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Women’s Bodies as War Booties

by Rosanna Langara on May 12, 2013 at 7:59 am

Women are wooed. Women are raped. Women are impregnated.
Women are abducted. Women are raped. Women become mentally ill.
Women are wrongly accused. Women are raped. Women get death threats.
Women are raped. Women are raped. Women are raped.
Different women, same stories: sexual violence in conflict.

In Southeast Asia, there are civil wars going on. In fact, the region is touted as “home to the world’s longest ongoing civil wars.” Burma, Philippines, and south of Thailand – these are just few of the countries in the region with wars in progress.

Why do wars happen? War is about owning and controlling the natural and mineral resources of the region, as the Center for Women’s Resources (CWR) has stated in its international paper presentation on militarization in Southeast Asia (2008 and 2010). Aside from resource exploitation, it is also about political control. As the imperialist powers of the West are now in economic depression, they have an urgent need to gain hegemonic control in resource-rich Asia. Concurrently, national despotic governments welcome and encourage imperialist intervention because they are also gaining from it.

The real objective of economic plunder and political control has been guised as “war on terror”. Alarmingly, this has also labelled Southeast Asia as the second front of terror, thus legitimizing the intervention of imperialist troops in the region.

The ensuing deaths and displacements in conflict areas are inevitable. But over and above these casualties of war is another horrendous phenomenon: the use of rape as a tool of war.  According to a report published by the Nobel Women's Initiative in 2011, sexual violence is widespread in armed conflicts around the world, and the perpetrators of these war crimes are benefitting from a culture of impunity.

In Southeast Asia, the perpetrators are almost always state agents – the military, the police, and the state’s auxiliary armed groups. end military and police rape

The terrorism scare has intensified the horror experienced by Southeast Asian women. As the CWR paper has stated, war has displayed the patriarchal modes of abuse like rape and other forms of sexual exploitation. Thus, with a patriarchal mindset of perpetrators, rape and other sexual abuses are used:

  • As a trophy of triumph/ victory;
  • Especially among communities that are rebel strongholds, to crush a male rebel’s pride, his wife, mother, sister, or daughter would be raped, a mindset of “to destroy a warrior, debase his woman”; and
  • Women and girls are considered as part of the soldiers’ rest and recreation. 

The Burma Army, for instance, has had a long record of appalling human rights abuses, especially in the conflict zones of ethnic states.

In the rural areas, there is so much trafficking and rape cases and sexual abuse.  Women who are living in the Kachin state, who are living in the midst of the civil war – are raped by soldiers and the military,” says JASS’ Wendy Maw, a young human rights advocate from Burma.  

Moon Nay Li of the Kachin Women’s Association (KWA), who has documented gang rapes in Kachin State, highlighted that victims are as young as nine years old, and half of the victims in cases she documented in 2011 were killed after being raped. The rape of women, committed rampantly in and around Kachin State, is recognized as a “systemic and calculated war tactic” rather than a random act of violence.

“Not only is the government not protecting civilians or stopping the Burmese troops, Thein Sein and Aung Min are denying human rights abuses. Now that the fighting has increased, the government troops will use this pretext to continue raping, torturing and killing,” says Moon Nay Li in a 2011 news report.

filipino women condemn military rapeIn the Philippines, cases of sexual abuse against women and girls living in militarized areas are being committed by no less than Philippine military personnel. From 2010 to 2012, CWR has documented at least seven cases of abuse, ranging from sexual harassment, rape and gang rape by the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP’s) regular units and its paramilitary wing the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU). Majority of the victims are minors. 

The incidence of rape in the Philippines is indeed alarming. But this situation is being exacerbated when the supposed protector of human rights -- the state machinery such as the military, police and its auxiliary armed groups, is directly involved as perpetrators,” says an excerpt from a statement released by GABRIELA, a national alliance of grassroots organizations in the Philippines.

To quote Jojo Guan, CWR’s executive director, in the paper “Militarization in Southeast Asia: The Myth of Terrorism, the Reality of Resource Wars”:

Southeast Asian Women have experienced different abuses such as rape, forced prostitution, sex trafficking, and health-related threats. Women are considered as ‘spoils of war’ and rape is seen as inevitable, though unfortunate, by-products of armed conflict. Rape is systematically used for various purposes including intimidation, humiliation, political terror, extracting information, rewarding of soldiers, and “ethnic cleansing”. Those who are raped or sexually abused can hardly find a support system for counselling and processing of their traumatic experience.”

