Maj Britt Theorin: Leading Europe Toward Gender Equality
Maj Britt Theorin has been an international leader for disarmament and gender equality for three decades. Born in 1932, she became a Member of the Swedish Parliament in 1971. Her experience on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and leadership in peace issues, led the Swedish Government to appointing her as a delegate to the United Nations in 1976. She subsequently made a career of fighting for peace and gender issues there for the next twenty years. For the past five years she has continued this battle in the European Parliament. Theorin recently took some time to discuss the United Nations, the European Parliament and her current goals, as Chairperson of the EP Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities.
 Theorin recently returned to the United Nations to open the Millenium forum with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. "I tried to make clear how important NGOs, particular those led by women, are to any international effort. They are a key ingredient, success in international diplomacy will not come if half the population is ignored. "
"The failure to incorporate women has been one of the most glaring mistakes the world community has made in its peace efforts. This is not surprising as only a third of EU Parliamentarians are female and there are few women in positions of bureaucratic power in European institutions, just as in the United Nations."
Indeed during her time at the UN, Theorin constantly faced male colleagues who thought she had no place there. After submitting its report, to the Secretary General, one diplomat in the Commission of Experts on Nuclear Weapons, which she chaired, told her "when I first saw you I thought God not a woman, we will get no where, but I know now that we wouldn't have gotten through this process without you."
But even when she received a warm welcome from her male counterparts, they usually had little desire to fight for equality. Theorin presented her ideas for increasing the representation of women in the UN to then Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali, who initially seemed very receptive, but accomplished little. "When I saw him again, toward the end of his tenure, he told me he still had three months left to improve representation, but women still haven't be allowed to the highest positions in the UN." Theorin points out that in one report on women and peace "we made many good proposals, one of the best of these was the demand that the next Secretary General be a woman, but they haven't achieved this goal yet" she says laughingly.
Even among women in the United Nations there are dramatic difficulties in mainstreaming gender. The review of the Beijing Declaration this past June should have provided an opportunity to "ensure that governments were living up to their commitments, because words on paper are simply not enough." And, Theorin continues, "we needed to make sure that governments did not try to rewrite the twelve points, we needed a mechanism to ensure funding, monitoring, and accountability of the initiatives inspired by the Beijing Declaration." This, however, was not the end result of the conference "I found us bickering over minute details, barely able to produce a document, and myself being attacked by various delegations for supporting abortion rights."
In July of 1999, Theorin began her term as President of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities. The Committee itself submits legislation and directives to Member States, stimulates debate through hearings and other public forums, and amends legislation and budgets produced by other Committees. Theorin's election as President came only months after Parliamentarians attempted to destroy the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities.
"They tried to be tricky, they said well, the Amsterdam Treaty (which defines the powers and responsibilities of the EU executive, parliament, etc.), says there should be gender mainstreaming in all areas so we don't need the Committee. This was stupid logic, having commitments on paper are nothing if they aren't turned into reality, and it's the job of this Committee to make sure that occurs."
"After twenty five years in politics it is clear to me that European institutions, the governments, legislatures, bureaucracies, are all governed by male norms, and the voices and skills of women are unheard, underrepresented, or ignored far too often. Until that changes there will be a need for my Committee." Luckily, Theorin and other female Parliamentarians were successful in pressuring fellow colleagues into recognizing the need for a Committee focused on gender.
Soon after the fight to save the Committee on Women's Rights, Theorin had to counter an attack on the Parliament funding of the European Women's Lobby, an umbrella group with over five hundred member organizations. This assault was renewed again this fall, "it seems every year, conservatives try to dilute or destroy the Lobby, sometimes in the budget committee, this year they even tried from within the Women's Committee"
Despite these successes, positive change has come slowly. "The Committee has organized hearings on trafficking in women, but only a handful of Members of Parliament attended. The only time we received intense media coverage was when a policewoman reported that prostitutes were bussed into Strasbourg from Central and Eastern Europe whenever the Parliament is in session. Few are interested in the concrete policies we are promoting to combat this trafficking Mafia."
