Gender-Based Violence Plays Role in Arms Treaty Conference

"A guy with a machete in a village can rape one woman. Two guys with a machine gun can rape the whole village." --Annie Matundu Mbambi, Democratic Republic of Congo


For the past three weeks, the United Nations has been the epicenter for all countries of the world to meet for the first-ever Diplomatic Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). This week, negotiations to limit the presently unregulated international arms trade are entering their final phase.


According to the United Nations News Centre, "Currently, 80 percent of the global trade in conventional weapons is dominated by a handful of countries, but with globalization, new producers are entering the market." 


What does this mean? Arms proliferation is a changing and world-threatening issue with increasing magnitude, new players, and a greater thrust because of globalization. Yet, unregulated arms control has also changed modern warfare. In April, Elle Magazine quoted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as saying, "In World War I, 90 percent of the casualties were soldiers, but in Africa's recent conflicts, 90 percent of casualties are civilians. So peacemaking and peacekeeping must change too."

Whether child soldiers or sustained gender-based violence in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, women and children are specific targets of war. In fact, a former UN Peacekeeping Commander Major General Patrick Cammaret once said, "It is now more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in modern conflict." 


As such, the report Putting Women's Rights Into the Arms Treaty, cites one of the greatest reasons for the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is "that war is affecting civilians, particularly women and children, at much higher percentages." 

Enter discussions of gender-based violence and sexual violence. Kate Hughes, a British representative of Oxfam, has spent the past few weeks in New York City raising even greater awareness as to why gender-based violence (GBV) must be included within the treaty terms. In the early days of the conference, Kate helped orchestrate a media stunt picked up by CNN to highlight the current "body bag" approach to arms control, which she says, is that "we wait till body bags pile up before there is an arms embargo."

Think back to the quote beginning this article from a woman in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) comparing the damage done with a machete versus an AK47. In the DRC, rape statistics are beyond horrifying, with estimates of nearly two million women raped and a new rape every minute. 

Hughes says, "The opening quote really sums up why the ATT has so much relevance to the issue of gender-based violence. GBV is instantly exacerbated when you add a gun to the equation. Countries with the highest instan[ces] of gender based violence, are by and large conflict countries; countries that are awash with weapons. The Arms Trade Treaty presents an opportunity, but it is an opportunity that could be missed. Some states are resistant to the explicit reference of gender based armed violence; there are also states that are resistant to the treaty covering weapons like the AK47 for example. (It is the AK47 that is one the most prevalent weapons in DRC.)"

Yet, how vast are the effects of gender-based violence in conflict zones? The Women's Media Center's Women Under Siege has been working hard to document the new cases of GBV and sexual violence happening in Syria. If you look at their live crowd map, one gets the sense of sexual violence permeating war zones.

Hughes shares other conflict zones where that the case. "Gender-based violence has been reported to have been committed by armed groups including state security forces recently in Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea and Mali. It's been committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with reports of women - from young girls to elderly women - being tortured and violently raped as a tactic of armed groups to assert power and domination. Communities also increasingly report sexual violence against men and boys. During Colombia's 50-year armed conflict, sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war, routinely practiced by all of the armed groups: state military forces, paramilitaries and guerrillas. Last week, Norway pointed to the prevalence of systematic rape in the recent war in the Balkans."  

Just like every facet of war, profit often dictates rather than diplomatic intervention. A recent  allafrica.com article cites how tense conversations have become in the ATT conference's final days. 

The talks, which carried on throughout the weekend in New York, are now being dominated by sceptical governments including Iran, Syria and Cuba, intent on having a weak treaty - or no treaty at all. China and Russia are opposed to effective human rights and humanitarian rules in any deal whilst the US wants exclusions that could undermine the effectiveness of any treaty. 

London and Paris, which until now have been key champions of a strong treaty, are now coming under intense pressure from Washington. There are concerns that they may trade-off strong international humanitarian and human rights protections to get China, Russia and the US to sign up to any final deal.  

What are the desired outcomes of getting gender-based violence into the Arms Trade Treaty? The report Putting Women's Rights Into the Arms Treaty shares, "To have real impact, a prospective Arms Trade Treaty must include legally binding criteria that prevent arms transfers to abusers of human rights or into situation where there is a substantial risk that they will undermine development or exacerbate armed violence. The Arms Trade Treaty also needs to refer to gender-based armed violence in both the treaty text and criteria." 


Kate Hughes agrees, then adds:

The treaty must recognize that there is a gendered impact to armed violence and makes it a specific goal / objective of the treaty to address this. We are pushing to have a specific criteria that says that states "shall not" transfer weapons where there is a substantial risk of that these weapons will be used to commit GBV. It is not the case that the arms trade treaty will suddenly eliminate GBV, but it is a really important opportunity make sure that the international community upholds its commitments to women, peace, and security issues. 

