Violence & Conflict

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Violent Conflicts and Conflict Prevention

The background of violent conflicts and wars is multifaceted. Yet, an essential factor is often disregarded in the cause analysis: gender-political dynamics. However, looking at the power relations between women and men is also important to understand how crises and wars develop, how they can be prevented and how lasting peace can be achieved. Peace is more than the absence of war. A gender-equitable and non-violent society cannot be realized through the military but through civil society forms of conflict regulation, mainly through prevention. The gender issue plays a decisive role in this process.

Recent Articles

Wordcloud with the Transitional Justice Focus

thematic focus

Transitional Justice

- In recent years, concepts of transitional justice for dealing with societies‘ conflict-ridden past have become increasingly important and are often emphasized by peace researchers and politicians as ways of securing peace. The aim is to achieve reconciliation or at least an improvement in relations between the parties that were involved in the conflict, and to find a way for an often divided society to find peaceful forms of coexistence and thus prevent future conflicts. more»

Gendered memories

- Co-organized by Sabanc› University Gender and Women’s Studies Forum and Central European University, the conference looked at how war and political violence are remembered from the perspective of gender. The conference, supported by the Heinrich Boell Stiftung Turkey Representation, hosted 46 feminist academics as speakers or panelists, and 200 participants from 22 countries.  Semahat Sevim more»
Screenshot from the Movie "No longer silent"

video

No longer silent

- Through six testimonies of women abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), ‘No Longer Silent’ highlights their experience in returning to their communities and rebuilding their lives. Access to housing and land, as well as food security and the desire for their children to receive an education, are amongst their primary challenges and concerns. The documentary exposes the shortcomings of the current Peace, Recovery and Development Plan of the Ugandan Government which has to date not included women as beneficiaries in the reconstruction programmes. more»

SALMA Project: Final Report 2007-2010

- The "SALMA campaign" calls for increased gender equality and improved social and legal position of women in the Arab world, focusing on Egypt, Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The name SALMA was chosen by the partner organizations reflecting the network vision; Salma stands for “strong and healthy woman, living in a peaceful society, free from violence and discrimination.”. Here you find it's final report on activities implemented during January 2007-December 2009. more»

Egypt

Short film: I will not talk

- The campaign Combating Violence Against Women “Life without Violence and Discrimination is Possible” has been started by ten women organizations and hundreds of activists in eight Arab countries in cooperation with Heinrich Böll Foundation. Young directors were targeted as agents of change using alternative social media to lobby for combating violence against women in Egypt. See one of these produced short films here. more»

Expert Talks

Participants of the Expert Talk

Expert Talk

Militarised masculinity in armed conflicts – counter-strategies

- May 18, 2011 - Gender roles and images change in times of crises, during and following armed conflicts, and so, too, do gender relations in a conflict-ridden society. The expert talk aimed for an in depth discussion with experts from civil society and public institutions in order to develop strategies to constructively counteract expressions of brutalised masculinities, focussing on examples from the sub-Saharan region. more»
Brigid Inder and Anna von Gall - Picture: Stephan Röhl - CC-BY-SA

Expert Talk

Transitional Justice – an instrument against wartime sexualised violence?

- November 3, 2011 - In recent years, concepts of Transitional Justice have been becoming increasingly important in the context of coming to terms with societies’ past conflicts. The aim is to achieve reconciliation or at least an improvement in relations between the parties that were involved in the conflict, and to find a way for an often divided society to find peaceful forms of coexistence and thus prevent future conflicts. more»

Conflict Prevention

Fear, Security and Peace

- Peace is more than just the absence of war. The goal of a gender-equal and non-violent society does not pertain only to the military, but to civilian forms of dealing with conflict, especially through prevention. more»

Feminist Perspectives on Peace and Security

- Whereas in hegemonic discourses, military intervention remains an option for conflict management, feminist discussions have developed comprehensive positive models for peace. They use the need for security and the experience of violence by individuals – in what only appears to be their private sphere – as a point of departure for their deliberations. more»

Military Interventions Do not Provide Security

- Today, peace researchers, civil-society groups, political parties, and supranational organizations are questioning previous notions of security and development. They have developed new approaches to civil conflict and crisis prevention and have fostered debate on what constitutes security. more»

Feminist Dilemmas

- Feminist politics faces several dilemmas in the area of security and peace: Should the military be abolished or should it be reformed in a gender equitable way? Should feminists participate in decisions concerning war or exercise pacifist abstinence? Thus we find ourselves caught between a fundamental critique and a critique from within the system, between the demand to overhaul the system and the attempt to have it adopt tangible gender-sensitive approaches in the military-strategic domain, too. more»

Prevention Instead of Escalation

- Peace policy means to cultivate the prevention of violence in all crisis and conflict regions, and to strengthen the role of local peace activists. Traditional mechanisms of conflict management, such as reconciliation based on public negotiation and apology, or material compensation, play an important role here, but, explicitly or implicitly, often exclude women. Therefore traditional forms of preventing violence between populations or states are not sufficient. All social and government institutions, as well as families and schools, must be included in the process. more»

Violent Conflicts

War and Peace Have a Gender Dimension

- By now there is a worldwide movement of women and men campaigning for gender justice, for the universal application of human rights, and for peaceful conflict resolution. more»

Today’s Wars and Conflicts Require New Solutions

- With the fall of the Berlin Wall, globalization, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, security policy all over the world has changed. Meanwhile, climate change, worldwide famine, the struggle over resources, and the global financial and economic crisis have become potentially new threats to peace. more»

Military and Gender in Conflict Management

- With the end of the Cold War, military organizations such as NATO and the Bundeswehr have changed their roles. Although their importance has declined, a new range of duties has developed to legitimize their existence, and thus, they have been able to regain some of their hegemony. more»

Stereotyped Gender Images in War and Peace

- Throughout history and in many cultures gender roles in times of war are stereotypical: Men fight, women do not – with few exceptions. This is slowly beginning to change, not least because in many countries there is an increasing number of female soldiers. more»

Security Policy Is Gender Blind

- In the modern conception of statehood, it is the nation state that can defend itself from attack from outside and that domestically, as the guarantor of security and peace for all its citizens, has a democratically secured monopoly on violence. From a feminist perspective, however, the positive role of the nation state in matters of security is not so straightforward. more»