Women, peace and intervention: how the international community responds to sexual violence in civil conflict

ABSTRACT

To end sexual violence in civil conflict is often mentioned as motivation and aim for contemporary interventions by the international community. But what types of measures are used for this end? This study identifies two competing logics that motivate different types of measures depending on whether women’s security is viewed as part of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, or as a separate policy field: More Women, More Peace. According to the first, women are viewed as victims and interventions are likely to be punitive in nature, to provide protection and punish perpetrators. The second sees the problem as women’s exclusion from power and lack of agency, and will more likely be followed by measures that promote participation such as mediation and peacekeeping. Following a global analysis of civil conflicts 1989–2009, we find that both the United Nations and regional organizations deploy peacekeepers to conflicts with high prevalence of sexual violence. We also find different patterns of intervention for sexual violence than for other forms of civilian abuse, suggesting limited linkages between the Responsibility to Protect and Women, Peace and Security agendas.

RÉSUMÉ

La volonté d’en finir avec la violence sexuelle dans les conflits est souvent citée en tant que motivation et objectif lors des interventions contemporaines par la communauté internationale. Mais quels types de mesures sont employées à cette fin ? Cette étude identifie deux logiques concurrentielles qui motivent différents types de mesures, selon que la sécurité des femmes est perçue comme étant intégrée à la doctrine de la responsabilité de protéger les civils, ou comme un champ politique distinct : Plus de Femmes, Plus de Paix. Selon la première, les femmes sont perçues en tant que victimes et les interventions sont susceptibles d’être punitives, par nature, pour garantir la protection des femmes et punir les coupables. La seconde appréhende le problème à travers l’exclusion des femmes du pouvoir et leur manque de libre-arbitre, et sera plus probablement suivie de mesures encourageant la participation, telles que la médiation et le maintien de la paix. En reprenant une analyse mondiale des guerres civiles entre 1989 et 2009, nous constatons que les Nations-Unies, comme les organisations régionales, déploient des troupes de maintien de la paix dans des conflits où la prévalence de la violence sexuelle est élevée. Nous découvrons aussi des modèles d’intervention vis-à-vis de la violence sexuelle, différents de ceux utilisés vis-à-vis d’autres formes d’exactions dans la population civile, ces différences suggérant une faible articulation entre le programme sur la responsabilité de protéger les civils et celui sur les femmes, la paix et la sécurité.

KEYWORDS:

• Intervention
• United Nations
• regional organizations
• civil conflict
• sexual violence

Acknowledgement

We are grateful for comments from the editors, anonymous reviewers, and following our presentation at Carleton University, Ottawa, ON.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Joakim Kreutz’s recently edited volume (with Elin Bjarnegård) Debating the East Asian Peace is available from NIAS Press.

Magda Cardenas previously worked as political advisor on human rights and justice in the Colombian government’s Presidential Program for Human Rights, where she participated in drafting the Public Policy on Human Rights in Colombia, as well as in projects aimed at fighting impunity in gender-based violence.

Notes

1. Following the contents of A/RES/62/134, “Eliminating Rape and Other Forms of Sexual Violence in All Their Manifestations, Including in Conflict and Related Situations,” (United Nations General Assembly, 7 February 2008).

2. Our analysis covers the years 1989–2009, but we still use data from 1985 onward in constructing our “previous intervention” variables.

3. This means combining the UCDP categories of internal conflict and internationalized internal conflict.

4. We have disaggregated information for the Arab League, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), African Union, Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), European Union, Organization of American States (OAS), and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Actions by less frequently active organizations are included only in the aggregate data.

5. The actors can be (1) state forces, (2) pro-government militias, (3) rebel forces, and (4) intervening forces supporting either side in the conflict (not peacekeepers).

6. Missing data is coded as 0.

7. Most country-years have no or few reports of sexual violence. All our findings are robust for analysis using the alternative measures of (1) the number of active sexual violence perpetrators per country-year, and (2) that any source reports massive sexual violence by a single group in a country-year. See online appendix for output.

8. The output from this analysis is available in the online appendix.

9. This constitutes a scale of 0 (no intervention) to 4 (intervention in each of the four preceding years).