THE FUTURE
Theorin has four years left as a Parliamentarian and plans to bring gender to the center of the EU agenda. This includes discussions on:
Information technology, "there is a huge deficit in the numbers of women involved in cutting edge technologies, in general and particularly at the upper levels of management. We must encourage affirmative action, but also seek out the source of this problem, through improving teacher training so that young girls are encouraged to take math and science courses and provided with equal support when they do so."
EU enlargement, "the European Union has all sorts of targets and requirements for applicant countries, in the economy and environment, but there is no clear demand that they improve the situation of women. In the majority of these countries economic hardship and unemployment, brought by the fall of communism, has been passed directly on to women. This often results in increased numbers of women seeking employment in the European Union, making them easy prey for sex traffickers." In the regular questioning periods of Commission staff, who define and articulate enlargement policy, Theorin has continued to challenge them to broaden their views and fully incorporate women into their work, but they have offered little more than excuses in response.
As well as health, "it is still the case that the vast majority of health research is done with men as the prototype." The Committee on Women's Rights will write a response this fall to the European Commissions new five-year public health policy plan, in an attempt to encourage the Commission to act upon the findings of a 1999 study. A study conducted by the Commission, which indicated large gender disparities in health care.
Theorin's current goal is to have a resolution on Gender and Conflict Resolution passed by the European Parliament. While recognizing that the majority of combatants are men, and that such institutions are bastions of male culture, Theorin points out that "it is women and girls who face the highest risk as civilians, the risk of being killed, raped, or sexually assaulted."
Theorin has written a resolution on the topic that will be voted upon within the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities in October. Subsequently, it will be voted upon by the entire European Parliament, and if passed will become a resolution of the Parliament. At the very least the resolution will stimulate a debate within the European Commission and Member States about conflict and gender, and hopefully serve as another nudge toward convincing governments to meet their international commitments in this area.
Forcing European institutions to recognize the importance of mainstreaming gender within conflict resolution policy is all the more urgent as the European Union comes close to its December deadline for commitments for a proposed rapid reaction military force. Concerning such a force, Theorin asserts that "the trend toward militarization in the European Union is a worrying occurrence, I would support the development of early warning systems or rapid humanitarian aid delivery capabilities, but not rapid military responses. We should build societies up, politically, economically, help nurture civil society, particularly women's organizations, I'm for civilization not militarization."
Back to the top
To Subscribe to Gender Policy Review Send an e-mail to:
gender-policy@mailcity.com
Alice Green: Female Prisoners in the United States
Sharon Wheeler meets with Dr. Alice Green, Executive Director of the Center for Law and Justice; a prisoner's rights advocacy group based in Albany, New York, to discuss the situation of women in prisons. Dr. Green, who obtained her Ph.D. in Criminal Justice, is a small, intense woman who is able to focus on the issue at hand while operating at top speed, like a hummingbird. The Center, itself, provides prisoners with legal rights information, referrals, counseling and assistance in filing forms. Other programs include Parenting Workshops, Educational Seminars, Prison Visitations, Inmate Voter Education, and assistance to prisoners re-entering the general population.
.jpg) In the United States there are approximately 138,000 women in jails and prisons. This is more than three times the women incarcerated in 1985 and 10 times the number of women jailed in Western European countries.
Despite the fact that women make up a small percentage of the total prison population, six and a half percent, their numbers are growing and their particular needs are of special concern to Dr. Green. "Of the thousands of requests for assistance I receive annually, only a handful come from women. I think that women in prison are less politically articulate than men, in terms of writing essays, raising political questions, and generally challenging the system."
