Gender-based Violence

Key Messages

• The roots of gender-based violence (GBV) lie in power inequities based on gender roles, which are marked by the domination of men and the subordination of women. Violence may be physical, sexual, psychological, economic or socio-cultural, perpetrated in private or in public settings. GBV can occur throughout a woman’s lifecycle, starting with infanticide, early childhood marriage and genital mutilation, and evolving into sexual abuse, domestic violence, legal discrimination and exploitation of widows.[1]
• GBV increases in conflict-affected settings.
• Displaced women and girls are particularly vulnerable to GBV.
• Acts of GBV violate a number of principles enshrined in international and regional human rights instruments, including the right to life, equality, security of the person, equal protection under the law and freedom from torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment.[2]
• GBV has psychological, social, medical and legal implications. Many survivors will not report rapes and others may feel powerless to do so. In cases where survivors do report, their rights and needs should be preeminent, in terms of access to respectful and supportive services, guarantees of confidentiality and safety, and the ability to determine a course of action for addressing the GBV incident.
• In order to better understand the effects and scope of rape in conflict, the international community must develop systems to document these atrocities. However, data collection is very difficult for a variety of reasons, including survivors’ fear of speaking out and chaotic, insecure settings.[3]
• Rape camps, sexual slavery, and forced impregnation or intentional infection with HIV have all occurred in recent conflicts.[4]
• When a conflict ends, sexual violence against women and girls often continues and may escalate: in post-conflict settings, legal institutions and social systems, which often act as protective mechanisms, are disorganized and dysfunctional; these factors can lead to an increased risk of sexual violence.[5]
• In places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, GBV contributes to the erosion of the social and economic fabric as women play important roles in the maintenance of local economies. Lack of security can force women to abandon their jobs while abduction of women and girls can further contribute to economic breakdown due to lack of productive workers. Women and girls may also be weakened by rape-related illnesses and trauma.
• GBV can be prevented, as has been proven by the outcomes of anti-GBV initiatives serving conflict-affected populations. Usually it is the work of local women’s organizations that provide the most inspiring examples of efforts to combat GBV in refugee, internally displaced and post-conflict settings. However, if they are to continue to be effective, local women’s organizations must receive ongoing technical and financial assistance from the international community.
• Local women’s organizations must not bear the sole responsibility for combating GBV in their communities. Men, too, have an important role to play as peer pressure can profoundly change attitudes and beliefs about the acceptability of GBV.
• Any attempts to address GBV — both preventative measures and assistance to survivors — must be the outcome of coordinated activities between the constituent community, health and social services, police and security forces, and the legal justice systems (including traditional or customary law and national legal institutions). National government bodies should be responsible for overseeing this coordination. Governments must require and monitor GBV data collection across sectors.
• Humanitarian actors in all refugee and internally displace settings should implement broad-based programming, to prevent and respond to GBV.  International guidelines should be adopted to create agency-wide protocols to anticipate, identify, prevent and manage GBV. A multi-sectoral response should be integrated from the outset of UN interventions, with full participation of the displaced communities, especially women and girls.
• Standardized emergency response measures for women who have been raped – including proper medical examination, emergency contraception, prevention and treatment for sexual transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS, and psychosocial care - must be available at the onset of each new emergency, along with food, shelter and water.

Overview

Gender-based violence (GBV) is an umbrella term for any harm that is perpetrated against a person’s will that is the result of power imbalances that exploit distinctions between males and females. Violence may be physical, sexual, psychological, economic or socio-cultural. Perpetrators may include others who have been displaced by the conflict or disaster, members of other clans, villages, religious groups or ethnic groups, military personnel, rebel forces, humanitarian workers from UN agencies or NGOs, members of the host population or family members.  Rape may be used as a strategy of war to intimidate and traumatize a population, in which case the perpetrators are enemy combatants; perpetrators of opportunistic rape can be anyone acting with impunity in the climate of lawlessness that accompanies armed conflict. Although not exclusive to women and girls, GBV principally affects them across all cultures.[6]

