannot be responsible for sexual violence.
from the World Report on Violence and Health, Dilemmas in Violence Prevention Education Among
techniques, sometimes it could make her hurt When studies of sexual violence have found 2004, at <http://www.nsvrc.org/_cms/fileUpload/ Men,” Women Against Violence, 13 (2002-2003):
and then she could possibly get an unexpected linkages between cultures that have particularly global_perspectives.pdf>. WHO, World Report on 28, citing: Demause, 2000; Frintner & Rubinson,
disease. high rates of such violence and ideologies of male Violence and Health, Chapter 6 Sexual violence 1993; Boeringer, 1999; Robinson, 1998; West,
honour and entitlement, they are referring (Geneva: WHO, 2002): 162, at <http://www.who. 1996; Schacht, 1996; and Halloran & Magnay,
int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/global_ 2003.
campaign/en/chap6.pdf>. 28 Op. cit., Ramage.

158 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n | 159


Survivors of sexual violence receive treatment at the Hospital of Panzi,
a non-profit health centre focusing on improving the quality of medical
care for the population, reducing the maternal and infant death rate,
and providing treatment for the victims of sexual violence. South Kivu,
Democratic Republic of the Congo. (UN Photo #160026, Marie Frechon,
September 2007)
For instance, a 1981 study by U.S. anthropologist
Dr. Sanday reviewed findings from more than 150
different non-industrial societies, some of which
recorded high rates of rape and some of which had
little to no rape at all. She concluded that “rape
is part of a cultural configuration which includes
interpersonal violence, male dominance, and
sexual separation;” that is, separation of the sexes
into distinct social spheres.
What conditions lead to such cultural configurations
and a corresponding emphasis on male
dominance, sexual inequality and violence? Dr.
Sanday’s research showed that these cultural
features appear most often in societies that
suffer from hunger, migration, “and other factors
that promote dependence on male destructive
capacities as opposed to sexual equality.”29 It is
worth noting that these are precisely the kinds of
conditions that occur in post-conflict environments.
29 Donald C. Gibbons, “Forcible Rape and Sexual
Violence,” Research in Crime and Delinquency,
21.3 (August, 1984): 251-269 {citing Sanday 1981:
5}.
160 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
Writing Exercise 7-E: Myths or Truths?
How many of the “rape myths” above sounded
somewhat true to you? Are there other beliefs
about women (or men) and sex that you’ve
heard and that sound similar or related to
these? Beliefs such as:
• Men have to have sex frequently, at least
x times per day/month/year. If they don’t, it
means:
- They are insufficiently masculine;
- There is something wrong with them;
- They will become ill;
- They will become violent; and
- They will develop other psychological
or physical problems.
• Sex with one’s wife is entirely different from
sex with other women, and normal men
require both; however, women should only
have sex with their husbands.
• It is not possible, by definition, to rape a
prostitute.
• One can be rough in sex, even violent, with
prostitutes because they are used to having
that kind of sex. Some of them even enjoy it.
If you find yourself agreeing with any of these
statements, do some writing now about what
makes you think they are true. What’s your
evidence? Have you seen things in the movies
or on television that have communicated any
of these messages? Have you heard them
from friends or family members? Have women
you’ve been with told them to you or seemed to
demonstrate them to you?
How reliable does this evidence seem to you
now, when placed alongside the information
you have learned, here and elsewhere, about
the sexual violence women experience? Are
you convinced the statements above are
myths? If not, why not?
Much more recent (2004) research sought to • Treat sexual violence by men as non-serious
update and complement Sanday’s data with a crimes with trivial penalties, or which create
study of industrial European and North American conditions in which it is nearly impossible for the
countries. It combined cross-national data from victims of sexual violence to legally prove they
UN statistics on the educational and occupational have been harmed; or
status of women with sexual violence data from the
• Permit or even encourage sexual violence as a
International Crime Victims Survey and found that:
penalty for perceived violations of gender norms.
In countries where the status of women is low,
Societies with histories of such laws, even when
prevalence of sexual violence against women
those laws have been overturned by courts and
tends to be higher. In turn, sexual violence is
legislatures, often carry forward the ideologies
related to higher levels of fear among women
of the past in other forms. Legal reforms may
relative to men. In comparison, in countries
not be implemented in practice; old laws may be
where the status of women is high, sexual
respected in covert ways by police, judges and
violence against women is lower.30
other criminal justice system personnel.
These studies address only sexual violence
Finally, societies in states of war or conflict have far
against women. Men and boys are also victims of
higher rates of sexual violence than those at peace
sexual violence in substantial numbers, although
(see Lesson 8).
this problem is less well studied. As with sexual
violence against women and girls, however, the
The rape and torture of men, women, and
perpetrators of sexual violence against men and
children as military tactics have been widely
boys are also overwhelmingly likely to be male.
documented. Rape has been used as a weapon
This appears to be even truer of sexual violence
of war and conflict. ‘Rape is often used to
than is true of physical violence generally.
terrorize and undermine communities, to force
people to flee, and to break up community
Poverty is another structural characteristic of
structures. Physical and psychological effects
societies that facilitates sexual violence. As stated
on victims are far-reaching.’ Refugees who flee
above, poverty increases the risk of sexual violence
conflict and persecution are at extreme risk for
most for people in the lowest socioeconomic
sexual violence in their new settings, including
groups because they may be forced to turn to
refugee camps. War often depletes economic
prostitution or “survival sex” in order to meet their
and social resources and pushes many people
basic needs for food and shelter. Engaging in
into prostitution.31
prostitution increases one’s vulnerability to sexual
violence considerably.
Individual Level Conditions
A society’s legal system may be yet another
Individual level conditions refer to those factors
institutional feature making sexual violence and
that may change from situation to situation, or from
exploitation more likely, for instance, if it includes
one person to another. They include such variables
laws which:
as alcohol consumption, psychological make-up
• Give women fewer rights than men to economic of perpetrators, the specifics of the relationship(s)
and other resources; between perpetrator and victim, and/or situational
• Treat marriage as an implied contract giving men features such as time, location, and environment.
permanent and limitless sexual access to their
wives, such that spousal rape and sexual assault Alcohol Use
are not recognized as crimes under the law;
Although, as noted in Lesson 4, alcohol alone
30 Carrie L. Yodanis, “Gender Inequality, Violence
Against Women, and Fear: A Cross-National does not cause violent behaviour, it does lower
Test of the Feminist Theory of Violence Against inhibitions against behaving in ways that might
Women,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 19.6 31 Ibid, p. 9, quoting Zwi, Garfield, and Loretti, p.
(June 2004): 655. 218, 2002.
l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n | 161
otherwise be resisted by the drinker. It also impairs
judgment. In many contexts, alcohol is culturally
associated with sexuality; thus, some men may
consider drinking a prelude to sex and feel that
if their partners do not consent to sex voluntarily,
they are permitted to coerce their partners into
sexual activity. Many studies have shown a high
correlation between alcohol use and what are
known as “acquaintance rapes” or “date rapes”
(alcohol is used in up to 75% of cases). These are
rapes committed by men upon women (or men)
whom they are dating. Sometimes they occur
because the perpetrators have misperceived the
signals of their partners (interpreting willingness to
have sex where it is absent or reluctant) and then
ignoring signals to stop. At other times, they are
the result of perpetrators knowingly and deliberately
engaging in aggressive sexual behaviour against
their partners’ wills. Plenty of sexual assaults occur
without any alcohol use however, so the role of
alcohol is at most facilitative.
Personality and Psychopathology of Perpetrators
Many psychological studies have been done of
men in prison, comparing those arrested for rape
with those imprisoned for non-sexual offences.
While differences in attitudes toward women
and gender roles have been found (and were
discussed above under “Cultural Conditions”), no
reliable data have shown consistent differences in
the personality types or psychological make-ups
of rapists versus non-rapists. Nearly a quarter
century ago, U.S. sociologist N. Malamuth noted
that “psychological probings of known rapists
have generally failed to find psychological tests
that differentiate those persons from ‘normals’
and reported evidence from self-report studies
among male college students that indicated that
35% viewed themselves as capable of engaging in
rape.”32
32 Donald C. Gibbons, “Forcible Rape and Sexual
Violence,” Research in Crime and Delinquency,
21.3 (August, 1984): 251-269 {citing Malamuth
1981}, pp. 253-4.
162 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
In a more recent summary of such studies, one
U.S. sex assault prevention specialist wrote:
Most investigators have concluded that there
is a great deal of heterogeneity among rapists
and that sexual aggression is determined by
many factors. In fact, it has been said that the
personality profile of convicted rapists more
closely matches the personality profile of men
in the general population than any other set of
felons.33
This said, there has been research that
persuasively documents a correlation between
childhood experiences of violence and subsequent
use of violence (sexual and otherwise) by adult
men against women and other men. The World
Health Organization Report, “Global Perspectives
on Sexual Violence,” identifies “having experienced
sexual abuse as a child” as a significant individual
risk factor found transnationally “to increase men’s
risk of committing rape” as an adult.
The Report also lists as an individual psychological
risk factor “lacking inhibitions to suppress
associations between sex and aggression.”
Given the widespread cultural associations
linking sex and aggression built into, for instance,
globally distributed Hollywood film productions,
it is arguably now a transnational necessity for
individual men to develop such inhibitions in order
to avoid an eroticization of violence in their own
lives.
Biological and Familial Factors
In some individual cases, violent and other
impulsive actions, including sexual assault,
have been correlated with brain injuries and/
or a history of childhood trauma. Violence and
trauma have been shown to produce changes
in neurotransmitters – substances that affect
brain function – as well as in hormone levels. As
discussed in Lesson 4, there have been studies
that have shown links between the hormone
testosterone and aggressive behaviour, though
33 Janet Meyer, “Brief Summary of the Root
Causes of Sexual Assault,” 22 November 2000.
<www.ccasa.org/documents/Root_Causes_Short_
Descriptions.pdf> accessed 7 February 2007.
Emphasis added.
the causal relationship between these two is not
clear nor has the order in which they appear been
proven. That is, increased levels of testosterone
may precede aggression, or aggression may
precipitate rises in levels of testosterone.
Since histories of trauma and brain injury often
involve abuse by family members, it can be very
difficult for researchers to differentiate between
biological effects leading to violent behaviour in
traumatized individuals and “family effects.” As
noted above, links between child abuse and adult
violence have been shown: violent offenders in
prison are more likely than non-violent prisoners
to have experienced violence as children; and
children exposed to violence in their families
growing up are more likely than children from
non-violent homes to have relationships as adults Kidnapped, violated, or abused women and girls, who have, for example,
that involve violence. experienced an amputation, could face difficulties reintegrating into
their families and communities. (iAfrika Photos, Eric Miller)
Relationship and Other Situational Variables
7.7 Consequences and Effects of
A history of sexual violence by a perpetrator or Sexual Violence in a Post-Conflict
within a given relationship makes future acts of Environment
sexual violence more likely. Men are more likely
to engage in rape during wartime than peacetime; Those who work in the context of Peace Support
many men who would never rape or engage in Operations should always be sensitive to the
other forms of sexual violence or humiliation possibility that the local population may have
independently will do so in the presence of other experienced incidents of sexual violence. This
men if they are encouraged, threatened, or taunted will impact every aspect of interaction with the
into it. Recall the Milgram Experiment discussed community, including protocols during searches,
in Lesson 4. The phenomenon of obedience at checkpoints and in consultation processes.
to authority is one that can play a large role in Sensitivity to the long-lasting effects of sexual
wartime sexual violence. violence is essential for Peace Support personnel
to effectively fulfil their mandates. Medica Kosova,
Many analyses of sexual violence, including those a women’s NGO in Kosovo, clearly illustrates
drawn from extensive interviews with sexual the dangers of ignoring sexual violence, and the
offenders, have concluded that rape in particular is potential benefits of being sensitive to it:
an act motivated more by emotions such as rage,
shame, and hatred than by sexual desire. This, Women have manifested severe symptoms of
of course, depends on the context and purpose re-traumatization after the process of house
of the rape and/or other acts of sexual violence. searching for arms by peacekeepers took place.
Given the multiple forms sexual violence can take, These were women who had experienced
it is difficult to generalize reliably about the array rape during the war and the uniforms and
of situational variables that may be at work in any peacekeepers entering their houses caused
given act. However, research does indicate that activation of various traumatic symptoms.
“associating with sexually aggressive peers” is
behaviour that increases men’s risk of perpetrating
sexual violence.
l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n | 163
 Our counsellors had to do debriefing with the
women to explain the situation, and to bring
the women ‘now and here’ (a psychosocial
technique) and disconnect with the experience
from the war. This provided good results, as one
of the women entered her house and delivered
a big grenade to a peacekeeper outside her
home.34
In order to understand the consequences of war
rape and other sexual violence, it is essential
to recognize that the victim’s response is not to
a single, isolated act of violation occurring in a
relatively stable society. In that context, one could
expect at least some access to medical, legal,
communal and familial support. In the context of
armed conflict, sexual violence can have even
more grave social, cultural, domestic, physical and
psychological repercussions.
7.8 Preventing and Avoiding Sexual
Violence
This section will examine some of the strategies
that have been initiated in United Nations and
other multilateral peacekeeping missions and by
troop-contributing countries to better address
sexual violence in peacekeeping. These include
both initiatives to strengthen the capacity of
peacekeepers to prevent and respond to sexual
violence in the contexts in which they are deployed,
and measures introduced to prevent and sanction
sexual violence committed by peacekeepers.
Initiatives to Strengthen the Capacity of
Peacekeepers to Prevent and Respond to
Sexual Violence in the Contexts in Which They
are Deployed
In the UN Mission in Liberia, UN civilian police
appointed a human trafficking officer with a team
of seven officers. The team raided nightclubs
and rescued women and girls who had been
trafficked. However, those women who chose to
testify against the traffickers received no follow-up
protection or assistance in terms of temporary
34 Shehu, L., Executive Director of Medica
Kosova, Communication with Megan Bastick of
DCAF, 14 May 2007.
164 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
shelter or repatriation. The women concerned were
handed over to local NGOs, which did not have
sufficient resources to support or protect them.35
The European Union military operation in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (Operation
EUFOR RD Congo)36 collaborated with local
women’s organizations to improve its response
to sexual violence. Local organizations provided
information on whom to contact whenever EUFOR
came across cases of sexual violence in order
to arrange for psychosocial, medical and legal
support for the victims.37
The aforementioned examples point to some of the
challenges and opportunities you may experience
in peacekeeping, in addressing sexual violence
within the communities in which you work. As
peacekeepers, you should be alert to the possibility
that individuals might have been victims of sexual
violence. You should also be trained to recognize
and respond to symptoms of trauma and to operate
in a way that spares individuals from suffering
further traumatic experiences. This approach will
impact upon every aspect of your interaction with
the community, including on protocols regulating
conduct during searches, at checkpoints and
in consultation processes. Sensitivity to sexual
violence is essential to ensuring good relations
between peacekeepers and host communities and
the effective fulfilment of peacekeeping mandates.
35 “Liberia: UNMIL’s Crackdown on Trafficking
Puts Women at Risk”. Refugees International
Bulletin, 10 May 2004 <http://www.refugeesin-
ternational.org/content/article/detail/960/>.
36 Operation EUFOR RD Congo was not strictly
a peacekeeping mission, but a military operation
in support of the United Nations’ peacekeeping
mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
MONUC. EUFOR RD Congo was mandated by
Security Council resolution 1671 and concluded
on 30 November 2006. However, lessons learnt in
EUFOR RD Congo are in many ways applicable to
peacekeeping missions.
37 European Union Operation Headquarters (15
December 2006) Final Report on Gender Work
inside EUFOR RD Congo, 6.
Initiatives to Prevent and Punish Sexual
Violence by Peacekeepers
The environments in which peacekeepers carry
out their tasks are generally characterized by
a breakdown of law and order, poverty, the
dislocation of community structures, population
displacement and various forms and degrees of
conflicted-related human suffering and trauma.
The local population may be heavily reliant upon
peacekeepers and humanitarian aid organizations
for its subsistence. This dependency makes
members of the local population extremely
vulnerable to exploitation and abuse by
peacekeepers and humanitarian workers. Women
and girls in these insecure environments are
particularly vulnerable because they have little
protection from sexual abuse and may have few
alternatives to sexual exploitation in order to
survive.
Increasing the Deployment of Women
Troop-contributing and police-contributing
countries and peacekeeping missions have
recognized that the increased presence of
women in peacekeeping improves conduct within
the mission.38 The UN Special Committee on
Peacekeeping Operations (C-34) has stated
that increasing the participation of women in
peacekeeping is:
particularly important in the context of
combating sexual exploitation and abuse, since
it would facilitate the mission’s task of making
meaningful contact with vulnerable groups and
non-governmental organizations in the local
community, as well as efforts to encourage
the reporting of abuse and to promote an
environment that discourages such acts.39
38 DPKO “Enhancing the Operational Impact
of Peacekeeping Operations: Gender Balance
in Military and Police Services Deployed to UN
Peacekeeping Missions. Background Paper,” Policy
Dialogue, New York, 28-29 March 2006, 5.
39 United Nations General Assembly, Report
of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping
Operations and its Working Group on the 2005
resumed session, A/59/19/Add.1, §12.
l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n
Indeed, research suggests that the presence of
women has a positive impact on the negative
sides of military or macho culture, such that sexual
exploitation of local women and children occurs
less often.40 Thus, initiatives by States to boost the
deployment of women for peacekeeping missions
are part of a comprehensive strategy to prevent
sexual violence by peacekeepers.
The UN Department for Peacekeeping Operations
(DPKO) has set a target of ensuring that 10
per cent of peacekeeping police and military
personnel are women.41 However, as of May
2007, women made up only 1.92 per cent of UN
peacekeeping personnel in military functions.42
A recent meeting of troop and police contributing
countries and UN missions formulated the
following recommendations for States to increase
the recruitment and deployment of women for
peacekeeping operations:43
…Develop a national policy on the recruitment
and deployment of women that includes
numerical targets (such as a minimum
percentage of women in all formed units
deployed to peacekeeping), and the following
priority initiatives to support the achievement of
these targets:
• Establishment of specialized units within
military and police personnel offices to
oversee the recruitment and deployment of
women;
40 Karame, K.H., “Summary Findings of Research
on Female Peacekeepers” (2003), cited in DPKO,
Enhancing the Operational Impact of Peacekeeping
Operations. Gender Balance in Military and Police
Services Deployed to UN Peacekeeping Missions.
Background Paper (New York, 28-29 March 2006):
8, at <http://www.peacewomen.org/resources/
Peacekeeping/DPKO/women_in_peacekeeping.
pdf>.
41 DPKO, “Implementation of Security Council
Resolution 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace and
Security in Peacekeeping Contexts. Final Report”,
A Strategy Workshop with Women’s Consistencies
from Troop and Police Contributing Countries,
Pretoria (7-9 February 2007), 8
42 DPKO (May 2007), United Nations
Peacekeeping Gender Statistics: <http://www.
un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/contributors/gend.html>.
43 DPKO (7-9 February 2007), 16.
| 165
 • Initiation of specific research on those
factors that enhance the recruitment,
retention and deployment of women, and
ensuring that they inform national policy;
• Promotion of increased numbers of women
in leadership positions in national forces
and in peacekeeping;
• Nomination of women for senior civilians
peacekeeping positions, for example as
Special Representatives of the Secretary-
General (SRSG) or on secondment to
DPKO headquarters;
• Development of national public information
strategies that promote women’s
recruitment into police and military, and
deployment to PKOs; and
• Review of qualification requirements to
remove those that discriminate against
women.
Developing Site-Specific Sexual Violence
Prevention Strategies
Each post-conflict environment will of course have
its own specific histories related to sexual violence
and will pose its own risks of ongoing violence,
exploitation and abuse. Peacekeepers and
other mission staff will need to consult with local
residents and other humanitarian aid agencies
working in the area to identify those activities and
places that most increase the vulnerabilities of
women and girls to sexual violence. An example
of one such effective violence prevention strategy,
from Darfur, Sudan, is provided in Box 7-F.
Individual-Level Responses to Sexual Violence
A student taking this course could well come away
from this lesson wrongly concluding that the
following are its central messages:
• Power is always and only a very bad thing.
It can only be abused or misused, and one
should disavow it or disassociate oneself from it
whenever possible.
• The worst kind of power is masculine power.
166 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
• Masculinity causes sexual violence; masculinity
is bad and to the degree men hope not to be
evil and bad themselves, they should be as un-
masculine as humanly possible.
• Predominantly male settings, like sports, or Box 7-F: African Union Firewood Patrols in Darfur
professions like policing and the military are
about as bad as masculine institutions can For displaced women and girls in some conflict-affected contexts, collecting firewood puts them at particular risk
be. They breed only dangerous qualities of rape, abduction and murder. To protect women collecting firewood in Darfur, African Union Civilian Police and
like dominance, disrespect for women, and Ceasefire Committee (CFC: the African Union protection force in Darfur) soldiers began firewood patrols, primarily
aggressive, violent tendencies. in the western and southern regions. Generally, the patrols consisted of 2 or 3 large pickup trucks that followed
approximately 100-200 metres behind a group of women along a predetermined route to a firewood collection
From this, male students in particular might be location. The trucks carried a patrol force comprising 3 to 5 civilian police personnel up front and 6 to 8 noticeably
forgiven for concluding that there is no way they heavily-armed CFC soldiers riding open air in the back of the vehicle.
can possibly hope to prevent or respond to sexual
violence against women. They might think that The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children reported that the firewood patrols proved highly
they should consider un-enlisting from the armed effective. The lessons learned from the firewood patrols can help to guide strategies to protect women and girls from
services if they are soldiers, quit the police force sexual violence in other peacekeeping environments. The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children
if they are in law enforcement, never play sports, highlighted the following issues, amongst others, as important to the success of firewood patrols in Darfur:
and perhaps take up some harmless occupation
• “Firewood patrol committees” consisting of leaders from the participant groups (such as IDP women leaders),
like pottery until all of the damaging effects of their
representatives from the patrolling forces (female wherever possible) and an intermediary, such as a UN agency
masculine socialization have drained out of them.
or NGO, were crucial in building trust between participants and patrollers. Committees should together develop
guidelines on timing, frequency, route selection, distance, and the details of how the patrols will be carried out;
This is often the sort of message that men take
and should meet regularly to address any concerns that arise during the patrols.
away from courses on sexual violence and
violence against women. Thus, it is worth taking • The protection mandate of the patrolling force, whether soldiers, civilian police or local authorities, must be clear
a moment here to clearly assert that none of the among all parties before the patrols begin.
above is intended to be the messages of this
• The role of the host government’s security forces (in refugee settings) and the local government’s security forces
course. While research has shown that there are
(in IDP settings) must be clarified before the patrols begin.
correlations between certain types of dominant,
aggressive models of masculine power that tend • Where necessary, a translator – female wherever possible – should accompany all patrols in order to
to be valued highly in physically rough sporting communicate between participants and patrollers.
cultures and male-dominated occupations like
• The commander of the patrolling force must be supportive of the engagement of the patrollers in firewood
policing and the armed services, all of these
patrols, committed to following the guidelines and willing to conduct patrols on a regular and predictable basis.
environments also breed very positive attributes.
Sometimes the qualities that can be abused and • Patrollers must not engage in sexual exploitation of participants in the patrols and must be held accountable
used to justify violence are the very same ones that for following internationally recognized guidelines and codes of conduct for peacekeeping forces.
enable men and women to effectively resist and
defeat violent behaviours. Source: Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children (March 2006) Finding Trees in the Desert:
Firewood Collection and Alternatives in Darfur; Inter-Agency Standing Committee (September 2005) Guidelines for
For instance, both aggressive, highly competitive gender-based violence interventions in humanitarian settings, 60.
sports and military and policing cultures inculcate
qualities like physical strength, persistence in the
face of adversity, the ability to work well in teams
(and therefore to defer to others’ leadership when
a task at hand will benefit from doing so), generally
respectful behaviour, and specifically respect for
fair play and rules that easily carries over into
respect for the rule of law. Above all, these cultures
can breed courage, and it takes an enormous
amount of courage to resist other social norms
l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n | 167
that are less positive, such as those that denigrate To close this lesson, if you are a man, please
women. The value placed on obedience in such
environments is both a strength and a weakness.
complete one final, especially challenging,
exercise. It is designed to help you anticipate
End-of-Lesson Quiz
Great courage is required to violate the norm situations in which the worst parts of masculine
of obedience in order to exercise independent socialization may be used against you, and
decision-making when one recognizes that peers therefore to give you time to think through in
or authority members are misusing their authority. advance how you might call upon some of the 1. Match each of the following terms in Column A with the corresponding definition or statement
Fortunately, one of the most valuable qualities best parts of masculine socialization to prevent in Column B.
of masculinity at its best – and here it is worth and/or respond to sexual violence. If the following Column A Column B
remembering the difference between sex and scenario seems extreme to you, that’s good. If you
gender long enough to note that women too can can develop some ideas about how to handle a 1. Sexual exploitation A. The recruitment, transportation, transfer,
excel at these masculine skills – is the courageous situation like this, you will be much better prepared harbouring or receipt of persons…by means of
threat or use of force or other forms of coercion,
exercise of independent, critical thinking. to handle less extreme situations in the future. of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse
of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the
giving or receiving of payments or benefits to
achieve the consent of a person…for the purpose
of exploitation.
Writing Exercise 7-G: How Can Power and/or Dominant
Masculine Socialization be Put to Good Ends? 2. Sexual abuse B. The actual or threatened physical intrusion of a
sexual nature, whether by force or under unequal
or coercive conditions.
Imagine you are a soldier working to patrol a border area. A new shift commander – not someone
3. Sexual violence C. Any actual or attempted abuse of a position of
you’ve met before, but someone whose name you know because of his good reputation with your vulnerability, differential power, or trust for sexual
superiors – has just been assigned to be your supervisor. It is just the two of you on duty at night. purposes, including, but not limited to, profiting
After a couple of weeks, near the end of a shift, you catch several people carrying heavy parcels monetarily, socially or politically from the sexual
trying to cross the border illegally. All of them manage to escape, because one has fallen and you are exploitation of another.
both occupied with capturing her. Your supervisor hauls the woman to her feet and tells her, “Don’t be 4. Human trafficking D. Includes “sexual exploitation” and “sexual abuse”,
afraid, we’re not going to hurt you. We’re just going to collect a little skin tax. If you follow us quietly to as well as forced marriage, forced abortion, forced
the guardhouse, we’ll settle this overnight and let you go in the morning.” prostitution and trafficking.

