Issues of Power and Empowerment in Refugee Studies: Rwandan Women's Adaptive Behaviour at Benaco Refugee Camp

This paper addresses human rights violations in the context of gender power relationships and calls attention to the need to examine the standards for human rights assessments in the context of refugee situations. This research is based on fieldwork carried out with Rwandan Hutu refugees during an 18-month assignment as Project Director for CARE International in Ngara, Tanzania. Participant observations, interviews, surveys, and focus group discussions yielded a wealth of data concerning the coping strategies of men and women. Women's coping strategies made them vulnerable: women without partners were the least protected and took the greatest risks in their efforts to survive and feed their children. Their adaptive behaviour increased their risks of rape, sexual abuse, and exposure to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. These serious problems were overshadowed by the chaotic business of running a refugee camp. In the rush to accommodate the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees, the non-governmental organizations and UN agencies established a relief infrastructure that -- perversely -- gave the perpetrators of crimes, positions of power within the camp, which enabled the gender violations to persist.Le présent article aborde la question de la violation des droits humains dans le contexte des relations de pouvoir dans le sexage et attire l'attention sur la nécessité d'un examen des critères d'évaluation des droits humains dans un contexte où la question des réfugiés est impliquée. Cette recherche est basée sur un travail de terrain mené auprès de réfugiés Outous rwandais lors d'une affectation de 18 mois comme Directeur de Projet pour CARE International à Ngara en Tanzanie. L'observation de participants, les entrevues, les enquêtes, les discussion des groupes de travail ontf ourni une masse de données sur les stratégies de survie émotive des hommes et des femmes. Les stratégies de survie émotive des femmes les rendent particulièrement vulnérables. Ainsi les femmes sans conjoints sont les plus vulnérables et prennent les plus grand risques dans leur effort pour assurer leur survie et nourrir leurs enfants. Leur pratiques d'adaptation les exposent à un risque accru de viols, d'abus sexuels, et d'expositions au HIV et autres virus transmis sexuellement. Ces problèmes graves sont totalement éclipsés par l'activité chaotique de gestion d'un camp de réfugié, par l'urgence de rencontrer les besoins de l'afflux de centaines de milliers de réfugiés. Dans ce contexte, les organisations non-gouvernementales et les agences des Nations Unies ont établi une infrastructure d'assistance qui, de façon fort perverse, a donné aux auteurs de ces crimes accès à des positions de pouvoir dans le camps de réfugiés qui ont permis aux exactions à caractère sexuel de se perpétuer

Contextualisation of humanitarian assistance and its shortcomings in International Human Rights Law

This article challenges the idea that contextualisation of humanitarian aid affects the principle of universality of human rights as well as the principles of neutrality and impartiality. It seeks to demonstrate that contextualisation will not only improve access, delivery and protection: contextualising a mission also enables aid workers to respect the local context without impacting negatively upon universal human rights. The author argues that affecting the societies in which aid is delivered is inevitable. The key then becomes to avoid endorsing indirect cultural relativism. This is why the article puts forward the idea of creating a yardstick or a test that would help in deciding which beliefs and values are to be included when considering the context, and which should be excluded. The process of selection of values and beliefs is to be operated by an empowered local population. The filter suggested in the case at hand is the Muslim legal instrument of maslaha, which protects the public interest. The use of this filter can be efficient only if Islamic authoritative sources are interpreted differently, in a reformist fashion, to try and match universal human rights law. This is possible through the Muslim theories advocating change. Muslim beneficiaries who are vulnerable as a result of a disaster or during a conflict provide an opportunity to test the filter of maslaha, looking at how an empowered community can change and influence the agendas of aid agencies

O PAPEL DAS MULHERES NA RECONSTRUÇÃO DE SOCIEDADES PÓS-CONFLITO

Esse artigo demonstra que, em grande parte, as práticas de reconstrução de sociedades pós-conflito mantêm as mesmas bases identitárias em questões de gênero, garantindo a antiga dominação masculina em novas formas. No entanto, apresentam-se algumas experiências que ilustram que conflitos podem também favorecer o empoderamento de mulheres. Dessa forma, propõe-se a expansão do discurso de vitimização das mulheres, com o fim de entendê-las também como agentes ativas tanto durante o conflito como na reconstrução de sociedades pós-conflito. Ao invés de apenas considerá-las como vulneráveis e presumir que têm uma experiência única, a presente pesquisa defende que diferentes experiências, papéis, necessidades e prioridades vividos e sentidos por mulheres devem ser devidamente abordados em processos de construção de paz. Se as intervenções pós-conflito estiverem em posição de garantir esse nível de inclusão, as mudanças alcançadas serão mais simbólicas e duradouras.Palavras-chave: Pós-Conflito;gênero;empoderamento

Gênero e refúgio: a atuação das organizações internacionais para o enfrentamento da violência contra mulheres refugiadas

