WUNRN
Website of Women Human Rights
Defenders International Coalition
Defending Women - Defending Rights
Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition
Statement on Defining the Intersections of Militarism & Violence Against
Women
The ideology of militarism, which underpins the governments’ enforcement
of counter-terrorism measures, also extends to the use of state coercive power
to restrict human rights activism, including mobilisation for women’s human
rights. On November 25, Algerian associations organised an International
Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in Algiers with participants
invited from Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, France, Spain, and Italy.
Preparations were made six months before the event and competent authorities
were notified. On the eve of November 24, the authorities cancelled
permission verbally, enough to scare the hotel manager to cancel the event.
In the context of militarisation, particularly in situations of armed
conflict, control over women’s bodies and sexuality becomes central to
maintaining social order and pursuing military objectives. Different
political interests forcibly manipulate women’s bodies and sexuality in many
ways – either to mark political identities, control organisation of
communities, or generate legitimacy for political agendas. Parties to the
conflict impose discipline and control by enforcing gendered codes of conduct
such as rigid stereotyping of gender roles, prescribed dress codes and/or
gendered restrictions on movement and access to public spaces. These
restrictions are justified in the name of culture, tradition or religion, even
though they may in fact be newly imposed measures. Women human rights defenders
who resist these forms of militarisation are considered transgressors and
punished arbitrarily, as they are not only seen as violating prevailing state
norms, but also supposedly fixed cultural values.
Heightened risks for women human rights defenders in situations of armed
conflict. Women human rights defenders find themselves caught in the crossfire in
situations of armed conflict. Those actively brokering for peace are
accused as traitors by opposing forces or branded as terrorists by the
State. In many instances, they are abducted or suffer human rights
violations in the hands of paramilitary units who try to break their spirit,
impose social control and persecute women human rights defenders who comprise
the leadership of many of the organisations of disappeared and initiatives to
assist displaced people. “Women are abducted, killed, intimidated and
harassed because they dare to make the paramilitaries accountable in a country
with a long history of disappearances and where we have the second largest number
of displaced persons next to Sudan”, said women human rights defenders from
Colombia.
The ‘war against terror’ has further legitimised the militaristic
crackdown on the exercise of fundamental human rights and freedoms worldwide.
Under the cloak of the ‘war against terror’, governments have resorted to
declaring a state of emergency or twisted the legal system to legitimise
the issuance of counter-terrorism measures or the application of existing
national security acts that criminalise political dissent. As a result,
women and other human rights defenders have been labelled as threats to
national security and continue to be persecuted by government forces.
State violence has intensified and become more serious. Increasingly,
marginalised groups, particularly sexual minorities, and their defenders that
question homogeneous social constructs face brutality from state agents, are
forcibly displaced, evicted, ostracised or further marginalised.
Armed conflict further foments the rise of religious and other forms of
extremism that backlash on women. In these situations, non-state actors
challenge the power of the state to enforce due diligence, making it difficult
to make perpetrators of violence against women and human rights violations
accountable. Fundamentalist armed groups, operating under the discourses of
religion, ethnicity or culture, along with other extremist forces are, in many
instances, able to wrest control and advance the agenda of the extreme right by
repressing the human rights of women and minorities. Women are pushed out
of public life making it dangerous for women human rights defenders to exercise
their activism. This has been the case under Taliban-led Afghanistan, yet
even with the supposed implementation of democratic processes, women human
rights defenders face huge challenges in exercising their rights to assembly
and freedom of expression. Similarly, in Iran, women human rights defenders can
be charged with violations of state-imposed dress codes as a pretext to curtail
their peaceful defence of human rights. And after the 2003 invasion of
Iraq, new fundamentalist trends have been aggressively imposed by militias and
armed private groups purporting to uphold religious laws that push women out of
public life and make it dangerous for women human rights defenders to exercise
their activism.
Recognition of women human rights defenders and their contribution in
formal and informal peace-building processes. Seldom invited in
formal peace processes, women human rights defenders create or invent their own
opportunities to participate in peace-building. An Isis International study on Cultural
Politics of Conflict, Peace and the UNSCR 1325 concludes that for women who
live in situations of armed conflict, their participation in peace processes
are “less formal, non-conventional and happen more in their everyday
lives”. They volunteer during evacuation services; facilitate inter-faith
relations; organise neighbours to meet basic needs; teach or give training on
values of peace and diversity; participate, to the extent that they can, in
community meetings. Gender discrimination and the gender bias in existing
political structures that favour men have excluded them from formal peace
processes, but more significantly, account for making their “informal, less
conventional” contributions to peace-building devalued and invisible. It
is therefore important in the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution
1325 to support not only women’s role in formal venues of peace-building, but
as further mandated by the Resolution, create more opportunities for “local
women’s peace initiatives” to prosper and validate the contributions that women
human rights defenders make in their everyday lives to foster peace and
security.
A broader understanding of ‘security’. Full protection for
women human rights defenders requires revising the prevailing concept of
‘security’. Narrowly limited within the state’s notion of ‘national
security’, an ideology of militarism underpins the existing definition, giving
primacy to the use of force or exertion of military might to ensure security.
Responses to defenders at risk that overemphasise addressing physical threats
or anchor the definition of defenders on the basis of the risk they face mirror
this masculinist valorisation implicit in this definition of security.
Women human rights defenders insist that an integrated concept centred on human
security and responsive to gender-specific needs is essential in sustaining
activism for women’s human rights.
A broader understanding of security recognises that defenders are
rights-holders and frames their needs for security and protection as
corresponding obligations to be met by the State. It seeks to enforce the
international human rights standards with which to comply with these
obligations. It acknowledges the principle of universality and centrality
of gender equality and non-discrimination, ensuring that the defence of human
rights is not at the expense of women’s human rights and practicing an
equitable balance in the treatment of defenders based not on a sameness
approach, but on substantive equality that introduces measures to correct
differences between defenders because of gender. It underscores
responding to immediate as well as underlying and structural causes of violence
and discrimination against women and generating an enabling environment for the
realisation of women’s human rights. The aim is not only to keep the
women human rights defenders safe, but ultimately to sustain their
organisations and movements in changing the situation that put them at risk.
Women Human Rights Defenders International
Coalition
Amnesty International (AI)
Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and
Development (APWLD)
Asian Forum for Human Rights and
Development (Forum Asia)
Association for Women’s Rights in
Development (AWID)
Baobab for Women’s Human Rights
Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR)
Center for Women’s Global Leadership
(CWGL)
Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL)
Front Line International Foundation for
the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (Front Line)
Human Rights First
Information Monitor (Inform)
International Federation of Human
Rights (FIDH)
International Service for Human
Rights (ISHR)
International Women’s Rights Action
Watch Asia Pacific (IWRAW-AP)
Isis International
ISIS-Women’s International
Cross-Cultural Exchange (ISIS-WICCE)
The Latin American and Caribbean
Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights (CLADEM)
MADRE (International Women’s Rights
Organisation)
Peace Brigades International (PBI)
Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human
Rights (UAF)
Women’s Initiative for Gender Justice
(WIGJ)
Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML)
World Organisation against Torture
(OMCT)