The Continuum of Violence Linking Gender-Based Violence in War and Peace during Conflict, Flight, Encampment and Post-Resettlement

Feminist scholarship, over the last number of years, has studied sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) during conflict worldwide with a significant body of literature produced. However, connecting this type of violence through the different phases of conflict as a continuum, is still overlooked. Instead, gendered violence, outside the feminist scholarship, is often presented as different sets of cases. In particular to this essay, I wish to apply the feminist lens of the continuum of violence throughout the differing stages of direct conflict, indirect conflict and post-conflict in relation to refugee situations. Gendered conflict in a native country, flight, displacement and resettlement exists uninterrupted and must be interrogated in order to fully understand its prevalence.

Such violence during wartime has merited the attention of many war and peace scholars who suggest that such acts, such as the use of rape, are not necessarily the result of male sexual urges but rather include elements of societal and politically formed acts. Seeking asylum from conflict is undertaken in order to obtain safety, however, feminist and refugee literature suggests that throughout camps and resettlement centers these risks are still faced despite protective measures. The possibility to overlook the connection of this violence happens when one focuses on its existence in different scenarios, rather than an examination as a whole. This argument was originally proposed by Elizabeth Ferris in 1990 and later articulated by Cynthia Cockburn.

With this essay, I wish to add to the debate through employing the concept of conflict-induced displacement to highlight the conflict-displacement nexus by which refugee situations are understood in post-conflict settings. This paper will first propose a lens of analysis for this study with a theoretical framework outlining and concept explanation section. The analysis of violence throughout differing phases will capture its forms, scopes and structures with a particular focus on the reality of gendered violence in conflict related to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This will extend to an examination of SGBV in Irish direct provision centers post resettlement. The following section shall then bring the debate together and explore this violence as a continuum before a conclusion of my findings and thoughts.

Lens of Analysis and Concept Explanations

Using a gender analysis is essentially a “matter of seeing” and at a very minimum, interrogating how policies and events affect men and women in different ways (Cockburn, 2001). This paper examines conflict-induced displacement which is understood as situations in which people leave their homes to escape violence which can include political, social, economic and even ecological aspects. Contemporary scholarship has given recognition to the gendered forms this violence can take which can be described as “an umbrella term for any harmful act that is perpetrated against a person’s will, and that is based on socially ascribed (gender) differences between males and females” (IASC, 2005). This can take many forms including physical, psychological, emotional and sexual acts and threats. A diversity of forms of violence must then be understood going forward in this paper beyond the use of rape, sexual exploition, trafficking and other forms of sexual forms of violence. This recognises that not only perpetrated acts, but also attempted acts beyond the scope of sexual violence is relevant as long as it conducted as a result of socially prescribed gender differences. Intimate partner relationships which can include psychological structures such as barriers to obtaining resources can exceed purely physical structures. The diversity of this violence and its perpetrators and victims must also not be solely understood as being conducted by men against women. The acquainted or unacquainted relationship between victim and perpetrator doesn’t always follow binary categories.

Scholarly work, historically, has suggested that wartime sexual and gendered violence was conducted due to the ‘sexual urge’ or those in battle, with such violence as an almost regrettable side effect of conflict. Instead of this lens legitimizing the use of such acts, recent work has drawn attention to the social and political aspects of this violence as a weapon to impact the opposing party in the conflict. Eriksson Baaz and Stern (2009) , in their examination of gendered violence in the DRC has found such soldiers classify the use of rape as “the normalized ‘rape’ that stems from lust and want… and the rape which is evil, inhuman, and connected to brutality and violence”. The latter form is considered “not acceptable – but still ‘understandable’”. However, as the war-peace continuum suggests, the end of conflict does not necessarily mean the end of such violence and this is greatly highlighted in refugee situations.

War in the Congo:

Gender analysis tells us that experiences of violence in conflict are profoundly gendered (Giles and Hyndman, 2004). Articulated by Cockburn (2001), “men and women often die different deaths and are tortured in different ways… because of the different means culturally ascribed to the male and female bodies”. The DRC has been chosen as a case study as SGBV, especially against women, has been the focus of sustained advocacy by human rights organisations in the country. Secondly, DRC has many customary practices and traditions which wield unequal power relations based on gender, such as arranged marriages and patrilocal residence (UN, 2004). These will allow for some depth of research material. An absence of research on the subject of SGBV prior to conflict makes any generalisations problematic, however, Eriksson Baaz and Stern argue that it did exist (2009). This is somewhat supported by Barker and Ricardo’s (2005) study which finds SGBV common features of adult intimate relationships in Sub Saharan Africa. Wood and Jewkes (2001) find that, not specifically to the DRC, but some African cultures sanction domestic violence to the private realm as a means of discipline. This allows for a greater understanding in exploring a continuum of violence in war and peace among the Congolese people.