Dr. Green stresses that the rapid increase in the female prison population is due to severity in enforcement and sentencing, not increasing levels of crime. In particular, the introduction of mandatory sentencing, which defines set penalties for crimes, while disregarding the circumstances of the accused, such as previous offenses and potential danger to community, has led to a swell in the prison population. The establishment of these sentencing guidelines, in combination with law enforcement strategies that focus on low level drug dealing, and possession, have filled prisons with poor women of color.
While Blacks make up an estimated 15% of all drug users, more than half of all drug offenders in state prison are Black. In fact, Black women are eight times more likely to be in prison than White women.
The presence of women in the Corrections System (the system of prison and parole that a criminal goes through) is still fairly recent and the System is unable to cope with the massive numbers in a humane fashion. Dr. Green describes how a study by the National Institute of Corrections, of litigation brought by female offenders, identifies their primary concerns as being invasion of privacy, inadequate medical treatment and a lack of program parity with male prisoners.
Nationally, 57% of female inmates in state prison and 40% of those in federal prison, reported that they had been abused before admission; 46% physically; 39% sexually; 28% both. Sadly, all too often this abuse continues in prison and is committed by prison staff. Human Rights Watch describes the life of a female inmate in US state prisons as a potentially "terrifying experience," with abuse ranging from inappropriate viewing to vaginal, anal, and oral rape.
Dr. Green asserts that "the punitive nature of the prison system is so complete that" even non-abusive behavior such as gynecological treatment delivered in an uncaring way, which is generally the case, can lead to further victimization of women who have been sexually and physically abused. Although women are the prime victims, sexual violence and harassment also affects men. Dr. Green notes that "increasingly male prisoners are complaining of sexual assault, such as inappropriate touching by guards."
In addition to ending the sexual violence that occurs in prison, there must be a rapid response to the health needs of women. Twenty percent of female prisoners in New York State are HIV positive, with 10 of the 13 deaths of female inmates in 1996 being caused by AIDS. AIDS Associated Tuberculosis, estimated at nine percent of the entering female prisoners, far exceeds rates for male inmates in New York. In addition to experiencing some health risks at a higher rate than men, female inmates also have particular health problems including: diabetes, breast cancer, chronic pelvic inflammatory disease, and interrupted or lost pregnancies.
Despite this clear need, Corrections Today reports that women have been systematically denied the quality of health care available to men in federal and large state institutions.
Similarly, women are not provided with equal educational opportunities as men, even though their educational level is on par with that of men. In fact, educational programs for women tend to be restricted along traditional gender divisions, e.g. cosmetology, culinary arts, graphic arts, service industry, and printing office technologies. Until recently, of the thirty-four vocational programs offered in New York State prisons only eleven were offered to women.
Dr. Green describes that there have been small, but completely inadequate, steps made toward improving the conditions faced by female prisoners. At this time the New York Department of Corrections has two programs for pregnant women, one with a capacity to house 25 mothers and infants, the other with the capacity to house 39 mothers and infants and 9 pregnant inmates. With 75% of the female prisoners in New York being mothers, mostly single mothers, clearly not enough is being done.
Another positive step in New York, has been the response of Westchester County to reports of sexual assault by prison guards. The County mandated that only female guards should be allowed in certain areas of the jail. Unfortunately, the Corrections Officers Union (union of prison guards) has taken the matter to Court, as an act of discrimination against male prison guards, and because the mandate insinuates that male officers are sexual predators. Sadly, all too often US anti-discrimination laws are used to invalidate policies that benefit women.
However, Dr. Green emphasizes, "despite these sporadic improvements, there has been little or no serious planning for the increasing number of women in the prison system. Nor has there been any significant consideration of positive alternatives to incarceration." Where there have been improvements in the prison system they have usually been in response to the pressure of NGOs, as in Westchester County.
At the conclusion of our talk Dr. Green explains how she recently visited prisons in Bermuda. "What I found most noticeable" she says "was the relationship between the correctional officers and the prisoners. There was a sense of community; a sense that there was a reason to help the inmates, because they were part of the community. What is needed within the US Corrections System is the acknowledgement of the human value of prisoners as members of society, men as well as women." All women have the right not to be sexually assaulted and harassed, as well as the right to equal access to education and health opportunities, including those in prison.
