Abstract
In his 2010 report on women’s participation in peacekeeping and peacebuilding, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated that ‘ensuring women’s participation in [peacekeeping] and peacebuilding is not only a matter of women and girl’s rights. Women are crucial partners in shoring up the two major pillars of lasting peace: economic recovery and social cohesion, and political legitimacy’.1 Implicit in this statement is the assumption that constructing security in formerly war-torn, conflict-affected countries involves socio-economic as well as political-military transformation. Yet in UN peacekeeping missions there is typically a major disconnect between the political-military and the socio-economic stabilisation pillars of international security. The lack of integration of these core dimensions of ‘security’ has had a disproportionately negative impact on women’s rights in post-conflict societies. Military security, the reinstatement of political order and the rule of law are enacted without consideration of their social and economic impacts and prioritised over social and economic aspects of security. Moreover, peacekeeping missions do little to create livelihoods and economic opportunities for girls and women or enhance their survival strategies after conflict.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
S. Whitworth, Men, Militarism and UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2004);
and C. Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (London: Pandora, 1989).
P. Higate and M. Henry, ‘Engendering (in)security in peace support operations’, Security Dialogue, Vol. 35, No. 4 (2004) 481, p. 482.
See, for example, the following statements by the President of the Security Council: UN Doc. S/PRST/2007/5 (7 March 2007), p. 2; UN Doc. S/PRST/2007/40 (24 October 2007), p. 2; and UN Doc. UN Doc. S/PRST/2010/22 (26 October 2010), p. 2. See also N. Zakharova, ‘Women and peace and security: Guidelines for national implementation’ (UN Women, 2012).
S.N. Anderlini, ‘WDR gender background paper’ (World Bank, February 2010), p. xiv; ‘DRC: Sexual violence prevention and re-integration funding “falls through cracks”’, IRIN Humanitarian News and Analysis (4 November 2009), http://www.irinnews.org/Report/86865/DRC-Sexual-violence-prevention-and-re-integration-funding-falls-through-cracks (last accessed October 2013).
World Bank, ‘World development report 2011: Conflict and development’ (World Bank, 2011).
Q. Li and M. Wen, ‘The immediate and lingering effects of armed conflict on adult mortality: A time-series cross-national analysis’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 42, No. 4 (2005) 471.
For example, the risk of death and disability from infectious diseases rises sharply in conflict-affected countries, and women and children are the majority of long-term victims: H.A. Ghobarah, P. Huth and B. Russett, ‘Civil wars kill and maim people — Long after the shooting stops’, American Political Science Review, Vol. 97, No. 2 (2003) 189.
H. Rombouts, ‘Women and reparations in Rwanda: A long path to travel’, in R. Rubio-Marin (ed.), What Happened to the Women? Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations (New York: Social Science Research Council, 2006) 194, p. 205.
See P. Justino and P. Verwimp, ‘Poverty dynamics, violent conflict, and convergence in Rwanda’, Review of Income and Wealth, Vol. 59, No. 1 (2013) 66,
based on panel data on Rwanda following the same households before and after conflict. Similar results have been found for Mozambique: T. Brück and K. Schindler, ‘Smallholder land access in post-war Northern Mozambique’, World Development, Vol. 37, No. 8 (2009) 1379;
and T. Bundervoet, ‘Estimating poverty in Burundi’ (HiCN Working Paper No. 20, University of Sussex, October 2006).
T. Brück and M. Vothknecht, ‘Impact of violent conflicts on women’s economic opportunities’, in K. Kuehnast, C. de Jonge Outdraat and H. Hernes (eds), Women and War: Power and Protection in the 21 st Century (Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2011) 85, pp. 107–108.
K. Schindler, ‘Who does what in a household after genocide? Evidence from Rwanda’ (HiCN Working Paper No. 90, University of Sussex, December 2010).
International Committee of the Red Cross, Report on Violence against Women from 1998–2003 (Kigali: Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, 2004). Heidy Rombouts stresses that ‘the weak structural position of women in society has had an impact on the degree and forms of violence women experience, such as sexual violence, both in times of peace and war’: Rombouts, ‘Women and reparations in Rwanda’, p. 205. Moreover, she argues that violence has been used as a tool to oppose women’s emancipation in post-genocide Rwandan society.
See N. Menon and Y. van der Meulen Rodgers, ‘War and women’s work: Evidence from the conflicts in Nepal’ (HiCN Working Paper No. 104, University of Sussex, October 2011).
H. Charlesworth, ‘Worlding women in international law’, in B. D’Costa and K. Lee-Koo (eds), Gender and Global Politics in the Asia-Pacific (New York: Palgrave, 2009) 19, pp. 23–24.