Your supervisor grins at you, nods at you to go ahead of him into the guardhouse, and follows behind
you and the woman. It is clear he wants you to rape the woman first. 2. According to UN rules, sexual activity with
a boy or girl under 18 years of age when on
What do you do? In developing your responses to this question, please also consider the following: mission is:
A. Permissible if the local age of consent is less
• How is this situation like or unlike the Milgram experiment described in Lesson 4?
than 18 years of age;
• Try hard to imagine how you would really feel in this situation. What thoughts and emotions come B. An act of serious misconduct and grounds for
to mind? What does your gut-instinct tell you that you would do in a situation like this? What sorts of disciplinary measures;
conflicting obligations might you be feeling in this scene? C. Permissible if he or she consents;
D. Permissible if the child’s parents know about it
• Who comes to mind when you think about this exercise? Do you imagine what friends or peers
might do? Do people you admire come to mind? If so, what would they think of you if you took X or and accept it.
Y action? Who are those people, and what roles have they played in your life? How do your feelings
about their opinions of you influence your behaviour in relation to women generally? In relation to 3. Which of the following is not likely to be
violence? In relation to sex? found in a post-conflict context?
• What are your obligations under the Secretary-General’s Bulletin? A. Mechanisms to protect women working as
prostitutes from violence and abuse;
• What positive resources have your experiences, training and socialization as a man provided you
B. Survival sex;
with that you can draw upon here to prevent sexual violence from happening?
C. Trafficking of women for sexual exploitation;
D. Illegal prostitution.
4. True or false? Sexual violence is most likely
to occur in conditions where:
A. There are widely held beliefs with a society that
make rape seem normal or acceptable, such as
the belief that women often want to be raped;
B. Women and men mix socially outside the
family;
C. Men have the idea that they are entitled to have
sex;
D. There is a high degree of gender inequality and
the status of women is low.
5. “Coercion” can transform any sexual act
into sexual violence. Coercion:
A. Is a type of physical violence;
B. Cannot occur between a man and his wife;
C. Means blackmailing someone or threatening
their job so they will have sex with you;
D. Can take physical and psychological forms,
including frightening or intimidating someone.

168 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n l e s s o n 7 : s e x ua l vi o l e n c e a n d e x p l o itati o n | 169

6. Initiatives by the UN to prevent sexual 9. Which of the following statements has
violence in peacekeeping contexts have not been made by the World Heath
included: Organization?
A. Making prostitution legal; A. Mass rape of women and girls is used as a
B. Promoting masturbation; weapon of war;
B. Sexual violence against men and boys is a
C. Enforcing curfews to stop women going out at
night; serious and understudied problem. Studies
show that 5-10 per cent of men report
LESSON 8
D. Appointing a human trafficking officer to rescue
women and girls who had been trafficked.
childhood sexual abuse; INSTITUTIONAL VIOLENCE
C. Males may be less likely than females to
report sexual assaults due to fear of not being
7. As of May 2007, women made up what believed;
percentage of UN peacekeeping personnel in D. Men need sex at least once a week to stay
military functions? healthy.
A. 1.92 per cent
B. 6 per cent 10. Men in the military have many of the
C. 12.3 per cent important qualities necessary to resist social
D. 30 per cent norms that denigrate women, and to prevent
and respond to sexual violence, such as:
8. Strategies to increase the recruitment and A. Courage and respect for rules and fairness;
deployment of women in peacekeeping B. Dominance;
operations include: C. Physical strength;
A. Allowing mothers to take their children with D. Obedience.
them on mission;
B. Deploying women to guard male peacekeepers,
to stop them from committing acts of sexual
misconduct;
C. Developing national targets for the recruitment
and deployment of women, and plans of action
to achieve them;
D. Only deploying units with 50 per cent women.

ANSWER KEY
1(1C, 2B, 3D, 4A), 2B, 3A, 4(A True, B False,
C True, D True), 5D, 6D, 7A, 8C, 9D, 10A

170 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
 8.1 Introduction
Institutional violence is another phrase for structural
violence, which, as discussed in Lesson 4, describes
a wide range of both acts and failures to act that
Lesson result in harm to humans. Many scholars and others
consider poverty to be a form of structural violence
8 because it leads to malnutrition and starvation, and
because they believe it also leads to conditions that
facilitate direct violence.
This lesson focuses on several forms of structural
violence that governmental and other institutions
perpetuate, whether through their actions or
inactions, that disproportionately impact women. It
does not offer a comprehensive account of all such
forms of institutional violence, but it does introduce
facts about some of the worst and most pervasive
forms: female infanticide, the “female deficit,”
LESSON OBJECTIVES maternal mortality, and persistent socioeconomic
inequalities.
By the end of Lesson 8, the student should be able to meet the following
8.1 Introduction objectives: 8.2 “Gendercidal” Institutions
8.2 “Gendercidal” Against Women and Girls
Institutions Against • Define and provide examples of the terms “gendercidal institutions,” Genocide is one or more of a number of specific
Women and Girls “missing women,” “female deficit,” and “feminization of poverty”; acts (including but not limited to killing) “committed
with [the] intent to destroy, in whole or in part,
8.3 Gender-Based • Describe how poverty and violence against women can be related; a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”1
Violence and Poverty • Define and discuss several dimensions of the concept of women’s The term “gendercide” was coined to describe
empowerment; and gender-selective mass-killing. In recent years,
8.4 Vulnerability of systematic attention has begun to be paid, from
Women Migrant • Explain how HIV and migration each pose special risks to women, both academic and humanitarian perspectives, to
increasing their vulnerability to poverty, sex/gender discrimination, and gendercidal institutions. These can be defined as
Workers other harms.
patterned human behaviours, enduring over time,
8.5 Women and HIV/AIDS that lead to large-scale, disproportionate mortality
among a particular gender group.
8.6 Conclusion
Analysis of gendercidal institutions can be
especially important in understanding women’s
victimization worldwide and over time. In cases
of politico-military genocide or other large-scale
atrocities, it is generally men, particularly those of
“battle age,” who are most likely to be marked off
for selective killing, as in Bangladesh in 1971 or
Srebrenica in 1995. Although frequently exposed
1 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide. Approved and proposed
for signature and ratification or accession by
To view a video introduction of this lesson by
the course author AnnJanette Rosga, you can General Assembly resolution 260 A (III) of 9
either log in to your virtual classroom, go to www. December 1948. Entry into force: 12 January 1951.
peaceopstraining.org/users/media_page/399/,
or use your mobile device to scan the QR code
to the left.
L e s s o n 8 : i n s tituti o n a l vi o l e n c e
to sexual assaults and other violence during
military conflicts, women tend not to be killed in
large numbers due to the fact that they are female.
This is contrary to the way men are killed because
they are male, in large part because of gendered
divisions of labour in most societies that make
combat and soldiering the work of men.
The picture shifts when gendercidal institutions are
considered. These are not discrete politico-military
events but enduring features of how many societal
institutions are organized. Around the world today,
the number of women killed by female infanticide,
maternal mortality, and gender discrimination
in health care and education (hereafter referred
to as the “female deficit”) vastly exceeds the
number of women or men killed in politico-military
gendercides.2
Sex-Selective Abortion and Female Infanticide
Female infanticide has likely accounted for
millions of sex-selective deaths throughout history.
UNICEF defines female infanticide as the killing
of a girl child within the first weeks of her birth.
Infanticide is practised as a brutal method of
family planning in societies where boy children
are valued, economically and socially, above girls.
Methods of ending a baby girl’s life vary: female
infants are killed by poison, by smothering, or by
being fed unhulled rice to puncture their windpipes.
Whilst infanticide of newborn girls still takes
place, ultrasound technology has given female
infanticide a modern face: sex-selective abortion.
Medical testing for sex selection, although officially
outlawed, has become a booming business.
Substantial disparities in the number of girls born
compared to the number of boys born suggest
the horrifying extent of sex-selective abortion.
Compared with the normal ratio of some 95
girls born per 100 boys (as in Europe and North
America), Singapore and Taiwan have 92, South
Korea 88, and China 86 girls born per 100 boys,
according to figures recently published in the
British Medical Journal.3
2 However, men also suffer from male-specific
forms of institutional violence that under certain
conditions may be considered gendercidal,
such as forced labour, military conscription, and
imprisonment.
3 Sen, British Medical Journal Vol. 327, 2003.
| 173
In 1996, India’s census showed there to be only
929 females to every 1,000 males. In India’s 1901
census figures, there were 972 females to every
1,000 males. Interpreting census figures over the
last century, India’s census commissioner stated
that as many as 25 million female foetuses and
babies had been killed before, during or after birth
in India.4 The selective killing of female foetuses
is suggested even more strongly by research that
shows that fewer females are born as second or
third children to families that have yet to have a
boy:
For the 133,738 births studied for 1997, the
adjusted sex ratio for the second birth when the
preceding child was a girl was 759 per 1,000
males…The adjusted sex ration for the third child
was 719…if the previous two children were girls.
By contrast, adjusted sex rations for second or
third births if the previous children were boys
were about equal (1,102 and 1,176, respectively).
The researchers were of the opinion that “the most
plausible explanation for the low female-to-male
sex ratios reported at birth is prenatal sex
determination followed by selective abortion.”5
In one nation, 118 boys are born to every 100
girls. In some regions, the disparity is as stark
as 130 boys to 100 girls. The longstanding
practice of killing or abandoning female infants
markedly increased during the 1980s. Almost all
commentators attributed this to a strict “one couple,
one child” policy. It is estimated that by 2020,
there could be around 40 million women missing.
One nation’s state population and family planning
commission recently predicted that by 2022, one
in every ten men aged between 20 and 45 will be
unable to find a wife.6 Already, a shortage of brides
is seen as the cause of increased kidnapping and
slave-trade of women, wife-selling and prostitution:
“The thirst for women is so acute that the slave
trader gangs are even reaching [to outside
4 Reported by Dahlburg in The Los Angeles
Times, 28 February 1994.
5 P. Jha et al. “Male-to-female sex ratio of
children born in India: national survey of 1.1 million
households,” The Lancet, Vol. 367, 2006.
6 The Times, 12 January 2007.
174 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
countries] to find merchandise. There are regular
reports of women being abducted in such places as
northern Vietnam to feed the demand...”.7
Preference for sons and consequent female
infanticide and selective abortion of female
foetuses are driven by both economic and cultural
forces. In a traditional South Asian family, a son is
expected to earn an income, inherit property, and
live with and care for his parents. For a daughter,
the bride’s family must pay the bridegroom’s family
a dowry, often incurring substantial debt. Their
daughter will then leave their home to live with
and care for her husband’s family. However, it has
been observed that abortion of female foetuses is
most prevalent in some of the region’s richest and
poorest States. The practice cannot be explained
by income level, or by religious background,
economic growth, availability of medical resources,
or female education alone.8
The response from governments to female
infanticide and sex-selective abortion must be
strong and comprehensive, including better family
planning policies and pensions, laws to prevent
doctors telling parents the sex of a child, and active
prosecution of doctors who perform sex-selective
abortions. India and China have both banned the
use of ultrasound machines for sex determination.
Public campaigns declare that “daughters are our
pride” and “female foeticide is illegal.” Nonetheless,
Indian campaigners say that fertility clinics continue
to offer a seemingly legitimate facade for a
multi-billion dollar industry in sex determination.9 In
March 2006, for the first time, a doctor in India and
his assistant were sentenced to prison for revealing
the sex of a female foetus and then agreeing to
abort it. Both activists and doctors acknowledge
that it could take decades to change attitudes
towards girls and end the practice of selective
abortion.
India has taken a strong stand on addressing
gendercide and female infanticide. See Box 8-A
for an Associated Press article10 quoting Prime
7 Manthorpe, in The Vancouver Sun, 11 Jan 1999
8 Op. cit., Sen.
9 BBC News online, 29 March 2006.
10 Associated Press Article April 28, 2008,
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gRsc1kRwN-
X2JWgOxmSumm7ZRzRwD90AR5R00.
Minister Manmohan Singh as speaking out against
gendercide and female infanticide, saying “I do not
say this as the prime minister of India. I say this
as the proud father of three daughters. I wish for
every girl in our country what I wish for my own
daughters.”
Box 8-A: India PM Calls Aborted Fetuses Shameful
By GAVIN RABINOWITZ for the Associated Press, April 28, 2008
NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s widespread practice of aborting female fetuses is a “national shame,” the prime
minister said Monday, insisting the country can no longer ignore the problem if it wants to be a modern nation.
Experts say up to 500,000 female fetuses are aborted in India every year because of a deep-rooted cultural
preference for male children, who will help support their parents in old age and attract wives with substantial
dowries.
“This is a national shame and we must face this challenge squarely here and now,” Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh told a conference on ways to “Save the girl child.”
“No nation, no society, no community can hold its head high and claim to be part of the civilized world if it
condones the practice of discriminating against one half of humanity represented by women,” Singh said.
The British medical journal The Lancet recently reported that up to 500,000 female fetuses are aborted every
year.
Singh said the number of girls per 1,000 boys declined nationally from 962 in 1981 to just 927 in the last census
in 2001. Activists believe the problem has become even worse since the census.
The gap in the ratio between girls and boys is more extreme in wealthier urban areas where couples want fewer
children and the pressure to produce a male increases. In the northern state of Punjab, there were only 798 girls
for every 1,000 boys, Singh said.
For a recent report, the group ActionAid sent interviewers to 6,000 households in five north Indian regions. In
Punjab, researchers found rural areas with just 500 girls for every 1,000 boys, and communities of high-caste
urbanites with just 300 girls per 1,000.
Parents often use ultrasound technology to determine the sex of the fetus and abort females. Such tests have
been outlawed in India since 1991, but the rules are frequently flouted.
Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss told the conference that stricter enforcement was not enough.
“At the heart of the problem are deep-rooted prejudices,” Ramadoss said.
In traditional Indian society girls are seen as a financial burden, needing huge dowries when they marry that
can cripple a family financially. Boys typically remain at home after marrying, helping to care for aging parents.
Hinduism also dictates preference, with only men being able to light their parents’ funeral pyres.
“The long-term solution to this problem lies in creating the right environment where sons and daughters are
equally valued,” Ramadoss said.
Singh said to achieve equality for women the country has to address many issues, including child marriage,
female illiteracy, malnutrition and taboos on women in public places.
“I do not say this as the prime minister of India. I say this as the proud father of three daughters. I wish for every
girl in our country what I wish for my own daughters,” he said.
L e s s o n 8 : i n s tituti o n a l vi o l e n c e | 175
 Despite enormous advances in girls’ education Maternal Mortality
Writing Exercise 8-B: Government Attempts to Regulate What is Culturally Ingrained in recent decades, as of 2003, there were still
about 65 million girls who were denied the The United Nations Children’s Fund refers to
Consider the issue raised in Lesson 5: “Culture vs. Rights.” It is within a sovereign nation’s rights and opportunity to receive an education worldwide, the illness and death of women in pregnancy or
responsibilities to make policy decisions that will ensure its citizens have enough to eat and that its population according to a report by the Global Campaign for childbirth as, in its size and severity, “the most
does not grow too large for its resources to support. A nation’s one-child policy would seem, on its face, to be Education (GCE).13 This deficit not only produces neglected tragedy of our times.” According to
a gender-neutral policy. However, abundant evidence showed government leaders that its one-child policy was undereducated women but is also closely UNICEF, a staggering 585,000 women die annually
being enacted in a gender discriminatory manner, resulting in the death and abandonment of many female infants. associated with a range of other vulnerabilities on from complications arising from pregnancy and
Thus, while a government may enact an officially gender-neutral policy, the individual citizens could demonstrate economic and health fronts. According to the GCE: childbirth. Moreover, the organization notes, “these
cultural preferences for boy children. are not deaths like other deaths”:
getting girls into school is literally a matter of
Assume you were asked to form a gender advisory team to assist the government with fulfilling its responsibilities Over 200,000 die of haemorrhaging, violently
life and death. The children of women who have
under both of the following UN treaty provisions. What kinds of policy changes would you recommend the pumping blood onto the floor of a bus or
completed primary education are on average
government make? bullock cart or blood-soaked stretcher as their
twice as likely to survive beyond the age of five,
families and friends search in vain for help.
and half as likely to suffer from malnutrition.14
Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women About 75,000 more die from attempting to abort
their pregnancy themselves... Perhaps 75,000
States should condemn violence against women and should not invoke any custom, tradition or religious In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, increasing
more die with brain and kidney damage in...
consideration to avoid their obligations with respect to its elimination. States should pursue by all appropriate levels of women’s secondary education have led
convulsions…, another 100,000 die of [blood
means and without delay a policy of eliminating violence against women and, to this end, should...[among other to a steep decline in HIV infection rates. Educated
poisoning] by a rising infection from an unhealed
things]: women have fewer children and are less likely
uterus or from retained pieces of placenta,
to die in pregnancy and childbirth. Educated
bringing fever and hallucinations and appalling
(j) Adopt all appropriate measures, especially in the field of education, to modify the social and cultural patterns of women also earn substantially higher salaries,
conduct of men and women and to eliminate prejudices, customary practices and all other practices based on the pain.15
greatly boosting the economies of countries that
idea of the inferiority or superiority of either of the sexes and on stereotyped roles for men and women... invest in this crucial resource. One such country
is Bangladesh, where combined government and
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights NGO efforts to promote access and equity in
education have raised girls’ secondary enrolment
The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for from 13 to 56 per cent in ten years.
himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living
conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right...

The “Female Deficit” The “female deficit” operates in nearly every

Discrimination against women that is so severe
it ultimately kills large numbers of them operates
through differential access to health care,
education, and leisure. The gendered deficiency
in women’s health care is perhaps the greatest
contributor to the excess in female deaths around
the world. That is, women receive far less of the
health care they need to survive than do men.
Nobel Prize laureate and economist Amartya Sen
coined the term “missing women” to describe
the large number of women in the world who
are not alive due to neglect and discrimination,
including selective abortion of female foetuses. He
estimated that there are 107 million women missing
worldwide.11
11 Amartya Sen, ‘Missing Women’, The British
Medical Journal, 304 (1992): 587-588.
area of health care, from the care pregnant
mothers need to stay alive up to and through their
children’s births, to simple prevention of anaemia
(iron-deficiency in the blood), a condition from
which some 40 per cent of the world’s women
suffer. According to the World Bank, investing
money in women’s health and nutrition could save
millions of women in developing countries from
needless suffering and premature death. The
wider benefits would also be huge, not only for Health and Nutrition (Washington D.C.: World Catherine Mbengue (left), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
Bank, 1994). Representative in Afghanistan and Afghan girls, in a group photo at
the development processes of nations, but for the
13 “A Fair Chance: Attaining Gender Equality in the launch of the United Nations Education Initiative to promote girls’
children of the women concerned: education in the country. Kabul, Afghanistan. (UN Photo #151512,
Basic Education by 2005.” Global Campaign for
Helena Mulkerns, September 2006)
Education and Nicola Swainson, April 2003, p. 43.
improving the health, nutrition, and maternity
<http://www.campaignforeducation.org/resources/
care of women would improve the prospects
Apr2003/Fair0403_EN.pdf>
for the seven million infants who die [annually] 14 GCE spokesperson quoted in ‘Annan Plea
during their first week of life and the over twenty for Girls’ Schooling’, BBC Online (8 April 2003), 15 P. Adamson, ‘Deaf to the Screams’, New
million low-birth-weight babies born each year.12 at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-2/hi/uk_news/ Internationalist (January/February 1997), at <http://
12 World Bank, A New Agenda for Women’s education/2929541.stm> www.newint.org/issue287/adamson.html>

176 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n L e s s o n 8 : i n s tituti o n a l vi o l e n c e | 177

Furthermore, Peter Adamson writes, “for every
woman who dies, approximately 30 more [suffer]
injuries, infections and disabilities, which are
usually untreated and unspoken of, and which
are often humiliating and painful, debilitating
and lifelong.”16 According to the World Health
Organization, in 2005, 14 countries had maternal
mortality ratios of at least 1,000 deaths per 100,000
live births, of which 13 (all but Afghanistan) were in
the sub-Saharan African region. These countries
were (listed in descending order): Sierra Leone
(2,100), Niger (1,800), Afghanistan (1,800), Chad
(1,500), Somalia (1,400), Angola (1,400), Rwanda
(1,300), Liberia (1,200), Guinea Bissau (1,100),
Burundi (1,100), the Democratic Republic of the
Congo (1,100), Nigeria (1,100), Malawi (1,100),
and Cameroon (1,000). By contrast, Ireland had a
maternal mortality ratio of 1.17
Should patterns of death, however massive in
number and horrifying in their details, truly be
considered “gendercidal” when these deaths are
not directly caused at the hands of another person?
How important to a definition of institutional or
structural violence are such factors as intent by
others to do harm to those who end up dying?
How clear must the lines of responsibility be? How
important is proximity in time? What are the effects
of naming such patterns “gendercide” as opposed
to “public health” or “humanitarian emergencies”?
Maternal Mortality Estimates
16 Ibid.
17 Maternal Mortality in 2005 Estimates developed
by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and The World Bank,
World Health Organization 2007, at <http://www.
who.int/whosis/mme_2005.pdf>.
178 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
Chief among the effects of this naming strategy is
that it highlights the responsibility of public officials
in an entirely new and more pointed way than
do phrases like “public health” or “humanitarian
emergency,” or any kind of tragedy. The latter
terms describe effects more than they do
causes. They make it possible to speak of rather
generic, collective senses of responsibility for
terrible conditions. Most people agree that such
generalized responsibility is not acceptable when
it comes to genocide, so the goal in naming “the
female deficit” and maternal mortality “gendercide”
is to make it similarly unacceptable to avoid
responsibility for the disproportionately violent
effects that their policy decisions have on women.
Thus, the question of whether or not the conditions
of institutional violence that produce maternal
mortality, and/or consistent “female deficits,” can
be considered gendercidal will depend on answers
to questions like these:
• Are these gender-discriminatory, destructive
outcomes predictable? Research already
indicates that the answer to this question is most
often “yes.”
• Are alternative policies available to be pursued?
The answer to this question will always be
hotly contested – prioritizing expenditures on
social services like maternal health care and
universal education for all girls and boys over, for
instance, military expenditures or investments
in various industries are often perceived to
involve decisions about such highly politicized
matters as a nation’s geopolitical standing and
other factors its leaders believe are important to
ensuring its future.
• Are policies that are known to produce
destructive effects on women and girls
repeatedly chosen, thereby perpetuating
disproportionately high death and illness rates
for females?
If alternatives to harmful policies are rejected, and
the necessary resources to prevent institutional
and gendercidal violence are spent elsewhere, with
moral recklessness on the part of the government
and administrators, then gendercidal intent may
well be assumed. If the nearly 600,000 maternal
deaths each year, along with the millions of
related health casualties among women, can be According to UNICEF and World Health
considered gendercidal, then the main cause is Organization reports, the total cost of globalizing a
the absence of the physical protection and health grassroots approach to improving maternal health
guarantees that women require, notably safe and care (including training for some 850,000 health
hygienic birth environments. UNICEF points out workers, as well as the necessary drugs and
that: equipment) would be USD 200 million – about the
price of half a dozen jet fighters.
Even in the largest and poorest nations...there
are usually health units and district hospitals
with the doctors, midwives, nurses, drugs,
and equipment that can provide obstetric care
when needed. If they cannot, then this usually
reflects a lack of priority, or a lack of relatively
small amounts of funds for basic training and
equipment, rather than the inherent impossibility
of the task. [...The] fact is that properly trained
health workers and midwives, working in modern
health units with inexpensive equipment and
reliable supplies of relatively cheap drugs,
can usually cope – and know when to call in
obstetricians if a caesarean section is necessary.
[...] Reducing maternal deaths and injuries is
therefore not a matter of possibilities, but of
priorities. The strategies that work have been
A women and her child wait in line to receive free treatment offered
identified. And the resources will follow if priority by the Sri Lankan MINUSTAH battalion in Martissant, Haiti. (UN Photo
lights the way.18 #159091 by Marco Dormino, October 2007)
The well-known example of Cuba demonstrates UNICEF’s comparison example is suggestive for
that even developing countries can effect the question about States’ gendercidal intentions
massive transformations in women’s health, and responsibilities above. If resources that could
including maternal mortality. After the 1959 be spent on women’s health are instead spent on,
revolution, policies were instituted to extend health for instance, the military conscription of males, then
infrastructure beyond the cities. Maternal mortality conceivably a government could be alleged to have
rates show a particularly noticeable impact. Today, engaged in dual forms of gendercidal violence:
nearly all Cuban mothers give birth in hospitals, by simultaneously failing to act in ways that will
with trained staff to handle any complications. By prevent disproportionately high numbers of deaths
1996 – in the middle of a decade of cutbacks and among women, and by acting in ways that will
difficult economic conditions – Cuba’s maternal directly result in disproportionately high numbers of
mortality rate stood at 2.4 per 10,000 births, barely death among men.
higher than North American figures.
18 P. Adamson, ‘Commentary: A Failure of
Imagination’ [on maternal mortality], The Progress
of Nations (New York: UNICEF, 1996), at <http://
www.unicef.org/pon96/womfail.htm>
L e s s o n 8 : i n s tituti o n a l vi o l e n c e | 179
8.3 Gender-Based Violence and
Poverty
As mentioned above, poverty can be understood
as a form of structural or institutional violence.
To repeat the definition provided in Lesson 4, the
theory of structural violence refers to the ways
in which social structures or institutions prevent
people from fulfilling their basic needs. According
to this theory, structural violence is intimately tied
to direct violence as well. In many areas of the
world, women suffer disproportionately from both
the structural violence of poverty and from direct
violence. Indeed, the two often reinforce one
another.
Women comprise more than two-thirds of the 2.5
billion people defined as poor, that is, those who
are living on less than USD 2 a day. However,
poverty is not only a matter of lack of income. The
Beijing Platform for Action (1995) states:
Poverty has various manifestations, including
lack of food and productive resources sufficient
to ensure a sustainable livelihood; hunger
and malnutrition; ill health; limited or lack of
access to education and other basic services;
increasing morbidity and mortality from illness;
homelessness and inadequate housing; unsafe
environments; and social discrimination and
exclusion. It is also characterised by lack
of participation in decision-making and in
civil, social and political life. It occurs in all
countries – as mass poverty in many developing
countries and as pockets of poverty in developed
countries.
In all these manifestations of poverty, women tend
to systematically fare worse than men. In some
societies, women and girls are often expected
to eat the leftovers after the men and boys have
finished eating. Most women do not have legal
or traditional rights to land or other assets. They
find it difficult to access loans or credit because
they have no collateral. Moreover, women are
less likely to have the resources needed for
success in business, including skills training,
time, and information on markets. Hence, they
are concentrated in low-pay, insecure, informal
occupations. If a marriage breaks down, or a
180 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
daughter displeases her parents, in most societies in ways that would improve their economic and Women’s empowerment is a phrase often used
it is she who must leave her home because she political standing, women in conditions of poverty by development organizations to describe one of
has no ownership or residency rights, regardless are often described as disempowered. the key goals of programmes addressing women’s
of the contribution she has made to the family. poverty and subordination. But what does the
Lacking alternatives for adequate self-support, in Over the years, the international development concept mean? As the economist Amartya Sen
turn, puts women at greater risk of direct violence. community has come up with various approaches emphasizes, women are not merely “passive
For instance, they may be forced into trafficked to address the socioeconomic inequities recipients of welfare-enhancing help, but are
labour situations, prostitution, illegal migration, between men and women. These approaches active agents of change - the dynamic promoters
or marriages to men who abuse them. Once in are often concerned with empowering women. of social transformation.”19 Generally, women’s
a violent domestic setting, many women may be Programmes with limited or contradictory results empowerment is now seen to be multidimensional,
unable to leave because they are wholly dependent have led to the recognition that while women’s made up of cognitive, economic, political,
for their survival upon those who have exploited, economic vulnerability certainly does contribute psychological, and physical components that
trafficked, or abused them. to their overall powerlessness, simply improving interact with each other:
their economic situation will not automatically
While education can be a way out of poverty, and necessarily empower them in every other
two-thirds of those children who are not in dimension. For instance, some direct attempts
school are girls. Many of them are at home doing to increase women’s income levels without
housework and looking after other children. addressing how this will affect gender roles in
Sometimes this is simply due to the gender roles to their families have sometimes put them in danger
which a family is accustomed, but girls may also be from male physical violence. Therefore, meeting
kept home from school because of gender-based women’s basic needs is not enough.
violence. Parents may decide not to send girls to
school because of fears for their physical safety
on the journey to school, or even at school, where
male teachers and pupils may sexually abuse
them.
As discussed in Lesson 7, the threat of violence,
including rape, can make moving around outside
the home perilous for adult women as well. This is
especially so for women and girls who experience
further vulnerabilities based on age, physical
weakness, or membership in groups facing
additional discrimination, such as a stigmatized
race, religion, or caste.
“Feminization of Poverty” and “Women’s
Empowerment”
Women’s disproportionately low levels of income
in relation to men, and their comparatively
limited control of resources overall, has come
to be called the “feminization of poverty.”
Because the feminization of poverty is very often
accompanied by a disproportionately large degree
of responsibility assigned to them for the care of
children and elders, together with their relative
absence of representation in the decision-making
bodies with the power to change social policies
19 A. Sen, Development as Freedom (New York:
Anchor Books, 1999).
L e s s o n 8 : i n s tituti o n a l vi o l e n c e | 181
Persistent Inequality between Women and Men
and Socio-Economic Roles
As noted at the beginning of Lesson 2, it is
generally acknowledged that in no region of the
world are women equal to men in socioeconomic
power or rights. Why are women so much
more vulnerable to poverty than men? A useful
starting point for understanding the dissimilar
socioeconomic experiences of women and men
are their different positions in the sexual division
of labour in many societies and in their uses of
time for market and non-market activities. Women
generally have multiple and simultaneous roles
that are often largely devalued or unpaid, such
as cooking, cleaning and caring for children.
Their activities are situated in both the productive
(income-generating) and reproductive spheres
while men’s activities tend to be concentrated in the
productive sphere.
Where women are able to secure paid productive Total Work Time for Men and Women (in minutes per day) in Selected Countries
work for the market, they are generally underpaid
relative to men given the same jobs and
qualifications. In the developing world, women
receive, on average, only 70 per cent of men’s
wages; and only a fifth of this wage disparity can
be explained by differences in education and work.
Women face discrimination in job markets as they
are often tracked into “feminine” or low-skill and
low-paid career paths.
Studies show that women spend about two-thirds
of their time on non-market work compared to
men, who spend less than a quarter of their time
this way. Men could, in principle, perform care and
community work, as well as the kind of informal
low-paid productive work necessary to keep
families fed (as women often do). However, these
tasks are perceived in many societies to be mainly
women’s work.