Sharon Wheeler is a New York City Public School teacher, and a prison rights activist. She is one of the coordinators of The Riverside Church's prison ministry, which provides services to prisoners across New York State.
Back to the top
To Subscribe to Gender Policy Review send an e-mail to:
gender-policy@mailcity.com
Bibliography
Amnesty International, USA. Rights for All: Human Rights of Women in Custody. 1999.
Bill, Louise. "The Victimization and Re-victimization of Female Offenders". Corrections Today, V. 60, No. 7, pp. 106-112, 1999.
Byrd, Christine. Women in Prison. Women's Studies Program, South Dakota State University. 2000
Chesney-Lind, Mella. "The Forgotten Offender". Corrections Today, V. 60, No. 7, pp. 66-73, 1999.
Dressel, P. et. al. "Mothers Behind Bars". Corrections Today V. 60 No. 7, pp. 90-94, 1999.
Harrison Ross, Phyllis & Lawrence, James E. "Health Care for Women Offenders". Corrections Today. V. 60, No. 7, pp. 122-126, 1999.
Human Rights Watch. World Report 1996. 1996.
Masters, Brooke A."A Ruling That May Unravel Sentences". Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 7/31/00-8/7/00. Washington D.C..
New York State, Department of Correctional Services. Female Offenders 1997-1998. Albany: Sept. 1999.
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999.
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Profile of Women in Prisons and Jails. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999.
U.S. Department of Justice National Institutes of Corrections. Current Issues in the Operation of Women's Prisons. Longmont, CO, 1998.
Prostitution: Solutions For A Global Problem
Gender Policy Review - Earl Hadley
Much stronger action needs to be taken to combat prostitution. The millions of girls and women annually forced, and coerced, into lives of indentured servitude, permeated with physical, sexual, and psychological abuse demand action. The young men who, through participating in and observing prostitution, are socialized into accepting the inherent assertion of the sex trade, that women are objects, provide any necessary closing argument on the need to end prostitution. Doing so outweighs the right of men to pay for sex and the right of women to receive money for sex.
Background
All countries have sizable domestic populations of women engaged in prostitution, ranging from .25 to 1.5 percent of the population in Asia and the United States.1 Much larger percentages of men, however, are paying for sex. Ninety five percent of Thai men and seventy percent of men living in London have at some point in their life have purchased sex.2 And large numbers of the men abuse the women they interact with, indeed violence is endemic to the life of a prostitute.3 In Canada, "women and girls in prostitution had a mortality rate 40 times higher than the national average."4 In the United States, it is estimated that seventy percent of prostitutes annually experience multiple rapes,some women are raped once a week.5
Large numbers of women engaged in prostitution began as minors having been tricked or coerced into such by parents, traffickers, partners and pimps. In the United States the average age for entering prostitution lies around fourteen, while in Asia it is well below eighteen.6 Similarly, it is estimated that over a quarter of prostitutes in urban areas in the United States, Cambodia, Jamaica and India are minors.7
Along with being manipulated as children, poverty is the primary economic incentive that drives women to participate in prostitution, whether directly, or through following the false promises of employment offered by sex traffickers. It is reported, for example, that eighty five percent of Russian women are unemployed, and many of those who have jobs are expected to sleep with their employers.8 But, hopes of economic independence at best quickly turn into highly exploitative situations, and at worse turn into indentured servitude.
