To introduce our second speaker, Dr. Henry Martin,
who has worked for the charity sector for a number of research institutions focussing on gender, peace and security,
mainly in Southeast Asia and Central Asia, but also in sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East, and he does experience also from Central and Eastern Europe.
So we I have a discussion a little bit on that part of the world as well.
You will to be in conflict resolution and peace studies and wrote a thesis on masculinities and urban violence in Timor less.
As I said, he's worked mainly on gender based violence prevention, critically engage in masculinities,
integrating diverse sexual orientation and gender identity and expression perspective into various peace and security work.
He's also worked on the gender dimension of small arms and light weapons, armed conflict and formal and informal security sector actors.
I'd like to encourage all of our participants aligned to start posing their questions in the Q&A
because we tend to all get them at the end and then we don't have enough time to address them.
So if you could continuously pose your questions, that would be much appreciated. I will hand over to Henry now and thank you very much.
Thank you for having me here. And thank you for all my whole corporate centres and especially my co panellist, Bonus Hedditch.
It's it's been a really, really super interesting session so far.
And I hope to contribute to that. I am calling from Myanmar young on soul.
I hope the technology will be OK. And the Wi-Fi is strong enough to for my presentation.
But if so, bear with me.
So what I wanted to do in this presentation is talk first a bit about some of the successes and some continuing challenges in terms of working on
preventing sexual gender based violence and conflict and how that relates then
to the peace and security agenda and what's been achieved over the past 20,
20 years. What some of the continuing challenges are then I'd like to propose four ways of rethinking or broadening
the approaches to working on sexual gender based violence in conflict and post-conflict settings,
and then finally hand with a couple sort of more a platform of positive examples of how we can rethink approaches to sexual dentifrice,
violence in conflict and post-modern societies, and how that there are ways,
even though this is a very grim and very depressing, frustrating issue to work on.
There are also ways in which we can take things further and do something that not only helps to prevent second gender based violence,
but also addresses youth project needs and vulnerabilities of survivors.
So starting, first of all, with the some of these successes,
and even though it seems a bit absurd now, 20 years ago before Trittin, 25 for 25 years ago,
before the Beijing Conference on women sexual violence on the baseline finals was
not considered an issue that was worthy of talking about an international force.
It was not something that was discussed. The Security Council was seen as something that was an inevitable and unfortunate but kind of quote unquote,
natural part of conflict that that's just happened. And that really has changed.
And I don't think it would be possible anymore, as it was in 90s and early 1990s for the head of the U.N. mission in Cambodia.
When pressed on sexual abuse allegations by peacekeepers just to say that boys will be boys.
So there has been a shift,
a major shift there in terms of sexual gender based violence being seen as an issue that needs to be tackled and that has to be taken seriously.
And that is a major achievement. But it is only the first step and that's only the starting point for this kind of work.
And I think it's quite easy, even though the statistics are quite depressing.
It is also very good to see that in terms of the discussion front Corbitt 19, that domestic violence,
sex and gender based violence in the context of lockdown's is already being seen
as an issue that is is is to be taken since that needs to be taken seriously.
So we've gotten past the process to see that this is an issue that needs to be tackled.
But where do we go from there? And I think sort of the what's happened after 13,
25 in the following U.N. Security Council resolutions is that we we've gotten a lot of a lot more tools to work with,
a lot more guidance on how U.N. peacekeeping missions, for example, troop contributing countries,
investigators need to act and the processes that need to be in place.
The administrative structures that need to be in place to protect women and girls, but also men and boys from sexual gender based violence.
How to work with the aftermath. You have women and peace and security,
national action plans in a range of countries that we then go into much more detail what this means at the national level in terms of peacekeeping.
And I think that though those are really, really important steps are.
And I was working on a study for the OSCE last year looking at women's peace and security, national action plans.
And you can see how the fact that different kinds of actors who have not thought about sexual violence previously now really have to engage with it,
with it and had to think through.
What does this mean for the workers that, say, the head of these civil defence authorities when addressing natural disasters?
What does this mean for Serbian policies when working on small arms legislation?
I think there is definitely a lot that has happened and that is really important and we shouldn't forget about that.
There are also important international initiatives keeping this on the agenda, such as the eye, as was mentioned by friends HelpAge.
And I think what's also really crucial.
Important what's happened over the past years and is reflected in the latest U.N. Security Council resolutions last year,
is that there is an increased understanding that these approaches need to be survivor centric,
that our fighters cannot go in and determine on behalf of survivors what their needs are.
But these initiatives need to be based on the needs of survivors of sexual violence.
And a last sort of encouraging sign that I see as also then this broader understanding of what sexual and gender based violence is.
And so it's no longer only seen as rape, as a weapon of war.
But there is much more understanding that we do need to look at all the other forms of violence that involve sexual and sexual exploitation and abuse,
sexual and gender based harassment. Also looking at other forms of sexual violence beyond rape.
That said, tremendous challenges remain.
And the number one challenge, of course, is that sexual violence and conflict continues to be an issue that we see in conflicts in Latin America,
in sub-Saharan Africa, in the MENA region, in Eastern Europe, across Asia.
And we also see it in in post-conflict societies.
So we have not gotten anywhere close to preventing or addressing Sacramento based violence to the level that's necessary.
And that's how it's right. You highlighted that there have been advances at the national level and international level in terms of fighting impunity.
