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Introduction Gender-based violence (GBV) comes in many forms and is present in different contexts. It serves as the umbrella term for any harmful act perpetrated against a person’s will and is based on socially ascribed (gender) differences between men and women ( Inter-Agency Standing Committee, 2005 : 7). While it is used interchangeably with sexual violence and violence against women , GBV highlights the gender
Intimacy and Injury maps the travels of the global #MeToo movement in India and South Africa. Both countries have shared the infamy of being labelled the world’s ‘rape capitals’, with high levels of everyday gender-based and sexual violence. At the same time, they boast long histories of resisting such violence and its location in wider cultures of patriarchy, settler colonialism and class and caste privilege. Northern voices and experiences have dominated debates on #MeToo, which, while originating in the US, had considerable traction elsewhere, including in the global south. In India, #MeToo revitalised longstanding feminist struggles around sexual violence, offering new tactics and repertoires. In South Africa, it drew on new cultures of opposing sexual violence that developed online and in student protest. There were also marked differences in the ways in which #MeToo travelled in both countries, pointing to older histories of power, powerlessness and resistance. The book uses the #MeToo moment to track histories of feminist organising in both countries, while also revealing how newer strategies extended or limited these struggles. Intimacy and Injury is a timely mapping of a shifting political field around gender-based violence in the global south. In proposing comparative, interdisciplinary, ethnographically rich and analytically astute reflections on #MeToo, it provides new and potentially transformative directions to scholarly debates, which are rarely brought into conversation with one another. With contributors located in South Africa and India alone, this book builds transnational feminist knowledge and solidarity in and across the global south.
In the early twenty-first century, children fathered by foreign soldiers during and after conflicts are often associated directly with gender-based violence. This book investigates the situations of children born of war (CBOW) since the Second World War, provides a historical synthesis that moves beyond individual case studies, and explores circumstances across time and geopolitical location. The currently used definitions and categorisations of CBOW are presented together with an overview of some key groups of CBOW. Specific conflict areas are chosen as key case studies on the basis of which several core themes are explored. These conflicts include the Second World War (1939-1945) with the subsequent post-war occupations of Germany and Austria (1945-1955). The Vietnam War (1955-1975), the Bosnian War (1992-1995), some African Conflicts of the 1990s and early 2000s, in particular in Rwanda (1994) and Uganda (1988-2006), are also examined. In the case studies, the experiences of the children are explored against the background of the circumstances of their conception. For example, the situation of the so-called Bui Doi, children of American soldiers and Vietnamese mothers is examined. The experiences of Amerasian CBOW who were adopted into the United States as infants following the Operation Babylift and those who moved as young adults following the American Homecoming Act are juxtaposed. The book also looks into the phenomenon of children fathered by UN peacekeeping personnel as a starting point for a discussion of current developments of the international discourse on CBOW.
support. Instead, these entities have tended to adopt, what I term, a gender-inclusive approach which presumes that men can simply be included in already existing sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) services, which are designed for women. The OSRSG-SVC report (2013 : 20) suggests it is crucial to treat men in the same manner as women through gender-inclusive programming. However, this manifests as a system in which the same intervention services are offered
such violence ( Chynoweth, 2019a ). Survivors had the option of speaking with a man or woman health provider and some women and men disclosed to providers of a different gender. A report by UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center (2018) contains similar examples, guidelines and tools from research on disclosure in forced displacement in Central America. Gender-based violence specialists have spent decades working to develop effective programmes that create
relationships are picked up in the second research article, by Lisette Robles, on the help-seeking behaviour of refugee and gender-based violence (GBV) survivors. Robles draws on interviews with refugee leaders and service providers to unpack why GBV support services are so often underutilised. Drawing on a social capital framework, she highlights the importance of trust and social networks which refugee survivors use to access and navigate different forms of assistance. Her work demonstrates an important
local cultures. 2 Examples include discourses that portray gender-based violence (GBV) as cultural practice ( Ward, 2002 : 9) and gender equality programming as ‘akin to “social engineering” and [going] against cultural norms’ ( IASC, 2006 : 1). While acknowledging the importance of respect for the cultures and values of local communities when serving them, I argue that transforming certain gender norms and related cultural practices is essential to
, vulnerability and consequences. 8 The latter includes not only genetic predisposition to virus susceptibility, but also neglect of pre-existing health conditions and of related needs (such as nutritional intake). These may arise not only from poverty, but also from mental health fluctuation, or from gender-based violence which has increased globally during lockdowns – often the cause of poor mental health. 9 Thus, the pandemic continues to impact adversely upon mental health
Security Database (AWSD) and beset by persistent low reporting, particularly of incidents against ‘local’ staff or perpetrated by co-workers. What qualifies as a ‘major’ incident is contested, and aid organisations have been known to keep incidents, particularly gender-based violence (GBV), under wraps. Staff may also encounter barriers to reporting, like the threat of job loss, should their work come to be seen as too risky. What evidence exists, however, makes a strong case
, M. ( 1982 ), ‘ The Subject and Power ’, Critical Inquiry , 8 : 4 , 777 – 95 , doi: 10.1086/448181 . Gerhardt , L. , Katende , S. and Skinner , M. ( 2020 ), The Shadow Pandemic: Gender-based Violence among