Box 8-C: Some Facts on Women’s Status

In all manifestations of poverty, women tend to fare worse than men: Most work in the social reproduction sphere (the For these reasons, women tend to have a weaker
social is human, so where humans are reproduced, ability to generate income on a regular basis. This
• Sixty-six per cent of the world’s illiterate people are women.
or where children are raised, is the social puts them at a higher risk, compared to men, of
• Women provide 70 per cent of the unpaid time spent in caring for family members. This unpaid reproduction sphere) is non-marketable. Those falling into poverty. This form of structural violence
work provided by women is estimated at USD 11 trillion per year – one-third of the global GDP. who reproduce the social – usually women – are against women is maintained through a host of
not usually paid for this labour. Thus, women’s institutional mechanisms. In most societies, women
• Women own one per cent of the land in the world.
largest economic contribution remains unvalued, are grossly underrepresented in government. In
• Women’s participation in managerial and administrative posts is around 33 per cent in the unrecognized and unpaid by the current economic many societies, women are also excluded from
developed world, l5 per cent in Africa and 13 per cent in Asia and the Pacific. system, which primarily values work according or underrepresented within local decision-making
to its worth in the market. Care work is glaringly bodies.
• There are only five women chief executives in the Fortune 500 corporations, the most valuable
omitted from most – if not all – countries’ gross
publicly owned companies in the United States.
national products, even though no country would
• Worldwide, only about 14 per cent of members of parliament are women. Seven per cent of the be able to survive economically if its labour force
world’s cabinet ministers are women. were not continually reproduced.
• In the United Nations system, women hold only 9 per cent of the top management jobs and 21
per cent of senior management positions, but 48 per cent of the junior professional civil service
slots.

Sources: UNIFEM Statistics on Women and Development; UN Statistics Division

182 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n L e s s o n 8 : i n s tituti o n a l vi o l e n c e | 183

8.4 Vulnerability of Women
Migrant Workers
If women generally have a higher risk of poverty,
migrant women in particular face intensified risks
associated with migration and migrant labour.
Today, women make up almost half of the 175
million migrants worldwide and, according to
some predictions, there will be an increasing
“feminization of migration” very like the world trend
toward feminization of poverty. Such a likelihood
suggests the wisdom of paying greater attention to
the protection of (especially low-income) migrant
women labourers, since they face higher risks
of violence and discrimination than both male
migrants and native-born women workers.
Women migrant workers are far from a
homogenous group, although there are certain
common profiles (characteristics often appearing
together) that have been well-documented:
• The woman who seeks a better, more
independent and satisfying life, where she has
greater control over her career and where she
can empower herself with experiences that serve
to build a more secure future;
Percentage of Female Migrants Among the Total Number
of International Migrants, by Major Area in 1960-2000
184 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
• The obedient daughter who is sent abroad by her Migration Trends of Female Workers
parents for the economic survival or well-being (Most of them Working in Domestic Jobs or in the Sex Industry)
of her family;
• The woman who accompanies her husband or
male family member abroad; and
• The girl or woman who is trafficked illegally to
work abroad (she is usually sold, kidnapped,
deceived, or some combination of these) often
but not solely into prostitution establishments or
domestic household labour situations.
The origins and destinations of women migrant
workers indicate that the main routes lead from the
developing world to the developed countries.
Labour migrants generally decide to move to
another country because of promises of a better
economic situation and greater professional
prospects. There are women for whom migration is
a positive experience. While they might earn less
than male migrants and be limited to illegal jobs,
many women are able to improve the economic
situations of their families. Providing income to
one’s family can help a woman improve her status
in her family. This can in turn lead her to gain more
decision-making authority and independence within
the family.
However, many female migrants end up working 8.5 Women and HIV/AIDS
in the “informal sector” of the economy because,
even if they are educated, their credentials may The AIDS epidemic is affecting women and girls in
not be accepted in the new country, or, their increasing numbers. Globally, just under half of all
illegal status may prevent them from being able people living with HIV are female. In most regions,
to seek employment legally in the careers of their the proportion of women and girls living with HIV
choosing. Informal sector jobs include domestic is continuing to grow, particularly in Asia, Eastern
work, cleaning, work in large factories known as Europe and Latin America.
sweatshops, and the “entertainment industry” (bars
and sex clubs). In settings like these, employers According to UNAIDS, three-quarters of all
are poorly regulated or not at all controlled; they women with HIV worldwide live in Sub-Saharan
may be operating illegally or simply in industries Africa. More than one in five pregnant women are
without many legal protections for employees. As HIV-infected, and the infection rate of women is at
a result, women in such jobs are at much higher least 1.3 times greater than men in most countries
risk for multiple abuses, especially forced labour, of this region. Among young people aged 15-24,
sexual exploitation, dangerous working conditions the ratio is the highest; women are found to be
and poorly paid work. Unfortunately, women three times as likely to be HIV infected as their
migrants often have to accept the “3D job” – dirty, male counterparts. These discrepancies have
dangerous, and degrading – because they have been attributed to several factors, such as the
few other choices. biological fact that HIV generally is more easily
transmitted from men to women. In addition, sexual
activity usually starts earlier for women, and young
L e s s o n 8 : i n s tituti o n a l vi o l e n c e | 185

Vulnerabilities at Different Stages of the Migration Process
186 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
women tend to have sex with much older partners
(who are more likely to be infected with HIV as
a consequence of having had previous sexual
encounters). However, HIV prevalence rates vary
considerably across the African continent – ranging
from less than one per cent in Mauritania to almost
40 per cent in Botswana and Swaziland.
Juanita Williams, infected HIV/AIDS activist, addressing
participants at an event at the Cathedral Church of St.
John the Divine (New York) on HIV/AIDS in women and
girls. (UN Photo #59026, by Mark Garten, December 2004)
Research has confirmed a strong correlation
between sexual and other forms of abuse against
women and women’s chances of being HIV
infected. A recent study conducted in South Africa
confirmed a direct link between gender-based
violence and increased spread of HIV. Women
who are beaten or dominated by their partners
are nearly 50 per cent more likely to become
infected with HIV, compared with women who live
in non-violent households. Researchers reported
that abusive men are more likely to have HIV and
to impose risky sexual practices on their partners.
These statistics are all the more frightening when
put into South Africa’s context where a woman is
raped every 17 seconds.
L e s s o n 8 : i n s tituti o n a l vi o l e n c e
Violence against women is also a consequence
of HIV/AIDS. When a woman tells her husband
that she is HIV positive, he may abandon her
because of the stigma that the disease brings on
the family. Frequently, pregnant women are tested
for HIV at prenatal clinics and, therefore, they
are more likely to be diagnosed than their male
partners. As a result, they are mistakenly accused
of being responsible for spreading HIV and are
often ostracized in their local communities. (While
women can transmit the virus, male to female
transmission is much easier and by far the most
common manner in which the disease is spread
through sexual contact.) The fear of rejection,
stigmatization, violence and abuse prevents many
women from receiving help from HIV counselling
and testing services, from telling anyone about their
HIV status, from using HIV prevention programmes
for pregnant women, mothers and their children,
or from engaging in safer sexual practices. HIV
positive women who are either forced out of their
homes or divorced then have to face the harsh
reality of limited options for self-support. They may
end up engaging in “survival sex” – sex for food,
shelter, school fees or other goods. Or, they may
enter professional work as prostitutes. According to
Rwandan government figures, an estimated 80 per
cent of sex workers are infected with HIV.
Participants in the HIV/AIDS training of trainers workshop for United
Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS) Military staff discuss the workshop
programme. (UN Photo #116900, Arpan Munierm, November 2005)
| 187
Furthermore, women suffer unequal access to
health treatment, with the result that fewer HIV
positive women are treated. Women may also be
unable to access health services if their partners
control the household financial or transportation
resources, if they cannot take time off work, or if
they cannot leave their dependants to travel to a
clinic or hospital.
Therefore, if HIV prevention activities are to
succeed, they need to occur alongside other
efforts that address and reduce violence against
women and girls. Similarly, such programmes
must address the connections between gender,
socioeconomic inequality and vulnerability to HIV.
Far more must be done to ensure sustainable
livelihoods for women and girls, particularly those
living in female-headed households, if they are to
be able to protect themselves against HIV infection
and deal with its impact.
8.6 Conclusion
Peace support operations take place in locations
where poverty is widespread. Whether or not
you agree with the characterization of poverty
as a form of structural violence, it is important to
recognize the ways that poverty and discrimination
systematically affect women in ways that increase
their vulnerability to direct violence. As highlighted
in the introduction to this course, violence against
women and gender inequality are inextricably
linked.
Perhaps more than any other, this lesson has
reviewed how thoroughly gender inequalities are
woven into societal structures like education,
banking, property law, marriage practices, divorce
and child custody practices, and daily practices of
family living. When you attempt to “take gender into
account” in the field, it will be essential to consider
how institutional gender inequalities will affect
your policies and procedures, and vice versa: how
your policies and procedures can begin to redress
institutional gender inequalities.

HIV Statistics for Women Living with HIV/AIDS in 2004

Box 8-D: Facts and Figures of HIV/AIDS Infection Worldwide

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on
HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the number of people living with HIV rose in 2004 to its highest level ever,
with sub-Saharan Africa being by far the most affected region. Women and girls remain highly
vulnerable to HIV infection representing an increasing proportion of people living with the virus.
The data provided by the WHO/UNAIDS report are revealing:
• At the end of 2004, an estimated 39.4 million people worldwide – 37.2 million adults and 2.2
million children younger than 15 years – were living with HIV/AIDS.
• An estimated 4.9 million new HIV infections occurred worldwide during 2004 – out of this 4.3
million were adults and 640,000 children under 15 years.
• Worldwide, approximately 17.6 million women are HIV infected. Women and girls make up
almost 57 per cent of adults living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa (three-quarters of all women
with HIV worldwide), 36 per cent in Latin America and 34 per cent in Eastern Europe and Central
Asia.
• In 2004, AIDS caused deaths of 3.1 million people, including 510,000 children under 15 years.

Source: UNAIDS/WHO, AIDS Epidemic Update: December 2004 (Geneva: UNAIDS/WHO, 2004).

188 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n L e s s o n 8 : i n s tituti o n a l vi o l e n c e | 189

