Pre-conflict Gender Laws and the Use of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence

• In Event: The Role of Masculinity in Conflict, War, and Militarism

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between pre-conflict domestic gender laws prevalence of conflict-related sexual violence occurring during an armed event. For the purpose of this paper, pre-conflict domestic gender laws refers to the laws and customs that govern the rights and roles of men and women within a society prior to the outbreak of conflict. In many societies, gender laws and customs create or reinforce power imbalances between men and women, making women and girls particularly vulnerable to violence during conflicts. Additionally, discriminatory laws and cultural norms that condone violence against women can create a social environment in which sexual violence is more likely to occur. This paper will consider the impact of the breakdown of law and order during armed conflicts and the presence of armed actors as factors that exacerbate the vulnerability of women and girls to sexual violence, and discuss how sexual violence can be systematically weaponized by armed groups during conflicts against subsets of the civilian population.

In this paper, I examine how the presence of laws pertaining to the rights of women and gender equality may be associated with the perpetration of sexual violence by state armed forces and non-state armed forces during a conflict. I theorize that societies with less egalitarian gender laws and customs prior to conflict will be more likely to experience conflict-related sexual violence during armed conflicts. This is because conflict may intensify existing gender-based power imbalances and exacerbate unequal social environments in which sexual violence against women and girls is already more likely.

Using data on gender laws from the World Bank’s Women, Business, and Law dataset, the United Nations Development Programme gender equality data, and the perpetration of sexual violence from the SVAC dataset, I empirically assess the relationship between the presence of laws pertaining to women and gender and the use of sexual violence. Additionally, I examine the case of northern Uganda, specifically the systematic use of sexual slavery, forced marriage, and forced childbearing by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to consider how pre-conflict gender laws and customs in northern Uganda are associated with widespread violations of human rights, specifically those systematically targeted at women and girls.

Author

• Hatti Sellers, Cornell University