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men. As a result this ‘new’ institution has also become male dominated. Other examples are the EU
battle groups, multilateral rapid deployment units staffed and organised by different MS but
operating under the EU flag. One example is the Nordic Battle Group (NBG), the EU Battle Group
on standby during the first half of 2008 and led by Sweden’s armed forces. In the NBG, gender
issues were taken seriously from the start. It included gender training and a gender advisor who was
directly responsible to the top commander. The ambition was to recruit around 20 % of women,
even so, in the end only 5 % of the NBG force were women (Kronsell forthcoming).
It is notable that the majority of MS' responses to UNECE questions make no mention of the EU
indicators on women in armed conflict nor do they acknowledge the data and considerations
provided by the MS for the French Presidency’s survey (2008). Only the French report makes
explicit reference to the indicators that have been developed.
Feminists and gender researchers argue (e.g. Reardon 1996; Cockburn 2004) that there is a
continuum of violence that connects the violence against women in the home with patriarchy and
with the institutions of war, i.e. the military. An example is that when soldiers return home from
war with post traumatic stress, they tend to take out their anger and frustration through violence,
often directed toward women and children in the family. There is ample research in the US showing
this (e.g. Committee on Gulf War and Health 2008). In the 1990s there was a war in Europe;
soldiers from the MS were part of the coalition forces in the war in Iraq, and many have been
deployed in international missions in the Balkans, on the African continent and in Afghanistan.
They have experienced violence, and, when they return home, many may suffer from post traumatic
stress. The connection between violence against women and men’s and women’s different and
separate experience of armed conflict, war and the armed forces is not raised in the MS' reports to
the UNECE.
The connection between military activities and prostitution has been widely documented
(Enloe 2007). UN SCR 1325 and 1820 are a response to the scandal and problem of abuse of
women and children through prostitution around peacekeeping missions. Armed forces stationed
abroad and peacekeeping missions (Higate 2004) seem to play an important role in generating
trafficking in women and children for sexual purposes.
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