Throughout history, GBV has been an integral component of armed conflict. Sexual violence is often systematic, for the purposes of destabilizing populations and destroying bonds within communities and families, advancing ethnic cleansing, expressing hatred for the enemy or supplying combatants with sexual services. Evidence suggests that the use of rape as a weapon of war has increased in recent years in conflict-affected areas.[7]

Other forms of GBV that may be of concern during conflict and its aftermath include:

• Sexual abuse and exploitation
• Domestic violence
• Trafficking
• Forced impregnation or sterilization
• Forced marriage
• Forced prostitution
• Forced recruitment
• Harmful traditional practices, such as female genital mutilation or early marriage

Facts

Global Statistics

• Violence against women and girls is a major health and human rights issue. At least one in three of the world's female population has been physically or sexually abused at some time in her life.[8] Many, including pregnant women and young girls, are subject to severe, sustained or repeated attacks.[9]
• Worldwide, it has been estimated that violence against women is as serious a cause of death and incapacity among women of reproductive age as cancer, and a greater cause of ill-health than traffic accidents and malaria combined.[10]
• Nearly 50 percent of all sexual assaults worldwide are against girls 15 years or younger.[11]
• The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 6,000 girls a day – more than two million a year – are genitally mutilated. Apart from the extreme psychological trauma, female genital mutilation (FGM) causes immediate and long-term physical complications, including an increased risk of adverse obstetric outcomes at childbirth.[12]
• According to a WHO study, one in three women in rural Uganda is subject to verbal or physical threats from their partners, while fifty percent of those women who have been threatened subsequently receive injuries. Beating a female partner was viewed as justifiable in certain circumstances by seventy percent of the male respondents and ninety percent of the female respondents. The study also revealed that domestic violence may be an important factor in women’s susceptibility to acquiring HIV.[13]