Conflict in the DRC has been extremely complex and has involved local, national and regional dimensions of violence (Autesserre, 2009). The DRC has been inextricably embedded in the context of other conflicts in the region resulting in a plethora of actors involved in the DRC at any one time and an extremely unstable military landscape. In recent decades there has arguably been “no abrupt cut-off between war and post-war” with failing peace agreements and violence ongoing (Cockburn, 2001). A transfer of power from former President Joseph Kabila, who ruled for eighteen years and had delayed elections multiple times, marked the first peaceful transfer of power in the DRC’s history. However, election results have since been questioned and over one hundred armed groups are believed to be in operation in the eastern region of the DRC.

Sexual and Gendered-Based Violence in Conflict

“There is no doubt that rape is a method in this environment to create continued instability – dominance is very prominent. And it is without question the worst environment that I have seen”

Colonel Roddy Winser, UN Peacekeeper Chief of Staff Eastern DRC Division (quoted in Jackson 2007).

During the first conflict between 1996 and 2003, Pratt and Werchick (2004) found that “a minimum tens of thousands of women have been raped”. Merger (2010) examines the region over an extended timeline of ten years and found that “hundreds of thousands of women and girls in the DRC have been raped.” Despite these immense figures, both these studies have examined reported cases of sexual violence and one can easily assume that given the cases that go unreported, the scale could be greatly higher. Studies such as that conduced by the OCHR (2011) demonstrate the horrific forms SBV in the DRC has taken – rape, gang rape, sex-slavery, defilement, and genital manipulation. GBV further occurring, and often overlooked due to the intensity of sexual violence, includes the abduction and subsequent forced recruitment into rebel groups. Forced recruitment can be understood to be a neglected form of GBV which mainly affects men. However, in the DRC it has been noted that women and girls have also been abducted and forced into fighting structures to facilitate their “smooth running” through domestic support and also sexual slavery (Krause, 2015).

The perpetrators of this SGBV have mainly been members belonging to unidentifiable militia groups, the Congolese armed forces and the police (Maedl, 2010; Pratt and Werchick, 2004). Whereas many victims have been unable to identify the perpetrators of these crimes, they often refer to them as “uniformed men” (Krause, 2015). An interview conducted by the Irish Rape Centre (2014) of a DRC refugee women living in Ireland is one such example:

“Rose was kidnapped by three soldiers and held for three days, during which time she was beaten, threatened, tortured, raped repeatedly and then abandoned. Her parents cast her off, believing that she had brought shame on the family and was now ‘impure’.

Unacquainted and impersonal in nature, men and boys have also faced attacks and suffered from stigmatization and exclusion as a consequence (OCHR, 2011). Attacks have followed the idea of being planned assaults, taking place in front of family members or community leaders. The sometimes intentional visibility of such acts is therefore important, concerning it to both the private and the public sphere. This has been found to constitute almost 40% of all attacks, with the remaining 60% taking place away from witnesses (Ohambe et. al, 2005). The gendered violence during civil conflict in the DRC can be referred to a strategic weapon of war, due to its systematic and widespread nature. Attackers were reported to have “repeatedly told their victims that they were being raped to ‘punish them’” (HRW, 2009). Krause (2015) states that most refugees believe the use of rape was used “to create fear and hurt or banish communities and for pleasure and relief”. This asserts the findings of Eriksson Baaz and Stern (2009) previously mentioned concerning ‘normal’ rape and ‘evil’ rape which has been used in conflict as an act of degradation, power and domination against opposing fighting parties.

Violence During Flight and in Refugee Camps and Settlements:

The resulting violence in the DRC has led to the displacement of millions of people. As it currently stands, 4.5 million Congolese people are displaced internally (IDP) while a further 826,000 are being hosted in other African countries (UNCHR, 2019). While most studies focus on the threat of violence in a native country in conflict, little attention is directed towards its existing nature during flight. With social systems utterly disrupted, those fleeing face incredibly vulnerability. Interviews of Congolese refugees describe the suffering of attempting to seek safety with one woman describing once “reaching the border to Uganda, Congolese armed men stopped them. These men, whom she refers to as soldiers, attacked them and killed her sister in front of them to punish them for fleeing.” Another Congolese woman stated “while fleeing DRC she was raped twice by different men. Although she did not know the men, she explicitly pointed out that they were also fleeing DRC” (Krause, 2015). Despite one assuming that a collective sense of support and understanding towards each other would exist among those fleeing, this study points to the contrary. Threats are compounded for unaccompanied minors or those travelling alone.

