Global Burden of Armed Violence - The Geneva Declaration on ...

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112 GLOBAL BURDEN <strong>of</strong> ARMED VIOLENCE Photo ! This woman was only 13 years old when she was raped during the 1992–95 war in Bosnia. © Robin Hammond/ Panos Pictures men are rooted in the assumptions <strong>of</strong> male wartime roles, reproducing gendered hierarchies (Carpenter, 2006, pp. 88–89). <strong>The</strong> experience <strong>of</strong> armed violence is influenced not only by gender but also by other factors, such as age, race, ethnicity, class, or religion. During the civil war in Guatemala, for example, women and children <strong>of</strong> ethnic Mayan origin were specifically targeted (Commission for Historical Clarification, 1999, §85–88, §91). In the Rwandan genocide, sex-selective killings targeted specifically Tutsi men, whereas Tutsi women frequently became the victims <strong>of</strong> sexual violence (Carpenter, 2006, p. 89; Ward, 2002; HRW, 1996). Acts <strong>of</strong> gender-based violence do not necessarily involve the use <strong>of</strong> weapons. However, arms are <strong>of</strong>ten directly or indirectly linked to violence, either through their presence or as the indirect consequences <strong>of</strong> armed violence. Surveys have shown, for example, that the presence <strong>of</strong> a gun in the household generally increases threefold the risk <strong>of</strong> becoming a homicide victim (Kellermann et al., 1993). ‘He was very angry and he took his Kalashnikov . . . <strong>The</strong> neighbours said: “Leave her alone” . . . But then he didn’t stop, he shot my legs, I could not feel them, they were numb, the sun was setting, I was looking at the sky, I said to the men: “I don’t want to die.” <strong>The</strong>y took me to the hospital.’ — Fatima, 19 years old, shot by her husband in Iraq in 2003 (AI, 2004) Attitudes and roles shaped by armed violence, for example through army training or the experiences <strong>of</strong> war, also contribute to gender-based violence. A study on domestic violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina shows that men returning from war face a ‘masculinity crisis’, which increases the likelihood <strong>of</strong> male violence and the abuse <strong>of</strong> women (CARE and ICRW, 2007, p. 8). <strong>Violence</strong> against women in conflict settings Women also die on the battlefield as combatants or members <strong>of</strong> fighting forces. Women have actively participated in armed conflicts in at least 57 countries since 1990 (Williams, 2005), including in Chechnya, El Salvador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Uganda (Barth, 2002; Peimani, 2004; McKay and Mazurana, 2004, pp. 21–23). In most cases, little data is available on the proportion <strong>of</strong> female combatants in armed forces or armed groups. <strong>The</strong> percentage <strong>of</strong> female soldiers in NATO countries’ armed forces varied between 0.5 and 20 per cent in 2005 and 2006 (Office on Women in the
NATO Forces and <strong>The</strong> Women’s Research & Education Institute, n.d.). In non-state armed groups, however, the proportions can be much higher. More than 30 per cent <strong>of</strong> the fighters in the following non-state armed groups were observed to be women: the Liberation Tigers <strong>of</strong> Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Communist Party <strong>of</strong> Nepal– Maoists, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), and the Sandinista National Liberation Front. 1 Fatality figures for armed groups with a high representation <strong>of</strong> women are not <strong>of</strong>ten available. However, during Eritrea’s war <strong>of</strong> independence, historians estimated that one-third <strong>of</strong> the 65,000 combat fatalities were women (Clodfelter, 2002, p. 612). <strong>The</strong> Iraq Coalition Casualty Count reports, as <strong>of</strong> 2 August 2008, 108 female fatalities among the Coalition Forces (including US forces) in Iraq, representing 2.4 per cent <strong>of</strong> a total 4,452 causali- ties. With increased gender equality in many armed forces, more women will be deployed to war theatres and the share <strong>of</strong> female combatant battle deaths may be expected to increase. While more men get killed on the battlefield, women and children are <strong>of</strong>ten disproportionately targets <strong>of</strong> other forms <strong>of</strong> potentially lethal violence during and after conflict. <strong>The</strong>se include sexual violence, secondary violence against sur- vivors <strong>of</strong> sexual violence (such as honour killings), and death from pregnancies or sexually trans- mitted infections resulting from rape. <strong>The</strong> scope and nature <strong>of</strong> the violence vary tremendously between conflicts (Wood, 2006). Women and girls are also likely to disproportionately suffer from the indirect consequences <strong>of</strong> armed conflict, such as reduced access to food, clean water, and health care (Plümper and Neumayer, 2006; Ghoborah, Huth, and Russett, 2003, p. 189). This leads both to indirect conflict deaths <strong>of</strong> women and girls, and to women and girls bearing the burden <strong>of</strong> others’ deaths and injuries, destroyed infrastructure, and the breakdown <strong>of</strong> law and order. This gendered burden is <strong>of</strong>ten neglected in assess- ments <strong>of</strong> the impact <strong>of</strong> armed conflict. It is not reflected either in conflict or battle death figures or in narrow calculations <strong>of</strong> costs <strong>of</strong> armed conflict to the economy Little quantitative evidence is available. This section therefore looks at vari- ous health-related and socio-economic aspects <strong>of</strong> the gendered burden <strong>of</strong> armed conflict on women to highlight some areas relevant to the global burden <strong>of</strong> armed violence. Photo " FARC soldiers march in a military parade at the main square <strong>of</strong> San Vicente del Caguan, Colombia, 2001. © Ricardo Mazalan/ AP Photo 113 A R M E D V I O L E N C E AG A I N S T WOMEN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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G L O B A L www.genevadeclaration.o
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G L O B A L www.genevadeclaration.o
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Foreword Armed vio
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Contents Executive Summary ........