It is estimated that ninety percent of prostitution is controlled by pimps, who receive between fifty and one hundred percent of the revenue generated.9 One pimp/bar owner in Japan, for example, makes US$85,000 monthly from prostituting trafficked women, who receive zero profit.10
In countries that serve as depots for sex-tourist, the relative incomes for prostitution can be very high, resulting in families selling their daughters to pimps and traffickers, the sex sector generates from two to fourteen percent of GDP in South Asian countries.11 The girls involved receive little of this money as it is siphoned back to male family heads in rural areas.12 The International Labor Organization reports that in Thailand "close to US$300 million is transferred annually to rural families by women working in the sex sector, a sum that exceeds the budgets of government-funded development programmes."13 In the United States, girls involved in prostitution can generate over five hundred dollars an evening, but usually receive less than five percent of such, from their pimps.14
Responses to date in the European Union and the United States
Despite the fact that solicitation and other related activities are illegal in the United States and Europe, both regions have traditionally focused on arresting the women involved, as opposed to arresting customers, traffickers, or pimps. In the United States this policy costs two thousand dollars per arrest, with major cities spending on average seven and a half million dollars annually.15 Because prostitution is demand driven such arrests do nothing to reduce the sex trade, in short the money is wasted. Arresting prostitutes as a means of combating prostitution usually results in an increase in the indebtedness of women to pimps, as well as in the amount of sex they must have to make up for lost income. Through focusing on the prosecution of women, the police, who are predominantly male, are also placed in a position where they can easily abuse their power. Police officers often do abuse their powers, one survey suggests that 20% of the abuse against prostitutes is conducted by police officers.16
Residency laws are another example of misdirected policy. A woman participating in the prosecution of a trafficker will, at best, as in Belgium, the Netherlands or Italy, be allowed to remain in the country until the trial is over, at which point she will probably be deported. Other member states of the European Union as well as the United States are often not as lenient. In Germany, two young girls freed from sex slavery were deported immediately and banned from traveling to Germany for a number of years, a ban that extended to all Member States of the Schengen Treaty.17 This policy provides no incentive for women to attempt to prosecute their kidnappers and abusers, as these individuals may seek retribution when the women return to their country of origin.
Solutions
To combat the problems associated with prostitution: trafficking, violence, and the objectification of women, two approaches are generally promoted. While advocates of prostitution as a form of employment suggest that legalization will ameliorate these problems, policy makers tend to recommend penalties as a means to deter prostitution.
The immediate problem with legalization is that it provides state sanction to the assertion that women are sex objects, while concurrently failing to eradicate illegal prostitution. Women working in legal brothels in the U.S., Europe and Asia are forced to turn over forty to fifty percent of their profits and may be required to remain in the brothel for up to ninety percent of their time, in a given seven-day work week.
In addition, women may have to justify the refusal of a customer, and in some cases may not be able to refuse at all.18 Concurrently, women are often documented as prostitutes, an act that can result in future job loss and "blacklisting", forced medical tests from hostile clinical staff, and harassment by police officers.19
The costs of legalized prostitution such as rent to the brothel owner, medical examinations, and any registration fees are paid by the women involved in prostitution, thereby increasing the number of sexual encounters they must have in order to make a profit. Due in part to these costs, illegal prostitution has flourished in legalized areas as clients seek cheaper sex, and women determined to increase their income, or avoid psychological/drug tests, circumvent the legal system. In Germany, for example, there are three times as many non-registered women involved in prostitution as registered women. In Greece the ratio is more than 10 to 1.20
Prostitution that did not place women in danger would require private medical coverage, unions to demand fair profit sharing, and some form of prostitute controlled security system to ensure complete discretion over customer selection. The cost of all three would have to be passed on to the taxpayer to remove the incentives for illegal prostitution. Even then, the demand for illegal prostitutes in the form of minors or kidnapped foreigners would continue to be strong, as male 'buyers' often have a desire for the 'exotic'.
In short, the best imagined version of legalized prostitution has all of the current problems of international trafficking in addition to increased taxes, which most citizens would refuse to pay. Perhaps most damaging is the fact that doing so would provide state legal sanction and financial support to the objectification of women.