Refugee/Internally Displaced/Conflict-affected Statistics

• Increasing evidence from the conflicts of the last decade show that the nature of warfare is changing: sexual violation and torture of civilian women and girls during periods of armed conflict is a rampant phenomenon. The violence can be systematic - carried out by fighting groups to destabilize and destroy community bonds – or a by-product of the breakdown of social and moral order.[14]
• In May 2006, Amnesty International approximated that over 220,000 Sudanese had fled into Chad and another 1.8 million were estimated to be internally displaced due to increased violence in the Darfur region of Sudan.[15] Displaced Sudanese women and men report abduction and widespread rape of women and girls in Darfur, Sudan. Women and girls in Chad crossing back to Sudan in search of water, food and firewood also face risk of sexual violence.[16]
• Due to systematic and exceptionally violent gang rape, doctors in the Democratic Republic of Congo now record destruction of the vagina as a crime of combat. Thousands of Congolese girls and women suffer from vaginal fistula—tissue tears in the vagina, bladder and rectum—after surviving brutal rapes in which guns, branches and broken bottles were used to violate them.[17] A survey of rape survivors in South Kivu region revealed that 91 percent suffered from one or several rape-related illnesses.[18]
• According to UNIFEM, mass rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been accompanied by sexual mutilation and cannibalism, with armed groups particularly targeting Pygmy women for cannibalism and genocide.[19]
• As many as 3,000 women in Central Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were raped between 1999 and mid-2001, demonstrating the extent to which rape is used as a weapon of war in the Congo’s five-year conflict.[20]
• Incidents of violence against women in Iraq have increased in frequency since the 2003 US-led invasion and occupation of the country. According to the study, released by a Baghdad-based NGO, Woman Freedom Organization, the most worrying trend was the large number of kidnappings of women, many of whom reported being sexually abused or tortured. While such occurrences were largely unknown during the Saddam Hussein regime, more than 2,000 women have been kidnapped in Iraq since April 2003, the report noted. The report also stated that Iraqi women were also being sold as sex workers abroad, mainly to the illicit markets of Yemen, Syria, Jordan and the Gulf States. [21]
• A 2003 survey by Human Rights Watch conducted in Baghdad revealed that the public security vacuum in the months after the end of the war heightened the vulnerability of women and girls to sexual violence. According to the report, the police are reluctant to investigate sexual violence and abduction and hospitals do not have the resources to treat survivors in a timely manner.[22]
• Since the fall of the Taliban, 235 women in Afghanistan have tried to kill themselves by self-immolation, according to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. Thousands of Afghani women try to commit suicide every year due to their domestic situation.[23]
• In a RHRC Consortium survey conducted in East Timor, physical assault by non-family members decreased from 24.4 percent during the crisis to 5.8 percent post-crisis. Sexual assault decreased by more than half once the conflict ended. This study demonstrates the increased incidence of GBV during conflict.[24]
• North Korean women, escaping deprivation and political oppression in their homeland, are at risk for trafficking into China where they may be sold to Chinese men or to owners of brothels or karaoke bars.[25]
• Approximately 50,000 to 64,000 internally displaced women in Sierra Leone have histories of war-related assault[26], while fifty percent of those who came into contact with the Revolutionary United Front reported sexual violence.[27]
• According to a 1999 government survey, 37 percent of Sierra Leone’s prostitutes were less than 15 years of age, and more than 80 percent of them were unaccompanied or children displaced by the war.[28]
• During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 1990s, it is estimated that between 20,000 to 50,000 women and girls were raped.[29]
• Refugees International estimates that up to 40 percent of women were raped during Liberia’s 14-year civil war;[30] teenagers were the most targeted group.[31]
• Displaced women face sexual exploitation by aid workers as demonstrated by reports from West Africa[32] and the abuse of Bhutanese women in refugee camps in Nepal .[33]
• Findings from a study of Palestinian refugee women indicated that 30 percent of women were subjected to beating at least once during their marriage, with the husband as the main perpetrator.[34]
• Twenty-five percent of Azeri women surveyed in 2000 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged being forced to have sex; those at greatest risk were among Azerbaijan’s internally displaced, 23 percent of whom acknowledged being beaten by a husband.[35]
• An estimated 40,000 Burmese women are trafficked into Thailand’s factories, brothels and for domestic work each year.[36]
• Two Shan rights groups have documented mass rapes involving hundreds of women and girls systematically carried out by Burma’s army; employing rape as a weapon of war, the Burmese government has tried to violently suppress a local rebellion in the Shan state since the mid-1990s.[37]
• A 1995 survey of post-conflict Nicaragua reported 50 percent of female respondents had been beaten by their husband, and that 30 percent had been forced by their husband to have sex.[38]
• Another study in Nicaragua showed that forty percent of women of reproductive age had experienced physical violence by a partner. Seventy percent of the physical violence was considered severe while a total of thirty-one percent of women were beaten during at least one of their pregnancies.[39]
• The majority of Tutsi women in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide were exposed to some form of GBV; of those, it is estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 survived rape. [40]
• A 1982 study of Guatemalan refugee women found that their most overwhelming fear was that of being raped.[41]
• During repeated episodes of political instability and upheaval in Haiti , the rape of women has been used as a tactic to repress, frighten and terrorize the people, regardless of their political affiliation.[42]
• In Sierra Leone, girls comprised 25 per cent of soldiers. They were recruited as soldiers as well as forced sexual partners, known as ‘bush wives’. When they return to their communities, many of their families rejected them.[43]
• In a program for girls associated with armed groups in Sierra Leone, 32 percent reported having been raped and 66 percent were single mothers. [44]

Case Studies

Doing "bad things to women” in Sudan
Mura is a 65-year-old woman who fled her village in Sudan and arrived in Bahai, Chad, with her husband, daughter, son-in-law and six grandchildren. She explained in a quiet voice how the Janjaweed stole all their livestock and that the Sudanese government soldiers shot at her and her neighbors and burned their village. Her sister was killed and the family lost five other children during the chaos of flight. She estimated that 25 young women around 20 years old were taken by the Janjaweed. "The Janjaweed always do bad things to the women," she said.