End-of-Lesson Quiz
1. The following could all be examples of
institutionalized “gendercide” except:
A. Girls not being allowed to attend school;
B. A government’s lack of investment in maternal
health facilities;
C. Women being killed in a sniper attack;
D. Men being forcibly conscripted into acts of
combat.
2. The phenomenon of “missing women” has
led or will likely lead to all the following
except:
A. Increase in kidnapping and slave trade of
women;
B. Women’s increased self-esteem due to greater
choice of partners;
C. Increased incidence of wife and baby-selling;
D. Increase in prostitution.
3. True or False? Women’s education can cut
down the “female deficit” in the following
ways:
A. Children born to educated women have
increased survival rates.
B. Children of educated women are more likely to
be malnourished.
C. Educated women have lower HIV rates.
D. Educated women are less likely to die in
childbirth.
190 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
4. Sex-selective abortion and female
infanticide:
A. Are forms of intimate partner violence;
B. Are never able to be punished, as they are too
difficult to detect;
C. Usually occur in poor families and not in
wealthy ones;
D. Have likely accounted for millions of
sex-selective deaths throughout history.
5. Which of the following are examples of the
“feminization of poverty”? (You may select
more than one.)
A. More girls than boys are born into poor families.
B. Women are expected to eat the food left over
after men eat.
C. Men are better workers than women and so are
paid more.
D. Women often do not have rights to land.
E. Women lack business sense compared to men.
F. Lack of collateral prevents women from
accessing credit.
6. Two-thirds of children not in school are
girls. One large contributing factor to this is:
A. Boys like going to school more than girls;
B. Girls are not as good in mathematics and
science as boys;
C. Girls are kept at home to help with housework;
D. Boys dislike housework more than girls.
7. Identify which of the following statements are components of “women’s empowerment”.
Statement True False
A. Equal biological capacities for men and
women.
B. Access to land and credit.
C. Participation in movements for social
change.
D. Protection from gender-based violence.
E. Representation in decision-making
bodies.
8. Each of the following is generally true of 10. Why are female labour migrants
women migrant workers except: concentrated in jobs such as domestic work,
A. They earn the same wages as their male sweatshops, and the entertainment industry?
counterparts; A. Women are well-suited to these sectors;
B. They move from the developing world to the B. The lack of women’s full legal status narrows
developed world; women’s choices;
C. They are driven to emigrate by poverty; C. Women themselves choose these jobs
D. They are at higher risk of forced labour and because they prefer them;
sexual exploitation after leaving home. D. These sectors improve women’s economic
circumstances the most.
9. Most of the work in the “social reproduction
sphere” is:
A. Unskilled;
B. Forced labour;
C. Unpaid;
D. Highly valued.
ANSWER KEY
1C, 2B, 3(A True, B False, C True, D True), 4D,
5(B, D, F), 6C, 7(A False, B True, C True, D True, E
True), 8A, 9C, 10B
L e s s o n 8 : i n s tituti o n a l vi o l e n c e | 191
LESSON 9
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
IN CONFLICT AND CRISIS
 9.1 Introduction: Conflict and Crisis 9.2 Sexual Violence in Conflict
Increase Vulnerability
After my arrival in the concentration camp,
Vulnerability in wartime can best be defined as they…raped me…in front of all the rest of the
the combination of one’s exposure to its risks and women...who were yelling and defending me, but
Lesson one’s capacity to cope with its stresses, shocks
and traumas without sustaining long-term physical,
they were beaten. The soldiers said ‘you will give
birth to a Serbian child, we’re doing that out of
9 emotional or economic damage. Like men, women
can be made vulnerable during armed conflict
revenge.’
Testimony of a Bosnian woman in Maria de Bruyn,
by diminished access to their basic means of
Violence, Pregnancy and Abortion, 20031
survival – water, food, medical care, shelter – and
by exposure to violence or threats of violence.
During armed conflicts, existing inequalities and
However, unlike men, certain groups of women
patterns of discrimination that disproportionately
may be particularly vulnerable in situations of
affect women, including marginalization, poverty
armed conflict, such as pregnant women, nursing
and suffering, tend to be exacerbated. While
mothers or women heads of household.
the impact of armed conflict on women differs
considerably across contexts and between
If women are already victims of discrimination
individual women, it is possible to identify some
in peacetime, they will also be susceptible to
LESSON OBJECTIVES greater harms from the marginalization, poverty
common features. Armed conflict often brings with
it widespread sexual violence against women.
and suffering that armed conflict causes, and
9.1 Introduction: Conflict they may bear additional burdens of responsibility
It places heavier than usual burdens on women
and Crisis Increase By the end of Lesson 9, the student should be able to: to ensure their own survival and to care for
as wives, mothers or daughters. Discrimination
children and the elderly. Finally, war brings unique
Vulnerability often weakens people’s ability to survive a crisis
challenges to women who decide to take up arms.
• Explain the main ways in which women are specifically vulnerable because it limits their access to the income, assets,
9.2 Sexual Violence in to the risks and harms of armed conflict, and identify the main forms resources, markets, information, education and
Recent conflicts have highlighted the systematic
Conflict of violence that non-combatant women face during and after armed social ties that help others to survive in times of
and specific targeting of women for sexual
conflict; great disruption and stress.
9.3 Refugee and Internally violence. Rape, sexual assault, forced prostitution,
• Describe how gender roles can shift during – and because of – armed This lesson discusses some of the main sexual slavery, forced pregnancy and other forms
Displaced Women
conflict, and how those roles are, in turn, likely to be affected in post- gender-specific forms of violence that affect of sexual violence have been a persistent feature
9.4 Changing Gender Roles conflict environments; non-combatant women in armed conflict and in of these conflicts, as they have been throughout
post-conflict settings. It also examines some effects the history of warfare. Armed conflict may also be
in Situations of Armed • Discuss the situation of female combatants as it relates to disarmament
that armed conflict can have on gender roles in accompanied by increased trafficking of women: for
Conflict and demobilization programmes; and
communities. In addition to familiarizing you with use as combatants, for forced prostitution, and for
9.5 Disarmament, • List the main topic areas in which specific attention to the needs of the dangers women face, the aim of the lesson is to other forms of slave labour. Girls are vulnerable to
women would need to be paid in a Peace Support Operation mission introduce the complex gender dynamics that may recruitment as child soldiers and to being abducted
Demobilization plan. by armed groups to act as sexual and domestic
be at work in Peace Support Operation mission
and Reintegration sites, where gender roles have likely undergone slaves.
Processes significant disruption. Paradoxically, conflict
and crisis can produce unique opportunities for Sexual violence is a weapon used against men
9.6 Violence Against women to develop skills and experiences in newly and women, and boys and girls in war. However,
Women in Post-Conflict empowered social positions. However, women’s for a variety of reasons, women and girls are more
very contributions often place them at high risk at risk of sexual violence in situations of armed
Settings
of additional violence. Community members who conflict, and more is known about the risks they
feel threatened by women’s active participation in face. As discussed in Lesson 7, women and girls
public activities that challenge traditional or pre-war are more at risk of sexual violence because female
gender norms may perpetrate violence against sexuality is inextricably bound up with gender
those women. Understanding the complexities of
To view a video introduction of this lesson by
1 de Bruyn, Maria. 2003. Violence, pregnancy
such social dynamics will help you to better assist and abortion. Issues of women’s rights and public
the course author AnnJanette Rosga, you can
either log in to your virtual classroom, go to www.
the communities you serve. health, 2nd edition. Chapel Hill, NC, IPAS, 20.
peaceopstraining.org/users/media_page/400/,
or use your mobile device to scan the QR code
to the left.
l e s s o n 9 : vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n i n c o n f l ict a n d cri s i s | 195
inequalities in most societies of the world. Sexual
violence may be one means by which women’s fear
and dependence on men is enforced, especially
in contexts in which there are gross economic
inequalities between women and men. Additionally,
in societies in which male honour is believed to
be dependent upon control of female (wives’,
daughters’, sisters’, etc.) sexuality, sexual violence
against women in war may be seen as an effective
way to hurt not just women but men. Similarly,
where women are seen to symbolize the nation or
culture (as bearers of its children), sexual violence
against them is a symbolic attack upon their nation
and/or culture.
Sexual violence is also, of course, a particularly
intimate – and thus for many an especially harmful
or humiliating – form of violence. This is true
whether it is perpetrated against females or males.
Since most direct perpetrators of sexual violence
are male,2 and since most societies have some
form of cultural taboo against homosexuality,
when sexual violence victims are male, they are
especially likely to experience that violence as
humiliating and are especially unlikely to report
it. This is why much less is known about the
use of sexual violence against men and boys in
situations of armed conflict. What is known is that
such violence occurs in every war. Those studies
that have collected data on male-on-male sexual
violence have found that it is far from uncommon.
Nevertheless, it remains clear that women and girls
are at much higher risk for this form of violence.
It is insufficient to understand sexual violence
solely in terms of rape. Sexual violence also
encompasses forced prostitution, sexual slavery,
2 Women are often involved in the organisation
or ordering of sexual violence in trafficking and
armed conflicts but are much less commonly
involved in the direct commission of such violence.
For example, Rwanda brought the world the first
woman ever to be put on trial for genocide, Pauline
Nyiramasuhuko. Previously a social worker and
the National Minister of Family and Women’s
Affairs, during the 1994 Hutu genocide of Tutsis,
Nyiramasuhuko became an active propagandist
for the Hutu regime, broadcasting messages of
anti-Tutsi hatred over the radio. She then entered
directly into the violence as a military commander,
ordering Interahamwe soldiers to kill and rape Tutsi
women. (Peter Landesman, “A Woman’s Work,”
New York Times Magazine, 15 September 2002.)
196 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
forced impregnation, forced maternity, forced
abortion, forced sterilization, sexual assault,
trafficking, strip searches and inappropriate
medical examinations. During a 1999 survey
carried out by the International Committee of the
Red Cross called People on War, one in nine of
all respondents reported that they knew someone
who had been raped, and nearly as many reported
that they knew someone who had been sexually
assaulted.
Nonetheless, rape is a particularly common
practice in armed conflicts. Recent conflicts have
highlighted the systematic and specific targeting
of women for rape in wartime. This method of
warfare is used for many reasons: to forcibly
impregnate women for the purposes of altering
the demographic composition of an area, to force
a population to flee, to break the resistance of a
person under interrogation and for many other
reasons more complex than the direct infliction of a
wound. In recent decades, HIV/AIDS has added an
especially deadly dimension to the harms of sexual
violence (see Box 9-A).
9.3 Refugee and Internally Displaced
Women
I was an organizer and educator of peasant
groups in Magdalena Medio, the heart of the
oilfields in northern Colombia. I was in the office
when a videotape was delivered to me. I saw on
the tape a colleague of mine being tortured and
killed. The message was clear: If I continued with
my activities, I’d be next. I ran to the police and
asked for their protection but they told me there
was nothing they could do. I was afraid for my
own life, and for my co-workers. I fled to Bogotá.
Maria, a community organizer in E. Rehn and
E. J. Sirleaf, Women, War, Peace, 20023
3 E. Rehn and E. Johnson Sirleaf, Women War
Peace: The Independent Assessment on the
Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and Women’s
Role in Peace-Building (New York: UNIFEM, 2002):
19.
Box 9-A: Armed Conflict and
HIV/AIDS in Rwanda
Rwanda represents one of the most
horrific examples of HIV/AIDS spreading
in times of conflict, as sexual violence was
rampant during the 1994 genocide and in
its immediate aftermath. According to a
UN report, between 250,000 and 500,000
women were raped or gang raped during the
genocide. While it is difficult to determine
the exact transmission rate of HIV during
the genocide due to the impossibility of
ascertaining when a given individual was
first exposed to the virus, it is certain that a
large number of the victims were infected
with the virus during the rape. The rate of
HIV infection in Rwanda was extremely high
already before the genocide – an estimated
25 per cent of the population and an
estimated 35 per cent of the Rwandan army
were HIV positive. Of the surviving women,
70 per cent are estimated to have been
infected with HIV/AIDS.
Source: Amnesty International, at
http://www.amnesty.org
In any refugee population, approximately 50
per cent of the uprooted people are women and
girls. Refugees are those who have crossed an
international border, while internally displaced
persons (IDPs) remain within their country of
origin. States bear the legal responsibility for
protecting refugee and displaced women. In
this, those States which disproportionately host
refugees rely upon the assistance of other States.
Refugee and internally displaced women are
subject to gendered violence, defined in terms
of both direct and wide definitions. Refugee and
displaced women are particularly at risk of sexual
violence, abduction, exploitation, poverty and
illness. Furthermore, women face discrimination
in refugee determination systems, in that these
systems tend to emphasize public and political
activity. Such activity is traditionally associated with
men, and since gender-based persecution is not
in itself grounds for protection under the Refugee
l e s s o n 9 : vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n i n c o n f l ict a n d cri s i s
Convention, women can be less likely to be granted
refugee status in the countries to which they flee.
The breakdown in social values that occurs as a
result of displacement may also increase violence
within the family, and women are vulnerable to
increased violence from outside the family when
traditional community protection is disrupted.
Like all other forms of gendered violence, the
violence that refugee and displaced women suffer
takes particular forms. The following sections
discuss the kinds of violence that women are
likely to face through the many stages of forced
migration.
Villagers in Kenema, Sierra Leone, await the return of family members
and friends who have been living as repatriated refugees in a Liberian
refugee camp, Camp David in Western Liberia, for more than a decade.
(UN Photo # 129159/Eric Kanalstein, December 2006)
Causes of Flight
People flee their homes for many reasons, but
most of those reasons have their roots in political
turmoil and armed conflict. The breakdown of
government, as well as local, community and family
authority means that the usual structures in place
to ensure people’s safety are taken away. This
produces fear and insecurity and prompts people
to flee. Economic issues are also at work – conflict
disrupts people’s ability to attend their jobs and to
provide income and food for their families. Schools
may be shut down, so children are at home and
need full-time care. The local currency may be
devalued as a result of the conflict. Even if not
immediately threatened by violence, people may
need to flee in order to reach a place of more
economic security.
| 197
During armed conflict, women become more
vulnerable as societies break down. They may
be escaping a trauma, such as rape or violence
against male family members. Their homes may
have been physically damaged, or perhaps local
infrastructures such as utilities providing heat,
water or light have been destroyed.
Displaced Women’s Vulnerabilities While in
Flight
For refugee and IDP women and girls, the violence
and insecurity that causes them to flee their homes
or countries is usually only the beginning. Leaving
is risky because the destination – whether camps
or urban areas, abandoned homes or the homes
of friends or family – can put them at greater risk
of violence, abduction, exploitation, poverty and
illness. As they attempt to cross a border or move
from an unsafe location, refugee women and girls
may be victimized by army or rebel groups, border
guards or even the local community. Women who
lose their male heads of household or other male
family members are especially vulnerable to abuse
because, without a male protector, others may
perceive them as permissible to attack.
Displaced women and their families must often
move repeatedly to find adequate protection.
As a result, they often experience multiple
displacements and a downward spiral of insecurity
and poverty. New threats to their safety emerge. It
is a cycle that is difficult to escape and leads to an
even greater need for protection.
In one Latin American nation, internally displaced
women who manage to escape the brutality of
paramilitary and guerrilla groups can be found
living in the slums of the capital. As they can find
jobs only in the unofficial, unregulated sector,
most of them become domestic workers, likely to
experience economic and physical exploitation.
Moreover, since the government is trying to
discourage the internally displaced persons from
moving to the slum areas, the women do not dare
to seek legal or police protection.
Women’s choices as to when and how to flee
may also be limited because they often lack
what they need to move, such as documentation
(identification cards, passports, birth certificates),
198 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
funds for transportation, basic literacy, and access
to information. The lack of control over when and
how they flee makes them more vulnerable to
abuse and exploitation.
Sudanese refugees in Iridimi Camp in Chad.
(UN Photo #14733 by Eskinder Debebe, July 2004)
Upon Arrival
When refugee and internally displaced women
and girls arrive at a destination, they continue to
remain at risk of abuse, exploitation, violence and
abduction. In one Asian city, women who escaped
the threat of violence by armed combatants were
abused or threatened with violence in the refugee
camps to which they fled. Domestic violence can
also increase. The women of one African nation
who fled their country for safety in the late 1990s,
for example, were found to face an increase
of domestic violence once in the camps. The
pressures, uncertainties, and indignities associated
with flight, combined with inadequate housing,
security, food, and other problems which people
tend to face in the camps, can worsen already
stressful domestic situations. When men’s feelings
of powerlessness increase, they may compensate
for, or express, this by acting out violently toward
family members.
Women refugees who move to urban areas of host
countries may be at particular risk because they
are more difficult for assistance agencies, such as
UNHCR, to identify. Refugees in urban settings
are very often discriminated against and abused by
the local population. In addition, the host country’s
institutions, courts, police, and local human rights
organizations often do not see refugees as a
priority or are reluctant to support them, for fear of
the country becoming a magnet for refugees. They
also may not want to be seen as putting refugees’
needs above those of their own citizens.
Internally displaced women face many of the same
problems as refugee women. Their governments
are often unwilling to provide services or protection,
either because the women are from a particular
social or ethnic group, or simply because they
are not perceived as a priority for support. The
government of Sierra Leone, for example, classified
internally displaced persons living in Grafton Camp,
near the capital city Freetown, as “homeless.” The
camp residents were overwhelmingly female heads
of household and their children. Because the camp
population had been classified as homeless and
not internally displaced, they did not fall under the
budgets or programmes run by the government or
by international humanitarian assistance agencies.
To address more precisely the protection and
needs of refugee women, the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has a Policy
on Refugee Women, Guidelines on the Protection of
Refugee Women and Guidelines for the Prevention
of and Response to Sexual and Gender-Based
Violence against Refugees, Returnees and
Internally Displaced Persons, and continues to
improve gender (and age) mainstreaming in its
assistance and protection activities. The guidelines
include recommendations on camp design and
stress the importance of women’s participation in
camp decision-making to promote the safety of
refugee women and girls. UNHCR emphasizes
the importance of involving refugee women in all
decisions that affect their lives, pointing out that
participation promotes protection.
l e s s o n 9 : vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n i n c o n f l ict a n d cri s i s
Returning Home
The insecure situation of refugee and displaced
women does not necessarily improve once
conflict has ended and the displaced return home.
Many examples exist of violence against women
increasing in post-conflict situations, particularly
when demobilized men are not fully integrated
into the community and feel bored, traumatized,
powerless, angry, and/or extremely stressed.
In Bosnia, for example, the incidence of alcohol
abuse among men increased after the war, as
did domestic violence. In addition, although war
has officially ended, an unstable government
may be unable to protect its citizens. Or, there
may be a lack of commitment to protect women
by the community or by police forces because
violence against them is not seen as a crime worth
preventing or punishing.
Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan (seated, wearing white shirt)
talking to women in the Zam Zam camp of the Darfur region of Sudan.
(UN Photo #14563, Eskinder Debebe, July 2004)
Refugee or internally displaced women who want to
return home may be unable or unwilling to do so for
several reasons. Some may feel their safety would
still be in danger if they returned. Lack of ownership
or access to property, including land and housing,
may also be an obstacle. Inheritance laws and
practices in many countries do not allow a woman
to inherit land; therefore, a widow may have no
home to which she can return. Women may also be
prevented from returning by the closing of a border,
if they lack proper identification needed to cross
that border, or if there is a risk of being abducted or
trafficked en route.
| 199
Some women may have no choice but to face such
risks. In families with a male head of household,
men often make the decisions about whether or not
to return. They may not consider the potential risks
to the women and girls in their family, or they may
not consider these dangers sufficient reason to
delay return.
On the other hand, the refugee experience can
be beneficial for women if they have gained skills
and other forms of empowerment. In one example,
Guatemalan women in refugee camps in Mexico in
the 1980s and 1990s were trained by the UN and
women’s organizations on their rights and on how
to address gender discrimination. The attitudes of
these women, who had previously been confined
to the home, were changed as they began to
recognize the benefits of literacy and education.
There is evidence that the younger generations
who lived in the camps, as well as their mothers,
went home to push for greater educational
opportunities. Similarly, doors were opened for
women refugees from El Salvador who had been
living in refugee camps in Honduras. These
refugee women, whose roles had been limited to
domestic work and gardening, learnt to read and
gained non-traditional skills in basic health care
and family planning.
In many cases, returnee women contribute to
reconstruction because they have higher levels
of education and skills, such as Afghan girls and
women who were educated during their stay in
Pakistani refugee camps. An Afghan Women’s
Welfare Department and Resource Centre, for
instance, was developed by refugees themselves
to provide literacy training, health information, and
skills-building to Afghan refugee women in Pakistan
and returnees in Afghanistan. These organizations
are expanding in Afghanistan and, as a result, are
contributing to the country’s reconstruction.
200 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
9.4 Changing Gender Roles in
Situations of Armed Conflict
War forces people into unfamiliar roles,
necessitating both the strengthening of existing
coping mechanisms and the development of new
ones. Women often take up new roles in the family
and the community, roles which may challenge and
redefine perceptions of women and their former
boundaries in society. For example, women may
be forced to work outside the home in order to find
means to support their families; or they may make
major decisions for the household. Prior to the
conflict, men may have been the primary bearers
of these responsibilities. As a woman from El
Salvador put it:
Before the war women were not taken into
consideration. Women were only working in the
home. But, when war came, women came out
of the house to demonstrate their capability. In
part it was war which meant that women could
be taken seriously and that they could do a lot
of things. It made people realise that women are
capable of changing our society.4
Changes in gender roles can be seen as positive
developments, yet many of these changes for
women may be reversed once the armed conflict
is over. Men may return and expect to take up the
roles that they held before, or the community may
want things to “go back to normal.”
Female Combatants: Dilution of Gender
Barriers
Among the most dramatic ways in which gender
roles may change during times of armed conflict
is the taking up of arms by women themselves.
As mentioned in Lesson 1, stereotyped gender
roles often suggest that only men enter the armed
forces, while women provide for soldiers and
the non-fighting members of the family. Women
traditionally care for soldiers by treating the
wounded, or by taking care of men’s needs through
the provision of food or other various services.
Stereotypically, men are seen as aggressors
and perpetrators of violence, while women are
4 ICRC, People on War RadioSeries: ‚Women
and War‘ (March 2000).
defenceless and passive victims. Consequently,
men are more commonly expected to speak in
the name of nationalist or pro-war ideologies,
while women are peace advocates and peace
negotiators.
These gender norms – socially constructed and
often manipulated by political ideologies – shape
the behaviour of men and women. However, the
flexibility of gender roles becomes more apparent
under the pressure of extreme circumstances like
war. This can be seen both in recent conflicts and
historically. In many countries during the Second
World War, women worked in weapons factories,
and many took part in active fighting. Since then,
women have more frequently joined armed forces,
performing both support and combat roles.
History is also filled with evidence that would
contradict any simple claims that women are
inherently peaceful or that only men support
nationalism and war. Women have proven to
be capable of actively supporting aggressive
ideologies such as those of the Nazi parties before
and during the Second World War, the communist
parties in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War,
and nationalist movements after the disintegration
of Tito’s Yugoslavia. In the 1970s, it was mostly
Chilean middle-class women who gave massive
support to Pinochet’s regime. During the conflict in
Northern Ireland, women took part in rallies, mobs
and demonstrations on both sides.
Women have served in such oppressive and
genocidal institutions as Nazi death camps and
Soviet gulags. Photos and investigations revealed
that U.S. servicewomen were involved at every
level of the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq, including
posing over the naked bodies of tortured Iraqi
prisoners of war. The “Black Widows” of terrorist
groups in Chechnya offer yet more evidence
of women’s capacity to participate in extreme
violence, as do the women who took an active part
in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
There are few armed forces worldwide from which
women are totally absent, and women can be
found in both regular/conventional and paramilitary
forces. In guerrilla forces especially, women have
been active combatants. In addition, women have
l e s s o n 9 : vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n i n c o n f l ict a n d cri s i s
proved their usefulness acting as couriers, spies
and reconnaissance soldiers. However, many
armed forces restrict the types of roles which
women may perform, and it is still exceptional for
women to be promoted to the highest levels of
command.
Women were engaged in the war in Sierra
Leone; they fought in the guerrilla wars in the
Philippines; and they were a part of the elite wing
of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE),
the so-called “Black Tigers” of Sri Lanka. In the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC),
Latin America’s largest guerrilla army, women make
up at least one-third of the personnel. Women have
fought in armed opposition groups in Ecuador,
Guatemala, India (Nagaland), Indonesia (Aceh),
Iraq, Kosovo, Malaysia, El Salvador, Turkey and in
many African armed conflicts, such as in Burundi,
Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan.
Female suicide bombers represent a relatively new
form of women’s direct use of violence. Although
Palestinian women have been fighting against
Israeli forces for the past three decades, the first
female suicide bomber appeared only in 2002,
when a volunteer paramedic at an ambulance
station detonated her explosives in a Jerusalem
street, killing an 81-year-old man and injuring 100
other bystanders. There have since been women
suicide bombers in the Tamil Tigers, in the Kurdish
Workers Party and in the Chechen Al Aqsar
Martyrs brigade.
As noted in Lesson 3, the status of women as
combat troops, including front line soldiers, has
been a controversial issue in debates about military
recruitment and retention of women in some NATO
countries. In NATO’s armed forces, only seven
per cent of existing female soldiers hold positions
in operational areas. Most servicewomen work
in non-combat jobs in administration, personnel,
medical or technical functions.
In a 1999 decision, the European Court of Justice
gave independent authority to each nation of the
European Union to determine for itself how to
handle the issue of excluding women from combat
units. As a result, much variation exists between
EU countries in the percentage of women serving
| 201
 in combat positions. While in general, women still units), where they can occupy only administrative culturally discriminatory, genocidal, or ethnic begins – along with the appointment of transitional
predominantly serve in non-combat roles, armed supporting roles, has largely been retained. With cleansing features to the conflict. Any group governments – women do not often gain positions
forces are increasingly opening combat units to the exception of Norway, submarine service perceiving itself to be under attack is likely to of leadership.
women as well. In the British Armed Forces, 70 remains closed to women everywhere. Finally, in emphasize traditional activities as a way to protect
per cent of army posts are open for women, 73 per Greece and Poland, women are excluded from all its cultural heritage and to retain a measure of The terrible irony is that women and girls are
cent in the Naval Service and 96 per cent in the combat roles. stability and familiarity during chaotic times. Since not invisible to armed groups, who see them as
Royal Air Force. However, restrictions to women’s women are often seen as particularly symbolic of essential, accessible – and often expendable
employment on submarines and in special units still Cultural Defensiveness Effects of Conflict valued cultural traits, they may bear most of the – military assets. Yet having survived the
exist. A similar situation prevails in the Canadian burden of this heightened emphasis on tradition. devastating experiences of war as combatants,
and U.S. armed forces where women serve in a While some gender barriers are challenged During the war in Sierra Leone, for example, there sexual captives or military “wives” and slave
widening range of military jobs, including combat and suspended during armed conflicts, war can was evidence of an increase in the number of girls or willing labourers in the conflict period, these
roles in some air forces and navies. However, their also have the opposite effect. Traditional gender undergoing traditional rites of passage involving women and girls often become invisible when
exclusion from the combat divisions of armies roles may even become more rigid during times female circumcision. DDR planning begins.5
(infantry, armour, artillery, and special forces of conflict. This is particularly likely if there are
The poverty and insecurity brought on by war can DDR processes are typically agreed upon during
also increase tendencies towards forced marriage the course of peace negotiations. When women
Writing Exercise 9-B of girls at earlier ages as a way to ensure the are absent from negotiations, their needs and
protection of daughters in families that already have views will usually be neglected during the planning
This exercise invites you to reflect on your own thoughts and experiences with regard to women as combatants.
difficulty supporting their children. For example, of DDR operations. This problem is compounded
It would make an especially good one to respond to online with other participants taking this Peace Operations
Afghanistan has had a history of arranged by the fact that women are also underrepresented
Training Institute course.
marriages. As 20 years of war challenged the in both national and international policy and
ability of Afghans to survive, parents or guardians structures. A series of obstacles can stand in the
Perhaps more than others in this course, this lesson directly confronts the “paradox of identity” with which the
often chose, as a survival tactic, to force the way of implementing international commitments
course opened. That paradox, to refresh your memory, involves the trouble with speaking of women as a group at
girls in their care to marry at younger ages so to include women in post-conflict governance,
all, whether it is to say “women are more peaceful than men,” “women are especially vulnerable in times and places
that they would have male protectors. This was democratization and peacebuilding processes.
of armed conflict,” or “women can be soldiers – or genocidaires – just as readily as men can be.”
seen as lessening the demands placed on other They include:
family members who would otherwise have been
The following quote is etched into a glass panel on the upper terrace of the Women in Military Service for America • The sexism or “gender-blindness”6 of politicians
responsible for providing food and shelter to the
Memorial in Washington, D.C.: and diplomats, leading them to resist the
girls for longer periods of time.
inclusion of women at any important level of
The qualities that are most important in all military jobs – things like integrity, moral courage, and governance. This pattern is further reinforced
determination – have nothing to do with gender. 9.5 Disarmament, Demobilization by similarly sexist or gender-blind (usually but
and Reintegration Processes not always male) military and rebel leaders, and/
Answer the following questions: or religious and traditional leaders who have
As noted above, countries that are emerging from an interest in grabbing or retaining power in the
• Do you agree with the above quote?
violent conflict may be potential sites of positive post-conflict period.
• Are there other qualities – qualities that do have something to do with gender – that are vitally important to military change for women. The profound effects of war
jobs that this quote leaves out? If so, what are they? • Lack of equal participation: Women often lack
on gender roles – including women’s participation equal access to participation in all levels of
- For instance, why would so many militaries of the world exclude women from service on submarines? (And in labour previously seen as male-only – can democratization processes. This starts with the
why would Norway choose not to do so?) sometimes produce new openings for women to
influence social and political structures that, in 5 UNIFEM, Getting it Right, Doing it Right:
• How do you reconcile the fact that so much of this lesson discusses the ways in which women can be especially Gender and Disarmament, Demobilisation and
peacetime, were closed to them. However, because
vulnerable to violence in situations of armed conflict, and in post-conflict settings, with the fact that so many Reintegration, 2004.
stereotypical notions of gender-appropriate labour
women become armed combatants themselves? 6 Sexism is the overt or implicit belief, backed
often re-emerge when a society strives to return
by institutional power, that one sex is superior
- Are the different parts of the lesson talking about different kinds of women? to normalcy, women’s participation in war-related to the other in one or more realms solely on
- About women in the company of different kinds of men? work can also be overlooked or hidden away when the basis of sex difference, or the assumption
disarmament, demobilization and reintegration that the perspectives of one sex alone can be
- Are the different sections simply addressing different contexts? (DDR) processes begin. Despite their active synonymous with human perspectives generally.
- Or do the different sections contradict one another in ways that suggest there may be problems with the engagement in all aspects of social life in times of Gender-blindness, on the other hand, is the failure
to perceive that gender may matter to a particular
claims in one or more of the sections? conflict, when post-war reconstruction situation, or the failure to recognize the possible
importance of gender.

202 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n l e s s o n 9 : vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n i n c o n f l ict a n d cri s i s | 203

 choice of members for mediating and negotiating
teams, as well as with the appointment of interim
and transition governing bodies. It also includes
staffing choices for senior personnel posts in
peace operations.
• Trivialisation: When women do get access to
powerful positions/people, their suggestions
are often not taken seriously enough to be
implemented by politicians and ministers.
• Communication gaps between formal and
informal sectors. This results in disregard for
women’s roles and expertise. Leaders in the
formal sector are predominantly male. More
female leaders are to be found in the informal
sector (see the charts below).
The good news is that, when gender is taken into
account and women are incorporated into DDR
planning and implementation processes, these
processes can be very effective. For example,
in dealing with the needs of former combatants
after war, the carefully implemented gender-aware
approach to demilitarization called for in SCR
1325 benefits both male and female ex-fighters.
The first change is immediate and practical:
attention to the requirements of women as well
as men contributes to the fairer demobilization of
all soldiers and support workers. Second, over
the longer term, gender awareness during the
demobilization process promotes the recognition
that gender roles are dynamic and thus a potential
site for change. Third, gender-aware DDR is vital
for successful reintegration because the gendered
impacts of wars do not end when conflict comes
to an end. Those who are traumatized by war and
then demobilized with inadequate psychosocial
care frequently carry on the fight inside their own
homes, turning the violence they have witnessed or
perpetrated against family members. The lethality
of this domestic violence is heightened by the large
numbers of small arms that often circulate in the
aftermath of war.

Men and Women in Post-Conflict Reconstruction

Division of Labour and Power

204 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n l e s s o n 9 : vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n i n c o n f l ict a n d cri s i s | 205

