gender

Gender and accountability is important – but don’t mention the war

UNIFEM have put out two reports in the last few weeks.

The first is the gender needs survey for the Gaza strip, Voicing the needs of Women and Men in Gaza, and the second is Who Answers to Women?: Gender and Accountability (Progress of the World’s Women 2008/2009). These two reports highlight the problems that a UN agency has in dealing with contentious issues which involve member governments; that is, they cannot be criticised even obliquely.

The gender needs survey of the Gaza strip is an important report and acknowledges the war with a very powerful opening statement:

On the 27th December, 2008, the Israeli military launched a major offensive against the Gaza Strip resulting in a dramatic deterioration in the lives of the civilian population already in a state of deep deprivation following an 18-month-long blockade of the Gaza Strip. According to OCHA, the 23 day war led to the death of 1,366 people, of whom 430 were children and 111 women, as well as the injury of over 5,380 people, including 1,870 children and 800 women. The Israeli military offensive also led to large-scale internal displacement of civilians, made more traumatic by the fact that civilians could neither leave the field of war, nor find secure and safe haven within it from aerial bombardment, even in United Nations installations. About 100,000 people fled their homes in UNRWA shelters. During the military offensive, public infrastructure and essential services were either completely destroyed or partly damaged resulting in lack of shelter and fuel, as well as further deterioration in water and sanitation services. These have added to the effects of the lack of access to health services, food insecurity, and general psychosocial distress suffered by the population. All Gazans are once again experiencing the loss or injury of family members, relatives and friends. Given the casualty and injury statistics – the war has left in its wake 1,800 bereaved parents, more than 800 new widows and more than 5,000 injured family members who will have to be cared for, placing additional burdens within their households.

But while identifying needs, the report makes no attempt to hold the perpetrators of the violence – the Israeli military, or Hamas for that matter – accountable for the losses in life and livelihood, and the massive ongoing needs that the report finds that are the consequence of the senseless violence. The report fails to talk about their obligations as states and governments, but rather focuses on the obligations of the international community.

Likewise, the report ‘Who Answers to Women?’ is in many ways a ground-breaking report. with five chapters: Who Answers to Women?, Politics, Services,: Markets and Justice — all very important but again it skirts around the point of state-perpetrated violence on women, as we can see very publically and starkly in Gaza, but also with oppressive state sanction against women for all sorts of reasons in some Middle East states including Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.

The issue of human rights to a large extent has fallen off the agenda and multilateral bodies are largely hamstrung as to the extent they can criticise member states and even the extent they can raise questions on gender rights abuse and the like. It is fairly safe to refer to women representation in government, but does much less in talking about repressive and inhuman laws.

The issue the international community and UNIFEM and its allies need to address is how to bring the real issue of state violence against women squarely onto the agenda.

© 2009 People and Development.