Despite longing for protection and safety, NGO reports working with refugees consistently demonstrate the high rates of SGBV occurring in camps despite a reluctance in reporting crimes. Karuhanga Atuhaire and Ndirangiu (2018) examine the high incidence of SGBV among refugees from the DRC in Kenya and Uganda. As of 31 December 2018, Kenya had approximately 42,288 refugees of DRC origin who mainly live in urban areas throughout Nairobi (UNCHR, 2019). In Uganda, Congolese refugees are situated in the southwest in Kyaka I and II, Rwamwanja, and Nakivale settlements. As of 31 December 2018, there were 312,691 biometrically registered as refugees and asylum seekers refugees from the DRC in the country (UNCHR, 2019). This study has found that in instances where women and girls are employed domestically, most have reported being sexually abused by their male employers or by male members of the households where they work. Karuhanga Atuhaire and Ndirangiu (2018) also state that intimate partner or male family abuse is highly prevalent among camps and settlements in Kenya and Uganda. Tol et. al (2017) examined Congolese women residing in Nyarugusu refugee camp which hosts 60,000 DRC refugees located in northwest Tanzania. In a similar manner they discovered that “two of every five women reported physical intimate partner violence, and one quarter reported ever experiencing sexual intimate partner violence.”

Irish studies by the Rape Crisis Centre (RCC) in 2014 can give us insights into the continuum of SGBV in conflict. Their centres provide essential services to survivors of sexual assault in Ireland, including asylum seekers and refugees. Almost one quarter (23%) of asylum seekers and refugees accessing the services originated from the DRC and 83% were residing in direct provision centres. 90% of incidents of sexual violence perpetrated against refugee and asylum seekers involved forms of violence in addition to the sexual violence, most notably physical and psychological. 46% of those accessing the services were assaulted by security forces, a further 18% by strangers and 5% by sex purchasers. Refugee and asylum seekers using the services were also highly likely to report multiple perpetrators per incident. More than half of the incidents reported involved more than one perpetrator and 11% of these experienced incidents involving 5 or more perpetrators. Most notable from this report is the fact that the vast majority of survivors did not report their complaint, 84%. This shockingly high number proves that when examining statistics of SGBV in times of conflict and post-conflict, numbers are very difficult to account for.

Violence in Irish Reception Centres:

Highlighting the “unboundedness” in war of where conflict begins and ends, following the official cessation of hostilities or n a place totally removed from the conflict, violence often continues with “strong continuities with what happened during wars, and with the nature of gender relations in society prior to armed conflicts” (Pankhurst, 2008). SGBV is still a risk for refugees and asylum seekers in reception centres in western countries, which are normally deemed to have higher protection against such violence. The Direct Provision system in Ireland was clearly not designed with the needs of survivors of SGBV in mind. As Scriver (2011) notes, living in Direct Provision is proven to “increase women’s vulnerability to sexual violence, while suspending the recovery of those who have already experienced it.”

The burgeoning and clandestine sex industry in Ireland is another factor which leads to a reinforcement of violence for migrant women. A study by the Immigrant Council of Ireland (2009) found that there are close to 1,000 women in indoor prostitution in Ireland with up to 97% being migrants. Although many of the migrant women working in Ireland’s sex industry are trafficked, there is a considerable amount of women living in the Direct Provision system who are forced into sex working as it is the only viable form of generating income. Seven incidents of forced prostitution and or trafficking were reported to have happened in Ireland by asylum seekers and refugees in Ireland in 2012 to the RCC (RCC, 2014). This relatively small number of reports largely corresponds with data from An Garda Síochána, who recorded 8 cases of reported trafficking of asylum seekers in 2012 (RIA, 2013). However, such incidences are likely under-reported. A fear of authority with a prior experience of police in an asylum seeker or refugees country of origin may also affect them coming forward to Gardai with assaults. The RCC (2014) finds that “many experience sexual harassment in the DP centres. They do not usually tell us about this for some time or until it comes up.” AkiDwa (2012) reported that “a number of asylum seekers have reported being solicited for sex or offers of pimping by fellow residents of a DP centre, ex-residents, employees and others outside of the DP system.” The position of authority that DP staff are in and the control they have over residents over material needs leads to extreme power imbalances and any sexual actions or suggestions should therefore be inappropriate and constitute sexual harassment and/or abuse.