Demobilization
Programmes to meet the needs of combatants
must be put into place as quickly as possible after
the formal cessation of hostilities because the
presence of armed and experienced fighters is a
tremendous threat to the continuation of peace.
Nevertheless, DDR needs to be understood as a
comprehensive process through which to promote
social transformation, not only as a means to
reduce the number of armed fighters after war.
The intention of demobilization is to downsize or,
where possible, completely disband armed forces
(government and irregular/guerrilla), both to reduce
the number of members of the armed forces and
to help prevent a spill-over of trained combatants
into neighbouring conflicts where they might work
as mercenaries. This is typically achieved by
assembling combatants, housing and disarming
them, and usually offering them some form of
compensation and other assistance to encourage
their transition back to civilian life.
The developers of most contemporary operations
are increasingly careful to differentiate between
combatants on the basis of gender and age and
to emphasize different physical and psychological
needs. Increasingly, they reflect on the special
challenges presented by child soldiers, including
girls, a field where the need for gender awareness
has also become more obvious. After the adoption
of SCR 1325 and women’s continued activism to
promote their contribution to peacebuilding, women
and girl soldiers are officially on the agenda of
demobilization planning. There are, however, still
some significant oversights concerning the special
needs of female ex-combatants, and this places a
heavy burden on women in the post-conflict period.
The first challenge former female combatants face
is that they present an embarrassment (even if it is
unspoken) to their communities after war. Societies
often make a significant effort to forget how gender
roles were challenged during wars. In Zimbabwe,
popular images of the liberation war after its end
reinforced the belief that women had made their
greatest contribution as wives and mothers. In
post-conflict Eritrea, Nicaragua, and Sierra Leone,
when women challenged efforts to return them
206 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
to their pre-war roles as subordinate to men,
they were vilified, and those who had seen active
combat became objects of shame.7 In Namibia,
ex-combatant Teckla Shikola observed:
No one mentions the contributions women made
during the struggle. That’s true all over the world.
You never find an appreciation of what women
did. Men appreciate women who cook for them,
and they respect women who fought the war
with them, but after independence, they don’t
really consider women as part of the liberation
movement.8
Disarmament
Disarmament processes may have different
impacts on women and men. The voluntary
surrender of small arms and light weapons
(SALW) is an issue of particular importance for
non-combatant women who are at particular risk
of violence from small arms in the home. Men
have traditionally been associated with the use,
ownership and promotion of small arms. They are
injured and killed by guns in far larger numbers
than women. Women may be excluded from DDR
processes because they do not have weapons to
hand in, or because they cannot pass a test by
which they prove familiarity in handling a gun in
order to proceed to demobilization. Ex-soldiers
(both male and female) can feel unsafe without
their weapons for a number of complex reasons
and may therefore be reluctant to turn in all of their
arms. They may hand in their second or third-best
weapon and hide others, which means that many
weapons do not get collected during voluntary
surrender programmes.
When weapons remain in communities after the
onset of peace, crime takes on an added danger.
Women are raped at gunpoint, children are killed
in gang crossfire or while playing with SALW, and
homes are robbed by armed thieves. Women not
only run the risk of facing lethal domestic violence,
7 F.Barth, Peace as Disappointment: The
Reintegration of Female Soldiers in Post-conflict
Societies: A Comparative Study from Africa (Oslo:
PRIO, 2002).
8 T. Shikola, ‘We left Our Shoes Behind’, in M.
Turshen and C. Twagiramariya (eds), What Women
Do in Wartime: Gender and Conflict in Africa
(London and New York: Zed Books, 1998), 150-62.
Box 9-C: De-mining as an Aspect of Disarmament — Women De-miners in Cambodia
In areas where mines have been laid during prior conflicts, a vital aspect of disarmament processes includes
de-mining and awareness-raising about the risks of mines. Women have been found to play important roles in Mine
Risk Education (MRE) programmes because they are particularly effective at delivering mine awareness messages
to their families and communities. Mine action organizations have recruited both men and women as MRE teachers,
but in certain contexts, such as Afghanistan and Kosovo, it was essential to have mainly female teachers in order to
specifically target women from affected communities.
In the middle of the 1990s, in Cambodia, women were recruited as de-miners for the first time by the Mines
Advisory Group (MAG), an international NGO for mine action. As heads of household or breadwinners, women were
extremely motivated to take on this activity in order to make their communities and families safer. Other clearance
organizations followed this model, and women de-miners were recruited and trained in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo
and other countries contaminated with mines and explosive remnants of war.
Chan Sovannarorn’s story
Chan Sovannarorn, 24 years old, lives in a village called Rumchek, 237 kilometres to the north of Cambodia’s
capital, Phnom Penh. Her father died in 1984 after stepping on a landmine about one kilometre from Rumchek. He
was travelling to the forest to look for vines and resin. ‘I shook with fright after hearing about my father. My mother
and I went straight to the spot when we were told,’ said Sovannarorn, ‘but luckily we met him on the way because
one of his friends had moved him to the ox-cart path. My mother and I cried and cried when we saw him covered
by blood. I remember that one of his legs had blown up, about ten centimetres below the knee, and the other was
completely lacerated. A day later he died at Rovieng district hospital.’
There was heavy fighting in the area in the 1980s between the Khmer Rouge and Cambodian government
troops. During the fighting, a military camp was established in the centre of the village by government troops.
Anti-personnel blast mines and fragmentation mines were laid around this camp, especially on the access roads
inside the village, around big trees, and around water sources. The people of Rumchek fled their homes to live at
Rovieng village, about 18 kilometres to the north-east where the conditions were safer. They returned back to the
village in late 1996, after the fighting had stopped completely. In 1993, when Sovannarorn was 14 years old, her
mother died from malaria. At that time, she was in grade four of Rovieng primary school. Since her mother passed
away, Sovannarorn was not able to continue her study and was asked to live with her aunt. Every day she had
to work as a labourer in the rice field, or pick crops of soybeans, black pepper, or chilli. She received 3,000 riels
(US$0.75) per day.
An assessment conducted by Mines Advisory Group (MAG) in August 2002 identified eight minefields, covering
37 hectares, located in and around Rumchek village. The minefields prevent people from building houses, planting
vegetables or crops and also make road access difficult. The people feel afraid for their lives.
Chan Sovannarorn is one of 25 women currently attending the basic de-miners training in Preah Vihear province.
‘I am very happy now because I have an opportunity to join the basic de-miners training, conducted by MAG. I
concentrate very hard because I do not want to fail at the end of the course,’ Sovannarorn said. ‘If I have money I
will help my aunt to buy cows or buffaloes in order to support her farming. At the moment, only my uncle-in-law is
responsible for my family consisting of six people including me.’
After completion of the training, these new de-miners will join with a number of experienced MAG de-mining teams,
before regrouping into MAG’s first ever all-female de-mining team by the end of the year. MAG is the only mine
action agency in Cambodia to employ women in technical roles -- currently 20 per cent of de-miners are female.
MAG is striving to increase this percentage, with a particular emphasis on women from mine-affected communities
such as Sovannarorn.
Source: Chan Sovannarorn’s story was written by Prak Sary, MAG Regional Manager, Preah Vihear Region, Cambodia,
at http://www.mag.org.uk/magtest/cambodia/cam01a.htm.
l e s s o n 9 : vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n i n c o n f l ict a n d cri s i s | 207
 but they also become more vulnerable while
managing their daily workload. They may further
be burdened with caring for those who have been
injured or disabled by gunfire, and often they end
up with the sole responsibility of supporting the
family unit economically.
Women most affected by guns often have the best
ideas about incentives to support the removal of
SALW from the community and, working alongside
trained personnel, can play a significant role in
convincing people to surrender their weapons.
UNDP’s “Weapons for Development” collection
programme in Albania owes a measure of its
success to the participation of women who,
supported by UNIFEM, were trained in aspects
of weapons control measures and then sent out
to support SALW awareness in their communities
during the amnesty and collection process. In
Gramsch, women went door-to-door preaching
the danger of SALW under the slogan, “A gun
less, a chance more!” In Elbasan, where the
authorities collected 2,332 weapons and 1,801
tons of ammunition, and in Diber, where 2,407
weapons and 855 tons of ammunition were handed
in, women played a significant role, particularly in
influencing family members to voluntarily surrender
their illegal weapons.
Registering to surrender weapons. As a result of DDR, more than 100,000
combatants were disarmed and demobilized, including 22,000 women,
8,500 boys and 2,500 girls. Gbarnga, Liberia, May 2004. (UNMIL Photo)
A conscious strategy of disarmament should be to
engage with both women and men on the subject
of small arms, but this is complicated by women’s
often paradoxical relationship with such weapons.
208 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
While it is true that their proliferation makes
women’s safety much more precarious, it should
not be assumed that women will automatically
oppose SALW. Some women participate in
the smuggling and storage of small arms and
ammunition. In Sierra Leone, for example, women
were very active movers of light weapons.9 In the
liberation struggles in Namibia, South Africa and
Zimbabwe, while relatively few women formally
entered the armed struggle, large numbers were
engaged in supporting the conflicts by other means
such as arms smuggling.10 During the conflict, the
ownership and usage of arms was perceived as a
legitimate means of supporting a political cause. As
a result, laissez-faire attitudes to weapons became
normalized.
Like men, women need to be educated and
encouraged to seek non-violent alternatives
to achieve improvements in human security
and safety. In the district of Tirana, women’s
associations distributed questionnaires on the
issue of micro-disarmament, which offered an
insight into the complexity of women’s responses to
weapons.
‘While filling out the questionnaire we talked to
many women,’ one of the organisers said. ‘They
spoke about anxiety about the arms they had
in their houses. The general feeling was that
the arms are a great danger for every family.
There were some women who considered arms
as necessary for defence because of the weak
police force. If the state would better defend
people and help them feel safe, then arms would
not be needed in the home.11
As these examples show, there are many aspects
to a micro-disarmament process. The media,
the schools and society in general can play an
important role in supporting SALW awareness
campaigns by advocating that weapons do not
necessarily provide security. Throughout the
9 B. Mansaray, ‘Women Against Weapons:
A Leading Role for Women in Disarmament’,
in A. Ayissi and R. E. Poulton (eds), Bound to
Co-operate: Conflict, Peace and People in Sierra
Leone (Geneva: UNIDIR, 2000), 139-58.
10 J. Goldstein, War and Gender (Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 82.
11 E. Rehn and E. J. Sirleaf, Women, War, Peace,
2002, 119.
Albanian SALW collection process, the media
played a significant role. Operation Essential
Harvest, a NATO mission to disarm ethnic Albanian
groups in Macedonia, was supported by public
service announcements on television and radio,
many of which focused on women and home
safety. In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a popular soap
opera has taken on the problem of the effects of
uncontrolled SALW on people’s lives.
In situations where they fear reprisals, or doubt that
the conflict has truly come to an end or in any other
way question their personal security, people will
not easily give up what they imagine is a source of
protection.
Women fighters turning in mortar shells during Liberia’s disarmament
and demobilization process. (Source: UNMIL photo/Eric Kanalstein)
Writing Exercise 9-D
Please consider sharing your responses Reintegration
to this exercise online with other Peace
Operations Training Institute course When attempts are made to demilitarize a society
participants on the Message Board, http:// by reintegrating its soldiers, special care must be
www.peaceopstraining.org/forums. taken not to exclude or ignore the needs of female
combatants. Women who have seen active combat
Imagine that you are in charge of developing are likely to be even more marginalized than
a plan for SALW disarmament and other women in the society under reconstruction.
awareness in your mission site. Using the Unlike male combatants, demobilized military
“Suggested Questions and Guidelines” women are often refused promotion or expelled
provided at the end of Lesson 3, ask
altogether, excluded from new political structures,
yourself: what are men’s and women’s
refused access to re-training or land, overlooked
relationships to SALW in this community?
Then: in veteran’s organizations, and regarded with fear
and suspicion when they attempt to return to their
• List some ways in which men and women pre-war lives.
are differently affected by SALW in this
community.
All ex-combatants may have special health care
• List some ways in which they are similarly needs, both physical and mental, as a result of
affected by SALW. their experiences in combat. Emerging research
• List other important variables affecting indicates that female ex-combatants may have
men’s and women’s relationships to additional health care needs as a result of suffering
SALW (e.g., age, combatant status, sexual violence at the hands of their fellow soldiers
ethnicity, etc.) and describe how each is a and/or superiors.
factor for your planning process.
A 2003 report financed by the [U.S.] Department
• Give at least one specific example of how
of Defense revealed that nearly one-third of a
a factor from each of these lists could
impact your SALW disarmament and nationwide sample of female veterans seeking
awareness plan. healthcare through [facilities for veterans] said they
experienced rape or attempted rape during their
service. Of that group, 37 percent said they were
raped multiple times, and 14 percent reported they
were gang-raped. Perhaps even more tellingly,
l e s s o n 9 : vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n i n c o n f l ict a n d cri s i s | 209
a small study financed by the [Department of
Veterans Affairs] following the Gulf War suggests
that rates of both sexual harassment and assault
rise during wartime. The researchers who carried
out this study also looked at the prevalence of
PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] symptoms
– including flashbacks, nightmares, emotional
numbing and round-the-clock anxiety – and found
that women who endured sexual assault were
more likely to develop PTSD than those who were
exposed to combat.12
Treatment for women soldiers experiencing the
combined effects of trauma from combat and
sexual assault by their peers or superior officers is
almost certainly lacking in pre-existing models for
ex-combatant reintegration. Most PTSD treatments
in U.S. veterans affairs facilities, for example, are
designed solely for male ex-combatants. As one
U.S. female soldier reported, she was put into a
therapy group “made up entirely of male Vietnam
vets, some of whom were trying to work through
sex crimes they committed during military service.
Others came home from war and beat their wives.”
Such treatment only worsened her condition.13
It is also important to remember that not all
women who participate in war do so as fighters. In
planning DDR processes, programme designers
and implementers must not only address the
needs of women ex-combatants but also of those
who played other support roles, for instance as
porters, cooks, or wives (which should include
those abducted and widowed) of combatants.
Women and girls associated with fighting forces
are not always officially married to male fighters,
and they might therefore be difficult to identify or be
vulnerable in other ways.
A valuable lesson can be learnt from agencies
specializing in assisting refugees and internally
displaced persons. They have discovered that
women are far more likely to speak to women
support workers, especially when intimate health
care issues must be discussed. This knowledge
should also be applied to women associated
with fighting forces; if they do not feel safe or
welcomed in a DDR process, they are likely to
12 Sara Corbett, “The Women’s War,” New York
Times Magazine 18 March 2007: p. 45.
13 Ibid., p. 52.
210 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
Ex-combatants participate in skills training at the Booker
Washington Institute in Kakata, Liberia.
(UN Photo # 85565 by Eric Kanalstein)
self-demobilize – in other words, to disappear
from view without taking advantage of any of
the reintegration services. While some may
argue that women should have the option to
forego formal demobilization and reintegration
opportunities, doing so will exclude them both
from such immediate assistance as medical
care and re-training, as well as from longer term
benefits such as re-employment in alternative
security forces, greater political participation and
access to economic alternatives. Their capacity
for self-reintegration is likely to be very limited,
possibly resulting in homelessness, isolation,
and exclusion from safe employment. Training for
female field workers whose role is to interview
women combatants and others in order to identify
recipients for DDR assistance will help to avoid
such outcomes.
Although the primary goal of demobilization is than manage the transition of personnel into
to remove combatants from their fighting roles non-combatant roles after war. Demobilization and
as quickly as possible, it is crucial, even in the reintegration, and the longer-term challenges of
planning stages, to think about how returning disarmament, can also become part of the broader
ex-soldiers will be received by the civilian movement for more just – and therefore more
community. From the perspective of this receiving peace-sustaining – social arrangements after war.
community, it can seem that DDR rewards people
who supported or committed atrocities. Civilians
often express resentment that they are expected
to welcome back those who have harmed them,
and they often feel excluded from assistance plans
developed for ex-combatants and their co-workers.
In other words, for reintegration to succeed,
women in receiving communities, as well as
women ex-combatants, need support. Often it is
the women in the receiving community who will be
the harshest judges of the women who return, so
careful attention must be paid to building bridges
and networks between the women of these very
different groups. Programme planners should
take into account that women who have been
Girls in Kunduz attend a literacy class offered by Afghanistan’s New
associated with fighting forces may have very
Beginnings Programme (ANBP). ANBP provides literacy classes to soldiers
different needs. Ex-combatant and non-combatant who have entered the DDR programme and to other members of their
women may want to make different choices in the community. (Source: http://www.unddr.org/photos.php?c=121)
post-conflict period. While some may wish to return
to their original homes, others may choose to move 9.6 Violence Against Women in Post-
to a new geographical location, with or without their Conflict Settings
partners.
Post-conflict settings generally do not bring an end
If it is not well planned, the period of rehabilitation to violence against women and girls. The volatility
and reintegration will be longer. Furthermore, a of post-war situations is usually exacerbated by
poorly planned reintegration process is more likely non-existent, or not yet fully or properly functioning,
to produce poorly reintegrated ex-combatants and security institutions such as police and courts.
ever-widening divisions between ex-combatants Thus, women are especially vulnerable to the
and the receiving community over time. following:
Recognizing this danger from the outset is an
important part of ensuring long-term stability • Lack of State protection from demobilized (or still
fighting) militia, rebels and their sympathisers;
and peace. Considering the nature of combatant
gender roles and the possible impacts this may • Limited capacities and interests by governments
have on gender dynamics in the communities in investigating and punishing perpetrators of
into which ex-combatants will be reintegrating, violence;
and consciously addressing these impacts within
• Gaps in local criminal law, inefficient police
long-term rehabilitation planning, will greatly
provisions for filing and pursuing complaints of
enhance the likelihood of successful peacebuilding
sexual violence, poor preparedness of medical
processes.
facilities to provide medical examinations and
treatment; and
Demobilization and reintegration form only one
part of the broader task of demilitarizing society, • Reluctance of the international community to
but they present an opportunity to do more exert effective pressure on local governments to
investigate and punish the perpetrators.
l e s s o n 9 : vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n i n c o n f l ict a n d cri s i s | 211
End-of-Lesson Quiz
1. Which of the following most accurately
describes the relationship between women’s
participation in public activities during
conflict and community violence?
A. Since men are the primary actors during times
of conflict, women’s roles during wartime
change very little. Thus, their risk of community
violence remains stable;
B. Since women have little opportunity to
participate in public life during times of conflict
because their services are increasingly needed
in the home, they often remain safe from
community violence by isolating themselves
and their families;
C. Since women are given greater opportunity to
develop skills and participate in public activities
during times of conflict, they often develop
protective strategies which decrease their risk
of being victimized by community violence;
D. Since women are given greater opportunity
to develop skills and participate in public
activities during times of conflict, this challenge
to traditional gender roles often results in an
increased risk of violence from the community.
2. Indicate whether the following statements
about sexual violence during times of conflict
are true or false.
A. Sexual violence may be used to demoralize or
dishonour opponents.
B. Sexual violence during wartime should not be
viewed as a political act, but rather as men
meeting their basic sexual needs by taking
women as spoils of war.
C. Women are generally not at risk of rape during
wartime if they are involved in combat, since
these women challenge traditional gender
roles.
D. Sexual violence includes strip searches.
212 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
3. Why is it inaccurate to say that women’s
response to rape after a conflict has ended is
“post-traumatic”?
A. Technically, rape is not defined as a “trauma”
since trauma is a long-lasting or recurring event;
B. Typically, conflicts are long-lasting, without a
clear end, and displacement is not temporary.
Thus, trauma is still occurring;
C. The term “post-traumatic” refers to a particular
diagnosis for which most rape victims do not
qualify;
D. In the context of war, rape is considered a
minor trauma. Thus, post-traumatic reactions
are typically to combat, rather than to sexual
violence.
4. Why do we hear much more about men
raping women during wartime than we hear
about men raping men?
A. The widespread cultural taboo against
homosexuality makes it especially unlikely
that men are sexually victimized by other men
during times of war;
B. The sex that occurs between men at wartime
is generally consensual and occurs between
men who do not have sexual access to women.
Thus, it should not be considered rape;
C. The widespread cultural taboo against
homosexuality makes male victims of rape
especially unlikely to report it;
D. Men are not as traumatized by rape as women.
5. Indicate whether each of the following
statements, about why women may be
reluctant to report sexual violence to the
authorities, is more true or more false:
A. They risk being forced to marry the perpetrator
who, in some places, may receive a reduced
sentence if he agrees to marry his victim.
B. They may be punished for bringing dishonour to
their families.
C. They may not be believed because so many
women make false accusations of rape.
D. They may feel shame or embarrassment.
6. Which of the following is a reason that
“rebel” forces might choose to include
women in combat?
A. To provide the men in combat with easy access
to women for sexual purposes;
B. To show that they intend to promote women’s
liberation;
C. To exhibit the usefulness of women’s smaller
size and flexibility in combat;
D. To take advantage of the notion that men are
reluctant to shoot women and, therefore, they
are less likely to be killed in combat.
7. What is “gender-blindness”?
A. The belief that men and women have achieved
equality;
B. The belief that men and women can never
achieve equality;
C. Failure to perceive the importance of gender;
D. Failure to distinguish between gender roles.
8. Which of the following most accurately
describes women’s opinions on small arms
and light weapons (SALW)?
A. Some women oppose SALW while others
participate in the smuggling and storage of
weapons;
B. Since women and children are most commonly
victimized by these weapons, they typically
oppose SALW;
C. Since women are particularly vulnerable to
attacks both inside and outside of the home,
they often smuggle and store weapons to
ensure their safety;
D. Because women do not occupy governmental
or policy-making positions that deal with SALW,
their opinion on these weapons remains largely
unknown.
l e s s o n 9 : vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n i n c o n f l ict a n d cri s i s
9. Indicate whether each of the following
statements regarding women’s special needs
after combat is true or false.
A. Because women are more emotionally
vulnerable than men, they require additional
psychological services after combat.
B. Because most post-traumatic stress treatments
are designed for men, they may be unsuitable
or even harmful for women.
C. Women are far more likely to speak to women
support workers, particularly regarding intimate
health issues.
D. Women are more likely to suffer from
post-traumatic stress due to their hormonal
make-up; thus, they require more intensive
treatment.
10. Those planning, designing and implementing
DDR processes must seek to identify and
address the needs of:
A. All combatants who might continue to be a risk
to security;
B. Every person who can hand in a gun;
C. Every person who comes forward to register
themselves as a combatant;
D. All female ex-combatants and women
associated with fighting forces, including those
who were porters, cooks or “wives.”
ANSWER KEY
1D, 2(A True, B False, C False, D True), 3B, 4C,
5(A True, B True, C False, D True), 6B, 7C, 8A,
9(A False, B True, C True, D False), 10D
| 213
LESSON 10
women building peace

