Guest post by Julia Collins

photo courtesy of Women and Water in South and Central Asia

Accessing and managing one of the most basic, and yet most crucial, life-sustaining resources is a big deal.  Today, on World Water Day, we take a moment to consider what a large role water plays in security, development and conflict around the world and how crucial women are to this important resource.

You name it, water affects it: gender, health, security, poverty, sanitation, hygiene, policy. 

The Elliott School of International Affair’s interdepartmental project ‘Women and Water in South and Central Asia’ has identified 4 challenges related to water that women face in South and Central Asia.

First, the domestic use of water is generally viewed as women’s concern in the region and the physically demanding task of water collection and water management in the household falls to women and girls. Because of this household water responsibility, women’s health is adversely affected by the physical strain of water carrying, water-borne diseases and poor sanitation and hygiene conditions.  Further complicating the issue, the water supply is projected to decrease due to climate change, which will likely exacerbate tensions and fuel conflict. Lastly, and despite their integral involvement in all things water, women do not often hold water/property rights nor do they have decision making power to distribute or manage water.  This results in a decision-making gap where preferences of women and girls aren’t considered in allocating the precious resource.

What can be done?

Treating women as partners, not passive recipients of aid is a start.  The idea is to empower women to work together with men on water decision making and planning.  It is also important to tailor women-empowerment programs to fit the local needs of the community because ‘one-size’ does not fit all.

Find out more

Click here to find events, reports, videos, blogs, and more on women and water!

More about the project

The Global Gender Program, Sigur Center, and Central Asia Program’s joint project – Women and Water in South and Central Asia – brings together women social entrepreneurs and activists from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, to discuss their experiences and innovative solutions on community-level water management, enhance their competencies and leadership skills, and expose them to U.S institutions and the policy community working on water management and gender issues.  This project, funded by the State Department, will support Track II diplomacy (people-to-people relations) and enhance capacity on water resource management as a key element in enhancing stability and prosperity in Central and South Asia.

Photo courtesy of Julia Collins

Julia Collins is a Research/Program Assistant for the Women and Water, South and Central Asia Project at the Elliott School and a 1st year Master’s Candidate studying Conflict Resolution and Security Policy Studies. Particular areas of academic interest include Post-conflict reconstruction, memory politics and dealing with the past, and promoting good governance in transitional democracies – Myanmar in particular.

She graduated from UCLA in 2009 with a BA in Political Science, and minors in Environmental Geography and German. Julia has worked on Guam, lived in Hungary, taught along the Thailand-Myanmar border at a political training school for Burmese democracy activists, and advocated for refugees at a Californian refugee resettlement agency.

Guest post by Kerry Crawford

To view videos from Global Gender Program’s celebration of International Women’s Day, see here.

Jody Williams at International Women’s Day event on March 4, 2013. Photo by Milad Pournik.

On March 4th the Global Gender Program and Gender at Work co-sponsored a day-long series of panels and talks honoring International Women’s Day 2013 at the Elliott School of International Affairs. Jody Williams gave the morning’s keynote lecture, focusing on her work with the International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict.

Jody Williams is a tireless advocate for human rights and gender equality. In 1997 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her successful work toward banning and clearing anti-personnel landmines through the International Campaign to Ban Land mines. Williams was the 10th woman and the 3rd American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

The International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict, steered by the Nobel Women’s Initiative, is – as the name implies – a global coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and individuals working toward an end to rape and gender violence in conflict. Williams emphasized the importance of coming together and forming a coalition to create change, as individuals and organizations are far more influential when they work as a whole.

The campaign is based on three core approaches: prevention of rape and gender violence in conflict; protection of civilians and survivors of sexual violence; and effective prosecution of perpetrators and those responsible for rape and gender violence in conflict.

So why focus on rape and gender violence in conflict when violence against women happens every day in alarming numbers? Williams- and many of the members of the campaign- are quick to remind us that sexual violence in conflict is part of a broader continuum of violence against women. Rape and gender violence do not spring up suddenly at the onset of political or military aggression; rather, a larger and more insidious system of gender inequality breeds sexual and gender violence long before, during, and long after conflict. Focusing on rape and gender violence in conflict provides a valuable entry point through which NGOs and individuals can work to shed light on the continuum of violence against women and create broader and changes in gender relations.

Many creative and inspiring tactics have arisen from the International Campaign to Ban Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict. One Billion Rising united individuals in mass global action to speak out against violence against women and girls. The Stephen Lewis Foundation unites grassroots efforts to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa by supporting women, orphaned children, grandmothers, and people living with HIV/AIDS.