Governments instead should focus on a two-step strategy: increased penalties for the men involved in prostitution and increased economic development for women. To date, through not enforcing existing laws, or creating legislation, which target the consumers of sex services, governments allow this demand driven trade to grow. As in Sweden, there should be penalties, including imprisonment, for men who solicit prostitution. Concurrently, there must be much higher penalties for those who traffic in, and pimp, women and girls both internationally and domestically. In the United States, traffickers can face no more than a five thousand dollar fine or five-year prison term, while traffickers face one to two year sentences in Europe for trafficking, as opposed to the ten to fifteen given for smuggling narcotics.21
Perhaps most importantly, effective policies must go to the root of the problem, creating economic alternatives for women. High levels of unemployment and poverty force many women to gamble with job and marriage offers in big cities, different regions, and foreign countries. Economically powerful countries must make a concerted effort to ensure that development and 'expansion' fund programs and funds are not designed, received, and implemented solely by men.22 Concurrently, all governments must focus on instituting training and micro-credit programs for women and girls, and developing social support services for girls and women involved in prostitution.
Back to the top
To Subscribe to Gender Policy Review send an e-mail to:
gender-policy@mailcity.com
End Notes
1. International Labor Organization, Sex Industry Assuming Massive Proportions in
Southeast Asia, (Geneva: ILO, 1998), p. 2. & Prostitution Education Network, Prostitution in the US, The Statistics. <http://www.bayswan.org/stats.html>.
2 "Facts About Prostitution" sirius.com/~promise/facts.html. & International Labor Organization. & Paul Handley "Catch if catch can" Far eastern Economic Review, 13 February, 1992, p. 29.
3 Melissa Farley, et. al, "Prostitution in Five Countries" Feminism and Psychology, 8 (1998), p. 405-406. Sirius.org "Facts About Prostitution": D. Leidholdt. Prostitution: A Violation of Women's HumanRights. Cardozo Women's Law Journal 1. 136. (1991); S.K. Hunter. "Prostitution
is Cruelty and Abuse to Women and Children." CPA Newsletter--Overview.
4. (1994); M. Silbert, "Sexual Assault of Prostitutes: Phase One" Final Report.
National Center for the Prevention and Control of Rape. National Institute for
Mental Health (1982).
4 Farley, ibid, p. 406.
5 Mimi Silbert, Sexual Assault of Prostitutes, (California: Delancy Street Foundation, 1981), from Prostitution Education Network, ibid. & Katherine DePasquale, "The Effects of Prostitution", Feminista Vol 1 #5 California: 1997.
6 Dr. Wendy Freed, "Sexual exploitation in Cambodia", PHR/Record January 1997, http://www.twnside.org.sg/souths/twn/title/sexual-cn.htm & Katherine DePasquale, "The Effects of Prostitution", Feminista Vol 1 #5 California: 1997. From sirius.com "Facts About Prostitution" M. Silbert and A.M. Pines. Occupational Hazards of Street Prostitutes.
8 Crim. Just. Behav. 195 (1981); J. James. Entrance into Prostitution.
Washington, D.C: National Institute of Mental Health. 29. (1980); E. Giobbe.
Juvenile Prostitution: Profile of Recruitment. in Child Trauma I: Issues &
Research. New York: Garland Publishing. 117. (1992).
7 Exploited Child Unit, www.missingkids.com (background on Child Prostitution) & ECPAT "The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Chapter 2, p. 2.
8 Global Survival Network, ibid., pp. 17-18.
9 www.sirius.com "Facts About Prostitution" : S.B. Satterfield. Clinical Aspects of Juvenile Prostitution.15 Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality 9: 126. (1981); M. Silbert and A.M. Pines.
Entrance into Prostitution. 13 Youth and Society 4. 481. (1982); L. Lee. "The
Pimp and His Game" in The Social World of the Female Prostitute in Los
Angeles. Dissertation. (1981); K. Barry. The Prostitution of Sexuality. New
York: New York University Press (1995).