Lesson
10
LESSON OBJECTIVES
10.1 Introduction
By the end of Lesson 10, the student should be able to:
10.2 Getting to Peace
10.3 Peacebuilding, • Identify three main reasons why peacemaking and peacebuilding efforts
Sustaining Peace
10.4 Women and Security
• Describe examples of how women’s activism has successfully reduced
10.5 Gender Mainstreaming
of Peace Support
Operations • Explain what the “Women Building Peace Campaign” was and what its
• Provide two concrete examples of things men can do to help fulfil the
will be less than successful if they do not take women and gender into
account at every level of decision-making, planning and implementation;
violence in a situation of armed conflict, and effectively sustained or
improved peaceful conditions in a post-conflict environment;
major achievements have been; and
commitments of Security Council resolution 1325.
To view a video introduction of this lesson by
the course author AnnJanette Rosga, you can
either log in to your virtual classroom, go to www.
peaceopstraining.org/users/media_page/401/,
or use your mobile device to scan the QR code
to the left.
10.1 Introduction
I want to share that even with all the problems,
women’s vision, presence and struggle are...
crucial to finding our voice and making it heard.
We have to mourn women’s deaths, rape and
slavery. For this reason and for our desire to live,
we have to be there, even in the spaces they
don’t invite us to and convince society in some
way that without our presence and proposals
things are not complete.
Sandra Morán, Guatemalan political activist,
artist and member follow-up team, Sector de
Mujeres, in Women’s Human Rights Net
Women have been both peacemakers and peace
preventers and [...] the range of their attitudes
and responses has been as wide and varied as
that of men. […] They have provided some of the
vital tools which the whole society needs in order
to build peace - it now remains to be seen how
good women and men will be at using them.
Valerie Morgan, Northern Ireland, October 1995
There is no handy roadmap for reconciliation.
There is no shortcut or simple prescription for
healing the wounds and divisions of a society
in the aftermath of sustained violence. Creating
trust and understanding between former enemies
is a supremely difficult challenge. It is, however,
an essential one to address in the process of
building a lasting peace. Examining the painful
past, acknowledging it and understanding it, and
above all transcending it together, is the best
way to guarantee that it does not – and cannot
– happen again. As our experience in South
Africa has taught us, each society must discover
its own route to reconciliation. Reconciliation
cannot be imposed from outside, nor can
someone else’s map get us to our destination:
it must be our own solution. This involves a
very long and painful journey, addressing the
pain and suffering of the victims, understanding
the motivations of offenders, bringing together
estranged communities, trying to find a path
to justice, truth and, ultimately, peace. Faced
with each new instance of violent conflict, new
solutions must be devised that are appropriate
to the particular context, history and culture in
question.
Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus in:
D. Bloomfield, T. Bames and L. Huyse,
Reconciliation After Violent Conflict, A Handbook
l e s s o n 1 0 : W o m e n bui l di n g p e ac e
UN Security Council resolution 1325 on Women,
Peace and Security requires the inclusion of
women and gender issues in the structures of
peacekeeping and peacebuilding in post-conflict
regions. It calls on all main stakeholders to
integrate a gender perspective in training for
peacekeepers, to take action in the protection
of women, and to support local women’s peace
initiatives.
The three quotes opening this section convey some
of the complexity of this mandate. Guatemalan
activist Sandra Morán’s quote references both
the degree to which women’s voices have been
absent from spaces where important decisions
are made about programmes and policies that
impact their lives – indeed that contribute to
environments enabling violence against them.
Author Valerie Morgan’s quote makes note of the
fact that not all women are peaceful, nor should
men be excluded from the peacebuilding process
with women. While women may have created many
powerful tools for peacebuilding, she reminds us
that it remains an open question whether women
and men together will manage to put them to wise
and productive use. Finally, Archbishop Desmond
Tutu’s quote reminds us that gender is not the only
factor that matters in post-conflict reconciliation
efforts – that all such undertakings must also
resonate with local histories, cultures and contexts
in order to create lasting peace. In South Africa’s
case, women played key roles in both establishing
the world-renowned Truth and Reconciliation
Commission and in revising its structures when it
became clear that they did not serve the needs of
all women who desired to testify before it.
As discussed in Lesson 1, the impetus behind SCR
1325 was the recognition that because women
are half of society, and because they are often
particularly vulnerable in armed conflicts, no truly
successful long-term resolutions to war will be
found until women are involved at every level of
decision-making, planning, and implementation
of peacemaking and peacebuilding efforts. This
course takes the argument one step further.
It argues that violence, war and conflict are
themselves gendered – that they can operate
differently for women and men. They often have
different effects, different sources, and different
manifestations depending on gender; and they
| 217
centrally involve gender dynamics in every society.
It is for this reason (as much or more than because
women face so many risks in war) that solutions
in the form of peacemaking and peacebuilding
programmes will be less than fully effective, so long
as gender is not also taken into thorough account.
This lesson provides several examples of
peacebuilding activities in which gender is
foregrounded. Most of these examples highlight
women’s actions, not because only women can
do gender-sensitive peacebuilding, or because
gender-sensitive peacebuilding only addresses
or involves the concerns of women; far from it.
These examples have been chosen to offset the
overwhelming weight of representation of women
as victims in this course and elsewhere. The story
of victimization of women is very well known.
Unfortunately, the stories of women in resistance
against abuses of rights, against political, ethnic,
racial and religious fundamentalism are far less
familiar to many. By presenting examples that
highlight women’s peacebuilding activities, the
course counteracts the general tendency in
mainstream political and media accounts (when
they appear at all) to ignore or downplay the
peacebuilding work of women.
Women have struggled for justice by participating
in public debates about crimes committed against
both women and men; by testifying publicly and
behind closed doors, sometimes risking their
lives at worst and societal stigmatization at best;
by participating in memory writing projects; by
their own investigative reporting; by serving as
outstanding members of truth and reconciliation
commissions in Argentina, Peru, Sierra Leone,
and South Africa – in fact, in most of the truth
commissions around the globe.
Examples of men’s leadership in dealing with
issues of violence, conflict, and security abound
throughout the world. This lesson aims to provide
some examples of women’s accomplishments and
leadership in these arenas as well. One of the most
important things men can do to implement SCR
1325 is to find ways of making space for women –
who may have different, less obvious or directive
styles of leadership – to lead. Another is to develop
programmes and policies that will create such
218 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
spaces and that will help build women’s capacity
to both lead and participate in peacebuilding
activities. Such programmes are especially
necessary where systemic gender inequalities have
either limited women’s exposure to opportunities
for public action, education and leadership skills,
and/or where gender arrangements have curbed
women’s inclination to take an active role in the
civic lives of their communities.
10.2 Getting to Peace
Many impressive cases of women’s peace activism
are to be found in the Middle East. In the midst
of long-lasting, recurrent, sometimes extremely
violent conflicts, women have managed to create
a wide range of non-violent and politically powerful
responses. In 1988, a group of women calling
themselves “Women in Black” formed in Israel
to hold vigils protesting Israel’s occupation of
the West Bank and Gaza and demanding peace
between Israel and the Palestinians.1 Since their
formation, women have been the most vibrant,
daring, and progressive part of the Israeli peace
movement. Before anyone else, women advocated
a two-state solution, sharing Jerusalem as the
1 Over the years since 1988, Women in Black
has evolved into a loosely knit worldwide network
of women committed to peace and actively
opposed to war and other forms of violence. Italian
women supporters of the Israeli women brought the
Israeli group’s idea back to Italy, where Women in
Black rallies have occurred in many cities. Contacts
between Italian and Yugoslav women led to similar
mobilisations. Women in Black vigils were held in
Republic Square, Belgrade, opposing the Serbian
regime’s involvement in aggression. While it is
impossible to know how many women identify
with the network, how many groups or mailing lists
exist, or how many actions have been held, it has
clearly become a worldwide movement. A Women
in Black vigil was held in Beijing at the time of the
1995 UN Conference on Women. An exhibition in
1996 was held in New York of photos of Women in
Black actions around the world. In 2001, Women
in Black were nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize by Danish and Norwegian parliamentarians.
Women in Black networks have created a sense of
solidarity and purpose as they encourage and lend
support to women around the world who confront
direct violence. They also educate, inform and
influence public opinion with the goal of eventually
making war an unthinkable option. <http://www.
womeninblack.net>
As part of a mass march in Jerusalem in December
2000, Israeli and Palestinian women join to protest the
occupation. (Source: http://coalitionofwomen.org,
photo by G. Benevento)
capital of both states, and creative solutions
to refugee issues. Israeli women engaged in a
dialogue with Palestinian women and broke through
boundaries to bring food, medicine, and a message
of desire for peaceful coexistence. Women paid
condolence calls to the families of victims on both
sides, and they spoke out in clear, bold voices
against the very idea that this multi-faceted and
immensely difficult conflict could be resolved
by military means. Israeli women partnered
with Palestinian women committed to peace to
implement people-to-people projects.
In 1989, a meeting was convened in Brussels
between prominent Israeli and Palestinian women
peace activists. This meeting initiated an ongoing
dialogue that, in 1994, resulted in the establishment
of the Jerusalem Link, comprising two women’s
organizations: Bat Shalom on the Israeli side,
and the Jerusalem Centre for Women on the
Palestinian side. When the second Intifada broke
l e s s o n 1 0 : W o m e n bui l di n g p e ac e
out, many believed that it marked the death of
such cooperative peace efforts. Palestinian NGOs
decided to halt their joint projects with Israelis,
particularly the people-to-people projects and any
programmes moving toward normalization.
Nonetheless, women did not give up. In late
September 2000, nine Israeli women’s peace
organizations formed the Coalition of Women
for Peace and launched a series of non-violent
actions, some of them involving civil disobedience.
Bat Shalom, the women’s peace group committed
to end the occupation and the establishment of
a Palestinian state, was among them. This group
and a few others maintained communication with
Palestinian women all along. This made such
actions as a protest in December 2001 possible,
when 5,000 Israeli and Palestinian women
marched together from the Israeli to the Palestinian
side of Jerusalem under the twin banners, “The
Occupation is Killing us all” and “We Refuse to be
Enemies.”
10.3 Peacebuilding, Sustaining Peace
Among the most successful peacebuilding
initiatives undertaken internationally over the past
two decades has, of course, been the very initiative
resulting in the adoption of SCR 1325 itself. This
section discusses some of the history behind that
accomplishment. It also describes successful
movements led by women in the Great Lakes
region of Africa and in Northern Ireland. The first,
the Bangwe Project of Burundi, the Democratic
Republic of Congo, and Rwanda, has focused
on developing existing skills among women in
conflict resolution, mediation, and other non-violent
means for solving persistent or recurrent hostilities
between groups. The second describes the variety
of activities engaged in by women in Northern
Ireland to cope with violence throughout the
multi-decade conflict there.
The International “Women Building Peace”
Campaign
The UN Security Council’s unanimous adoption of
resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security
in October 2000 was the outcome of a rather
extraordinary year of organizing by women from
| 219
around the world. Only 17 months earlier, in May
1999, an international conference had been held
in London, entitled “Women, Violent Conflict and
Peace-Building: Global Perspectives.” It was
organized by International Alert,2 the Centre for
Defence Studies at King’s College, and the Council
for the Advancement of Arab British Understanding.
This conference brought together women from
various conflict and post-conflict contexts with
participants from organizations whose focus
was women, to share their experiences of armed
conflict and their peacebuilding agendas.
The conference participants unanimously agreed
on the need for a global campaign to rally for
women’s concerns on the international stage. They
agreed on five concise demands that they wanted
the international community to address in order to
demonstrate accountability and compliance with
the norms that had been developed in international
law:
• Include women in peace negotiations as
decision-makers;
• Put women at the heart of reconstruction and
reconciliation programmes;
• Strengthen the protection and participation of
female refugees, internally displaced persons
and other war-affected women;
• End impunity and ensure redress for crimes
committed against women; and
• Provide women’s peacebuilding organizations
with sufficient and sustainable resources.
Later that same month, with support from over 200
organizations around the world, International Alert
launched the global campaign “Women Building
Peace: From the Village Council to the Negotiating
Table.” The campaign had four strategic objectives:
• Policy impact - securing a policy instrument
from the Security Council that would provide
a political framework for integrating women’s
2 International Alert is an international
non-governmental organisation based in London
and dedicated to the non-violent prevention,
management and transformation of violent conflict.
IA works at national, regional, and global levels
to build sustainable peace. Further information is
available at <http://www.international-alert.org>.
220 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
perspectives on peace and security issues into
peace processes and a similar instrument from
the European Union Council of Ministers or the
European Parliament.
• Participation and partnership - creating a
loose coalition of women’s organizations from all
regions of the world, working collaboratively to
highlight the campaign’s five demands, as well
as an international advisory committee to provide
guidance.
• Peace prize - launching of the first Millennium
Peace Prize for women with UNIFEM to promote
and highlight women’s peacebuilding agency and
positive contribution to conflict prevention and
transformation.
• Popular education - creation of a number
of user-friendly products that would convey
the campaign’s messages and that would
secure buy-in and legitimacy from women’s
organizations around the world.
The primary aim of the campaign was to encourage
the Security Council to adopt a resolution that
would incorporate these five demands and that
would require Member States of the United Nations
and the international community generally to
implement it in a gender-sensitive manner. It was
hoped that such a policy device would energize all
relevant stakeholders to examine and incorporate
the needs of women into their own national
policies, programming and practices.
The Security Council was identified as the key
target for the campaign because its primary
function is the maintenance of peace and security.
Moreover, the Security Council was gradually
expanding its mandate, as evidenced by its
thematic debates on such issues as the Protection
of Civilians, Children and Armed Conflict and the
HIV/AIDS epidemic. At the same time, the UN
system was preparing for its five-year review of the
Beijing Platform for Action (Beijing+5). It was seen,
therefore, to be an opportune time to highlight the
issues of women, peace and security and project
them onto the global agenda.
However, there were a number of challenges. The
Security Council meeting was to be held in just
over a year, and to secure a resolution within 12
months was a substantial challenge. International
Alert’s campaign staff was acutely aware that
momentous policy initiatives such as the adoption
of a Security Council resolution are not achievable
by any one organization working alone. Rather,
successful global advocacy initiatives require tight
multi-level collaboration and strategic alliances.
The “Women Building Peace” campaign employed
a variety of tactics to achieve its goals. These
included policy dialogues, local and global
campaigning, and policy research resulting in
targeted policy recommendations, awareness-
raising, resource sharing and strategic use of
leverage. A widespread and supportive base
among local and international women’s groups
was created through a series of consultations
with women’s organizations around the world. On
the broader global front, the campaign mobilized
grassroots NGOs with a focus on women and
peacebuilding to advocate at the local, regional and
national level.
An NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and
Security was formed to lobby the Permanent
Mission of Namibia, then presiding over the
Security Council, to put the issue of Women, Peace
and Security on the Security Council’s agenda for
October 2000. With the support of UNIFEM and
the Namibians, the resolution, previously drafted
by the NGO Working Group, was redrafted with
wording acceptable to the Member States and
was presented to the Security Council members
on 24 October 2000 for discussion and debate.
Women representatives from countries in conflict,
Guatemala, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Zambia
participated in an open debate at the Security
Council in order to provide testimony about the
experiences of women and girls in conflict and
post-conflict contexts and to outline peacebuilding
efforts of women worldwide.
The draft resolution was unanimously adopted
by the UN Security Council on 31 October 2000.
Subsequent debates on Women, Peace and
Security have taken place at the Security Council
as part of the resolution’s anniversary event in
following years.
l e s s o n 1 0 : W o m e n bui l di n g p e ac e
Additional Achievements of the Campaign
The “Women Building Peace” campaign was
successful in achieving two other of its central
goals. In 2001, together with the United Nations
Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the campaign
launched the first ever Millennium Peace Prize for
Women. Since then the prize has been awarded
to women’s organizations from Asia-Pacific, South
America, the Great Lakes of Africa, South Asia
and West Africa. This has raised the profile of
both individual women and their organizations
and has accorded them a degree of protection
from victimization and harassment by different
belligerent actors in their political contexts.
The campaign’s work with the UN, and particularly
that which involved European Union Member
States, went a long way toward enabling the
passage of a European Parliament Resolution
on Gender Aspects of Conflict Resolution and
Peacebuilding in November 2000.3 This resolution
makes a number of concrete recommendations to
EU States concerning:
• The protection of war-affected populations (e.g.,
integrating gender perspectives into refugee
camp planning);
• International efforts for conflict prevention
and resolution (e.g., nominating more women
to international diplomatic assignments and
ensuring that at least 40 per cent of posts
in reconciliation, peacekeeping, peace
enforcement, peacebuilding and conflict
prevention go to women); and
• The involvement of communities in armed
conflict prevention and resolution (e.g.,
supporting the creation of local NGOs and
promoting public debate about gender-based
violence in post-conflict regions).
Thus, in many respects, the campaign was an
enormous success. It has given new hope and
new opportunities to women who wish to have their
voices heard in the urgent task of peacebuilding.
On International Women’s Day 2001, to
demonstrate ongoing grassroots support for the
campaign, its organizers circulated a global petition
3 European Parliament Resolution on Gender
Aspects on Conflict Resolution INI/2000/2025.
| 221
 addressed to the UN Secretary-General, which
called for the implementation of the original London
conference participants’ five demands. The petition
collected over 100,000 signatures, which were
formally presented to Angela King, the then Special
Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues
and Advancement of Women. This generated
increased visibility and support for women and
enhanced the campaign’s legitimacy and credibility
in policy-making circles.
However, while resolution 1325 is undeniably an
advancement for women, more must be done to
transform its statement of political commitment
into practice. The international community has
indicated the political will to provide a framework
for women’s engagement in peace processes and
to mainstream women’s perspectives into emerging
policy. Still missing, however, is the institution-
alization of that will into system-wide plans and
procedures for implementation at every level.
Without this, the call to promote the participation
of women, mainstream gender, and prevent
gender-based violence that is expressed in SCR
1325 risks remaining more rhetoric than reality.
Rachel Mayanja, Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser on
Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI), pictured during
the recording of a special round-table discussion “Women and Peace-
building” for the UN television programme “World Chronicle”, at UNHQ,
New York. (UN Photo #101395 by Mark Garten, October 2005)
Women as Non-Violence Advocates in Africa
The Bangwe project is a unique initiative drawing
on a social custom of communities in the Great
Lakes region of Africa. In many of the societies of
this region, which are otherwise strongly controlled
by men, local tradition assigns to women the job
of conflict-mediation in families and communities.
The Bangwe project utilizes this tradition to
bring women together (mostly from Burundi, the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda) in
order to use their negotiating abilities in peace
processes. The bangwe custom can be illustrated
by the example of two brothers feuding violently
over a land dispute in a village in Burundi. Their
female relatives would have the right to stand
between the warring brothers shouting “bangwe,”
thus stopping the fight and forcing the men to
resolve the dispute peacefully.
Officially created in 1998, the project emerged
from a partnership between women’s international
NGOs and several local grassroots organizations.
Its primary purpose is to create a network of
women from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of
Congo and Rwanda to exchange their experiences
in peace negotiation and mediation. The project
seeks to bring together women who wish both to
express their opinion on the current situation in the
Great Lakes and to act as a cohesive group, in the
hope that together they will be able to contribute to
building lasting peace in their respective countries.
The project also promotes awareness of ancestral
practices for non-violent resolutions to conflicts,
particularly those that highlight the positive role
women can play as moderators and effective
decision-makers. To ensure the project’s success,
a support committee has been established in
Geneva. This committee consists of international
NGO representatives and members of Swiss
associations. Conferences, seminars, and training
sessions are organized annually. Prominent female
spokespersons from each of the three countries
are invited to attend. The support committee also
organizes a regional conference and multiple
training sessions in Africa, in close collaboration
with the local network of Bangwe. Since 1998,
this committee has become an umbrella body for
various women’s organizations in Burundi and
Rwanda and in certain regions of the Democratic
Republic of Congo, most notably in Bukavu, Goma
and Kisangani.
In the Rwandan districts of Gisenyi and Ruhengeri,
for example, a project by and for young people has
been launched in which songs in kinyarwanda,
special verbal artistic forms promoting peace
and non-violence, are presented in youth clubs.
Burundi’s Bangwe national committee organized
a writing contest among secondary school girls in
the provinces of Bujumbura. In their essays, the
contestants wrote about heroes and heroines who
had risked their lives to save others during times
of local conflict. Lessons learnt from the Bangwe
project were then presented at workshops in Goma,
the Democratic Republic of Congo, and later at
the all-African conference on “African Principles of
Resolution of Conflicts and Reconciliation,” in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia.
Perhaps the most significant programme of
Bangwe to date has been the organization of
regional training meetings for women from the
three countries of the Great Lakes region. All
of these conferences have shared the common
theme of “Women, Peace and Non-Violence” and
have enabled women of neighbouring countries to
exchange their experiences with peace initiatives
and with solving the problems of violence in
everyday life. They have also provided a base from
which the women could issue a call to governments
and the international community to put more effort
into regional peacebuilding. A Programme of
Action for Bangwe was adopted during the Goma
workshop in October 2002 to establish a biennial
international conference that would create larger
networks and touch on more diverse fields of
peacebuilding, such as reconciliation and trauma
recovery. The Bangwe project has been widely
recognized not only for its benefits to the Great
Lakes communities but also as a model for the
whole international community.
Women Working Through the Troubles in
Northern Ireland
From the late 1960s until the signing of the Good
Friday Peace Agreement in 1998, Northern Ireland
struggled through recurrent waves of political
violence known as “The Troubles.” These conflicts
raged primarily between the paramilitary forces of
nationalists (mainly Roman Catholic) and unionists
(mainly Protestant) over the issue of Northern
Ireland’s status as part of the United Kingdom and
over the minority nationalists’ sense of domination
by the unionist majority. The nationalist Irish
Republican Army fought for nearly 30 years for the
establishment of an Irish Republic free of British
rule in Northern Ireland. Over 3,000 people were
killed in the Troubles, more than 90 per cent of
them male and most of them young.
Women in Northern Ireland suffered both directly
and indirectly from the violence. While in relatively
smaller numbers, they were still killed, injured, and
imprisoned as combatants and political targets.
Since much of the bombing in the early years of
the Troubles was indiscriminate in nature, women
became both victims and survivors in this way as
well. More often, women suffered from the impact
of the violence as mothers, wives, daughters,
lovers and sisters. They were also caught up in
the political conflict. However, regardless of the
diversity of political perspective and allegiance,
many women from urban, working-class or
disadvantaged rural areas shared the struggle of
sheer survival and living “from minute to minute”
during years of violence.
Whether Republican or Loyalist, women’s stories
were often largely ones of social and economic
struggle, balancing the pressure of visits to see a
son or a husband in jail with the demands of caring
for children, while at times being drawn into street
protests and confrontation with security forces. For
other women – the relatives of the many civilians
or security force members killed or injured in the
Troubles – there was the perception of insult of
receiving inadequate monetary or social support,
and even less recognition, when they lost loved
ones to the conflict.
Meanwhile, the political and paramilitary leaders
of Northern Ireland were overwhelmingly male.
Women held very few positions of power to make
decisions relevant to the conduct, maintenance or
resolution of the Troubles. This is not to say that
women, simply by virtue of being women, would
necessarily have managed to end the Troubles any
sooner had they been elected to political office, for

222 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n l e s s o n 1 0 : W o m e n bui l di n g p e ac e | 223

certainly many women played active supporting
roles in keeping the Troubles going throughout the
decades. However, their absence from positions
of power was striking, and it took many years of
groundwork before women were able to launch, in
1996, the remarkable Northern Ireland Women’s
Coalition – a political party giving voice to those
women who tended towards a feminist perspective
that favoured pro-peace communication across
unionist/nationalist and other community divides.
That groundwork began in many ways with the
Northern Ireland Women’s Rights Movement in
1975. This movement emphasized community
organizing and women’s self-help groups, including
women’s centres to provide childcare, advice and
educational opportunities. In 1979, women were at
the forefront of establishing an independent donor
organization for community development called
the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland.
This foundation has gone on to provide financial
assistance to community groups that work both
within, and between, communities. It was the
principal source of support for a vast number of
important initiatives, including the following:
• A Women’s Information Day initiative in 1981,
which brought together women from all the local
women’s groups and centres across Belfast, to
meet for one morning every month to discuss
shared issues of concern. The Information Day
was regularly attended by over 200 women,
meeting in alternative Catholic and Protestant
communities. While few controversial political
issues were discussed, stereotypes about
the women’s respective communities were
challenged, and women exchanged political
views and experiences informally on the fringes
of the meeting.
• A series of Northern Ireland women’s
conferences were held, providing women with a
space to share experiences and with a means
of making their voices heard. The concerns
expressed at these conferences did not all centre
on the Troubles but also addressed domestic
violence in the home, the lack of affordable
childcare, women’s health issues, and the
economic inequalities that women experienced.
The conferences brought together local women’s
groups that had produced books of their own
224 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
poetry, effectively lobbied for more progressive
divorce legislation, and set up training and
personal development initiatives.
• A “Women into Politics” training course was
developed to promote the effective political
involvement of women in whatever political party
they chose. Funds from the European Union
also encouraged women to undertake a range
of cross-community (and cross-border with the
Republic of Ireland) exchange programmes.
• The first Republican Ex-Prisoners’ Centre
was set up by a woman, Caral Ni Chuilin, who
had been a prisoner herself. She identified
the psychological and material difficulties
experienced by ex-prisoners and their families,
particularly where the period of imprisonment
had been long-term. Over the period 1996-2003,
some 60 self-help ex-prisoner groups came into
operation in both Loyalist and Republican areas.
Such groups provided counselling, education
and training, and advice and support. Over a
period of years, the Community Foundation
brought these ex-prisoner groups together
across community lines to hold political
discussions related to the ongoing peace
process and to move toward reconciliation.
Women in Northern Ireland have lived in an
insecure society, although the adverse impact of
that insecurity has been experienced in its most
concentrated form by those women who live in
the poorest areas (and these communities have
suffered disproportionately from the violence). This
may well be the reason why such a large number
of local self-help initiatives have grown from these
communities. Women have been at the forefront
of these developments, particularly when the work
required was voluntary in nature. Their greatest
labours tended to be driven by concern for the
well-being of their families and local community
needs.
Increasingly, however, it became clear to women
that they would have to engage with policymakers
and the political system if local needs were to
receive real attention and resources. They learned
that only so much could be achieved by self-help
and volunteerism at the community level. It was
out of this recognition that activists began coming
together with the advent of the peace process
in the autumn of 1994 (following the paramilitary
groups’ ceasefire) to seriously pursue long-term
peacebuilding initiatives. It was also out of this
recognition, and with the development of skills and
community that the self-help groups had fostered,
that the first women’s political party – the Northern
Ireland Women’s Coalition – was born in 1996.
That coalition managed to get elected to the peace
talks and continued to have elected representatives
until 2005.4
10.4 Women and Security
In the above sections, the examples of
Noeleen Heyzer (second from right), Executive Director of UNIFEM,
peacebuilding have tended to emphasize women’s
engages in a conversation with some of the speakers at the Security
assumed greater interests in, skills at, and capacity Council meeting on the Secretary-General’s report on women, peace and
for developing alternatives to violent conflict. security, at UN Headquarters in New York. (UN Photo #130442 by Devra
Even where the examples have dealt with women Berkowitz, October 2006)
ex-combatants, the focus has been on how to
Gender Equality and the Union of the
disarm, demobilize and/or reintegrate those
Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia
women into non-warring lives. These approaches
have been very successful as far as they go. As
The Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers in
discussed in Lesson 1, however, their downside
Russia, known otherwise as Soldiers’ Mothers,
is that they may reinforce inaccurate stereotypes
actively challenges current gender roles in Russia
that women are somehow by nature more peaceful
through its involvement in governmental and
than men, that men are inherently and inevitably
more violent than women, and, therefore, that when military security debates. Since their organization’s
very beginning, Soldiers’ Mothers have positioned
issues of real security, involving the perceived need
themselves as equal partners to the State, thereby
for armed forces and military planning, are at stake,
demanding the right to participation in military
women should only play supportive roles while men
decision-making processes. This strategy has
should lead, hold power, and make key decisions.
positioned them in public debates not as a socially
disempowered group of women fighting against
The final two examples of this lesson tackle
discrimination and for their own rights. Rather,
such assumptions in ways more fundamentally
it has enabled them to act as an organized and
challenging to gender stereotypes about women.
respected segment of civil society, capable of
The first example deals with an organization in
pushing for socio-political changes in a strategically
Russia whose name, the Soldiers’ Mothers, may
important sector of the country’s administration.
misleadingly suggest it simply calls on public
sympathy for women’s victimization to achieve
This strategy has achieved important results. In
peacebuilding goals. However, as will be detailed,
1989, Soldiers’ Mothers succeeded in changing
this mothers’ organization has positioned itself very
the State’s military conscription regulation, such
differently. The second example is actually several
that approximately 200,000 students who had
combined accounts of women as peacekeepers
been forced to join the armed forces after their
and in other roles in peace support operations. It
first year at university were permitted to return to
recounts SCR 1325 in action and provides concrete
their respective schools and colleges. In 1990, a
evidence of how gender mainstreaming is (and is
Russian presidential decree was signed, effectively
not yet) underway in the field.
implementing the proposals made by Soldiers’
4 Journal of Feminist Studies 2 (1) (Summer Mothers on the democratization of the military
1997), 1-21.
l e s s o n 1 0 : W o m e n bui l di n g p e ac e | 225
 service. During the same year, Soldiers’ Mothers
held their first public forum, during which they
announced their strategic goals for a human rights
agenda. These included the advancement of
democratic military reform and the abolishment of
compulsory conscription.
There are currently about 300 Soldiers’ Mothers
committees working in various cities, towns and
villages across the country to protect people whose
rights have been violated during and after military
service. After the collapse of the Soviet Union
engulfed the Russian armed forces in a deep crisis,
there was a tremendous increase in the number
of human rights violations in the country. The
Soldiers’ Mothers committees are responsible for
collecting individual complaints of human rights
violations in the military sphere, which they later
use as evidence to strengthen their proposals for
effective ways to reform the military.
Dead bodies in a truck in Grozny, Chechnya, during the first Chechen War.
The Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia put the number of the
Russian military dead at 14,000. (Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev, http://
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Evstafiev-chechnya-killed-in-truck.jpg)
When the first Chechen war began in 1994, the
Soldiers’ Mothers Committee was the first NGO
in Russia to make an official anti-war statement.
Soldiers’ Mothers demanded the immediate
withdrawal of armed forces from Chechnya and
declared the war illegitimate, illegal and criminal.
Soldiers’ Mothers worked on multiple fronts.
In the conflict zone, they fought to protect the
human rights of peaceful civilians, assisted in
the exchanges of prisoners of war and organized
226 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
searches for missing sons on Chechen territory.
Simultaneously, they organized a nationwide
anti-war campaign. Soldiers’ Mothers also
protected soldiers who refused to participate in the
unlawful activities of State and military bodies, and
they provided help to prisoners of war and their
relatives.
When the first war in Chechnya was over, Soldiers’
Mothers proposed in the Duma an amnesty for acts
committed during the conflict on both sides – for
Chechen fighters as well as the federal Russian
military. In effect, they became the centre of all
anti-war activities in Russia. The Soldiers’ Mothers’
peaceful work was supported by other NGOs and
democratic governments abroad. Ultimately, the
organization received four international awards and
a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996.
Eventually, the Union of the Committees of
Soldiers’ Mothers grew to be the largest women’s
NGO in Russia, capable of influencing State
military policy. Although State and military bodies
did not always agree to the NGO’s proposals, they
nevertheless realized it had become politically
impossible to ignore the group’s demands or to
downplay their achievements. In fact, during the
all-Russian Civic Forums held in 2000 and 2003,
the State invited Soldiers’ Mothers to serve as the
main negotiator between itself and those elements
of civil society dealing with military policy and
defence reform.
Soldiers’ Mothers’ strategy of positioning itself
as a serious partner in military decision-making
processes has proved to be one of the most
effective ways to advance gender equality
in Russia. It has heavily influenced national
security policy and has developed into the most
significant mechanism of civilian control over
security structures. Currently, the organization,
in co-operation with military bodies, solves more
than 20,000 individual complaints of human
rights violations annually. It is struggling to gain
amnesty for approximately 40,000 soldiers who
have deserted their military units to escape torture,
beatings and starvation. Moreover, Soldiers’
Mothers has advocated for legislation to finance
the search for soldiers who disappeared in
Chechnya, in order to exhume their bodies and
ensure dignified burials for the deceased.
10.5 Gender Mainstreaming of Peace Special Representative of the Secretary-General
Support Operations (SRSG) of the United Nations Mission in Liberia
(UNMIL); and there are only two female Deputy
The UN’s policy of gender mainstreaming5 Special Representatives of the Secretary-General
provides a framework for integration of gender (DSRSGs): Henrietta Joy Abena Nyarko
issues in the concept, design and implementation Mensa-Bonsu of Ghana and Ameerah Haq of
of Peace Support Operations. This policy, Bangladesh, serving UNMIL and the United
affirmed by SCR 1325 and other international Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA),
commitments, is based upon a general conviction respectively.6
that peacekeepers should understand the gender
dimensions of post-conflict reconstruction in
countries where they serve. This will better enable
them to respond to the specific needs of local
populations; to acknowledge the lives of both men
and women; to understand their potentially different
needs, interests, and priorities; and to recognize
how power is shared and used according to gender
within the communities they serve.
As of March 2007, women made up less than
two per cent of personnel in military functions in
peacekeeping operations and 7.85 per cent of
those in civilian police functions (an increase from 4
per cent in 2006). Among civilian staff, on average
30 per cent of international personnel and just
above 20 per cent of nationally recruited staff are
women. Recently, several United Nations Member
States reported on national initiatives to improve
representation of uniformed women (serving both
in armed and police forces) in international peace
operations (Argentina, Australia, France, Malawi, In early October 2004, Bubany Khair Andesh became the first woman to
Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom). A enter the DDR programme in Afghanistan since it began in 2003. Bubany
senior Australian policewoman served as the UN gave interviews to local media after word spread of her unusual life in
Police Commissioner in Timor-Leste from June the military and her surprising entry into DDR. (http://www.unddr.org/
photos.php?c=121)
2003 to May 2004.
Civilians (both men and women) in the positions The added value of women’s presence on
peacekeeping missions is at least twofold. First,
of gender advisers, senior gender advisers and
the presence of an international team of men
gender focal points are working in Afghanistan,
and women from different cultural backgrounds
Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of
working together sets a positive example for
Congo, Ethiopia-Eritrea, Georgia, Haiti, Kosovo,
the local population. One account of a female
Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Timor-Leste, and
Western Sahara. However, at the time of writing, 6 The Women’s International League for Peace
and Freedom maintains a website on gender
out of 30 peace operations, currently only one
and peacekeeping with current factsheets on the
is headed by a woman: Ellen Margrethe Løj of
implementation of SCR 1325 with information
Denmark was appointed in October 2007 as
about women serving in peace operations at http://
www.peacewomen.org/un/pkwatch/facts.html.
For a complete list of SRSGs, DSRSGs, Special
Envoys, Gender Advisors, and other high-level
5 Defined by ECOSOC in 1997 and discussed in appointments, consult: http://www.un.org/News/
Lessons 1 and 6. ossg/srsg/table.htm
l e s s o n 1 0 : W o m e n bui l di n g p e ac e | 227
peacekeeper’s experience in the United Nations
Transitional Assistance Group in Namibia (UNTAG)
recounted:
…how the local population at first tended to
project their own gender assumptions on her,
believing her to be the secretary of her male
colleague rather than his equal. But this changed
as the staff member and her male colleague
worked together and the population could see
that she too had authority and was treated as an
equal.7
Second, evidence shows that female peacekeepers
improve access to local populations and enhance
the confidence-building process between the
mission and local communities.
In a post-conflict environment, the role of civilian
police is crucial in creating an environment where
local women feel sufficiently safe to participate in
their society’s reconstruction processes. Civilian
police play important roles in strengthening the
rule of law, training and rebuilding local police
forces, restoring accountable justice systems, as
well as in combating trafficking of women and girls.
In environments where local women have been
victims of sexual violence perpetrated by militia or
military groups, women may be more comfortable
talking to other women than to men in uniform.
As a Congolese woman confided to UNIFEM
interviewers:
[I]n my culture, it is not common to talk about
sex with men, let alone strange men […] [M]any
of the women who were raped like I was can
identify the attackers, but it is difficult to report
them to the police. We can talk to you because
you are women like us. But we can’t talk about
these things with men. If only we had a female
police in MONUC to whom we can report these
horrible things that happened to us.8
7 In L. Olsson and T. L. Tryggestad, Women and
International Peacekeeping (London: Frank Cass
Publishers, 2001), 103.
8 E. Rehn and E. Johnson Sirleaf, Women War
Peace, 70.
228 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
These 12 women are the first female members of their
batallion to join this force (UNFICYP), Larnaca, Cyprus.
(Source: UN Photo #55486 by J. K. Isaac, June 1980)
Thus far, progress in recruiting women in peace
operations has been slow, and recruiting more
women as peacekeepers into the ranks of the
military and civilian police remains one of the
greatest challenges of today’s peacekeeping
missions. For the past several years, the
Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO)
has encouraged countries that contribute military
contingents and civilian police for the missions to
promote the recruitment of women. DPKO has now
set targets of 10% women for both policing and
military personnel.
However, contributing countries retain final
control over their selection of mission staff. When
societies put pressure on women to conform to
traditional divisions of labour such that they are
forced to choose between requesting a post with
the UN Civilian Police (which places them at risk
of being perceived as abandoning their family
responsibilities) and staying at home where they
Box 10-A: Democratic Republic of Congo — The Office of Gender Affairs in MONUC
The Office for Gender Affairs (OGA) for the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of
Congo (MONUC) became operational in mid-March 2002. The OGA consisted of a senior gender adviser, a gender
affairs officer, two United Nations volunteers, one local administrative assistant and one local secretary. The senior
gender adviser was accountable to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General. As a rule, it is extremely
important for gender affairs offices to be located at the top management level in order for them to be taken seriously
and have enough authority to carry out their mandates.
The MONUC OGA has a twofold strategy. Within the mission, it raises awareness on gender and builds the capacity
of both international and national UN mission staff to mainstream gender-sensitive perspectives into their work.
Using resolution 1325 (2000) and MONUC’s resolution 1445 (2002), it disseminates information on gender issues
throughout the mission, to the military, civilian police, and national and international staff with the aim of promoting a
better understanding of the nature of gender mainstreaming.
The OGA had to put special efforts into integrating a gender perspective in the disarmament, demobilization, and
reintegration programmes of the mission. Having ascertained the level of preparedness of transit centres set up for
the demobilization of former combatants, the OGA was very concerned with the situation of the so-called Congolese
“wives” of foreign soldiers who withdrew from the Democratic Republic of Congo after an occupation of several
years. When the Ugandan soldiers were ordered to go back home, they received instructions to leave behind wives
and children. A large number of these wives and children have been spotted in Gbadolite, in northern Congo, where
they live in harsh conditions with the sole assistance of a local NGO.
All new peacekeepers to MONUC receive training on gender issues as part of their induction course when they
arrive in the mission. The training explains the roles of men and women in post-conflict situations, discusses
the relationships between gender and power, and emphasizes that in this context, women bear the brunt of the
conflict and may have to exchange sex for food in order to feed extended families. A context-specific Code of
Conduct is distributed to peacekeepers during the session. One innovation was the introduction by the OGA of a
gender-sensitive checklist to assist military observers in their monitoring functions. This helps to remind them, for
instance, that women may be untapped sources of information. Very often peacekeepers will talk to male leaders of
the community who hold official power at local levels, overlooking women’s groups that are less visible.
In resolution 1493 (2003), the Security Council reaffirmed the importance of a gender perspective in peacekeeping
operations in accordance with resolution 1325 and, for the first time, called on MONUC to increase the deployment
of women as military observers, as well as in other capacities. At the beginning of August 2003, out of a total of
17,500 military personnel in MONUC, there were only 114 women (including military observers and contingents),
and only three female police officers out of a total of 90. Although the percentage of female international heads of
units and sections has increased, women continue to fill mostly administrative positions at the lowest level.
Outside of mission staffing concerns, the OGA seeks to facilitate the involvement of local women, and their groups
and networks, in all aspects of reconstruction, reconciliation, rehabilitation and other processes leading to a
sustainable peace. As part of its outreach activities, the OGA has supported the involvement of Congolese women
in the peace process and the Inter-Congolese Dialogue. Although the OGA functions without a proper budget, it is
trying to find creative ways of working on capacity-building with local groups of women through constant interaction
with them, consultations, meetings, field trips, and other activities that will help women build up their own advocacy
strategies. Congolese women have been very active in the promotion of peace in their country. They requested
participation in the official peace talks and the integration of gender issues on the agenda of the negotiations, and
they demonstrated their preparedness to participate in the transitional government. They used MONUC’s Radio
Okapi and other information distribution mechanisms to explain to the general public the different stages of the
peace process and the importance of having women involved in post-conflict reconstruction.
l e s s o n 1 0 : W o m e n bui l di n g p e ac e | 229
 Box 10-A: Democratic Republic of Congo — The Office of Gender Affairs in MONUC
Unfortunately, despite all their efforts, by the end of 2003, the participation of Congolese women in the transitional
government was minimal. Although Article 51 of the Transitional Constitution states that women have a right to
significant representation in national, provincial and local institutions, only seven per cent of the representatives
were female. Box 10-B: Liberia Gets All-Female Peacekeeping Force