Jody Williams is a captivating speaker, in no small part because of her astounding humility. Selecting one key takeaway point from her lecture is a difficult task. Yet, the most essential lesson that should stay with all of us at all times is that violence is always a choice. Always.

Williams underscored the fact that we need to abandon our entrenched belief that there is something about the human condition that makes us inherently violent. Once we do that ending impunity for atrocities, especially rape and gender violence, may come more easily and the world may be safer for all of us.

If you would like to learn more about Jody Williams, you can read her new book: My Name is Jody Williams.

Guest post by Christina Fink

Myanmar’s Current Peace Processes: A New Role for Women explains why women in Myanmar played no role in closed peace talks in the past, and how they are engaging in the current, more open peace-building process.

The authors, who are female peace-builders themselves, emphasize both the development of women’s networks and the more open political environment as factors that have led at least some women to see themselves as having a role in the peace process. According to a survey carried out by the authors, many women in Myanmar civil society organizations believe women should be engaged in peace negotiations and other peace-building activities.

Respondents hoped that women’s involvement could lead to greater attention to human security concerns and the particular needs of women and children affected by war.

Nevertheless, the authors conclude that women will only be able to play an active role if they themselves push for it. In addition, they require support, including mentorship, specific knowledge and skills training, study tours to meet other women with experience in peace-building and politics, and financial assistance to sustain their organizations.

Christina Fink is a professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. An anthropologist who has focused on Burma for many years, she is the author of Living Silence in Burma: Surviving Under Military Rule (2009).

Guest post by Kerry Crawford

On January 25^th the Department of Defense (DoD) released a new instruction establishing policy, assigning responsibilities, and providing procedures for investigating cases of sexual assault within the DoD.

Department of Defense Instruction 5505.18 (Instruction) establishes policies and procedures for investigating any case of adult sexual assault linked to the United States military; this includes sexual assault occurring on military installations and cases in which a service member or his or her dependent (over the age of 18) is accused of or victimized by sexual assault. The Instruction outlines clear responsibilities for investigating sexual assault, including provisions for involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, and local police jurisdictions when appropriate.

If you are interested in reading the Instruction and its enclosures, you can do so via this link: http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/550518p.pdf

Why is this Instruction important? Three related reasons come to mind.

The first is that even the most casual Google search for “military sexual assault” will yield scores of news articles and academic publications discussing the prevalence of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment within and related to military institutions.  For just one example, see the Huffington Post news stream. Sexual assault is a sadly common occurrence—but not an inevitable one. Although this is not a problem unique to the United States military, it is certainly one that needs greater attention from DoD and the Instruction takes a step toward addressing military sexual assault.

The second reason is that the DoD just lifted the ban on women serving in combat positions. Now, women have already been serving in de facto ‘combat’ positions for years since modern warfare lacks clear battle lines. Lifting the ban simply allows policy to meet reality and opens an additional 230,000 positions to women. For a veteran’s insight, see the Slate article by Kayla Williams.

The third reason why outlining the specific policies, procedures, and responsibilities for investigating military sexual assault is significant stems from a combination of the first two: with the combat ban lifted, women may hold more positions traditionally held by men and this leads to the question of whether or not sexual assault within the military will decrease or increase. For one scholar’s discussion, see the Columbia Journalism Review’s article.

When discussing military sexual assault, we must be careful not to paint women as victims or as the only victims of sexual assault; the Instruction itself adopts gender-neutral language when discussing perpetrators and victims, and specifies that sexual orientation should not factor into the investigation unless it is an essential aspect of the investigation.  Women serving in the military deserve the same respect, honor, and recognition as their male colleagues, and relegating survivors of sexual assault to mere victim status detracts from the esteem they deserve.

We can hope that more consistent recognition of women and men as equal in the eyes of the military and clear, enforced policies and procedures for addressing military sexual assault may lead to a steady decline in the problem.

Lifting the combat ban and issuing the Instruction certainly offer food for thought.

Guest post by Kerry Crawford

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325(Resolution 1325), adopted 31 October 2000, calls on the international community of states and organizations to ensure that women are fully involved in decision-making and processes related to peace and security. Unprecedented in its nature, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 marks the first time the United Nations Security Council recognized war’s disproportionate burden on women and girls and linked ‘women’s issues’ to the international peace and security agenda.

The consistent refrain on Resolution 1325 is that much progress has been made but much work remains to be done. UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet reiterated this observation on 30 November 2012 during the UN Security Council Open Debate to mark the 12^th anniversary of Resolution 1325.

