Women, Armed Conflict, and International Law

The role that gender plays in determining the experience of those caught up inarmed conflict has long been overlooked. Moreover the extent to which genderinflue... » 

The role that gender plays in determining the experience of those caught up inarmed conflict has long been overlooked. Moreover the extent to which genderinfluences the international legal regime designed to address the humanitarianproblems arising from armed conflict has similarly been ignored. In the early1990s prompted by extensive media coverage of the rape of women during theconflict in Bosnia Herzegovina the international community was forced tocritically examine the capacity of international law to respond to such crimes.The prevalence of sexual violence is however merely one aspect of thedistinctive impact of conflict on women. Although a range of factors influencethe way individual women experience armed conflict the endemic genderdiscrimination that exists in all societies is a common theme from Cambodiawhere women landmine victims are less likely to receive treatment for theirinjuries than are men to South Africa where women widowed during theApartheid years have become outcasts in their own society. To date the extentto which international law addresses the myriad of ways in which women areaffected by armed conflict has received little attention.This work takes the experience of women of armed conflict matches it withexisting provisions of international law and investigates reasons for thesilence of the latter in relation to these events for women. It is the firstbroadbased critique of international humanitarian law from a genderperspective. The contribution of the United Nations through its focus on humanrights to improving the protection of women in armed conflict is alsoconsidered. The authors underscore the need for newapproaches to the issue ofwomen and armed conflict and canvass a range of options for moving forward. «