The Office of Gender Affairs also raised concerns about the situation of widespread sexual violence against women Within a year of electing Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa’s first female president, the country of
in eastern DRC. A survey conducted by a local NGO* in the district of Kabinda showed that a large number of young Liberia also welcomed the United Nations’ first all-female peacekeeping force in January 2007. The
women suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder following multiple rapes by armed groups. Elsewhere in the peacekeepers have come to help stabilize Liberia, a country which has lost more than 250,000 of its
country, similar stories were heard, making clear the urgent need for protection of women and girls against sexual people to a 14-year civil war.
violence. Initiatives were taken by local NGOs like the Centre Olame in Bukavu that provides health assistance and
counselling to rape victims. These initiatives need to be strengthened and supported by the international community. The all-female force is made up of more than 100 peacekeepers from India. They will be working
The NGO workers knew the needs of the local population but lacked resources for sustainable assistance and as a unit of armed police to assist Liberians as they attempt to rebuild a new police force from the
violence prevention programmes. ground up. The previous police force has been completely discredited because so many of its officers
were combatants in the civil war and widely known to be corrupt. The country’s goal now is to have a
*MONUC, «Gender: Le lourd héritage des viols après la guerre», MONUC Bulletin No. 84 (9 October 2003), 17. new police force that will be made up of 20% women. However, due to a combination of the negative
image policing has acquired in Liberia, and the country’s history of poorly educating its women, it has
been a struggle to recruit a force that is even 6% female.
will be able to provide uninterrupted care for family
members, this decreases the likelihood that States The UN mission is to help remedy this gender imbalance. It has begun an educational programme
will be able to recruit women in high numbers to for women interested in becoming police officers, and hopefully, the all-female peacekeeping force
peacekeeping missions. will provide encouraging role models. The peacekeepers’ commander, Seema Dhundiya, described
her unit members as “experienced and [well] trained. They have worked in areas of India where there
Recent years have witnessed a movement towards was insurgency. They will do a good job.” She expressed confidence that upon seeing them in action,
gender equality on UN peacekeeping missions, Liberian women would “get motivated and inspired to come forward and join the regular police.”
but there is still progress remaining to be made.
Any remaining culture of masculinity that permits According to BBC News reporter Will Ross, “Liberia has an alarming incidence of rape which goes
sexually exploitative or discriminatory behaviour unpunished. The deployment of more female police officers could encourage the women and young
towards women must be eliminated for what it is, girls to report the crime. In the past, the UN mission in Liberia has been tainted by accusations of
and any mentality that encourages the perpetuation sexual exploitation: food given to teenage refugees by UN peacekeepers in return for sex. But Joanna
of stereotyped attitudes towards women must be Foster, the gender adviser to the UN Mission, says that there is less sexual exploitation when more
confronted. Only with the full acceptance of gender women are employed.
equality will the conditions be eliminated that have
resulted in sexual abuse and exploitation scandals ‘It limits the sexual exploitation that our people get involved in. In the groups that have a lot more
on UN missions. And only with the nurturing of women we get very little reporting of sexual exploitation.’
a true respect between men and women will
Joanna Foster is also keen to send a message to those training the new Liberian military.
peacekeeping missions become places where all
can work and contribute with a sense of personal ‘I understand they are not training the women for combat but with these women coming from India
dignity and worth. they are going to be a fantastic role model. So I am going to take all of them to the ministry of defence
to show them you can train women in combat.’”
The lesson and this course end on the most recent
UN experiment with women peacekeepers – an Source: Will Ross, “Liberia gets all-female peacekeeping force,” BBC News, Liberia http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/
all-female contingent to Liberia specifically deployed fr/-/2/hi/africa/6316387.stm Published 31 January 2007; accessed 2 February 2007.
to help deal with both the history of citizen distrust Seema Dundia (right), as Commander, marks a first in
of police in Liberia and scandals involving male the history of UN peacekeeping of this all-female Police
peacekeepers from the UN accused of sexual Unit that arrived in Liberia to strengthen the rule of law
and maintain peace in the war-torn country, as part of
violence and exploitation.
the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL).
(UN Photo #141587 by Eric Kanalstein, January 2007)

230 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n l e s s o n 1 0 : W o m e n bui l di n g p e ac e | 231

End-of-Lesson Quiz
1. One of the most important things men
can do to implement UN Security Council
resolution 1325 is to:
A. Vow never to commit acts of violence;
B. Support women’s leadership and participation
in peacebuilding activities;
C. Promote primary school education of girls;
D. Tell other people what women’s goals for peace
are.
2. The major achievement of the “Women
Building Peace” campaign was:
A. The construction of a “House of Peace” in
Kisangani;
B. The bringing together of women from warring
factions who otherwise would not speak to
each other;
C. Showing the world that women are naturally
peaceful;
D. The adoption by the Security Council of a
resolution on women, peace and security in
October 2000.
3. The Union of Committees of Soldiers’
Mothers in Russia has:
A. Knitted over 6,000 pairs of socks for Russian
solders;
B. Actively involved itself in governmental and
military security debates, demanding the right
to participate in decision-making processes;
C. Not taken any public political stand on the war
in Chechnya;
D. Drawn on traditional notions of “motherhood” to
appeal for better conditions for their sons in the
military.
232 | pr e v e n ti n g vi o l e n c e agai n s t w o m e n
4. The presence of female peacekeepers on
missions has been shown to:
A. Improve access to local populations and
enhance trust between the mission and local
communities;
B. Make local men angry and make local women
feel threatened;
C. Encourage local girls to behave in unfeminine
ways;
D. Prevent any incident of sexual exportation or
abuse.
5. The tasks of the all-female Indian armed
police unit deployed in Liberia in 2007
included:
A. Assisting in the rebuilding of the Liberian police
force;
B. Training local women in sewing and
hairdressing;
C. Setting up shelters for victims of sexual
violence;
D. Punishing male peacekeepers who committed
acts of sexual misconduct.
6. Peacemaking and peacebuilding will not be
fully effective unless gender is taken into
account, because:
A. Men are not able to be peaceful, so it is only
through involving women that peace can be
achieved;
B. Women who are excluded from peacemaking
processes may themselves take up arms;
C. Violence, war and conflict are themselves
gendered – having different sources and
effects depending upon gender;
D. There must be full harmony between men and
women before there can be peace.
7. True or false? Ways to support women’s peace activism include:
True False
A. Asking women to come up with the
solutions for all of the world’s problems.
B. Developing existing skills among women
in conflict resolution, mediation and other
non-violent means for resolving hostilities
between groups.
C. Giving women activists access to
decision-makers.
D. Providing funding to grassroots women’s
peace organizations.
8. Which country held the presidency of the 10. MONUC is implementing UN Security
UN Security Council when resolution 1325 Council resolution 1325 by:
was adopted? A. Reporting regularly to the Security Council on
A. Australia their activities;
B. Mexico B. Integrating a gender perspective in the DDR
C. Namibia programmes of the mission, ensuring all
peacekeepers are trained on gender issues,
D. Sweden
and supporting local women’s involvement in
the peace process;
9. “Women in Black” are: C. Broadcasting radio programmes telling men to
A. A female guerrilla movement in eastern DRC; lay down their weapons;
B. A movement of women in North America and D. Taking women on patrols with them, to act as
Europe that protests against war in Africa and mediators with armed groups.
the Middle East;
C. Women who have lost sons to armed conflict;
D. A worldwide movement of women committed to
peace and actively opposed to war and other
forms of violence.
ANSWER KEY
1B, 2D, 3B, 4A, 5A, 6C, 7(A False, B True,
C True, D True), 8C, 9D, 10B
l e s s o n 1 0 : W o m e n bui l di n g p e ac e | 233
Appendix A: List of Acronyms

Acronym Meaning OGA Office for Gender Affairs

ANBP Afghanistan’s New Beginnings Programme OHCHR Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

ANC African National Congress OSAGI UN Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of
Women
CCL10 Control Council Law No. 10
PBC Peacebuilding Commission
CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
PKO Peacekeeping Operation
DDR Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration
PSOs Peace Support Operations
DPKO Department of Peacekeeping Operations
SALW Surrender of Small Arms and Light Weapons
ECOSOC United Nations Economic and Social Council
SCR Security Council Resolution
EUFOR RD Congo European Union military operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
SMUG Sexual Minorities Uganda
FARC Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
SRSG Special Representative of the Secretary-General
FGC Female Genital Cutting
STDs Sexually Transmitted Diseases
FGM Female Genital Mutilation
UDHR Universal Declaration of Human Rights
GCE Global Campaign for Education
UNAIDS Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
ICC International Criminal Court
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
UNFPA United Nations Population Fund
ICESCR International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
ICTR International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda
UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund
ICTY International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia
UNIDIR United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research
IDPs Internally Displaced Persons
UNIFEM United Nations Development Fund for Women
ILO International Labour Organization
UNPFA United Nations Population Fund
LGBT Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender/Transsexual
WHO World Health Organization
LTTE Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
WILPF Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
MAG Mines Advisory Group

MRE Mine Risk Education

234 | P E A C E O P E R A T I ONS T R A I N I N G I NS T I T U T E Op e rati o n a l L o gi s tica l Supp o rt o f U N P e ac e k e e pi n g M i s s i o n s | 235

Appendix B: List of UN Peackeeeping Operations

BINUB United Nations Integrated Office in Burundi UNFICYP* United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus

DOMREP Mission of the Representative of the Secretary-General in the Dominican Republic UNGOMAP United Nations Good Offices Mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan

MINUGUA United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala UNIFIL* United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon

MINURCA United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic UNIIMOG United Nations Iran-Iraq Military Observer Group

MINURCAT United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad UNIKOM United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission

MINURSO* United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara UNIPOM United Nations India-Pakistan Observation Mission

MINUSTAH* United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti UNISFA* United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei

MIPONUH United Nations Civilian Police Mission in Haiti UNMEE United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea

MONUA United Nations Observer Mission in Angola UNMIBH United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina

MONUC United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo UNMIH United Nations Mission in Haiti

MONUSCO* United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the UNMIK* United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo
Congo
UNMIL* United Nations Mission in Liberia
ONUB United Nations Operation in Burundi
UNMIS United Nations Mission in the Sudan
ONUC United Nations Operation in the Congo
UNMISS* United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan
ONUCA United Nations Observer Group in Central America
UNMISET United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor
ONUMOZ United Nations Operation in Mozambique
UNMIT* United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste
ONUSAL United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador
UNMOGIP* United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan
UNAMA* United Nations Mission in Afghanistan
UNMOP United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka
UNAMIC United Nations Advance Mission in Cambodia
UNMOT United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan
UNAMID* African Union/United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur
UNOCI* United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire
UNAMIR United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda
UNOGIL United Nations Observation Group in Lebanon
UNAMSIL United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone
UNOMIG United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia
UNASOG United Nations Aouzou Strip Observer Group
UNOMIL United Nations Observer Mission in Liberia
UNAVEM United Nations Angola Verification Mission
UNOMSIL United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone
UNCRO United Nations Confidence Restoration Operation
UNOMUR United Nations Observer Mission Uganda-Rwanda
UNDOF* United Nations Disengagement Observer Force
UNOSOM United Nations Operation in Somalia
UNEF United Nations Emergency Force

236 | P E A C E O P E R A T I ONS T R A I N I N G I NS T I T U T E Op e rati o n a l L o gi s tica l Supp o rt o f U N P e ac e k e e pi n g M i s s i o n s | 237

 Appendix C: Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000)

UNPREDEP United Nations Preventive Deployment Force

UNPROFOR United Nations Protection Force

UNPSG United Nations Civilian Police Support Group

UNSF United Nations Security Force in West New Guinea (West Irian)

UNSMIH United Nations Support Mission in Haiti

UNTAC United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia

UNTAES United Nations Transitional Authority in Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Sirmium

UNTAET United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor

UNTAG United Nations Transition Assistance Group

Resolution 1325 (2000)
UNTMIH United Nations Transition Mission in Haiti
Adopted by the Security Council at its 4213th meeting, on 31 October 2000
UNTSO* United Nations Truce Supervision Organization
The Security Council,
UNYOM United Nations Yemen Observation Mission
Recalling its resolutions 1261 (1999) of 25 August 1999, 1265 (1999) of 17 September 1999,
* Ongoing operations, as of March 2012.
1296 (2000) of 19 April 2000 and 1314 (2000) of 11 August 2000, as well as relevant statements of its
President, and recalling also the statement of its President to the press on the occasion of the United
Nations Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace (International Women’s Day) of 8 March 2000
(SC/6816),

Recalling also the commitments of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (A/52/231) as well
as those contained in the outcome document of the twenty-third Special Session of the United Nations
General Assembly entitled “Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the Twenty-First
Century” (A/S-23/10/Rev.1), in particular those concerning women and armed conflict,

Bearing in mind the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the primary
responsibility of the Security Council under the Charter for the maintenance of international peace and
security,

Expressing concern that civilians, particularly women and children, account for the vast majority of
those adversely affected by armed conflict, including as refugees and internally displaced persons, and
increasingly are targeted by combatants and armed elements, and recognizing the consequent impact
this has on durable peace and reconciliation,

For more information on these operations, visit UN DPKO’s Web site at
http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/
Reaffirming the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and in
peace-building, and stressing the importance of their equal participation and full involvement in all
efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security, and the need to increase their role in
decision-making with regard to conflict prevention and resolution,

238 | P E A C E O P E R A T I ONS T R A I N I N G I NS T I T U T E Op e rati o n a l L o gi s tica l Supp o rt o f U N P e ac e k e e pi n g M i s s i o n s | 239

 Reaffirming also the need to implement fully international humanitarian and human rights law that
protects the rights of women and girls during and after conflicts,
Emphasizing the need for all parties to ensure that mine clearance and mine awareness programmes
take into account the special needs of women and girls,
Recognizing the urgent need to mainstream a gender perspective into peacekeeping operations,
and in this regard noting the Windhoek Declaration and the Namibia Plan of Action on Mainstreaming a
Gender Perspective in Multidimensional Peace Support Operations (S/2000/693),
Recognizing also the importance of the recommendation contained in the statement of its President
to the press of 8 March 2000 for specialized training for all peacekeeping personnel on the protection,
special needs and human rights of women and children in conflict situations,
Recognizing that an understanding of the impact of armed conflict on women and girls, effective
institutional arrangements to guarantee their protection and full participation in the peace process can
significantly contribute to the maintenance and promotion of international peace and security,
Noting the need to consolidate data on the impact of armed conflict on women and girls,
1. Urges Member States to ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels
in national, regional and international institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management, and
resolution of conflict;
2. Encourages the Secretary-General to implement his strategic plan of action (A/49/587) calling
for an increase in the participation of women at decision-making levels in conflict resolution and peace
processes;
3. Urges the Secretary-General to appoint more women as special representatives and envoys to
pursue good offices on his behalf, and in this regard calls on Member States to provide candidates to the
Secretary-General, for inclusion in a regularly updated centralized roster;
4. Further urges the Secretary-General to seek to expand the role and contribution of women in
United Nations field-based operations, and especially among military observers, civilian police, human
rights and humanitarian personnel;
5. Expresses its willingness to incorporate a gender perspective into peacekeeping operations,
and urges the Secretary-General to ensure that, where appropriate, field operations include a gender
component;
6. Requests the Secretary-General to provide to Member States training guidelines and materials on
the protection, rights and the particular needs of women, as well as on the importance of involving women
in all peacekeeping and peace-building measures, invites Member States to incorporate these elements
240 | P E A C E O P E R A T I ONS T R A I N I N G I NS T I T U T E
as well as HIV/AIDS awareness training into their national training programmes for military and civilian
police personnel in preparation for deployment, and further requests the Secretary-General to ensure that
civilian personnel of peacekeeping operations receive similar training;
7. Urges Member States to increase their voluntary financial, technical and logistical support for
gender-sensitive training efforts, including those undertaken by relevant funds and programmes, inter alia,
the United Nations Fund for Women and United Nations Children’s Fund, and by the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other relevant bodies;
8. Calls on all actors involved, when negotiating and implementing peace agreements, to adopt a
gender perspective, including, inter alia:
(a) The special needs of women and girls during repatriation and resettlement and for rehabilitation,
reintegration and post-conflict reconstruction;
(b) Measures that support local women’s peace initiatives and indigenous processes for conflict
resolution, and that involve women in all of the implementation mechanisms of the peace agreements;
(c) Measures that ensure the protection of and respect for human rights of women and girls,
particularly as they relate to the constitution, the electoral system, the police and the judiciary;
9. Calls upon all parties to armed conflict to respect fully international law applicable to the rights
and protection of women and girls, especially as civilians, in particular the obligations applicable to
them under the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols thereto of 1977, the Refugee
Convention of 1951 and the Protocol thereto of 1967, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women of 1979 and the Optional Protocol thereto of 1999 and the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989 and the two Optional Protocols thereto of 25 May 2000, and
to bear in mind the relevant provisions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court;
10. Calls on all parties to armed conflict to take special measures to protect women and girls from
gender-based violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse, and all other forms of violence
in situations of armed conflict;
11. Emphasizes the responsibility of all States to put an end to impunity and to prosecute those
responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes including those relating to sexual and
other violence against women and girls, and in this regard stresses the need to exclude these crimes,
where feasible from amnesty provisions;
12. Calls upon all parties to armed conflict to respect the civilian and humanitarian character of
refugee camps and settlements, and to take into account the particular needs of women and girls,
including in their design, and recalls its resolutions 1208 (1998) of 19 November 1998 and 1296 (2000) of
19 April 2000;
Op e rati o n a l L o gi s tica l Supp o rt o f U N P e ac e k e e pi n g M i s s i o n s | 241