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About the Geneva <
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of direct conflict
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Executive Summary Armed</st
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Figure 1 captures graphically the d
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This report also finds that the aft
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��
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Chapter One Direct Conflict Death <
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approaches that featured cross-nati
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us, non-state and intercommunal arm
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niques and inclusion requirements (
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Figure 1.2 Estimates of</st
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North Africa Sudan 7,284 1,098 2,60
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Map 1.1 The GBAV c
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�� Increasing di
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Table 1.4 Estimated direct conflict
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Table 1.7 Direct conflict death rat
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accounts overwhelmingly for the glo
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Chapter Two The Ma
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Sexual violence in armed conflict a
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continued for six months due to the
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Table 2.1 Comparison of</st
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of sexual violence
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can be explained by the relatively
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Box 2.3 A very dark number: direct
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Photo Victims of v
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Table 2.5 Violent death estimates f
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Chapter Three Armed</strong
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ized by a clear victory of<
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On the basis of Ch
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illegal war economies, including th
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standards issued by UNHCR emphasize
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Table 3.4 Risk factors for youth vi
Page 73 and 74: Map 3.2 The youth
Page 75 and 76: Given the potential importance <str
Page 77 and 78: interventions based on identified n
Page 79 and 80: Chapter Four Lethal Encounters: Non
Page 81 and 82: violence in Mexico in 2007-08 (BBC,
Page 83 and 84: comparisons between regions <strong
Page 85 and 86: tively. The Caribb
Page 87 and 88: the homicide count is derived. None
Page 89 and 90: Table 4.1 National-level homicide t
Page 91 and 92: sistent increases during the time p
Page 93 and 94: Box 4.3 Sex, age, and armed violenc
Page 95 and 96: The police are sat
Page 97 and 98: American countries have similar tre
Page 99 and 100: evidence on the patterns and distri
Page 101 and 102: Chapter Five What’s in a Number?
Page 103 and 104: observe that war has negative effec
Page 105 and 106: Box 5.1 Accounting for the costs <s
Page 107 and 108: of conflict and co
Page 109 and 110: Table 5.2 The soci
Page 111 and 112: In Uganda, a protracted armed confl
Page 113 and 114: �� Lost product
Page 115 and 116: Figure 5.3 Potential gains in life
Page 117 and 118: playing a role in promoting an end
Page 119 and 120: 16 Specifically, the health and yea
Page 121 and 122: Chapter Six Armed
Page 123: (Myrttinen, 2003, p. 38). T
Page 127 and 128: go missing, or are killed. In such
Page 129 and 130: disaggregated data is still not ava
Page 131 and 132: Acts of sexual vio
Page 133 and 134: Dowry-related violence A dowry is t
Page 135 and 136: sex ratios reported at birth is pre
Page 137 and 138: Chapter Seven Other Forms o
Page 139 and 140: will likely emerge. Armed</
Page 141 and 142: Gangs in Central America Central Am
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Page 145 and 146: The absence <stron
Page 147 and 148: Table 7.1 Recorded cases of
Page 149 and 150: Figure 7.2 Kidnap for ransom cases
Page 151 and 152: armed violence, since, beyond the d
Page 153 and 154: Bibliography Executive Summary CNP
Page 155 and 156: Burr, M. 1993. A Working Document:
Page 157 and 158: Thieren, Michael. 2005. ‘Health I
Page 159 and 160: ——. 2008. Small Arms Survey 200
Page 161 and 162: Nations-Survey-on-Crime-Trends-and-
Page 163 and 164: ground Paper. Geneva</stron
Page 165 and 166: --. 2003. ‘Masculinities and Masc
Page 167 and 168: ights-and-wrongs-of</strong
Page 169 and 170: Boxes List of Illu
Page 171 and 172: Map 4.1 Homicide rates per 100,000
Page 173 and 174: Figure 2.1 Typology of</str
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