Nos debates que envolvem Direitos Humanos, as migrações internacionais têm sido cada vez mais uma realidade presente e relevante. De maneira interseccionada à questão migratória, emergem debates específicos sobre os Direitos Humanos das Mulheres nesses contextos. Entre os migrantes e refugiados, as mulheres representam um grupo de maior vulnerabilidade. Ainda em seu país de origem, elas são vítimas de várias formas de violência que afrontam seus direitos. Como agravante, as violações também ocorrem na jornada para o local de refúgio e continuam nos campos de refugiados, já que elas sofrem com a indiferença oficial, perseguição, abusos sexuais e estigmatização por sua condição de refugiada no país de destino. Entende-se que, embora importante e essencial, o trabalho desempenhado pelas Organizações Internacionais tem sido insuficiente para alterar substancialmente a realidade das mulheres refugiadas, uma vez que tais Organizações veem suas ações limitadas diante de um cenário tão complexo e de tamanha violência. Neste artigo, o método utilizado é o hipotético-dedutivo, uma vez que se trata de um trabalho de revisão bibliográfica, baseado em literatura relevante sobre o tema, além de pesquisa documental, cuja hipótese reside no fato de o gênero ser um intensificador na violência sofrida por aqueles que se encontram em situação de refúgio e que a violência sofrida por mulheres refugiadas possui várias dimensões, que não são alcançadas plenamente pelas Instituições responsáveis pela proteção dessas mulheres.In debates involving Human Rights, international migrations have been increasingly present and relevant. In an intersecting way, there are specific debates on the Human Rights of Women emerging in this context. Among migrants and refugees, women represent the most vulnerable group. Even in their country of origin, they are victims of various forms of violence that violate their rights. As an aggravating factor, the acts of violence also occur on the journey to the place of refuge and continue in the refugee camps, as they continue suffering with official indifference, persecution, sexual abuse and stigmatization for hers status as a refugee woman in the destination country. It is understood that, although important and essential, the work performed by International Organizations has been insufficient to change substantially the reality of refugee women, since these Organizations see their actions limited in the face of such a complex scenario and so much violence. In this article, the method used is the hypothetical-deductive, since it is a work of bibliographic review, based on relevant literature on the subject, in addition to documentary research, whose hypothesis lies in the fact that gender is an intensifier in violence suffered by those who are in a situation of refuge and that the violence suffered by refugee women has several dimensions, which are not fully achieved by the institutions responsible for protecting these women, showing that they have been insufficient to remedy such violence.Não recebi financiament

Combating Acid Violence in Bangladesh, India, and Cambodia

This Report is the first comprehensive, comparative study of acid violence that examines the underlying causes, its consequences, and the multiple barriers to justice for its victims. Acid attacks, like other forms of violence against women, are not random or natural phenomena. Rather, they are social phenomena deeply embedded in a gender order that has historically privileged patriarchal control over women and justified the use of violence to “keep women in their places.” Through an in-depth study of three countries, the authors of the Report argue that the due diligence standard can be a powerful tool for state and non-state actors to prevent and adequately respond to acid violence with the aim of combating it. In this respect, they identify key ways in which acid violence can be addressed by governments and corporations

Internally Displaced Persons: Ordeals and Analyses of the Possible Regimes of Legal Protection Frameworks

This present global community is complicated because of anxiety and uncertainty. It is thoroughly interconnected yet intricately partitioned. Pivotally, one could argue that the centrality to this global anxiety is identity and belonging. People want to identify with and belong to a political system, territory, and culture. It seems that there is a present world that mirrors the political emergence of the interwar period that had nationalism on the rise. There is hostility to non-citizens globally, whether as refugees, internally displaced peoples (IDPs), or immigrants seeking to join new political communities. This Article explains the difficulties that ensue from being tagged “an internally displaced person” and explains some specific human rights violations that occur during internal displacement. Some of those violations are economic displacement, cultural displacement, a consistent astronomical rise in external displacement (refugeehood), and the effacement of the dignity to “belong” to a society. This Article gives recommendations on the possible legal frameworks of protection that states could adopt to protect their displaced citizens because states bear the first responsibility for internal displacement, not the international community, which arguably has a secondary responsibility to protect IDPs when states are unwilling to protect them. This Article compares the IDP legal regimes in Africa—the Nigerian Draft National Policy on IDPs and The Kenyan IDP statute. It determines whether a statute or policy best answers the dilemma of an appropriate protection mechanism for IDPs. It concludes that choosing an IDP legal regime is not as important as the political will to implement the regime because a legal regime of protection is dead on arrival without implementation

Opening First-World Catholic Theology to Third-World Ecofeminism: Aruna Gnanadason and Johann B. Metz in Dialogue

This dissertation responds to the dearth of scholarship in first-world, Catholic theology, particularly in the United States, that adequately and actively engages theologies of third-world women who highlight the disproportionate effects of environmental degradation on women, humanity\u27s interconnectedness with all creation, and the spiritualities of third-world women that shape their relationship to and care for the earth. I contend that greater intentional dialogue with these theologians, particularly third-world, Christian ecofeminist theologians, could expand first-world, Catholic theology\u27s appropriation of ecofeminism, develop a more comprehensive understanding of the disproportionate effects of environmental degradation on women, especially in the third world, and deepen understanding of spirituality and social action from a third-world, ecofeminist perspective. As an interdisciplinary project, I adapt the boomerang pattern of influence model, developed by political scientists Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, for theological discourse. This model comprises practical and intellectual dimensions for engaging dialogue among first-world, Catholic theologians and third-world, Christian theologians on third-world, ecofeminist concerns. To further explicate this model, I orchestrate an intellectual dialogue between third-world, Indian, Protestant theologian Aruna Gnanadason\u27s ecofeminist theology and first-world, German, Catholic theologian Johann B. Metz\u27s concept of the mystical-political dimension of Christianity. By integrating their theological approaches, I demonstrate how Metz\u27s dimension provides a conduit for dissertationing first-world, Catholic theology to third-world, Christian ecofeminist theology, as articulated by Gnanadason, and especially deepens our understanding of the relationship between spirituality and social action from an ecofeminist perspective