Young girls “are particularly vulnerable to becoming targets of men both inside and outside the hostels. Children living in DP Hostels are incredibly vulnerable to grooming and abuse” (RCC, 2014). In such cases isolation and a lack of support exists as people find themselves displaced, attempt to integrate into a foreign country and are often separated from their family. With the extremely low weekly allowances asylum seekers and refugees receive in Ireland and the inability to work, those with “low self-worth, little money and usually no family they can be targeted and manipulated easily” (RCC, 2014). Gender imbalances in centres remains an area of concern, for example, in Cork one DP centre housed 94 men and just 8 women (RIA, 2013). There are no direct provision centres that accommodate only women. As a result, single men may be accommodated in rooms next to single women and female-headed single parent families. Men and women may also be required to use shared bathroom facilities which AkiDwa (2012) has reported to create additional stress for survivors and avoidance behaviours, such as urinating in buckets at night time. The lack of integration and overcrowding of people in DP centres from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, no privacy, traumatisation, economic vulnerability, lack of knowledge of reporting procedures and fear of authority severely increases vulnerability of GBV.

A Continuum of Violence:

Case studies examined reveal the continued prevalence of sexual and gendered violence not solely in conflict and displacement, but also in flight and in countries of relocation. Despite attempts to escape violence and security and seek safety outside of conflict zones, SGBV still constitutes a very real threat. The study of violence throughout different phases supports the feminist argument that the end of conflict does not necessarily equate the end of violence. Instead, there is a connectedness between violence in very different stages and environments of conflict and even in scenarios outside all conflict zones and areas of peace. I have overviewed this complexity regardless of gender or location. This has allowed for a generalisation of the different structures and relations involved including between victim and perpetrator, forms of attacks and spaces of violence. In the specific case of the DRC, in times of conflict in that nation, SGBV has been notably perpetrated by unacquainted members of ‘uniformed men’ against mainly female victims, although attacks against makes still prevail. These attacks have been found to be commonly used as a systematic weapon on war in public and private spheres. Domestic violence within households has also been reported, taking place disconnected from the conflict at hand. During flight, unacquainted SGBV attacks continued by armed groups but also took place by those also seeking safety to spread fear and steal. In refugee camps and settlements in lower-income countries, a range of violent acts took place with attempts and threats of SGBV carried out by unacquainted and acquainted individuals who were male refugees, nationals and NGO staff. In resettlement in developed countries, overcrowding, lack of integration, economic frustrations and vulnerabilities and a lack of psychological care also led to SGBV attacks.

Examined in such a way,a linearity of the prevalence of certain violence existing becomes obvious and a continuum of violence is recognised. Although forms, structures and conditions can appear complex and the pattern between each stage could be said to be widening due to the increased range of SGBV, the violence does not occur in isolation of the previous. Although contexts change, what contributes to the continuum of violence? Each phase is dynamically connected through the social, political, economic and psychological factors present in each context. Gendered power structures, as argued by feminist theory, is the main factor explaining the continuum throughout all the different contexts examined above.

Gendered Power Structures

Cockburn (2001) argues that it is gender that links these acts of violence that women experience at various sites, from the personal to the international, in a “gendered continuum of violence”. It is true that the entire process of conflict and ultimate migratory experience is a gendered one. Gender-specific experiences shape and impact women and men very differently. As Krause (2015) states, “all political, social, and economic relations are gender relations determined by the experiences and contexts of coexistence, whether they take place in a familiar but changing space.” Due to the changing environments and settings the migratory experience undertakes, gender roles must constantly be renegotiated and cannot remain static. Previous to conflict, patriarchal social systems often exist with men as the decision-makers of a household. These familiar power imbalances are disrupted during conflict as men and women face violence in public and private spheres. This can entail women taking on more responsibility, while some men lose their traditional roles. This aspect leading to a continuum of violence is especially evident in encampment and resettlement. In Irish DP centres, residents are primarily rendered dependent upon the state. Men can feel isolated from society at large as they are unable to engage physically, socially or economically. Their inability to achieve the essentialised masculine ideal leads to feelings of “inadequacy, guilt and shame” among the male residents (Hewson, 2014). Ironically, one consequence of this disruption in male gender norms serves to perpetuate a different male gender norm – that of aggression and violence. There are many reasons for outbursts of violence among men living in Direct Provision Centres. Violence is a common trait exhibited by unemployed and disaffected young men. Similarly, it may be caused by a feeling of hopelessness and frustration due to the dependence and inactivity these men are subject to. Having been stripped of so much of their male identity by this system, many men will act out in violent and aggressive ways to claim back their gender identity in one of the few ways that they can, thus very deliberately reinforcing male gender norms. This supports Barker and Ricardo’s (2005) research on masculinities in Sub Saharan Africa where they identified that achieving manhood often requires reaching a certain financial independence. However, emasculation can arise in times of poverty, neglect and hunger. Unable to achieve the normal route to become ‘real men’, force can be used to embody that masculinity (Eriksson Baaz and Stern, 2009).

