Women, Girls and War

Women and girls are underrepresented among combatants but overrepresented among the victims of armed conflict. According to the United Nations Development Fund for Women [UNIFEM], 70 percent of casualties in recent conflicts have been civilians, the majority of them women and children. With the breakdown of infrastructure in conflict zones, women’s struggles to provide food, water and care for their families and communities are exacerbated. Sexual exploitation, harassment and assault are common challenges for both women soldiers and civilians. Rape as a systemic weapon of armed conflict is now widely recognized as a war crime. The United Nations has passed numerous resolutions on women, peace and security (most notably UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which recognizes women’s multiple roles in war and peace) and, in 2008, passed Resolution 1820 calling for more stringent measures to combat sexual violence in armed conflict.

Rebuilding Hope: Polyclinic of Hope Care and Treatment Project A Holistic Approach for HIV-Positive Women Survivors of the Rwandan Genocide

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 2:57am

The Polyclinic of Hope in Rwanda takes a comprehensive approach to combating gender-based violence for genocide survivors affected by HIV by facilitating support groups, encouraging income generation activities and providing HIV testing and treatment services.

This case study was prepared by the AIDSTAR-One project. As an AIDSTAR-One partner organization, ICRW provided technical oversight on this publication. The full case studies series and findings are available at AIDSTAR-One.

Saranga Jain, Margaret Greene, Zayid Douglas, Myra Betron, and Katherine Fritz
2011

URL:

http://www.icrw.org/publications/rebuilding-hope-polyclinic-hope-care-and-treatment-project

Member Organization:

International Center for Research on Women

Supporting our Military Families: Best Practices for Streamlining Occupational Licensing Across State Lines

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 2:07am

This DoD report explains the hardship military spouses face as they move from state to state with their service member. As a result of the many moves associated with military life, spouses working in professions that require state licenses or certification bear a higher high financial and administrative burden, since credentials often do not transfer from one state do to another state. This burden negatively impacts the chances for employment for more than 100,000 military spouses.

URL:

http://www.defense.gov/home/pdf/Occupational_Licensing_and_Military_Spouses_Report_vFINAL.PDF

The Arab Spring’s misogynist winter

Teaser:

A year after they marched alongside men to topple regimes in the Arab Spring, Arab women are facing a wall of misogyny.

Editorial:

From the New York Daily News:

In Tunisia, Salafist vigilantes have been attacking unveiled women and occupying universities that do not allow the face veil. In Egypt, only eight out of 508 newly elected parliamentarians are female, and the country’s Islamists are threatening to repeal laws making it easier for women to divorce and to gain custody of their children. The head of Libya’s transitional government has promised to bring back polygamy.

The rise of political Islam in all three countries has led some commentators to accuse the Islamists of turning the Arab Spring into an Islamist winter for women. Yet the backlash against women is not confined to Islamists. In Egypt, women who demonstrated for equal rights last year on International Women’s Day were met with ugly jeers and taunts to go home and take care of their children.

Female protesters against the secular military government were subjected to brutal beatings and “virginity tests.” Women who venture into Tahrir Square these days are often sexually harassed.

As the Egyptian anthropologist Hania Sholkamy recently noted, even the left-wing activists who first manned the barricades against President Hosni Mubarak’s regime “reject the whole narrative of gender equality as a figment of a Western imagination.”

[...]

Source:

New York Daily News

URL:

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/arab-spring-misogynist-winter-article-1.1024659?localLinksEnabled=false

Date:

February 21, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Women Not-Quite-In Combat

Teaser:

The Pentagon made official what already has been happening by default: women in uniform are moving closer to the front lines.

Editorial:

From Time:

“Women are contributing in unprecedented ways to the military’s mission,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement heralding the change, which was detailed at a briefing Thursday. “We will continue to open as many positions as possible to women so that anyone qualified to serve can have the opportunity to do so.”

But the move still bans them from key infantry, armor and special operations units, leaving many advocates unimpressed.

Responding to an order from Congress, the Pentagon said it was tweaking the 1994 rules on the issue:

– Women will no longer be barred from jobs simply because those jobs require those holding them to be located with ground-combat units. That means women will be able to serve as tank mechanics, radio operators and in other support billets, opening up more than 13,000 jobs to women.

– Women will be permitted to serve in 800-troop combat battalions, a smaller unit – closer to the front — than the higher-level 4,000-strong brigades where they had been limited to serving in support roles further from the action. More than a thousand jobs will be open to women under this change, although many already have been serving in those jobs as temporary “attachments.”

Source:

Time

URL:

http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2012/02/10/women-not-quite-in-combat/

Date:

February 10, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Can we end rape as tool of war?

Teaser:

Opinion piece by Gloria Steinem and Lauren Wolfe on how rape is used as tool of war to devastate women and communities.

Editorial:

From CNN:

We first thought about starting this piece with the story ofSaleha Begum, a survivor of Bangladesh's 1971 war in which, some reports say, as many as 400,000 women were raped. Begum had been tied to a banana tree and repeatedly gang raped and burned with cigarettes for months until she was shot and left for dead in a pile of women. She didn't die, though, and was able to return home, ravaged and five months pregnant. When she got home she was branded a "slut."

We also thought of starting with the story of Ester Abeja, a woman in Uganda who was forcibly held as a "bush wife" by the Lord's Resistance Army. Repeated rape with objects destroyed her insides. Her captors also made her kill her 1-year-old daughter by smashing the baby's head into a tree.

We ran through a dozen other stories of women like Begum and Abeja, and finally realized that it would be too difficult to find the right one -- the tale that would express exactly how and in what wayssexualized violence is being used as a weapon of war to devastate women and tear apart communities around the world, conflict by conflict, from Libya to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

[...]