C. Bernard, K. Corde, S.G. Jones, O. Oliker, B.K. Stearns and C.Q. Thurston, Women and Nation-Building (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2008).
M. Hajdinjak, ‘Smuggling in Southeast Europe: The Yugoslav Wars and the development of regional criminal networks in the Balkans’ (CSD Report No. 10, Center for the Study of Democracy, 2002);
D. Pallen, ‘Sexual slavery in Bosnia: An externality of the market’, Swords and Ploughshares, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2003) 27;
and M. Pugh, ‘Peacekeeping and critical theory’, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 11, No. 1 (2004) 39.
See O. Simić, ‘Does the presence of women really matter? Towards combating male sexual violence in peacekeeping operations’, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2012) 188;
D. Otto, ‘Making sense of zero tolerance policies in peacekeeping sexual economies’, in V.E. Munro and C.F. Stychin (eds), Sexuality and the Law: Feminist Engagements (Abingdon: Routledge-Cavendish, 2007) 259.
See A.M. Ibáñez and A. Moya, ‘The impact of intra-state conflict on economic welfare and consumption smoothing: Empirical evidence for the displaced population in Colombia’ (HiCN Working Paper No. 23, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, 2006).
Amnesty International, ‘“Where is the dignity in that?” Women in Solomon Islands slums denied sanitation and safety’ (Amnesty International, September 2011).
M.H. Mackenzie, Female Soldiers in Sierra Leone: Sex, Security, and Post-Conflict Development (New York: New York University Press, 2012).
L. Handrahan, ‘Conflict, gender, ethnicity and post-conflict reconstruction’, Security Dialogue, Vol. 35, No. 4 (2004) 429;
D. Pankhurst, ‘The gendered impact of peace’, in M. Pugh, N. Cooper and M. Turner (eds), Whose Peace? Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008) 30;
and M. Turshen, ‘The political economy of violence against women during armed conflict in Uganda’, Social Research, Vol. 67, No. 3 (2000) 803.
J. Annan, C. Blattman, K. Carlson and D. Mazurana, ‘Civil war, reintegration, and gender in Northern Uganda’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 55, No. 6 (2011) 877. Annan et al. analyse the gender differences in the post-conflict impacts of war and reintegration on Lord’s Resistance Army soldiers in Uganda with a quantitative dataset building on earlier qualitative studies. During conflict they found that ‘unlike males … females have few civilian opportunities and so they see little adverse economic impact of recruitment’ into the armed group (p. 877). Negative economic effects persist in the post-conflict period for soldiers, especially where opportunities for schooling and work experience have been lost. Males returning from the Lord’s Resistance Army were well behind their peers. But this is not the case for most females, however, who appear to have had few economic opportunities prior to and during the conflict if they were not abducted.
See also D. Mazurana and K. Carlson, ‘War slavery: The role of children and youth in fighting forces in sustaining armed conflicts and war economies in Africa’, in D. Žarkov (ed.), Gender, Violent Conflict, and Development (New Delhi: Zubaan Books, 2008) 205.
See V. Farr, H. Myrttinen and A. Schnabel (eds), Sexed Pistols: The Gendered Impacts of Small Arms and Light Weapons (New York: United Nations University Press, 2009);
and C. Cockburn, Antimilitarism: Politics and Gender Dynamics of Peace Movements (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
N. Popovic, ‘Women, peace and security in Liberia: Supporting the implementation of Resolution 1325 in Liberia’ (Background Paper, UN-INSTRAW, March 2009), p. 10. A second woman UN envoy, Ameenah Haq, has since 2010 been appointed to oversee UN operations in Timor-Leste.
See, for example, K. Cordell, ‘Gender mainstreaming in peacekeeping operations — Liberia 2003–2009: Best practices report’ (UNMIL, September 2010); and S. Willett, ‘Introduction: Security Council Resolution 1325: Assessing the impact on women, peace and security’, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2010) 142.
See B. Agarwal and P. Pradeep, ‘Toward freedom from domestic violence’, Journal of Human Development, Vol. 8, No. 3 (2007) 359, pp. 359–379;
and J. True, The Political Economy of Violence against Women (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2014 Jacqui True
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
True, J. (2014). The Political Economy of Gender in UN Peacekeeping. In: Heathcote, G., Otto, D. (eds) Rethinking Peacekeeping, Gender Equality and Collective Security. Thinking Gender in Transnational Times. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137400215_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137400215_13
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-48608-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-40021-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Intern. Relations & Development CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)