Introduction
Conflicts cause and leave behind a myriad of problems and issues that impacts several spheres of a country. Conflicts affect a country economically, politically, socially and environmentally on a broader level while the micro level impact is what is immediately seen and felt. Conflict has gender specific impacts as well, although it is women who are mostly affected by conflict as they are affected in several more different ways than men, and at a higher intensity in most cases. In certain parts of the world, women face deliberate gender based violence and discrimination.
Women are affected by conflict during the time it takes place as well as in the post conflict period. It is during the post conflict period that these impacts are gravely felt. During conflict time women are direct victims of rape, torture, detention, they are victims as internally displaced and refugees while in the post conflict period women are victims as war widows and war survivors, sole income earners etc while grappling with psychological trauma. Men are also victims of direct armed conflict as most combatants are male and suffer from psychological trauma, loss of limbs/ being impaired, loss of mobility, difficulty in reintegrating into family life and so on.
Conflict and displacement cause demographic shifts that have further result in serious implications such as decreased male population and subsequent structural changes of households, decreased fertility and increased infant mortality, civilian dispersion and reallocations and increased rural to urban migration.
It is essential that governments, policy makers and all stake holders involved in post conflict early recovery takes into account the impact of conflict on gender and take...
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Mudrovcic, Zeljka. Sexual and Gender-based violence in Post Conflict Regions: The Bosnia and Herzgovina Case. The impact of conflict on women & girls – A UNFPA strategy for gender mainstreaming in areas of conflict and reconstruction. Bratislava, Slovakia. November 2002.
Thiruchandran, Selvy. The other victims – Women in post-terror, Sri Lanka – A seminar on female headed households in Southern and Eastern Sri Lanka. Women’s Education & Research Ventre (WERC). April 1997.
GTZ. Towards Gender Mainstreaming in Crisis Prevention and Conflict Management. (2001)
Gender sensitive program designing and planning in conflict affected situations: workshop reports. Round table report: Gender and conflict: Understanding the dynamics of violence – London, October 2001
USAID. Women and conflict – An introductory guide for programming. (2006)
The high rate of violent deaths in women has led to the international community; through different ways and means to require the authorities to take preventive and corrective measures about it.
An elemental point made throughout the book is the shift away from the linear and sequential methods for healing transformation and reconciliation to a dynamic and circular process. From their perspective, the linear method is not equipped to handle post-conflict environments where the end of the conflict does not signal the end of violence. As Lederach & Lederach point out with their story of Sierra Leone, the disturbing reality for women is that the sexual debasement and the silencing of their voices increase after a peacekeeping agreement has been made. The ebb and flow of violence found in a multifaceted experience of protracted violence requires a process that can correspond to a f...
Prugl, E. (Director). (2013). Violence Against women [Lecture]. Switzerland: Institute of International and Development Studies.
Violence against women is a gender based violence because it is targeted specifically to women just for the fact that they are a woman, this can be due to many reasons like the attacker feeling empowered because they think of women as being the weak gender. The United Nations advocates against violence towards women in their Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. They annotate that violence against women is a “manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women” It is something that happens more often that many people realize. Many times this type of violence happens behind close doors and goes to the extremes that many of the victims would not speak
Pruitt, Dean G, and Sung Hee Kim. Social Conflict: Escalation, Stalemate, and Settlement. 3rd ed. 2004. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2004.
Rape as a weapon is not just a way to spur troops but also has a political objection, it is this objective and feminist international relation works makes the experience of war rape more visible in the international political sphere (Farwell, 2004, p.395). Ethnic cleansing can be defined as the intent to make an area ethnically homogeneous by eliminating member of the other ethnic group through systematic use of killings, violence, sexual violence, rape, intimidation, forced deportation (Biken and Bagge Laustsen, 2005, p.113). Therefore Rape in the context of a campaign of ethnic cleansing is done so to bring about the end of the
Women in Iraq are capable of being physically or emotionally hurt by Iraqi males, like a brother, father, cousin, or husband. Women are also vulnerable to hurt by members of Islamist armed groups, militias, Iraqi government forces, foreign soldiers, and staff of foreign private military security. Women have paid the highest price due to violent religious extremism acts. Violence has made many Iraqi women more isolated, and many have lost husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons. The kidnapping, rape, and murder rates of women in Iraq is on rising everyday. Women have been victims of more abuses now than they have in the past 60 years.
Sexual violence is an umbrella term for a variety of harmful and sexually abusive behaviors. Sometimes this term is referred to as gender-based violence (GBV) which specifically encompasses the scope of sexual abuses in conflict and post-disasters against women and children. In the literature there are many definitions of sexual violence. For this grant application, the definition of sexual violence is “all forms of sexual abuse, exploitation, assault, pornography, prostitution, trafficking for sexual purposes, sex tourism, early and forced marriage and enslavement” (Save the Children Fund, 2013; ECPAT International, 2006). It occurs among both females and males. Although reporting of sexual violence against male children is low, Azil strongly enforces the inclusion of all children despite gender (Save the Children Fund, 2013; ECPAT International, 2006).
Two courses that were critical in my intellectual development were the Sociology of Social Movements and the Dynamics of Domestic Violence. In the Sociology of Social Movements, I designed a research project, “Women, War, and Resistance”. In this piece I examined crucial issues surrounding wars on a global level, such as rape as a weapon of war, sexual trafficking, and various grassroots war-resistance groups formed by women on a local level. In addition, after taking the course on Dynamics of Domestic Violence, I had the opportunity of doing field work at a domestic violence shelter. For this independent study, I met with a professor of the women’s studies department on a weekly basis to discuss my experiences and to receive assistance in my research project: “The Effects of Domestic Violence on Adolescents.”
Conflict perspective deals with macro and some micro levels. Causes of poverty, health disparities, distribution of life chances via, social class, and gender.
Since the beginning of time, women have had to fight rigorously for basic human rights. In the western stratosphere, those human rights were achieved in the early 20th century, but in a lot of eastern countries the battle for the women is just beginning, or worse hasn't even started. Women in Afghanistan have been subject to heinous circumstances, even though their religion, Islam "demanded that men and women be equal before God,"(Qazi). Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner offers a very insightful view of the governing politics of Afghanistan pre-Taliban regime and during the Taliban regime, and the differing situation of women in both those eras. Based on the book and outside research, it is evident that the situation of women in Afghanistan has decreased with time, due to cultural beliefs, as well as the Taliban regime.
Many agree, that in certain military occupations, women can function at the same level as men. The controversy about having women fighting with men in wars is the fact that they have a different physical structure, deal with stress and emotions differently , are more susceptible to injury and just don't have the killer instinct necessary to get the job done. Although the last statement might appear to be a stereotype, most women would not be capable of supporting the demanding rigors of war-like situations. It would be a great mistake to allow women in these stressful and dangerous situations.
Violence against women is a global problem that affects people and countries everywhere in varying degrees. The World Health Organization (WHO) revealed, through
The Effects of Violence on Women Violence affects the lives of millions of women worldwide, in
Causes of conflicts: Why wars happen. The Economist, 16 Dec. 2008. Web. 16 Feb. 2014. .