This world map shows which countries are in support of including GBV in the treaty. The United Nations Diplomatic Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty ends July 27. 

Photo credit: Control Arms

Say No to Violence Against Women

In the last few weeks, the press have documented some controversial stories about domestic violence. In San Francisco, Ross Mirkarimi, the appointed Sheriff, plead guilty against an abuse incidence with his wife, Eliana Lopez, and was suspended as Sheriff by San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee. In London, actor Dennis Waterman confessed in an interview with Piers Morgan that he had hit his former wife, the actress Rula Lenska. In what could be described as a storm in a teacup, Waterman controversially claimed in the interview, “The problem with strong, intelligent women is that they can argue, well. And if there is a time where you can't get a word in... and I... I lashed out."

Waterman didn’t make things any better by going on to say, "It's not hard for a woman to make a man hit her." And, "She certainly wasn't a beaten wife, she was hit and that's different."

 Both cases were different but had the same outcome, a woman was physically attacked.

Dennis Waterman &  Rula Lenska

In the case between Ross Mirkarimi and his wife, although Lopez confessed to a neighbor, both husband and wife claimed that it was a family matter and insisted that it could be solved privately. In the case of Dennis Waterman and Rula Lenska, it was a bitter sweet relief for her. Ms. Lenska had been vilified in the press as a liar soon after she left Dennis Waterman but this recent development shined light upon her violent plight with him. Waterman's comments were appalling to say the least, but Ms. Lenska was relieved that he admitted to some of what she endured.

Both cases raise interesting points about domestic violence -- how it is viewed and dealt with. Elena Lopez clearly felt she was not a battered wife and some people do believe that the incidence should be considered "a private family matter." However, whenever a woman is subjected to violence, her life, her security, and her health are under threat. Whenever threatening behavior is used, it endangers a woman's health thereby reducing her ability to function as a healthy individual. Therefore, in my opinion, it becomes a public issue. 

Violence against women is not always between just a man and a woman. Jasvinder Sangera, an activist against forced marriage, has openly highlighted the violence women can suffer from their own families. It can also happen between women, in the street, and in the workplace. The general theme being that women are disproportionally affected, the United Nations cite statistics ranging from 15% to 76% of women worldwide experience physical or sexual violence.

The issue of violence against women is of such concern that the United Nations has dedicated a whole platform to this issue. Say No to Violence Against Women (UNite) is a social media campaign that commits itself to ending violence against women. With the collaboration of governments globally and by making the issue accessible via celebrities, awareness campaigns like this can empower people and make them aware of issues that are sometimes incorporated into customs and thought of as the "norm."

Violence is a direct threat against a person's life and violence against women should never be justified in any circumstance.

Tapestries of Hope: On Myth, Rape, and Resiliency

Joining the push to pass the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA), Tapestries of Hope is an extraordinary documentary tracing a Zimbabwe myth about the curing powers of virgin blood, in particular that it can cure HIV/AIDS.

After a decade of actvism focusing on women and children and all forms of abuse ranging from her award-winning short film Flashcards to co-authoring the book, This is Not the Life I Ordered, Tapestries of Hope director Michealene Risley met Betty Makoni. As the founder of the Girl Child Network WorldWide, Makoni created the organization in 1998 as a community to protect and heal child victims of sexual abuse in Zimbabwe. In 2009, CNN named Makoni a Hero.

In a recent interview Michealene shared, "When I first met Betty Makoni, both of us were survivors. She asked me to come to Zimbabwe and I could not refuse."

Teacher and advocate Betty Makoni's desire to help girls comes from the fact she was raped as a child then lost her own mother to domestic violence. Yet from her personal pain, Makoni has built whole communities of girls who are experiencing true healing after profound harm. Enter the power of Tapestries of Hope's message. While watching the film, one cannot ignore that the myth that virgin blood can cure HIV/AIDS is creating the rape of female children from infancy to teenager in Zimbabwe, and that Makoni's Girl Child Network is saving them from otherwise horrific lives of continued gender-based violence (GBV).

This is why Michealene says one of the film's greatest reasons for being is to help people understand why the IVAWA is so vital. "My hope is that this movie gets Congress to sign and fund IVAWA. I truly believe this issue [GBV] is one of the most critical for this century. The passing of I-VAWA would have a tremendous affect on women around the globe, and this is the first time in the history of our country that this would happen."

Tapestries of Hope will continue to screen in theaters around the United States. In February, the movie will go to Video on Demand then video. If you are interested in a screening in your area, email the Tapestries of Hope web site.