Source:

CNN

URL:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/08/opinion/steinem-wolfe-rape-war/index.html

Date:

February 8, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Exclusive: U.S. Acts on Women, Peace and Security

Teaser:

A new action plan opens far-reaching possibilities to improve the security of women and the world. With some caution, women’s peace advocates plan to monitor its implementation.

Editorial:

From the Women's Media Center:

The National Action Plan On Women, Peace and Security (NAP) issued by President Obama shortly before the end of last year has the potential of being a significant step forward in addressing the impact of military conflict on women and the necessity of women’s participation in conflict resolution. In response to a UN resolution, it provides a plan for the U.S. government to implement, “a gender responsive approach to its diplomatic, development, and defense-related work in conflict-affected environments” by mandating:

Women’s participation in peace negotiations.
Increased efforts to protect “women and children from harm, exploitation, discrimination, and abuse, including sexual and gender-based violence and trafficking in persons, and to hold perpetrators accountable in conflict-affected environments.”
Increased efforts to promote women’s roles in conflict prevention.
Post-conflict aid and recovery efforts that address the specific needs of women and children.

The order provides a blueprint for strengthened support and implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (SCR 1325) and other resolutions concerning the effect of conflict on women and their role in peacemaking and recovery.

[...]

Source:

Women's Media Center

URL:

http://womensmediacenter.com/blog/2012/01/exclusive-u-s-acts-on-women-peace-and-security/

Date:

February 6, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Military Sex-Assault Victims to Get More Help, Panetta Pledges

Teaser:

The Pentagon is taking added steps to prevent sexual assault in the U.S. military and help victims as thousands of abuse cases go unreported, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said.

Editorial:

From Bloomberg Business Week:

The Defense Department received 3,191 reports of sexual assault last year, Panetta said yesterday. That’s 1 percent more than the 3,158 reported in the previous fiscal year and a 19 percent increase over five years, according to an annual review released in March.

“Because we assume that this is a very underreported crime, the estimate is that the actual number is closer to 19,000,” Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon. “I deeply regret that such crimes occur in the U.S. military, and I will do all that I can to prevent these crimes from occurring.”

Among the new measures to stop what Panetta called an “unacceptable” number of sexual assaults, the military will require its sexual-assault response coordinators and victim advocates to obtain nationally recognized certification and will extend confidential reporting and victim-support services to spouses and dependents.

[...]

Source:

Bloomberg Business Week

URL:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-23/military-sex-assault-victims-to-get-more-help-panetta-pledges.html

Date:

February 6, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

What the Women Say: The Arab Spring and Implications for Women

Submitted by asklar on Fri, 01/20/2012 - 11:17am

ICAN's first MENA regional issue brief.

As the Arab world rumbles and shakes, women in the region are experiencing the good, the bad and the ugly that comes with instability, transition and crisis. From Tunisia and Egypt to Syria, Libya and Bahrain, women have been present and vocal in the street protest movements, standing shoulder to shoulder with the men, resisting the batons and tear gas, and being killed. Many have been key organizers and leaders in social networking, helping to articulate a common message and vision of freedom, democracy and equality, and providing logistical support to men at the frontlines of violence. They have also faced many of the
same physical and sexual threats and risks that women elsewhere have encountered during crises and transitions, including harassment, assault and death.

Despite their contribution, they are again facing exclusion from the political processes under way.

URL:

http://www.icanpeacework.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/ICAN17.pdf

Member Organization:

Center for Women's Global Leadership

Women at war: Rising role in military outpaces medical care

Teaser:

The U.S. military is no longer a men’s club — almost 15 percent of today’s active-duty troops are women. But when it comes to military and veterans’ medical care, women soldiers remain a step behind — both on the front line, and back home.

Editorial:

From the Courier-Journal:

While military and Veterans Affairs officials said they’re making steady progress, government and American Legion reports have raised concerns about a lack of women’s health equipment in field hospitals, a lack of privacy in military and VA medical centers, and the need for more expertise in women’s care among health care providers.

...

Source:

(Louisville) Courier-Journal

URL:

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20120107/NEWS01/301070112/Women-war-Rising-role-military-outpaces-medical-care?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CLocal%20News

Date:

January 9, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Military academies report more sexual assaults

Teaser:

The Defense Department said the nation’s military service academies had received 65 reports of sexual assault during the 2010-2011 academic year, the highest total since the Pentagon began maintaining data in 2004.

Editorial:

From the article:

...

On Tuesday, the Defense Department said the nation’s military service academies had received 65 reports of sexual assault during the 2010-2011 academic year, the highest total since the Pentagon began maintaining data in 2004.

The academies reported 41 such assaults in the 2009-2010 academic year.

It’s unclear whether those figures represent a step in the wrong direction, with assaults actually on the rise, or a step in the right direction, with more victims willing to come forward to report assaults. The Defense Department said it “does not have the ability to conclusively identify the reasons for this increase in reporting behavior.”

...

Source:

Washington Post

URL:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/military-academies-report-more-sexual-assaults/2011/12/27/gIQADaT7KP_blog.html

Date:

December 28, 2011

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

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What We Do

NCRW is a network of leading university and community based research, policy, and advocacy centers with a growing global reach dedicated to advancing rights and opportunities for women and girls. We also have a Corporate Circle comprised of senior diversity professionals from leading U.S. and global member companies and a Presidents Circle of college and university leaders who share our commitment. NCRW harnesses the collective power of its network to provide knowledge, analysis, and thought leadership on issues ranging from reducing women’s poverty to building a critical mass of women’s leadership across sectors.

Women, Girls and War

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