Category: Gender

What Does Gender Equality Have to Do with Poverty and War? Everything.

This year’s telethon in Norway, an annual event, raised over 225 million Norwegian kroner for CARE’s work in strengthening women’s rights. Gender equality and women’s empowerment aren’t just goals in themselves: achieving those goals will reduce poverty and lower the risk of armed conflict.

“We need to build bridges”: Project Leader Marianne Dahl and GPS Director Torunn L. Tryggestad on the Women, Peace and Security Index

The Women, Peace and Security Index is one of the most comprehensive measures of women’s well-being around the world. This collaboration between PRIO and the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS) goes back to 2016. Funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Index ranks countries based on indicators of women’s inclusion,… Read more »

Pitfalls, Policy, and Promise of the UN’s approach to Conflict-Related Sexual Violence and the New Resolution 2467

Since 2012, April has been the traditional month of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) open debate to discuss the annual Secretary-General’s report on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence. And while for the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) community it is always a major event on the calendar, with the prospect of a US veto of a… Read more »

Safeguarding women after disasters: some progress, but not enough

Hundreds of Mozambicans were killed and thousands made homeless recently by Cyclones Idai and Kenneth. Almost immediately, there were reports of a sadly familiar story: women being forced to trade sex for food by local community leaders distributing aid. Globally, international organisations appear to be grappling with the issue more seriously than before. Yet reports about sexual exploitation keep coming. How… Read more »

This is Not Us – and Yet it is Us: Why Gendered Analysis of Terrorism is Sorely Needed

Known as one of the safest and most isolated countries in the world, New Zealand has experienced its darkest day, a terrorist attack perpetrated by a lone gunman against Muslim citizens in Christchurch in two mosques during Friday prayers. For us, in this antipodean part of the world, it is our 9/11 reckoning. ‘This is… Read more »

ISIS Women Hoping to Return Home Are Met with a Cold Shoulder from State Officials

The media has yet again turned its attention toward the women of ISIS. Currently ISIS only occupies one square kilometre of the so-called caliphate they once had, and as the final battles to regain former ISIS-controlled territory are unfolding, more and more ISIS fighters’ wives or widows have ended up in refugee camps all over… Read more »

Feminism and Empiricism: Two Contributions to Improving Women’s Inclusion in Peace Processes

Academics and policymakers can probably agree on the need for a more solid research base in order to effectively support the inclusion of women in peace processes. Our chapter in the newly released Oxford Handbook on Women, Peace and Security, argues that improving dialogue among scholars and practitioners requires acknowledging that different forms of research… Read more »

Children Born of War Are Not the Enemy. How Can They Be Integrated into Society?

This year, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded jointly to the Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege and the Iraqi human rights activist, and witness and survivor of human-trafficking, Nadia Murad. These two voices are an extremely important contribution to ongoing efforts to combat war-related sexual violence. We are among the many people who are delighted… Read more »