Activism against, and Accountability for, Sexual Violence in the Global South

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This session draws on fieldwork with women’s rights activists in Egypt, India, and Tunisia and on an original dataset on domestic accountability for conflict-related sexual violence in Africa and Asia between 1998 and 2018 to highlight the conditions for activism against, and accountability for, sexual violence, particularly sexual violence outside the home. Malik’s and Langohr’s papers examine activism following gang rapes of girls and young women in India and against sexual harassment in the streets, public transportation, and at political protests in Egypt. Malik compares three rape cases in India in 2012, 2018, and 2019, showing that while the concerted involvement of activists, journalists, and citizens made collective action possible after two of the assaults, a lack of media attention rendered the victim in the third case illegible to the Indian public. Langohr examines the success of activists against public sexual harassment in post-“Arab Spring” Egypt, including amending the penal code to define harassment and specify criminal penalties and make increasing numbers of arrests, to note how widely the conditions for this success diverged from the prevailing literature on when governments pass anti-violence against women (VAW) legislation. Htun and Weldon (2018) and Tripp (2020) focus on the centrality of strong, autonomous feminist movements, withdrawal of a country’s reservations on CEDAW, location in a region in which other countries are legislating against VAW, and cooperation of feminists across borders in moving governments to act on VAW. However, the Egyptian government acted without any of these conditions being in place. Instead, Langohr argues, groups of young men and women, most new to political activism, were formed after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak to educate about harassment and to physically intervene to prevent it, and their efforts were amplified by the media.

Zaky’s paper contrasts the success of Tunisian feminists in passing a broad anti-VAW bill in 2017 with their relative failure in using the post-“Arab Spring” transitional justice project to achieve accountability for sexual violence committed by state actors against female political opponents, including the wives of opposition figures. She analyzes how these efforts sought to reconcile two competing goals: reforming the police state and curbing its punitive power and arbitrariness, and the popular demands for transitional justice against individual state agents which required more state intervention. Zaky argues that the tools of legal feminism enabled feminists to achieve important legal gains for women, but also resulted in them playing a central, albeit unintended, role in reconsolidating state authority and guaranteeing continued impunity to its agents following the democratic transition. Lee’s paper expands on Zaky’s theme of accountability for politically-motivated sexual violence. Using an original dataset on domestic accountability for CRSV in conflict-affected states in Africa and Asia between 1998 and 2018, she finds that women’s protests and involvement in international non-governmental organizations play a key role in installing legislative accountability at the domestic level. When faced with pressures from these groups, governments are likely to adopt legislative measures to avoid further responsibility and restore their legitimacy, which Lee contends functions as a ’covering’ mechanism. She argues that this outcome is more likely under governments that are culpable of CRSV as framing accountability around prevention helps them address the pressures without disclosing past abuses.

Sub Unit

• Division 31: Women and Politics Research

Individual Presentations

• Mobilizing Public Protests against Sexual Violence in India - Aditi Malik, College of the Holy Cross

• Conditions for Fighting VAW: The Case of Sexual Harassment Activism in Egypt - Vickie Langohr

• Mobilizing against State-Sanctioned Gendered Violence in Post-2011 Tunisia - Hind M Ahmed Zaki, University of Connecticut

• Legislative Accountability for Conflict-Related Sexual Violence - Sumin Lee, Texas A&M University

Chair

• Vickie Langohr

Discussant

• Nermin Allam Rutgers University