Comparing Conflict-related Sexual Violence: Expertise, Politics and Documentation

ABSTRACT

This paper explores knowledge production about sexual violence and highlights the role that comparison, across contexts and between different kinds of knowledge, plays in shaping what we know. It explores the role of strategic knowledge in creating thematic areas of international expertise and draws attention to the roles quantitative evidence and narrative testimony evidence have played in this field of knowledge. The paper addresses the role that comparison plays in producing both quantitative and qualitative data about sexual violence in conflict and considers the functional similarities in the ways these data are deployed to support sexual violence campaigning and advocacy.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the editors Bruno Charbonneau and Adam Sandor for inviting me to the initial workshop and for all their subsequent support and feedback. Thanks as well to all the other participants at the Politics of Comparing Armed Conflict workshop for their thoughtful comments and input. I would also like to thank Sarah Smith and Lydia Cole for the interesting conversations on this topic and kindly letting me read their works-in-progress and to the anonymous revisers for their detailed and helpful advice and input. Much thanks goes to the members of the Making Peacekeeping Data Work for the International Community team, and especially to Alex de Waal for sharing the data that made the project possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The data is a historical sample of data from the Joint Mission Analysis Centre (JMAC) of the UN/AU Hybrid mission in Darfur (UNAMID). It covers January 2008-April 2009. JMACs are responsible for ‘integrated operations monitoring, reporting and information analysis hubs at Mission headquarters to support the more effective integration of mission-wide situational awareness, security information and analysis for management decision-making’ (UN DPKO, 2006, p. 2).

2. For example the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, led by the UK Government under William Hague https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/preventing-sexual-violence-initiative .

3. Though some have challenged the view that that ‘women and girls are “overwhelmingly” the victims of sexual violence’ (Kirby 2015, p. 496), it is still the dominant framing of sexual violence.

4. Subsequently a number of other UNSC resolutions have addressed this issue, 1820 (2008); (2009a): 1888 (2009b) (2009); 1889 (2009c); 1960 (2010); 2106 (2013); 2242 (2014); .

5. The focus on ‘women and girls’ as the predominant victims of sexual violence is persistent across all the policy documents. For example, the issue continues to be championed as part of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda and Human Rights Watch includes sexual violence under the Women’s Rights category on its website.

6. As has been observed, this is by no means a problem limited to the UNAMID mission.

7. 53 interviews with Darfurian refugees in Chad were conducted between April-June 2015 by [removed for review]. Inclusion was on the basis they were in Darfur for at least some of the same period as the data covered and they were asked to reflect on their memories of this time.

8. The incidents were primary coded – meaning that if a report mentioned an attack on civilians which also featured sexual violence, that incidence would be coded only as an attack on civilians.

9. Interview with former UMAID human rights section officer, Manchester, December 2015.

10. For more on the framing of CRSV as widespread and systematic, see Eriksson Baaz and Stern (2013); Davies and True (2015), Sarah Smith (2018).

11. Though the website is still live, it does not appear to be updated and the UN Action information, and more current information, can be found on the United Nations Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict section of the UN website (https://www.un.org/sexualviolenceinconflict/). However, the testimonies that appear in the section are drawn from international human rights reports, including from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, covering at least some of the same time period as the data of the SVAC which also drew on these source. Others have analysed the content of the ‘Stop Rape Now’ website, pointing out its obfuscation of male victims (Grey and Shepherd 2013).

12. All the other sources have only one extract except a 2007 article in the Christian Science Monitor from which there are two extracts and actually one of these is repeated but attributed to a different source in error.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the ESRC under grant ES/L007479/1.

Notes on contributors

Róisín Read

Róisín Read is a Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute of the University of Manchester. Her research explores the politics of international interventions in conflict, with a focus on the dynamics of knowledge production and representation. Geographically, her research focuses on Sudan and South Sudan.