Beyond Gender:

An increased environment of lawlessness is also evident in each phase examined. A lack of legal regulations and governance leads to crimes being conducted on a broad scale by parties in conflict and additionally by other fleeing persons becoming perpetrators during flight. In such instances, there is a complete inability of national authorities to protect its citizens. As Enloe (2002) posits, women’s needs and concerns are often marginalised in militarised societies in favour of the male combatants. This is since women do not have the military credit to speak and are overlooked from the conflict. In refugee camps and settlements in neighbouring countries, despite refugee law stating that the host country is responsible for their protection, the law is often not accessible or sufficiently implemented. An impunity of the perpetrators begins to exist as the host country struggles to deal with the, oftentimes, extremely large numbers of new arrivals at its borders. Power imbalances and fears over their asylum application success, merged with a distrust for authorities can lead to a huge amount of underreporting of crimes in Irish DP centres. It can therefore be assumed that law enforcement also plays a significant role in the continuum of SGBV.

Post-traumatic stress disorders can lead to insomnia, emotional withdrawals, avoidance mechanisms and attachment disorders. However, for those it affects, it can also lead to increased irritability and aggressiveness which directly relates to the continuum of violence. Studies have found that experiencing and witnessing violence in refugee settlements increases the likelihood of developing disorder symptoms. Witnessing traumatic events is found to psychologically impact persons more than experiencing the violence itself directly and it greatly increases anxiety. However, in times of conflict, it is assumed that combatants and perpetrators experience trauma, just as their victims and civilians do. In the case of the Rwandan genocide, neuropsychological studies found that engagement in sexual violence by combatants meant they were less likely to experience PTSD (Weierstall, 2011). The continued use of SGBV outside of being a systematic and planned element of conflict, could then perhaps attempted to be explained by this. This is also relevant as combatants are also found in refugee populations and they also flee and seek safety. Following the end of violent conflict, the culture of sexual violence that was created during the conflict may remain and is exacerbated by psychological distress.

Conclusions

Regardless of the amount of sophisticated feminist literature in relation to conflict and security studies, Tickner’s (1992) remark still stands true almost twenty-five years later that IR has been slow to take gender seriously. There have been many changes to the traditional “war front” with separation between it and the “home front” becoming particularly blurred and intertwined (Pankhurst, 2003). As feminist scholars have attempted to make women’s experiences of war more ‘visible’, it has happened alongside the sad fact that “bodies, homes, communities and livelihoods have become the battlefields of contemporary conflict” (Giles and Hyndman, 2004). This paper has attempted to analyse the continuum of SGBV during the different stages of conflict, migration and resettlement based on existing reports about the prevalence of SGBV in each stage. This paper reveals that through such interviews with refugees and asylum seekers, the persistence of SGBV follows a definite pattern. The acts committed throughout are strongly related and interdependent with power and the idea of a hegemonic masculine society. This paper has also shown the effects that law enforcement and traumatisation can have. SGBV remained a definite threat in times of chaos in conflict and also in resettlement in developed countries. Despite Ireland being considered a safe country for refugees to migrate to, the violence of war has continued to follow such migrants. When it comes to survivors of SGBV the direct provision system reinforces gender norms by exacerbating the situation, isolating these women and therefore further subordinating them. People remain subordinate to the state and the perpetrators of the violence, as many are stuck in centres with no specific services or support available to them. People remain vulnerable to further incidents of SGBV through overcrowding, lack of segregation and poverty. I believe that the continuum of sexual and gender-based violence permeates the entire conflict process and its aftermath. Although this paper doesn’t examine in detail the power structures that existed in the DRC pre-conflict, questioning whether the continuum fully embraces pre-war times in the case of DRC is a difficult one has the country has been involved in direct violence for the last two decades. When the war first began, refugees from the DRC have stated that domestic violence also existed with one man disclosing that “the ones who beat their wives, most of them, they were also beating their wives back home” (Krause, 2015). This is perhaps a further gap in research. When conflict results in major changes to social fabrication of gender, a critical window of opportunity can be created in the post conflict political. With a focus on long-term development and a want to interrogate and reconceptualise ideas of peace and security, gender has a chance to play a role in the political agenda. Bolstered by UN Security Council resolution 1325 and 1888, a new emergent normative framework can emerge. Recently hosting its first free elections in 18 years, there is real hope that the DRC can soon start to address SGBV stemming from its conflict and intercept its continuum.

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