Gender Violence Across War and Peace

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The proposed network will investigate the diverse forms of gender violence that exist across war and peace.Gender violence (defined as violence committed against individuals or groups on the basis of ascribed gender) is a major issue in global politics. The aim of ending violence against women and girls is a centre-piece of women's human rights activism, a primary element of the international community's Sustainable Development Goals, a foundational pillar of the Women, Peace and Security agenda mandated by the United Nations Security Council, a major target for the UK Department for International Development, and the focus of the UK's recent Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative. Because of these policy agendas, there is a major need for research on the complexities of gender violence. This network focuses in on one distinctive conceptual approach to this complexity: the continuum of violence framework. In broad terms, the "continuum of violence" stresses the continuities between war and peace, and amongst the varying categories of violence, to emphasise that the best available explanations attend to long-standing inequalities of power characterising society at large, rather than exceptional moments of large-scale violence and crisis. In other words, it suggests that we best understand violence by looking at its everyday and structural character.To better frame research on these issues, the Network focuses on four country situations where the continuum of violence framework is relevant to UK overseas development policy: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq, Lebanon and Sri Lanka.In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the failure of institutions to properly address post-conflict sexual violence continues to be a major issue, and Network participants will share their research on why gender violence has been neglected even in such a high profile case of post-conflict reconstruction and transitional justice. Gender violence is a significant feature of the extreme situation of conflict in Iraq, both in terms of displacement and in the targeting of groups on the basis of ethnicity or the ascribed sexual orientation, but with roots preceding and adjacent to the current crisis. With colleagues in Iraqi Kurdistan the proposed Network will advance understanding of what drives this violence. Mass inflows have led to major economic and social strain in Lebanon and are themselves reflective of multiple sites for gender violence affecting female but also male refugees - in the conflicts they fled, in transit, in refugee camps, and in exploitation through transaction sex. Sri Lankan society is struggling with transitional justice after decades of civil war, with high levels of sexual violence reported during and after the formal end of hostilities. Tens of thousands of IDPs remain in the country's north, with continuing issues of ethnic division and lack of justice liable to impede sustainable peace and economic development.The Network will advance understanding of the continuum of violence by: 1) bringing together researchers, practitioners and activists; 2) assembling a comparative picture of the multiple and related forms of gender violence as they exist across war and peace, leading to a more sophisticated understanding of variation and appropriate responses; 3) produce research summaries, short videos, blogs and policy briefings that reflect ongoing challenges across the country situations; and 4) facilitate collaboration for substantive future research projects in order to translate insights from the strategic network into a lasting knowledge base that may inform academic, policy, practitioner and activist attempts to mitigate gendered violence in all of its forms. The Network will achieve its aims through a series of meetings in London and in the four countries themselves, and make use of these meetings and published outputs to engage the policy community and prepare the ground for further primary research on gender violence.