Ms. Bachelet also commended the civil society organizations and women’s groups that introduced and championed Resolution 1325 in 2000 and that have fought to keep it alive over the past 12 years: “The very origin of this historic resolution is the courage, leadership, and the extraordinary accomplishments of women’s civil society organizations that promote peace and build women’s protection under unimaginably difficult circumstances.” (For more on the Open Debate, see UN Women’s press release here.)

Civil society monitoring and reporting has been essential to progress on Resolution 1325. Earlier this month the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP) released its third report monitoring the implementation of Resolution 1325, entitled “Women Count” Security Council Resolution 1325: Civil Society Monitoring Report 2012. (Access the full report here.)

The Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP) is comprised of 67 women’s organizations and networks. Its central goal is to bridge the gap between policy rhetoric and action on the Women, Peace, and Security agenda through monitoring and reporting on progress. GNWP released its first monitoring report around the 10^th anniversary of Resolution 1325.
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Guest student post by Marybeth Sullivan

Hillary Rodham Clinton came closer to winning the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States than any woman before her. She gained 1,896 delegates compared to Barack Obama’s 2,201 delegates, which sealed his nomination. In her concession speech Clinton proclaimed that Americans “can be so proud that, from now on, it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories…unremarkable to think that a woman can be the President of the United States…and if we can blast fifty women into space, we will someday launch a woman into the White House.”[1] Despite this idealism, the numbers show that female political victories are still remarkable. Currently, women hold seventeen seats in the Senate and ninety seats in the House of Representatives, about seventeen percent of the total seats in Congress.[2] These figures place the United States poorly at number ninety-one in the proportion of women in National Parliaments worldwide. [3] The United States, therefore, ranks behind countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and China, countries highly criticized for their discrimination of women.[4]

The fact that women are underrepresented in elected politics is increasingly relevant today. At a time when the United States is fighting to maintain its credibility abroad, it loses legitimacy when nations whose governments the U.S. criticize, show more descriptive equality than our own. In addition, recent elections bring female candidates such as Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, and Hillary Clinton into the spotlight. Despite their policy perspectives, many media outlets and American citizens focus on these candidates’ gender. The 2012 election brings ascribed women’s issues to the center of debate. Issues affecting women are highly contested, especially as Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney threatens to appoint Supreme Court Justices to overturn Roe v. Wade[5] and stop funding for Planned Parenthood.[6] Meanwhile he is unwilling to state his positions on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act[7] or the Violence Against Women Act.[8]

With this in mind, questions arise about women’s role in elected office. First, if women account for fifty percent of citizens in the United States, why do women only hold seventeen percent of the elected seats? Second, at a time when “women’s issues” seem contentious in the 2012 presidential race, why do few women seem concerned? Last, does the fact that so few women are in government truly matter?

I argue the United States needs to increase its representation of women in elected office. Apathetic constituencies, who are disenchanted with the U.S. political system, limit female candidates’ success. Women can increase representation effectively if they create a critical mass external to elected office. Once created, this external critical mass can apply pressures to the government. I argue this critical mass can be created by women in business. In this way, women’s voices may not be seen inside the Capitol, but they will be heard and represented.
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by Ariana Rabindranath

Nine Mongolian female Members of Parliament, elected in June 2012, have formed a  Women’s Caucus to work on a shared vision and collaborate with civil society organizations.  One of the issues the group has taken on is child care.

(Left to right) Oyungerel Tsedevdamba, Ariana Rabindranath, and two Officers of the Democratic Women’s Union of Mongolia, April 2012.

When I was in Ulaanbaatar in April, 2012 to attend a UNDP conference on women’s  leadership, I met with Oyungerel Tsedevdamba, who is one of the nine women recently elected to Parliament, and is now the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism. She and her Democratic Women’s Union colleagues told me the lack of child care provision in the rural communities is a major problem because it hinders women from working outside the home.

As mentioned in this article, parents have to wait in line overnight to try to get a spot in the daycare, and if they don’t the mother stays home with the child. This results in less income for the family.

I mentioned that my son had been cared for by a licensed childcare provider in her Virginia home.  The women were very interested to learn about the certification process. Minister Oyungerel subsequently sent information about the in-home child care certification procedure in Fairfax, Virgina, to other MPs in Mongolia. She is building support for new standards in child care in Mongolia that will ensure safety for children, provide jobs for women, and also allow women the freedom to work outside the home.

Related links:

• Mongolian Women’s Caucus Conducts First-Ever Legislative Meeting
• Progress for women now moving swiftly in Mongolia
• Number of Seats Held by Women in Mongolia’s Parliament Triple

Ariana Rabindranath is Associate Director of the Global Gender Program.

