Gender and Insecurity
Since the 1990s, feminist studies have demonstrated the under-representation and exclusion of women in negotiations and the lack of visibility of their role in conflicts. However, women are affected by specific forms of sexual violence, including the risk of pregnancy resulting from rape. The expression “systematic rape as a weapon of war” appeared in 1992, describing the strategic use of sexual violence as an act of war aiming to destroy the enemy. This practice is not recent, and it is difficult to assess the numbers of victims. In 1993, the Statute of the International included rape among the crimes against humanity; this was also recognized in the Rome of the International Criminal Court in 1998. In 2000, the Security Council adopted the first resolution aiming to reinforce women’s participation in peace processes and to condemn . However, in 2016, the UN once again condemned the use of sexual violence as a tactic of war and terrorism.
Comment: The WHO and UN data for 2013 show major inequalities regarding women’s rights in the world: A quarter of countries have failed to pass a law guaranteeing equality between women and men and a third have no law on the legal marrying age. The geography of violence committed by close partners is primarily focused on Southern countries and on Russia, while violence perpetrated by persons other than a partner includes North America and Europe.
- rape > Rape
- Rape is a criminal act that uses human sexuality (in all its forms) as a method of torture and destruction of the victim’s identity and physical integrity, without necessarily involving death. It has lasting long-term consequences (pregnancy, disease, psychological burden, social and/or family stigma). Sexual violence has an inherent dissymmetry linked to the conditions of human reproduction, since only rape victims who are women can fall pregnant. Rape is an extreme form of violence and a crime of violation for the social and moral individual affected (destruction of family honor in some cultures, feelings of shame among victims). The use of systematic rape as a weapon of war has been recognized since the 1990s.
- International Criminal Court > International Criminal Court (ICC)
- The Rome Statute, adopted on July 17, 1998, was the treaty establishing the ICC. The Court has the power to judge war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and, since 2010, aggression committed after the Statute entered into force on July 1, 2002. Crimes can be referred by the Security Council, the public prosecutor, or a state party, and the court function according to the principle of complementarity (i.e. it does not replace national legal systems and only intervenes in cases where the latter are unable or unwilling to act). The ICC has been bypassed (particularly by the United States), criticized (for its inefficiency, or because of the high number of African cases), and has received notifications of withdrawal. By spring 2018, only Burundi had left (withdrawal of the Philippines comes into effect in March 2019).
- Security Council
- According to the United Nations Charter, the Security Council has main responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. It is composed of five permanent members (China, United States, France, United Kingdom, and Russia), who can each quash a resolution plan with a negative vote (right of veto), and ten members (six until 1965) elected by the General Assembly for a two-year period that is not immediately renewable. Its resolutions are legally binding upon member states.
- war > War
- Violent confrontation between armed groups over values, status, power or scarce resources, in which the aim of each party is to neutralize, weaken or eliminate their adversaries. This organized, collective, armed violence can be undertaken by states (via their national armies) or by non-state groups; it can bring several states into opposition (interstate war) or occur within a single state (civil war). The former, progressively codified within a legal framework, have become rare, while the latter, today primarily caused by state institutional failure, are tending to become more international in scope, to last over time (sometimes decades) and to be extremely devastating, especially for civilian populations.
- terrorism > Terrorism
- A method of violent action inspiring fear (terror) and generally used in an asymmetrical relationship (the weak attack the strong). Unlike an act of war or political assassination, where violence is aimed directly at the target (the enemy), the victims of terrorism are instrumental, the terrorists’ goal being to publicize their violence in the media in order to create a climate of fear and insecurity among those who witness it, and so to generate social, legal and political chaos that will weaken the targeted states or societies. In the absence of any unanimous definition of terrorism, the term is frequently used to delegitimize the actions of opponents who do not refer to themselves as terrorists.