10Global Survival Network, ibid., p. 12.
11. Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand: International Labor Organization, Sex Industry Assuming Massive Proportions in Southeast Asia, (Geneva: ILO, 1998), p. 2.
12 Ibid., p. 3. & Jill Gay "The Patriotic Prostitute", The Progressive, February 1985, p. 34 & 36.
13 International Labor Organization, Sex Industry Assuming Massive Proportions in
Southeast Asia, (Geneva: ILO, 1998), p. 2.
14 Exploited Child Unit, ibid. - Ladda Saikaew. The Report on Child Prostitution as a Form of Forced Labor" for the U.S. Department of Labor.
15 Julie Pearl, "The Highest Paying Customers: American Cities and the Cost of Prostitution Control", Hastings Law Journal, Volume 38 (1987), p. 770.
16 International Labor Organization, Sex Industry Assuming Massive Proportions in
Southeast Asia, (Geneva: ILO, 1998), p. 2. & Margo St. James, "What's a Girl Like You?", Prostitutes, Our Life, (Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1980), Prostitution Education Network, ibid.
17 Global Tribunal for Women. http://www.alyk.com/globaltribunalforwomen/ speak_justina_paulina.html The Schengen treaty includes the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
18 Dorchen Leidholdt, Position Paper for Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Part 2 p. 3 & COYOTE "Decriminalization vs. Legalization" www.freedomusa.org/coyotela.
19 Laura Anderson, Working in Nevada., p.2 bayswan.org/Laura.html & Walnet, Redefining Prostitution as Sex Work on the International Agenda, Section 3f Turkey p.1 & 3. Walnet.org/csis/papers/redefining.html
20 Rudolf P. Mak, Europap, p.1
21 Yoon, ibid., 428
22 Expansion funds refer to funds provided European Union applicant countries of Eastern Europe who seek to join the EU.
Gender Aspects of Conflict Resolution: A View From The European Parliament
By Maj Britt Theorin
The end of the cold-war, has moved the majority of conflicts from between states to within states. The battlefield has moved to villages, streets and homes.
As has been the case since World War II, the majority of victims are women, children and the elderly. Similarly, the majority of refugees are women and girls who, all too regularly, suffer from gender specific violence.
They are raped, assaulted, abducted and kept as sex slaves. When the conflict has ended widows are forced to care for the elderly and the young on their own, and the economic needs of women are ignored for those of demobilized soldiers.
Despite this reality, the concerns and priorities of women in conflict resolution are ignored in most peace-talks as well as in the development of post-conflict reconstruction programs. A situation, which is all the more ridiculous, given the success of the cases where women have partaken in formal peace negotiations as in Cambodia, South Africa, and Guatemala.
In addition to these examples of formal participation, women have been involved in non-official peace making throughout history. In the latter part of the nineteenth century women organized annual 'Women's Peace Festivals' in the United States. World War I witnessed the birth of the Women's International League for Peace and the Geneva based International Peace Bureau. Subsequently, the sixties produced a number of peace organizations, including Women Strike for Peace, in the US, and the Greenham Common Women, in England, which both organized around military issues. Women have continued to cross battle lines to discuss peace in recent conflicts, from Ireland and the Middle East, to the Sudan and Somalia.
In practical terms, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women, gender-based discrimination in conflict resolution has meant that in the Commission for the reconstruction of Tajikistan only one of the twenty-six delegates was a woman, despite the fact that the war had created twenty-five thousand widows. Similarly, at the first peace negotiations to end the conflict in Burundi only two of the one hundred and twenty-six delegates were women. No Bosnian women partook in the peace negotiations that ended the war in that country, despite the fact that the world was well aware of the systematic rape that women and girls had suffered there. Subsequently, in the negotiations that proceeded the NATO bombings of Kosovo there was only one woman in the delegation. And when the stability pact for South Eastern Europe was created, women were not mentioned at all despite their unique experiences in peace building from the grass-roots level.