Guest post by Kerry Crawford

On October 10^th the Human Security Research Group, an affiliate of Simon Fraser University, released their 2012 Human Security Report, entitled Sexual Violence, Education, and War: Beyond the Mainstream Narrative.  The report focuses on wartime sexual violence and the impact of war on education, arguing that conventional wisdom on both issues may be misleading.

The full report is accessible via the Human Security Research Group’s website. For readers interested in a more compact version of the findings, an overview is also available here.

Part I of Sexual Violence, Education, and War: Beyond the Mainstream Narrative examines the mainstream narrative on wartime sexual violence, which portrays sexual violence as an increasingly prevalent weapon of war deployed in similar ways across conflicts. The authors argue that this narrative does not paint a full and accurate picture of sexualized violence.

The report highlights the prevalence of domestic sexual violence and notes that the mainstream narrative ignores the fact that sexual assault by partners and acquaintances is more common than sexualized violence committed by combatants. The report also notes that the mainstream narrative on wartime sexual violence ignores male victims and female perpetrators.

So what do these findings mean for scholars and practitioners addressing wartime sexual violence? They should certainly not give up and start from square one. Lauren Wolfe of the Women under Siege Project contacted numerous scholars and the report’s editor-in-chief to get a more nuanced view of the state of the field, which she presents here.

The 2012 Human Security Report provides helpful insight into a complex issue that affects women, men, and children in war and in peace. Although the Report challenges the conventional wisdom on wartime sexual violence,  scholars and practitioners should not be discouraged but should seek to  fine-tune their approach and strive for even greater understanding of sexualized violence  and how to  end it.

Guest post by Kerry Crawford

Photo: Kerry Crawford

Over the past twelve years the international community has made substantial progress in addressing the all too pervasive issue of sexual violence in war. The United Nations now has mechanisms in place to name and shame perpetrators of sexual violence; they may be imperfect, as seen by the bitter debate over definitions and mandates in February 2012, but oversight mechanisms exist and that alone signals progress.  The fact that sexual violence in war is even a topic of discussion at the UN represents positive change.

Beyond monitoring mechanisms and international discussion, individual countries are also working to effect change. At least thirty-seven countries have developed or are in the process of developing a National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security to promote greater equality between men and women and to ensure that women are equal partners in building and sustaining national and international peace and security.

But, as key activists emphasized on the UN floor last week, there is a considerable gap between international rhetoric and the situation on the ground in conflict zones. Dr. Denis Mukwege and Nobel Prize Laureate Leymah Gbowee, among others, urged state leaders to take action to stop the use of sexual violence as a weapon in the current conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Syria.

Political leaders are often hesitant to address sexual violence in war when they are uncertain of its scope and purpose. In cases like Libya and Syria states and international organizations call for more data, and—ideally—verifiable reports that offer clear pictures of the situation on the ground. They want to know more about the types of victims and perpetrators involved, the scale or nature of sexual violence, and the credibility of reports.
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Staff post by Milad Pournik

On June 27, 2012, Interaction hosted an event in Washington, DC, highlighting the International Rescue Commission (IRC) work with victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The IRC has been operating in the DRC since 1999, but it is especially active now in North and South Kivu given the high levels of violence in the region, where three out of four women in North Kivu have been raped.

Four panelists participated in the event: Judith Bass, Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Catherine Poulton, GBV Technical Program Advisor, IRC, Kinshasa, DRC; Marlene Bahizire, GBV Community Based Organizations Supervisor, IRC, Bukavu, DRC; and Jeannie Annan, Director of Research, Evaluation, and Learning, IRC.

One of the IRC’s main activities is to provide mental health services to survivors of sexual violence and the event specifically explored the prospects of Clinical Psychosocial Treatment (CPT) for female victims of sexual violence.

Survivors assemble at a "peace hut" in South Kivu, DRC

Building on established local networks and community groups, such as Community Based Organizations (typically groups of 50 members) and Village Savings and Loans Associations (typically 15-25 members), the IRC identifies victims of sexual violence and informs them about the possibility of undergoing psychosocial treatment provided by the IRC.

In order to test effectiveness, the IRC are partnering with John Hopkins University to undergo a rigorous impact evaluation of the clinical healing approach they are piloting in Kivu.

Initial results, shared by Judith Bass, suggest that the program has been highly effective in helping women victims to overcome the psychosocial trauma of sexual violence. But, the evaluation report is yet to be published. Bass highlighted her amazement that over 80% of the Congolese women responded to their follow-up survey, commending them for helping to strengthen the validity of the evaluation.

The panelists all emphasized that women who receive effective psychosocial treatment often play an important role in rebuilding conflict-torn communities. They stressed that the active involvement of past victims of war to champion peace is required for it to be a durable and comprehensive peace.