Joanne Sandler
Neglecting to provide for treatment for post-traumatic stress disorders can lead to new cycles of violence, says Joanne Sandler, Deputy Director of UNIFEM.
In post conflict settings, where new constitutions are agreed upon, national development plans and budgets drawn up, new laws adopted and institutions rebuilt, there is often a unique window of opportunity to advance women’s rights and gender-equality.
At the same time, because conflict generally brings about changes in existing gender relations, with women taking on new family and community leadership roles, women are often prepared to take a pro-active role in rebuilding societies and communities.
Women’s ability to reach across ethnic, religious or national boundaries to keep communities together makes them able to contribute to social reconciliation and better governance. Their roles as mothers and caregivers may leave them in a position to help integrate former combatants, child soldiers into communities.
However, this window of opportunity can also slam shut very quickly. Women are generally excluded from peace processes and planning for post-conflict recovery. They are also neglected when it comes to financing for reconstruction.
The designation of gender as a crosscutting theme in post-conflict needs assessments means that a gender analysis must be applied to every sector, from security reform to infrastructure and social services.
The aim is to limit attention of gender issues to those sectors for which gender expertise is available and even anticipated.
Women’s safety and security is now recognised as a critical part of building sustainable peace. The increasing use of rape as a weapon of war has resulted in the International Criminal Court designating it as a war crime.
At the national level, however, continued impunity for sexual violence has long-term effects — the viability of efforts to reassert the rule of law is seriously jeopardised when crimes against half the population go unpunished.
Neglecting to provide for treatment for post-traumatic stress disorders can lead to new cycles of violence, with lasting impact on society. Yet when it comes to financing, few areas are as neglected as sexual and gender-based violence.
A look at Consolidated Appeals between 2000 and 2006 tells a typical story:
- In Burundi, where women and girls have been subjected to various forms of abuse, including incest, sexual harassment, sexual slavery and rape, funding for survivor services is astonishingly low. In 2006 Burundi requested (in the CAP) $1,654,109 to fund projects that were specifically for sexual and gender- based violence. Zero per cent of that funding was met. In comparison, 30 per cent of the funding requested for education projects was met.
- In 2006, in Liberia, where an estimated 40 per cent of women have survived gender-based violence, 10 projects specifically addressing gender-based violence requested funds totalling $4,491,038. Only one out of these ten projects received funding, providing only 14 per cent of the total funds requested to address sexual and gender-based violence.
- In 2006 in Nepal, where there has been a sharp escalation of reports of gender based violence especially in refugee camps, gender based violence projects received only half of the funding request, whereas all other projects on average received 90 pre cent of funding requested.
Therefore it is time, donors and governments started looking at the gaps in the financing gender equality in post-conflict settings.
The writer is the Deputy Director with UNIFEM.