But at the same time, we also have major setbacks there.
For example, in the International Criminal Court, in terms of prosecuting these crimes at international level,
there remains also this huge problem across societies on the planet that the stigma of sexual violence,
the stigma of gender based violence is on the victims and the survivors, not on the perpetrators.
So a lot more continues to exist that we need to work on.
Also, I think one of the key issues that I would see in terms of deploying peace and security
agenda is that sexual gender based violence tends to be seen as separate from other pillars.
So we see protection and prevention of cyclones in the peace files as not being interests, intimately linked with increasing violence,
political empowerment, increasing women's participation in increasing violence, economic empowerment.
So I think there is a lot more that needs to be done and the linking the different spheres of peace and security to ensure that there
is hope that that is long term and fundamental change interest in gender relations that prevents that from gender based violence.
Also, I think there's a need to work a lot more on the root causes of sexual gender based violence, around patriarchy,
around men and sense of sexual entitlement and control of women's bodies, but also the men's bodies or these bodies oppressed pressed gender persons.
What more needs to be done to really tackle militarism?
But also some of the socio economic factors which contribute to exacerbating domestic violence is the partner violence in settings of conflict,
both post-conflict settings.
So I would see us as kind of a key for points in terms of broadening the way in which we look at Section 10 of this violence is,
first of all, to broaden the focus of how we as the international community, as international action actors, approach this issue.
So a lot of the focus has been on combating impunity, and that is because a really risky area to work on.
But oftentimes that means that resources then go to processes which are very far removed from the lives of victims and survivors.
And the if that they be successful prosecution in The Hague of a senior warlord
does very little or it reflects very little into the lives of survivors,
let's say, in Central African Republic or South Sudan and so on.
So I think there's a need to think without dropping the fight against impunity.
Rethink also how we can best use the resources to support and help the survivors of sexual violence.
Secondly, I think we need to also then broaden the way in which we look at sexual and gender based violence in conflict and
not see conflict related sexual violence as being completely separate from other forms of domestic violence.
Intimate partner violence, gender based violence that continue to happen in war societies,
even in countries like DRC or in South Sudan, where you have a high level of sexual violence being committed by conflict actors.
There is still the most dangerous place for a woman, and a girl tends to be in the home.
And a lot of gender based violence, which is exacerbated by the conflict, is actually then violence that is committed by civilians.
So I think we need to overcome that cycle between domestic violence of civilian gender based violence and conflict, prevent sexual violence.
Next, I think what is really key is increasing the amount of resources that are being put into
this kind of work and channelling a lot of those resources through local organisations,
through women's rights organisations.
And as the past few weeks have shown, if there is a political will and massive amounts of money can be mobilised quite quickly.
But I think the issue there is that there hasn't been that political will.
And Esperance, which mentioned sometimes this is something relatively small in the tens of thousands and the millions and
then tens of millions and not in the billions and trillions not being mobilised now in these COGAT times.
Lastly,
I think then we also need to be much more aware of integrating the work on preventing sexual gender based violence with other parts of the WTS agenda,
with participation, with relief and recovery,
and ensuring that we're not treating this issue as a Seibold separate issue from other forms of gender inequality and gender power dynamics.
So this has been wrapped up, as I mentioned. I want to show also some or highlight some some positive cases.
And I thought of three examples.
One from Colombia, one from Lebanon and one from Kosovo in how this kind of fundamental change in approaching sexual gender based violence can happen.
And I'm happy to share some of those resources later on.
And example from Colombia was one that was spearheaded by a Colombian local peace peace organisation,
which then put together with an international organisation, Decaf from Geneva.
And with the support of the Norwegian government and brought together indigenous Colombia communities
with the local police force to get the police to really listen to the security needs of indigenous women,
of Colombian women. And instead of coming in and presupposing what the security needs are listening to how women and men, especially women,
redefined their own security needs and then also having the communities listen to the security concerns of the police officers and opening
up that space to really redefining what security means in the context of the peace process to actors who usually are not listened to.
The second example that I wanted to highlight was then also some of the work that's been going on in places like Lebanon.
We're also in in Bosnia and in Albania.
The conflict affected societies of working with perpetrators, of working with men to change their attitudes towards violence,
to change their attitudes towards themselves, to help them work through their their their feelings and frustrations in more productive ways.
But making sure that this work with men is not separate from or is this is not one which screws men and disregards women.
But these initiatives have been very closely linked with women's rights organisations locally and also tend to agree with LGBTI rights organisations.
So making sure that this work with men, with changing masculinities is.
Also then accountable to women's rights organisations. And lastly,
I wanted to sort of highlight some of the great work that's been done at the state level and possible in terms of
ensuring that survivors and victims needs are met and making sure that in that process of supporting victims,
supporting survivors, they're not be stigmatised or stigmatised, traumatised or how to against their will as victims and survivors of health.
Second, gender based violence. I think there's a lot there to be learnt from those examples at the grassroots,
how we can really define security or help local populations redefine their sense of security, help perpetrators of violence.
Question why they use violence and make sure that that's accountable to women's rights organisations.
Unless you also make sure that the kind of support that is given to victims
and survivors is one that does not then unintendedly cause the more problems,
cost stigmatisation, cause them to face violence from the families or the community.
Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Henry, for the insightful presentation.
Thank you for bringing so many different examples.