Overcoming rape through counseling and support
Dominique, a 40-year-old woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo, was raped by a soldier when her village was invaded by Rwandan military forces. She fled with her three children to Zambia for safety. Upon arrival she discovered she was pregnant. She also found her husband who had left her alone to care for their children three years earlier. They had become separated when he encountered rebel forces while traveling and then fled to Zambia. He was already remarried and would not speak to her seeing that she was pregnant. When she encountered the counseling services of Hodi, a local NGO committed to improving the life of poor communities, she was despondent with grief and did not want the baby. Through counseling, however, she accepted the situation and decided to use antenatal services. She has started to focus on her baby and is now rebuilding her life.

Addressing domestic violence among Palestinian refugees
Huda is a young Palestinian refugee woman who lives with her husband and five children in Rashidyeh camp in Tyre (southern region of Lebanon). Her husband is unemployed and drinks alcohol excessively. He treats Huda badly, hitting and beating her and the children on a daily basis. Whenever things get out of hand, Huda leaves home and takes refuge at her parents’ house. Her husband had forbidden the children to leave with their mother as a way to pressure Huda and punish her for leaving the house. Huda always goes back to him for the sake of the children. Every time she reconciles with him, he forces her to have sex without protection, often resulting in a new pregnancy. Although the family needs the money, the husband forbids her from working whenever they fight because of the evident signs of beating on her body and his fear of her talking to other people and exposing his behavior.

After hearing a lecture on sexual and reproductive health sponsored by a local NGO working with Palestinian refugees, Huda started talking about her domestic problem to the NGO’s staff and asking for support and advice. The last time she left home, her husband had forced their eldest daughter to quit school in order to take care of her siblings and other domestic matters. The NGO’s social worker intervened, convincing the husband to allow the daughter to return to school. The social worker then persuaded Huda to return home under a set of conditions established to ensure her security. The social worker discussed the possibility that the father may behave aggressively toward his daughter, and attempt a sexual assault while he is under the influence of alcohol. The mother’s presence at home could help deter such behavior. The social worker also spoke to Huda’s relatives, charging them to monitor the situation daily and intervene to provide security for Huda and her children.

A pioneering program helps survivors of GBV
During the influx of Burundian refugees to Tanzania in 1993, many women and girls were raped or otherwise abused. Due to the breakdown in the traditional system that ensured their protection, the women were suffering in silence and were not reporting these cases to anyone for fear of being further victimized or isolated. In 1996, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) carried out a survey to determine the extent of GBV in the camps. This led to the establishment of a GBV program to protect women and girls by community awareness-raising and involving the community in the prevention of GBV. In addition, the program provided a forum in which women and girls could discuss their problems and provide each other with support and advice. As a pioneer in this area, IRC met with great resistance from some members of the community. Nevertheless, raising awareness and involving both men and women to prevent GBV increased support for the program over time. Many other organizations have now followed in IRC's footsteps by establishing similar programs in other refugee camps. IRC Tanzania has since increased the scope of its GBV projects by training NGO staff, the police, Tanzanian government leaders and officials and community-based leaders.

In 1999, the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recognized the contribution the GBV program was making to prevent GBV in the camps and provided additional funding for the program. With this funding, IRC Tanzania was able to continue conducting awareness meetings and community trainings, greatly improving the community's role in preventing GBV in the camps. In 2001, upon the request of IRC, UNHCR and local authorities of the Tanzanian legal system established mobile court services in all camps. The community support groups now offer awareness training, a reporting and referral system, counseling and health services, and a drop-in center that is open 24 hours a day. This program has now become a community concern and has given confidence to women to "raise their voices" and be proactive regarding issues very important to them. In this environment, success in fighting GBV depends on how well both men and women are involved in the design and implementation of the programs and that a woman-only focus will limit the success of the program.

Resources

Click here for more resources on GBV.

Updated September 2006