In the two countries mentioned, sustained efforts to assist and give justice to the women victims are ongoing. In Burma, the Kachin Women’s Association has been documenting the sexual violence that is happening in the Kachin conflict areas. It has also been active in condemning the Burma Army and releasing its findings and statements in the international community. In the Philippines, some of the victims are given psycho-social counselling by psychologists of GABRIELA. Local and international campaigns led by GABRIELA, with a call to criminalize the perpetrators, are also ongoing. Petition letters and solidarity statements are part of this campaign.

no to rape as a tool of war jass philippinesThe most recent One Day, One Voice (ODOV) regional campaign of JASS Southeast Asia carried “ending rape as a tool of war” as one of the calls of the JASS network in the Philippines. “One Fight, One Voice: Women, Assert Your Rights” was the overarching theme of the ODOV and JASS network in the Philippines’ December 2012 photo opportunity activity was one among the string of activities in commemoration of the global 16 Days of Activism to End Violence against Women.  

“With JASS’ responsive regional and international structure and processes, local-to-global solidarity and action which place frontline activists and agendas at the heart of our social justice work, crusade against rape, initiated by our JASS partners in Southeast Asia, is definitely one campaign that we will focus on in the future,” says Nani Zulminarni, JASS Southeast Asia’s regional director.

Beyond the call to criminalize the state agents involved is the wider call to stop the broader state strategy of militarization of communities that make women easy targets of sexual violence.

The campaigns launched by different Southeast Asian women’s groups are just the beginning. Their message will resonate in the days to come: women’s bodies are NOT war booties!

Photo credit: Macky Macaspac of Pinoy Weekly, Janess Ann J. Ellao of www.bulatlat.com

Resource Topic:
Violence
Region:
JASS Southeast Asia
Comments: 0

Remembering Women in Zimbabwe’s Land Reform

by Adelaide Mazwarira on May 7, 2013 at 2:09 pm

A few weeks ago, I attended a discussion on Land Grabbing in Zimbabwe. As a Zimbabwean who grew up on a farm, I assumed I knew everything there was to know about this issue. Yet, like most people, I had understood this process from a racial, class & historical perspective because the debates around this issue focus almost entirely on the infamous brutality of the “fast track” resettlement program in 2000.

However, after this discussion, I realized that there was an untold story to the land issue in Zimbabwe – an untold story that has always existed even before colonization. This is the story of women – my grandmothers, aunts and sisters who I grew up watching primarily work on this land – but who have been denied a chapter to this story. Since the debates around the land reform are largely constructed around race and economic growth, gender issues are either ignored or unanalyzed. So, as I pondered away in thought, I was led to ask, “If women play a central role in farming, why is their access to land minimal?”

women-land-Actionaid

It is clear that other issues are at play here. Despite women’s central role in farming, their subordinate position mediated by cultural and social expectations often inhibits their ability to own land. In a culture that privileges men, it is no surprise that women’s entitlement to land and home comes through marriage. This immediately draws me to memories of my grandmother working the rural field to produce crops and vegetables to feed her family while my grandfather worked in the city. I even remember the few times where my grandmother tried albeit futilely to show me how to hold and use garden hoe every time I went to visit her because it was viewed as an important trait to have to be considered “marriage” material. Therefore, not only are women expected to play certain roles in order to be considered “worthy” of marriage, but these same roles are used to further entrench their position. In this context, marriage then takes on deeper and symbolic implications for women’s access to resources i.e. land.

If women’s access to land is mediated through male power and control, how then do we address their plight? Clearly, simply advocating for a land reform program is not enough because even though Zimbabwe has been in the process of redistributing land (although problematic), it is estimated that only 20% of women have received land. While the current land reform, divided into two parts A1 and A2 shows women as significant beneficiaries in the former, it is still not clear whether these are just women who have been able to capitalize on their use of social networks and political party affiliations to acquire land. In any case, the need to give women more access to land remains an extremely important and controversial issue in Zimbabwe.

It is thus important to create a land reform program that addresses the inequalities that women suffer. Yet, this is not an easy task because the very act of distributing more land to women implies challenging the spaces were men are in control. In this patriarchal culture, men's power is derived from their ability to not only control resources, but also, who has access to them. As a result, fighting for equal rights for women often contradicts their main cultural identities as married women, mothers, etc, while threatening men’s identity and power.

Consequently, there is a conflict between cultural practices, attitudes and laws that constrict women’s role and individual modern rights that seek to broaden this role. Hopefully the new Referendum will provide a changing landscape for women in Zimbabwe to challenge programs and laws that either discriminate against them or simply ignore them as citizens worthy of the same resources that the government declares belongs to its “citizens”. With the help of organizations such as Women and Land Lobby Group (WLLG), women’s plight when it comes to land will continue to be put on the table and eventually be included in the narrative for land rights in Zimbabwe.

