Gender Violence Across War and Peace

The proposed network will investigate the diverse forms of gender violence that exist across war and peace.

Gender violence (defined as violence committed against individuals or groups on the basis of ascribed gender) is a major issue in global politics. The aim of ending violence against women and girls is a centre-piece of women's human rights activism, a primary element of the international community's Sustainable Development Goals, a foundational pillar of the Women, Peace and Security agenda mandated by the United Nations Security Council, a major target for the UK Department for International Development, and the focus of the UK's recent Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative.

Because of these policy agendas, there is a major need for research on the complexities of gender violence. This network focuses in on one distinctive conceptual approach to this complexity: the continuum of violence framework. In broad terms, the "continuum of violence" stresses the continuities between war and peace, and amongst the varying categories of violence, to emphasise that the best available explanations attend to long-standing inequalities of power characterising society at large, rather than exceptional moments of large-scale violence and crisis. In other words, it suggests that we best understand violence by looking at its everyday and structural character.

To better frame research on these issues, the Network focuses on four country situations where the continuum of violence framework is relevant to UK overseas development policy: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq, Lebanon and Sri Lanka.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the failure of institutions to properly address post-conflict sexual violence continues to be a major issue, and Network participants will share their research on why gender violence has been neglected even in such a high profile case of post-conflict reconstruction and transitional justice. Gender violence is a significant feature of the extreme situation of conflict in Iraq, both in terms of displacement and in the targeting of groups on the basis of ethnicity or the ascribed sexual orientation, but with roots preceding and adjacent to the current crisis. With colleagues in Iraqi Kurdistan the proposed Network will advance understanding of what drives this violence. Mass inflows have led to major economic and social strain in Lebanon and are themselves reflective of multiple sites for gender violence affecting female but also male refugees - in the conflicts they fled, in transit, in refugee camps, and in exploitation through transaction sex. Sri Lankan society is struggling with transitional justice after decades of civil war, with high levels of sexual violence reported during and after the formal end of hostilities. Tens of thousands of IDPs remain in the country's north, with continuing issues of ethnic division and lack of justice liable to impede sustainable peace and economic development.

The Network will advance understanding of the continuum of violence by: 1) bringing together researchers, practitioners and activists; 2) assembling a comparative picture of the multiple and related forms of gender violence as they exist across war and peace, leading to a more sophisticated understanding of variation and appropriate responses; 3) produce research summaries, short videos, blogs and policy briefings that reflect ongoing challenges across the country situations; and 4) facilitate collaboration for substantive future research projects in order to translate insights from the strategic network into a lasting knowledge base that may inform academic, policy, practitioner and activist attempts to mitigate gendered violence in all of its forms.

The Network will achieve its aims through a series of meetings in London and in the four countries themselves, and make use of these meetings and published outputs to engage the policy community and prepare the ground for further primary research on gender violence.

The issues addressed by the Network are crucial to global efforts to end gender violence, most significantly through the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, and the multiple strands of UK government action on it. This importance is indicated by support for the Network from the international NGO working group on WPS, the International Organization for Migration and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, a peace organisation that has been working for gender equality for over 100 years, and which enjoys consultative status with the UN.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), there have been major setbacks in achieving justice for survivors, despite the high profile of sexual violence carried out during the 1990s and after. As has often been noted, only 34 prosecutions for sexual violence related to war crimes were secured before domestic courts between 2004 and 2014. Working with advocates for survivors of sexual violence and LOTOS Zenica - a group of psychologists researching transgenerational trauma - the Network will identify avenues for crucial stakeholders - lawyers, social workers, psychological support services - to improve justice outcomes.

In Iraq, gender violence targeting intersecting identities of ethnicity, sect, and sexual orientation is a well-recognised problem for large numbers of displaced persons. Ethnic cleansing and sexual violence against Yazidi communities has been widely covered by international media in the context of Daesh, but wider dynamics of authoritarianism, state collapse and military intervention also apply. The Network will collaborate closely with Iraqi and Kurdish NGOs dealing with the immediate consequences of violence (WEO, DHRD, Asuda), to better connect them to policy through Centre for WPS networks and enhance their profile with policy makers.

In Lebanon, the effects of destabilisation in Iraq and Syria have manifested in large inflows of refugees, many of whom have experienced gender violence, combining with and exacerbating trends of inequality and vulnerability already existing in the aftermath of the Lebanese civil war, in the spill-over effects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and in the precarious domestic settlement of Lebanese politics. Through Mosaic - a leading LGBT rights organisation - and in collaboration with those working directly with refugee and minority communities, the Network will translate lessons from BiH and Iraq to directly improve humanitarian responses increasingly recognised as insufficient in its treatment of these issues.

In Sri Lanka, the recent formal end to civil war has left significant problems of transitional justice and reconstruction, in which ethnic and political divisions have frequently been expressed through gender violence. Understanding the interaction of these factors in the wake of internal displacement brings together multiple concerns of the international community. As a partner organisation, the Centre for Policy Alternatives is well-placed to work across the international and local levels to impact policy in the short term.

For each country, addressing the complexity of gender violence as it crosses the boundary of war and peace will have an impact on real and ongoing welfare challenges. In each case, the Network will further engage with local partners running up to and during the month 8 workshops to identify research needs and collaborations. Through the Working Papers, policy briefs, blogs, public engagement videos and a closing workshop, the Network will establish outlines for primary and comparative research dealing more directly with development challenges in each country (trust in legal institutions, atrocity prevention, humanitarian response, sustainable peace), as well as scope for research on the continuum of violence with wider disciplinary applications, achieved through workshop partners and the excellent roster of practitioners and policy-makers already associated with the LSE Centre for WPS.