Consistent promotion of gender equality has to drive foreign, security and development policy if sexual violence in conflict is to be stopped.
The UK’s commitment to protecting the rights of women and girls cannot be limited to international aid; it must recognise gender-based persecution and not expel any woman to a country where she risks her life, rights or freedom, says Lorna Gledhill.
Last December, a small group of volunteers organised a production of ‘Trojan Women’ with female Syrian refugees now living in Jordan. Heather McRobie speaks to two of the organisers about how art speaks to those who have survived conflict, and the significance of ‘Trojan Women’ in a modern context
At least 20 people have died in immigration detention in the UK: how many more must die before the UK changes its detention policy? The public must shout louder, says Eiri Ohtani.
For many Syrian women in Algeria, the gendered experience of violence and displacement has been compounded by the discrimination they now face as women refugees, says Latefa Guemar.
A group of women in the UK have created a piece of art to challenge the detention of refugee women. Craft can be a powerful and cross-cultural means to challenge segregation with solidarity, says Rachel Walker.
Syrian women refugees cite rape, or the fear of rape, as one of the main reasons they fled. A coalition of grassroots women and international advocates has formed to integrate services and advocacy, enabling women refugees to participate in formulating the political future they want to see
On international human rights day, Yakin Ertürk discusses the new vulnerabilities faced by women, including refugee women, and the new opportunities for remedy offered by the international human rights system.
Rahila Gupta argues that the term ‘victim’ needs to be reclaimed by feminist politics; whilst 'survivor' is important because it recognises the agency of women, it focuses on individual capacity, but the notion of 'victim' reminds us of the stranglehold of the system.
While the proliferation of domestic violence legislation worldwide is a positive and much-needed development, the explicit criminalisation of marital rape needs to be central to these legal reform initiatives - ensuring that women’s rights are fully protected. Even within marriage.
Twenty years after the United Nations declared violence against women to be a violation of their human rights, we are still a long way from gender violence becoming unacceptable in a society
Thousands of soldiers, mostly women, have been the victims of rape and sexual assault in the American military. Politicians and the Pentagon are worried about the growing epidemic of this behaviour. All twenty women Senators decided “enough was enough”