Even when women are included in peace efforts they are often forced into silence. Two former employees of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Kosovo told me how they were fired after too vigorously pointing out that women were being systematically excluded from the democratization process. One of them described how she "soon realized that all high UN and OSCE posts were held by men who liked to discuss the proportion of Serbs and other ethnic groups in various political and legal bodies, but refused to take action to promote the participation of women in the reconstruction of Kosovo." She emphasized that "leaders of women's groups and organizations are angry that the international organizations ignore them". It is no wonder we see a lack of progress in democratization efforts in Kosovo.
Similarly, Human Rights Watch reports that in Bosnia and Herzegovina "women were typically overlooked and in some cases deliberately excluded from the benefits of this assistance" and found that "preferences for demobilized soldiers significantly decreased women's employment opportunities." It is clear that we need mechanisms to make sure that both women and men have equal access to reconstruction funds. As the Rapporteur of the European Parliament on Women and Conflict Resolution I will seek to ensure that the funds invested in this area do not further marginalize women.
This negligence toward including women in the peace process, is not only found in the field, but at the highest ranks within the European Parliament. This can be seen from the response I received while proposing to write an EU Resolution on Women and Conflict Resolution. I was told by a senior politician, "women should not participate in peace-work. Don't you understand that we men fight for our women?"
Discrimination against women, however, is not limited to peace negotiations and reconstruction, but also in the area of providing justice to victims of war crimes. The mass rapes of between twenty five and fifty thousand women in the former Yugoslavia received a great deal of attention in the media, but when the victims sought justice through the international war crimes tribunal, in the Hague, they did not receive witness protection of psychological support. In fact, only two of the eleven judges were women. As a result, few women dared to become witnesses for the prosecution. Thus, despite pleasant sounding speeches and commitments little was done in practice to help these women. The resolution I am submitting to the Parliament will lay out clear and concise measures that must be taken to truly mainstream gender into peace-building.
One of these measures is to ratify the new permanent International Criminal Court (ICC), a court that treats sexual violence as a war crime. A crime that is considered equal to torture and terrorism. This type of Court has long been needed to help end the use of rape as a strategy of war.
The court must be able to prosecute offenders regardless of whether they belong to a warring faction or a peacekeeping force. Already, UN peacekeepers, from the European Union, have been dismissed following accusations of sexual violence in Mozambique and Somalia. Few of these soldiers were tried in court and almost none convicted of any wrongdoing.
Before, the ICC can begin to provide disincentives to future rapist, the decision to create the Court must first be ratified by sixty countries, unfortunately only 19 states have ratified to date, only four of which are EU Member States. Why are so many nations lagging behind? Particularly the United States. The resolution I have written will send a clear message to America that it can not claim to be a world leader while at the same time cower behind concerns of US troops being falsely accused of atrocities.
Just as including women in peace negotiations and reconstruction has been successful, the same holds true for women in peacekeeping forces. Women should make up at least forty percent of all peacekeeping and peace-building activities, and we are calling for this minimum in the resolution. Although the proportion of women in peacekeeping has been limited, the studies available suggest that women's participation in peacekeeping forces improves relations with local populations, a pre-condition for successful peacekeeping,and improves the general morale. As important, female peacekeepers help in the fight against sexual violence in armed conflict, as their presence reduces male gang behavior, which all too often leads to the abuse of local girls and women.
There are a number of other policies that the resolution calls for, but there is one main point we are trying to hammer home, women must be involved in every aspect of conflict reconciliation and reconstruction. Peace is too heavy a burden to be placed on one government, one organization or one sex. Sustainable peace can not be created if you ignore half of human kind. Peace can only be created if women participate fully in the peace process.
Back to the top
To Subscribe to Gender Policy Review send an e-mail to:
gender-policy@mailcity.com
Gender Policy Review and GPR Logo Copyright 2000© |