13. Encourages all those involved in the planning for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration
to consider the different needs of female and male ex-combatants and to take into account the needs of
their dependants;
14. Reaffirms its readiness, whenever measures are adopted under Article 41 of the Charter of the
United Nations, to give consideration to their potential impact on the civilian population, bearing in mind
the special needs of women and girls, in order to consider appropriate humanitarian exemptions;
15. Expresses its willingness to ensure that Security Council missions take into account gender
considerations and the rights of women, including through consultation with local and international
women’s groups;
16. Invites the Secretary-General to carry out a study on the impact of armed conflict on women and
girls, the role of women in peace-building and the gender dimensions of peace processes and conflict
resolution, and further invites him to submit a report to the Security Council on the results of this study
and to make this available to all Member States of the United Nations;
17. Requests the Secretary-General, where appropriate, to include in his reporting to the Security
Council progress on gender mainstreaming throughout peacekeeping missions and all other aspects
relating to women and girls;
18. Decides to remain actively seized of the matter.
242 | P E A C E O P E R A T I ONS T R A I N I N G I NS T I T U T E
Appendix D: Secretary-General’s Bulletin on Sexual
Exploitation and Abuse
Secretary-General’s Bulletin
Special measures for protection from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse
The Secretary-General, for the purpose of preventing and addressing cases of sexual exploitation
and sexual abuse, and taking into consideration General Assembly resolution 57/306 of 15 April 2003,
“Investigation into sexual exploitation of refugees by aid workers in West Africa”, promulgates the following
in consultation with Executive Heads of separately administered organs and programmes of the United
Nations:
Section 1
Definitions
For the purposes of the present bulletin, the term “sexual exploitation” means any actual or attempted
abuse of a position of vulnerability, differential power, or trust, for sexual purposes, including, but not
limited to, profiting monetarily, socially or politically from the sexual exploitation of another. Similarly, the
term “sexual abuse” means the actual or threatened physical intrusion of a sexual nature, whether by
force or under unequal or coercive conditions.
Section 2
Scope of application
2.1 The present bulletin shall apply to all staff of the United Nations, including staff of separately
administered organs and programmes of the United Nations.
2.2 United Nations forces conducting operations under United Nations command and control are
prohibited from committing acts of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, and have a particular duty of
care towards women and children, pursuant to section 7 of Secretary-General’s bulletin ST/SGB/1999/13,
entitled “Observance by United Nations forces of international humanitarian law”.
2.3 Secretary-General’s bulletin ST/SGB/253, entitled “Promotion of equal treatment of men and
women in the Secretariat and prevention of sexual harassment”, and the related administrative instruction
set forth policies and procedures for handling cases of sexual harassment in the Secretariat of the United
Nations. Separately administered organs and programmes of the United Nations have promulgated similar
policies and procedures.
Op e rati o n a l L o gi s tica l Supp o rt o f U N P e ac e k e e pi n g M i s s i o n s | 243
Section 3
Prohibition of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse
3.1 Sexual exploitation and sexual abuse violate universally recognized international legal norms and
standards and have always been unacceptable behaviour and prohibited conduct for United Nations staff.
Such conduct is prohibited by the United Nations Staff Regulations and Rules.
3.2 In order to further protect the most vulnerable populations, especially women and children, the
following specific standards which reiterate existing general obligations under the United Nations Staff
Regulations and Rules, are promulgated:
a. Sexual exploitation and sexual abuse constitute acts of serious misconduct and are therefore
grounds for disciplinary measures, including summary dismissal;
b. Sexual activity with children (persons under the age of 18) is prohibited regardless of the age of
majority or age of consent locally. Mistaken belief in the age of a child is not a defence;
c. Exchange of money, employment, goods or services for sex, including sexual favours or other
forms of humiliating, degrading or exploitative behaviour, is prohibited. This includes any
exchange of assistance that is due to beneficiaries of assistance;
d. Sexual relationships between United Nations staff and beneficiaries of assistance, since they are
based on inherently unequal power dynamics, undermine the credibility and integrity of the work
of the United Nations and are strongly discouraged;
e. Where a United Nations staff member develops concerns or suspicions regarding sexual
exploitation or sexual abuse by a fellow worker, whether in the same agency or not and whether
or not within the United Nations system, he or she must report such concerns via established
reporting mechanisms;
f. United Nations staff are obliged to create and maintain an environment that prevents sexual
exploitation and sexual abuse. Managers at all levels have a particular responsibility to support
and develop systems that maintain this environment.
3.3 The standards set out above are not intended to be an exhaustive list. Other types of sexually
exploitive or sexually abusive behaviour may be grounds for administrative action or disciplinary
measures, including summary dismissal, pursuant to the United Nations Staff Regulations and Rules.
Section 4
Duties of Heads of Departments, Offices and Missions
4.1 The Head of Department, Office or Mission, as appropriate, shall be responsible for creating and
maintaining an environment that prevents sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, and shall take appropriate
measures for this purpose. In particular, the Head of Department, Office or Mission shall inform his or her
staff of the contents of the present bulletin and ascertain that each staff member receives a copy thereof.
4.2 The Head of Department, Office or Mission shall be responsible for taking appropriate action in
cases where there is reason to believe that any of the standards listed in section 3.2 above have been
violated or any behaviour referred to in section 3.3 above has occurred. This action shall be taken in
accordance with established rules and procedures for dealing with cases of staff misconduct.
244 | P E A C E O P E R A T I ONS T R A I N I N G I NS T I T U T E
4.3 The Head of Department, Office or Mission shall appoint an official, at a sufficiently high level, to
serve as a focal point for receiving reports on cases of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. With respect
to Missions, the staff of the Mission and the local population shall be properly informed of the existence
and role of the focal point and of how to contact him or her. All reports of sexual exploitation and sexual
abuse shall be handled in a confidential manner in order to protect the rights of all involved. However,
such reports may be used, where necessary, for action taken pursuant to section 4.2 above.
4.4 The Head of Department, Office or Mission shall not apply the standard prescribed in section 3.2
(b), where a staff member is legally married to someone under the age of 18 but over the age of majority
or consent in their country of citizenship.
4.5 The Head of Department, Office or Mission may use his or her discretion in applying the
standard prescribed in section 3.2 (d), where beneficiaries of assistance are over the age of 18 and the
circumstances of the case justify an exception.
4.6 The Head of Department, Office or Mission shall promptly inform the Department of Management
of its investigations into cases of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, and the actions it has taken as a
result of such investigations.
Section 5
Referral to national authorities
If, after proper investigation, there is evidence to support allegations of sexual exploitation or sexual
abuse, these cases may, upon consultation with the Office of Legal Affairs, be referred to national
authorities for criminal prosecution.
Section 6
Cooperative arrangements with non-United Nations entities or individuals
6.1 When entering into cooperative arrangements with non-United Nations entities or individuals,
relevant United Nations officials shall inform those entities or individuals of the standards of conduct listed
in section 3, and shall receive a written undertaking from those entities or individuals that they accept
these standards.
6.2 The failure of those entities or individuals to take preventive measures against sexual exploitation
or sexual abuse, to investigate allegations thereof, or to take corrective action when sexual exploitation or
sexual abuse has occurred, shall constitute grounds for termination of any cooperative arrangement with
the United Nations.
Section 7
Entry into force
The present bulletin shall enter into force on 15 October 2003.
(Signed) Kofi A. Annan
Secretary-General
Op e rati o n a l L o gi s tica l Supp o rt o f U N P e ac e k e e pi n g M i s s i o n s | 245
Appendix E: Secretary-General’s Bulletin on the Prohibition
of Sexual Harassment
Secretary-General’s bulletin
Prohibition of discrimination, harassment, including sexual harassment, and abuse of authority
The Secretary-General, for the purpose of ensuring that all staff members of the Secretariat are treated
with dignity and respect and are aware of their role and responsibilities in maintaining a workplace free of
any form of discrimination, harassment, including sexual harassment, and abuse of authority, promulgates
the following:
Section 1
Definitions
1.1 Discrimination is any unfair treatment or arbitrary distinction based on a person’s race, sex,
religion, nationality, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, age, language, social origin or other status.
Discrimination may be an isolated event affecting one person or a group of persons similarly situated, or
may manifest itself through harassment or abuse of authority.
1.2 Harassment is any improper and unwelcome conduct that might reasonably be expected or
be perceived to cause offence or humiliation to another person. Harassment may take the form of
words, gestures or actions which tend to annoy, alarm, abuse, demean, intimidate, belittle, humiliate or
embarrass another or which create an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. Harassment
normally implies a series of incidents. Disagreement on work performance or on other work-related issues
is normally not considered harassment and is not dealt with under the provisions of this policy but in the
context of performance management.
1.3 Sexual harassment is any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favour, verbal or
physical conduct or gesture of a sexual nature, or any other behaviour of a sexual nature that might
reasonably be expected or be perceived to cause offence or humiliation to another, when such conduct
interferes with work, is made a condition of employment or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive
work environment. While typically involving a pattern of behaviour, it can take the form of a single incident.
Sexual harassment may occur between persons of the opposite or same sex. Both males and females
can be either the victims or the offenders.
246 | P E A C E O P E R A T I ONS T R A I N I N G I NS T I T U T E
1.4 Abuse of authority is the improper use of a position of influence, power or authority against
another person. This is particularly serious when a person uses his or her influence, power or authority
to improperly influence the career or employment conditions of another, including, but not limited to,
appointment, assignment, contract renewal, performance evaluation or promotion. Abuse of authority may
also include conduct that creates a hostile or offensive work environment which includes, but is not limited
to, the use of intimidation, threats, blackmail or coercion. Discrimination and harassment, including sexual
harassment, are particularly serious when accompanied by abuse of authority.
1.5 For the purposes of the present bulletin, discrimination, harassment, including sexual harassment,
and abuse of authority shall collectively be referred to as “prohibited conduct”.
Section 2
General principles
2.1 In accordance with the provisions of Article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United
Nations, and the core values set out in staff regulation 1.2 (a) and staff rules 101.2 (d), 201.2 (d) and 301.3
(d), every staff member has the right to be treated with dignity and respect, and to work in an environment
free from discrimination, harassment and abuse. Consequently, any form of discrimination, harassment,
including sexual harassment, and abuse of authority is prohibited.
2.2 The Organization has the duty to take all appropriate measures towards ensuring a harmonious
work environment, and to protect its staff from exposure to any form of prohibited conduct, through
preventive measures and the provision of effective remedies when prevention has failed.
2.3 In their interactions with others, all staff members are expected to act with tolerance, sensitivity
and respect for differences. Any form of prohibited conduct in the workplace or in connection with work
is a violation of these principles and may lead to disciplinary action, whether the prohibited conduct takes
place in the workplace, in the course of official travel or an official mission, or in other settings in which it
may have an impact on the workplace.
2.4 The present bulletin shall apply to all staff of the Secretariat. Complaints of prohibited conduct
may be made by any staff member, consultant, contractor, gratis personnel, including interns, and
any other person who may have been subject to prohibited conduct on the part of a staff member in a
work-related situation.
Section 3
Duties of staff members and specific duties of managers, supervisors and heads of department/
office/mission
3.1 All staff members have the obligation to ensure that they do not engage in or condone behaviour
which would constitute prohibited conduct with respect to their peers, supervisors, supervisees and other
persons performing duties for the United Nations.
Op e rati o n a l L o gi s tica l Supp o rt o f U N P e ac e k e e pi n g M i s s i o n s | 247
3.2 Managers and supervisors have the duty to take all appropriate measures to promote a
harmonious work environment, free of intimidation, hostility, offence and any form of prohibited conduct.
They must act as role models by upholding the highest standards of conduct. Managers and supervisors
have the obligation to ensure that complaints of prohibited conduct are promptly addressed in a fair
and impartial manner. Failure on the part of managers and supervisors to fulfil their obligations under
the present bulletin may be considered a breach of duty, which, if established, shall be reflected in
their annual performance appraisal, and they will be subject to administrative or disciplinary action, as
appropriate.
3.3 Heads of department/office are responsible for the implementation of the present bulletin in their
respective departments/offices and for holding all managers and other supervisory staff accountable for
compliance with the terms of the present bulletin.
Section 4
Preventive measures
4.1 Prevention of prohibited conduct is an essential component of the action to be taken by the
Organization. In the discharge of its duty to take all appropriate measures towards ensuring a harmonious
work environment and to protect its staff from any form of prohibited conduct, the following preventive
measures will be used.
4.2 The Organization shall conduct regular and mandatory awareness programmes for all Secretariat
staff to raise awareness of the Organization’s zero tolerance of prohibited conduct, to provide guidance
on the relevant policy and procedures and to foster the creation of a harmonious working environment,
free from intimidation, hostility, offence and any form of discrimination or retaliation. In particular, all
staff members shall be required to complete the mandatory online training programme on prevention
of harassment, sexual harassment and abuse of authority in the workplace, promulgated under ST/
SGB/2005/20. The successful completion of this programme shall be reflected in staff members’
performance appraisal.
4.3 Other programmes will continue to be offered, including targeted training for managers
and supervisors, completion of which will be a requirement for advancement to successive levels
of responsibility. Specific training will be provided to officials involved in informal resolution and the
formal procedures set out in section 5 below, including the individuals designated under section 5.14 to
investigate allegations of prohibited conduct.
4.4 Heads of department/office/mission shall ensure that their staff and others for whom they
are responsible are provided with a copy of this bulletin upon taking up their appointments. A note
acknowledging receipt shall be placed in the staff member’s official status file. Heads of department/
office/mission shall also ensure that their staff undertake the required training.
248 | P E A C E O P E R A T I ONS T R A I N I N G I NS T I T U T E
4.5 Staff members are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the Organization’s policy
on prohibited conduct and with the various options and internal channels available for addressing
such conduct. Staff members are also reminded of the policy introduced by ST/SGB/2005/21 on
protection against retaliation for reporting misconduct and for cooperating with duly authorized audits or
investigations.
4.6 In order to resolve problems which could potentially give rise to instances of prohibited conduct,
managers and supervisors shall maintain open channels of communication and ensure that staff
members who wish to raise their concerns in good faith can do so freely and without fear of adverse
consequences.
4.7 If there is a need for confidential guidance or advice on matters which could give rise to instances
of prohibited conduct, staff members may consult the Office of the Ombudsman or the Office of the Staff
Counsellor, which are bound by strict rules of confidentiality under their terms of reference. Staff members
may also consult any of the other officials listed in section 5.6 below.
Section 5
Corrective measures
5.1 Individuals who believe they are victims of prohibited conduct are encouraged to deal with the
problem as early as possible after it has occurred. The aggrieved individual may opt for an informal
or a formal process, as explained below. Regardless of the choice made, the aggrieved individual is
encouraged to keep a written record of events, noting dates, places, a description of what happened and
the names of any witnesses and of anyone who may have information concerning the incident or situation
at issue.
5.2 All reports and allegations of prohibited conduct shall be handled with sensitivity in order to
protect the privacy of the individuals concerned and ensure confidentiality to the maximum extent
possible.
5.3 Managers and supervisors have the duty to take prompt and concrete action in response to
reports and allegations of prohibited conduct. Failure to take action may be considered a breach of duty
and result in administrative action and/or the institution of disciplinary proceedings.
5.4 Persons accused of prohibited conduct may seek assistance from any of the persons listed in
section 5.6 below.
Informal resolution
5.5 In many cases, the situation can be resolved informally. An informal approach offers the
opportunity to resolve a complaint or grievance in a non-threatening and non-contentious manner.
Aggrieved individuals are encouraged to notify the offender of their complaint or grievance and ask him
or her to stop as, in some instances, the alleged offender may not be aware that his or her behaviour is
offensive. However, disparity in power or status or other considerations may make direct confrontation
difficult, and aggrieved individuals are not required to confront the offender.
Op e rati o n a l L o gi s tica l Supp o rt o f U N P e ac e k e e pi n g M i s s i o n s | 249
5.6 Aggrieved individuals may ask for assistance from a third party in seeking informal resolution.
Depending on the situation and on their level of comfort with one official rather than another, they may
seek the assistance of any of the following:
a. The Ombudsman or a member of the Ombudsman’s Office;
b. The Staff Counsellor at the duty station;
c. A human resources officer at the duty station;
d. A member of the conduct and discipline team in a peacekeeping mission or at Headquarters;
e. A member of the executive committee of the staff representative body at the duty station;
f. A staff representative of the department or office concerned;
g. The Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women;
h. The Focal Point for Women in the Secretariat or the focal point for women in the department or
office concerned;
i. A member of the Panel of Counsel or the Office of Staff Legal Assistance;
j. A supervisor, including the first or second supervisor.
In all cases, the Medical Service may be consulted for advice. Aggrieved individuals may also consult an
outside adviser, such as an occupational psychologist or stress counsellor, at their own expense.
5.7 The official from whom assistance has been requested may, with the consent of the aggrieved
individual, meet informally with the alleged offender to apprise him or her of the situation and discuss the
manner in which it might be resolved to the satisfaction of all concerned.
5.8 All involved in the informal resolution process must recognize the need to treat the situation with
sensitivity and confidentiality to the greatest extent possible.
5.9 Regardless of the outcome, the officials listed in section 5.6 above shall provide continuing
support to the aggrieved party at every stage of the process, in consultation with the appropriate officials,
taking into account the positive or negative consequences of the proposed course of action. If the
temporary assignment of the aggrieved party or the alleged offender to another position is proposed, this
may not take place without the consent of the individual concerned.
5.10 An unsuccessful attempt to resolve the matter informally does not preclude it from being pursued
formally under the following provisions.
Formal procedures
5.11 In circumstances where informal resolution is not desired or appropriate, or has been
unsuccessful, the aggrieved individual may submit a written complaint to the head of department, office or
mission concerned, except in those cases where the official who would normally receive the complaint is
the alleged offender, in which case the complaint should be submitted to the Assistant Secretary-General
for Human Resources Management or, for mission staff, to the Under-Secretary-General for Field
250 | P E A C E O P E R A T I ONS T R A I N I N G I NS T I T U T E
Support. Formal resolution may also be initiated by the submission of a report of prohibited conduct from
a third party who has direct knowledge of the situation to one of the officials listed above (the “responsible
official”). The aggrieved individual or third party shall copy the written complaint or report to the Office of
Human Resources Management for monitoring purposes.
5.12 In all instances, aggrieved individuals or third parties who have direct knowledge of the situation
may report cases of prohibited conduct directly to the Office of Internal Oversight Services, without the
need to obtain authorization or clearance from any official.
5.13 The complaint or report should describe the alleged incident(s) of prohibited conduct in detail
and any additional evidence and information relevant to the matter should be submitted. The complaint or
report should include:
a. The name of the alleged offender;
b. Date(s) and location(s) of incident(s);
c. Description of incident(s);
d. Names of witnesses, if any;
e. Names of persons who are aware of incident(s), if any;
f. Any other relevant information, including documentary evidence if available;
g. Date of submission and signature of the aggrieved individual or third party making the report.
5.14 Upon receipt of a formal complaint or report, the responsible official will promptly review the
complaint or report to assess whether it appears to have been made in good faith and whether there are
sufficient grounds to warrant a formal fact-finding investigation. If that is the case, the responsible office
shall promptly appoint a panel of at least two individuals from the department, office or mission concerned
who have been trained in investigating allegations of prohibited conduct or, if necessary, from the Office
of Human Resources Management roster.
5.15 At the beginning of the fact-finding investigation, the panel shall inform the alleged offender of the
nature of the allegation(s) against him or her. In order to preserve the integrity of the process, information
that may undermine the conduct of the fact-finding investigation or result in intimidation or retaliation
shall not be disclosed to the alleged offender at that point. This may include the names of witnesses or
particular details of incidents. All persons interviewed in the course of the investigation shall be reminded
of the policy introduced by ST/SGB/2005/21.
5.16 The fact-finding investigation shall include interviews with the aggrieved individual, the alleged
offender and any other individuals who may have relevant information about the conduct alleged.
5.17 The officials appointed to conduct the fact-finding investigation shall prepare a detailed report,
giving a full account of the facts that they have ascertained in the process and attaching documentary
evidence, such as written statements by witnesses or any other documents or records relevant to the
alleged prohibited conduct. This report shall be submitted to the responsible official normally no later than
three months from the date of submission of the formal complaint or report.
Op e rati o n a l L o gi s tica l Supp o rt o f U N P e ac e k e e pi n g M i s s i o n s | 251
5.18 On the basis of the report, the responsible official shall take one of the following courses of
action:
a. If the report indicates that no prohibited conduct took place, the responsible official will close the
case and so inform the alleged offender and the aggrieved individual, giving a summary of the
findings and conclusions of the investigation;
b. If the report indicates that there was a factual basis for the allegations but that, while not sufficient
to justify the institution of disciplinary proceedings, the facts would warrant managerial action,
the responsible official shall decide on the type of managerial action to be taken, inform the staff
member concerned, and make arrangements for the implementation of any follow-up measures
that may be necessary. Managerial action may include mandatory training, reprimand, a change
of functions or responsibilities, counselling or other appropriate corrective measures. The
responsible official shall inform the aggrieved individual of the outcome of the investigation and of
the action taken;
c. If the report indicates that the allegations were well-founded and that the conduct in question
amounts to possible misconduct, the responsible official shall refer the matter to the Assistant
Secretary-General for Human Resources Management for disciplinary action and may
recommend suspension during disciplinary proceedings, depending on the nature and gravity of
the conduct in question. The Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management
will proceed in accordance with the applicable disciplinary procedures and will also inform the
aggrieved individual of the outcome of the investigation and of the action taken.
5.19 Should the report indicate that the allegations of prohibited conduct were unfounded and based
on malicious intent, the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management shall decide
whether disciplinary or other appropriate action should be initiated against the person who made the
complaint or report.
5.20 Where an aggrieved individual or alleged offender has grounds to believe that the procedure
followed in respect of the allegations of prohibited conduct was improper, he or she may appeal pursuant
to chapter XI of the Staff Rules.
Section 6
Monitoring
General
6.1 The head of department or office shall provide annual reports to the Assistant Secretary-General
for Human Resources Management, which shall include an overview of all preventive measures taken
with a view to ensuring a harmonious work environment and protecting staff from prohibited conduct, and
corrective measures taken under section 5 above, as well as any evaluations or assessments relating to
such measures and/or activities.
252 | P E A C E O P E R A T I ONS T R A I N I N G I NS T I T U T E
6.2 As indicated in section 5.11 above, a copy of the complaint or report of prohibited conduct shall be
submitted to the Office of Human Resources Management for the purpose of monitoring the complaints
and reports received and actions taken. The Department of Management shall submit annually to the
Secretary-General a report containing statistics on complaints or reports received and requests for
protection, and information on the protection that has been provided.
6.3 A joint harassment prevention board shall be established in New York, Geneva, Vienna, Nairobi
and in regional commissions other than the Economic Commission for Europe within three months of
entry into force of this bulletin for the purpose of monitoring implementation of this bulletin at the duty
station. A separate Secretary-General’s bulletin will be issued for this purpose. Each board shall submit a
report to the Office of Human Resources Management, which will consolidate the reports for transmission
to the annual meeting of the Staff Management Coordination Committee, for the purpose of reviewing the
implementation of the policy in the Secretariat.
Monitoring during the investigation
6.4 Where a fact-finding investigation is initiated following receipt of a formal complaint of prohibited
conduct, appropriate measures shall be taken by the head of department, office or mission to monitor the
status of the aggrieved party, the alleged offender and the work unit(s) concerned until such time as the
fact-finding investigation report has been submitted. The purpose of such monitoring shall be to ensure
that all parties comply with their duty to cooperate with the fact-finding investigation and that no party
is subjected to retaliation as a result of the complaint or the fact-finding investigation. Where retaliation
is detected, the Ethics Office shall be promptly notified and the matter shall be handled in accordance
with the provisions of ST/SGB/2005/21. The Office of Human Resources Management may request
information from the head of department or office, as necessary.
Post-investigation review
6.5 Once the investigation has been completed and a decision taken on the outcome, appropriate
measures shall be taken by the head of department/office/mission to keep the situation under review.
These measures may include, but are not limited to, the following:
a. Monitoring the status of the aggrieved party, the alleged offender and the work unit(s) concerned
at regular intervals in order to ensure that no party is subjected to retaliation as a consequence of
the investigation, its findings or the outcome. Where retaliation is detected, the Ethics Office shall
be promptly notified;
b. Ensuring that any administrative or disciplinary measures taken as a result of the fact-finding
investigation have been duly implemented;
c. Identifying other appropriate action, in particular preventative action, to be taken in order to
ensure that the objectives of the present bulletin are fulfilled.
Op e rati o n a l L o gi s tica l Supp o rt o f U N P e ac e k e e pi n g M i s s i o n s | 253
 End-of-Course Exam Instructions

The Office of Human Resources Management may request information from the head of department or
office, as necessary.
Annual information circular
6.6 The Secretary-General shall include in the annual circular informing staff of his practice in
disciplinary matters information on cases where discrimination, harassment, including sexual harassment,
and abuse of authority have been found. The information circular shall also inform staff of the most
common examples of prohibited conduct and their consequences, including any disciplinary or legal
action taken, with due regard to the privacy of the staff members concerned.
Section 7
Final provisions
7.1 The present bulletin shall enter into force on 1 March 2008.
7.2 Secretary-General’s bulletin ST/SGB/253 of 29 October 1992 and administrative instruction ST/
AI/379 of 29 October 1992 are hereby abolished.
(Signed) Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General
General Information
The End-of-Course Exam is provided as a separate component of this course. It covers the material in
all the lessons of this course, including any material found in the course’s annexes and appendices. The
exam may be found in your Student Classroom at https://www.peaceopstraining.org/users/user_index.
Format of Questions
The exam consists of 50 multiple-choice questions. Each question gives the student a choice of four
answers marked A, B, C, and D, with only one of these being the correct answer.
Time Limit
There is no time limit for the exam. This allows the student to read and study the questions carefully, and
to consult the course text. Furthermore, if the student cannot complete the exam in one sitting, he or she
may save the exam and come back to it without being graded. The “Save” button is located at the bottom
of the exam, next to the “Submit my answers” button. Clicking on the “Submit my answers” button will end
the exam.
Passing Grade
To pass the exam, a score of 75 per cent or better is required. An electronic Certificate of Completion
will be awarded to those who have passed the exam. A score of less than 75 per cent is a failing grade,
and students who have received a failing grade will be provided with a second, alternate version of the
exam, which can likewise be completed without a time limit. Students who pass the second exam will be
awarded a Certificate of Completion. Those who fail the second exam will be disenrolled from the course.

254 | P E A C E O P E R A T I ONS T R A I N I N G I NS T I T U T E Op e rati o n a l L o gi s tica l Supp o rt o f U N P e ac e k e e pi n g M i s s i o n s | 255

About the Authors Courses at the Peace Operations Training Institute

Dr. AnnJanette Rosga holds a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary social sciences from the University of California, Course Name English French Spanish
Santa Cruz. She has been an assistant professor at Knox College in Illinois, and the University of An Introduction to the UN System   
Colorado, Boulder, where she taught courses in social and feminist theory, research methodologies, Civil–Military Coordination (CIMIC)   
and on the cultural study of law, crime, and violence. She is the recipient of multiple grants and awards,
including a Fulbright Scholarship and post-doctoral fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson International Commanding UN Peacekeeping Operations   
Center for Scholars and Cornell University’s Clarke Program for the Study of Law and Culture. The Conduct of Humanitarian Relief Operations   
Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR)   
As the researcher and editorial advisor for the award-winning documentary film, Licensed to Kill, Dr.
Ethics in Peacekeeping   
Rosga has worked with community organizations on issues surrounding bias-related violence and
policing. In addition, she has written on human trafficking, bias-related crime, and the use of social Gender Perspectives in UN Peacekeeping Operations   
science indicators for human rights monitoring. She is currently at work on a book entitled Trafficking The History of UN Peacekeeping 1945–1987   
in the Rule of Law: Police and Human Rights in Emerging Democracies, which describes several years
The History of UN Peacekeeping 1988–1996   
of ethnographic research on human rights training for police in post-conflict settings and in nations
transitioning to democracy. The History of UN Peacekeeping 1997–2006   
Human Rights 
Dr. Rosga has provided expert consultation to such agencies as Amnesty International, Human Rights
Implementation of SCR 1325 (2000) in Africa 
Watch, UNICEF, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Vera Institute of
Justice. She is currently the Director of the United Nations Office of the Women’s International League for Implementation of SCR 1325 (2000) in LAC 
Peace and Freedom (WILPF) in New York. International Humanitarian Law and the Law of Armed Conflict   
Logistical Support to UN Peacekeeping Operations   
Operational Logistical Support   
Anja H. Ebnöther is Assistant Director of the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control for Armed Advanced Topics in UN Logistics   
Forces (DCAF), where she leads programmes on gender, children and security and human trafficking. Mine Action   
Ms. Ebnöther is also the Swiss representative on the Steering Committee of the Partnership for Peace
Peacekeeping and International Conflict Resolution   
(PfP) Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes and the Chairperson of the
PfP-Consortium Working Group on Security Sector Reform. Ms. Ebnöther was formerly a civil servant Preventing Violence Against Women   
with the Swiss Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sports. Ms. Ebnöther holds a degree Principles and Guidelines 
in Law from the University of Fribourg and is an alumna of the International Training Course in Security
United Nations Military Observers   
Policy at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.
United Nations Police   

Megan Bastick is a Gender and Security Fellow with the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control for
Armed Forces (DCAF). She co-edited DCAF’s Toolkit and Training Resource Package on Gender and
Security Sector Reform and is co-author of Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict: Global Overview and
Implications for the Security Sector. Ms. Bastick also has experience as a lawyer working on human rights
and refugee issues, and as an International Humanitarian Law Officer with the Australian Red Cross. Ms.
Bastick holds a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws from the University of New South Wales and a
Masters in International Law from the University of Cambridge.
The Peace Operations Training Institute is committed to bringing essential, practical knowledge
to students, and is always working to expand its curriculum with the most up-to-date and relevant
information possible. POTI’s latest course list can be found at www.peaceopstraining.org, which
includes the courses’ increasing availability in Portuguese and Arabic. Visit the website regularly
to keep abreast of the latest changes to POTI’s curriculum.

PVAW_EN.120330

256 | P E A C E O P E R A T I ONS T R A I N I N G I NS T I T U T E
www.peaceopstraining.org