Photo credit: Actionaid

Resource Topic:
Economic justice, Gender equality, Women’s human rights
Region:
JASS Crossregional
Comments: 0

Tackling Women’s Stake on the Post-2015 Agenda

by Rosanna Langara on April 30, 2013 at 2:12 am

“Our lives are not dependent on our governments. Many governments actually fail to do their duty. They just leave the women and the people to struggle alone,” says Dina Lumbantobing of JASS Southeast Asia. 

In a bid to address the continuing exclusion of civil society organizations (CSOs) and social movements from government processes, hundreds of activists and grassroots leaders joined the Global Civil Society Organizations (CSO) Forum on the Post‐2015 Development Agenda held last March 23-24, 2013 in Bali, Indonesia.

In 2000, world leaders came together to adopt the United Nations Millennium Declaration, with nations “committing to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets – with a deadline of 2015.” These are known as the millennium development goals (MDGs) – key themes of which include: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women.

For the past 13 years, most Asian governments boast of significant improvements especially in poverty reduction. But recent estimates peg that of those people living below the poverty line, 950 million are in Asia-Pacific. In addition, almost sixty-five percent or 518 million of the world’s adult illiterates reside in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the 2012 Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report. As for gender parity in education, 68 countries still have not achieved gender parity in primary education, and girls are disadvantaged in sixty of them.

What should have been a genuine interest and commitment to achieve these MDG goals has become mere lip service and application of mechanical approaches and solutions. Though not explicitly declared in the forum, the “globalization” framework or the “neoliberal paradigm” is a failure.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) from the Asia-Pacific increasingly demand not just consultation, but a more meaningful participation in the crafting of a global development agenda. CSOs’ call is to be “engaged as an equal partner in all political processes to co-determine a bold, transformative and people-centred framework.” In the Global CSO event, women’s presence was markedly very strong. Sealing women’s voices was the drafting and release of a Women’s Caucus statement which registered women’s demands for a more equitable, just, gender-fair and inclusive development framework post-2015.

One of JASS Southeast Asia’s pillars, Dina Lumbantobing, took part in the drafting of the statement as she participated in the global dialogue on behalf of the Executive Council of the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE).

The Women’s Caucus’ statement can be used by women everywhere, especially for Southeast Asia, as reference to demand for the new paradigm post-2015. This event can contribute to the improvement of women’s condition in the region.  But although Southeast Asian women can use these platforms and agreements to our advantage, these are not enough. We have two more years to go before 2015 and many things can happen. We all know the ‘clever style’ of rich countries to avoid their promises,” says Dina Lumbantobing.   

While there have been some steps forward to meet some of the MDG targets and to spur efforts to focus on poverty reduction, undeniably, significant work remains to be done.

According to estimates, half of the world’s population lives on less than US$2.50 per day, and nearly one in seven people live in hunger while one in five suffer from obesity. The wealthiest 20 per cent of the world enjoy more than 80 per cent of total world’s wealth, while the bottom 20 per cent share only 1 per cent.

“We can definitely learn from the statements and also from other sources on the failure of MDGs and other target such as Education for All, to be more focused on the importance of gender perspectives, education and lifelong learning, especially for women,” adds Dina. 

The Women’s Caucus was led for the most part by the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD). Part of the Women’s Caucus statement reads:

The current development model, which gives corporations control over our natural wealth, water and resources, as well as technology and intellectual property, while depriving women of land and food sovereignty, undermines gender equality, sends communities into conflict with governments, increases militarization, and women's vulnerability to violence and economic shock. This must change.

 
The new development framework must recognise that patriarchal systems and practices are a major impediment for development. Ending violence against women and girls and promoting democratic empowerment and leadership of women at home, in the community, nationally and internationally is a fundamental prerequisite for women’s rights enjoyment, gender equality, sustainable development and genuine democracy.”

This is where JASS, as a force that drives feminist organizing efforts in the region, play a crucial role.  No matter how effective or ineffective women are at influencing our governments to adopt more people-centred policies, of greater magnitude is the strength of women’s and people’s voices. Apart from amplifying women’s voices, JASS can also play an instrumental role in knowledge building especially to gauge if MDGs are effective and are rooted in women’s needs.

“The impact that we want to create is not only through the statements that we make in these fora, but also, and more important, how hard and solid we are on the ground and in the women’s movement to convince them,” concludes Dina.  

Governments make decisions that leave women and marginalized peoples excluded. In the final tally, when governments fail the people, it is the people who suffer. It is only fair for women, along with other marginalized sectors of society, to claim spaces and platforms such as the Global CSO Forum to make their voices heard.

Photo Credit: Nila Wardani

Resource Topic:
Empowerment
Region:
JASS Southeast Asia
Comments: 0

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