Remaining parts of Unit 4 and 5

1. Remaining parts of Unit 4 and 5 Neeti Aryal Khanal

2. Unit 4 • Culture of Peace • Women’s Role in Peace Process • Women Participation in Peace building

3. Unit 5 • Discussion on cases from Nepal, Srilanka and Afganistan

4. Nepali women in labour market • 85.19% of the total female workforce is engaged in agriculture compared to 67.06 per cent of the total male work force. • only 8 % of the female labour force is in paid employment and 29 % as self employed. More than 63 % of the total female labour force are working as unpaid workers ( domestic work, agricultural work and family enterprises )

6. Challenges and problems • sexual harrassment in work place • According to a research conducted by the Forum for Women, Law & Development (FWLD) in 2004, 48.4% of working women faced sexual harassment at their workplaces. • Occupational segregation • lack of maternity leave and childcare provisions

7. current trends • Increase of women in overseas migration for employment • According to study by UNIFEM and Nepal Institute for Development Studies (NIDS), there are about 70,000 Nepali women migrant workers working in various foreign labour markets • Among them, only 16 % are recorded. Majority of women working overseas often travel through illegal routes without getting labour permission from the Nepali government • Many are reported to have experienced range of different physical, psychological and sexual violence in workplace.

8. Foreign labour migration has become both an opportunity and a challenge for many Nepalese women. • Women Migrant Workers (WMWs) comprise 11% of the contributors of remittance which makes 23% of Nepal's GDP. Studies have indicated that most of the remittances earned by WMWs are used to pay off debt, school fee of children, household consumption; hence it is not invested for long term livelihood security.

9. Brief history of conflict in Afghanistan • The conflict in Afghanistan tends to be discussed in terms of post-2001 events and from the perspective of the western coalition’s armed campaign. Need to look at it through 3 different dimension • 1. Regional Dimension • Soviet Union’s occupation (1979) • Resistance from different groups of Afghans from divergent political traditions Among them were more radical political Islamists (who would begin to be described as “fundamentalists”) • Other Muslim nations and western countries chose to finance, train and arm the fundamentalists - even though they were fringe elements at the time. The argument was that they could fight the Soviets more passionately and zealously than anyone else. • Pakistan’s support to fundamentalist ( reason: . A secular or moderate Afghan government, Islamabad feared, might be tempted into a friendly alliance with India) • http://www.opendemocracy.net/valey-arya/afghanistan-one-conflict-three-faces

10. Ethnic dimension • It is not too much of an overstatement to see the Afghan insurgency as an ethnic conflict. Afghanistan’s complex history until 1979 was marked by many internecine disputes between different groups and the lack of a strong sense of nationhood; if anything, the last three decades of war have intensified these trends. • The Soviet-backed communist government of the 1970s and 1980s was, its unifying ideology notwithstanding, also based on ethnic fault lines; the Pashtun/non-Pashtun rivalries within the then-ruling People’s Democratic Party turned out to be instrumental in its demise. Similarly, the anti-Soviet resistance was ethnically-based; after the Soviet withdrawal the country became balkanised; and after invasion in 2001, the internal division between the Taliban and its adversaries fell largely along Pashtun/non-Pashtun lines.

11. Today, every ethnic group in Afghanistan believes it is the loser and that others are winners. The Pashtuns want to have more seats in government and the non-Pashtuns believe they are being sidelined. Such attitudes reinforce ethnic extremists, who argue (for example) that Afghanistan is the land of the Pashtuns and that the Tajiks belong to Tajikistan, the Uzbeks to Uzbekistan, and the Turkmens to Turkmenistan; or (on the other side) that Afghanistan originally belonged to the Tajiks and that the Pashtuns migrated over centuries to the south and east of the country from what today is Pakistan. • The way out of this regressive aspect of the conflict is via the principle of “one size does not fit all”. There must be as much decentralisation as possible in Afghanistan to facilitate a federal system composed of several states, coordinated by a central government which sets foreign policy and has authority over a unified national army. 

12. At present, the Afghan provinces are sites of bitter competition for power, what democracy there is limited to the centre, and the capital offers little in the way of resources for emerging from the crisis. In these conditions, only a federal democracy can ensure a healthy balance between centre and periphery. This can be done in a way that avoids the spectre of Afghanistan’s partition among lawless regional commanders, for a federal democracy (borrowing in realistic fashion from the experience of north America, western Europe and India) will also devolve real power to local populations; for example, Pashtun representation at federal and local level will increase, as befits their position as Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group

13. Religious dimension • A solution to the regional and ethnic dimensions of Afghanistan’s insurgency, ambitious as that may be, would not end the war as long as its religious motivations persist. The Taliban leadership and their al-Qaida partners remain committed to imposing their extremist interpretation of political Islam on Afghanistan’s people, although they are also enmeshed in the foreign-policy calculations of regional powers. This aspect of the problem has no quick-fix solution. • The principal exit-route is deradicalisation of the next generations. The ingredients of the strategy needed here are multiple: social measures (education, alleviating poverty, creating employment opportunities); dialogue and communication; fighting corruption and the drug-economy. These are both short- and long-term tasks. But if the international community and the Afghan political community can devote energy and resources to these vital tasks, there may still be time to turn around a bleak situation. 

14. status of afghan women • Life Expectancy and Health • The average woman in Afghanistan has a lifespan of 42 years, around 20 years short of the global average. Although women around the world generally live longer than men, Afghan women die at a younger age. Despite the toll of male casualties during 25 years of war, men still outnumber women by an average of 104 to 100 in all age groups. • Literacy Rates and Access to Education • Afghanistan’s adult literacy rate ranks among the lowest in the world: only 23.5% of the population aged 15 and older are able to read and write. Only an estimated 12.6% of women are literate, compared with 32.4% of men.

15. Economic Activity • In Afghanistan, 80-90% of economic activity occurs within the informal sector.Because of conservative practices,Afghan women encounter barriers to earning their own livelihood, have limited economic opportunities, and are restricted in their access to work outside of the home.  Since the majority of women live in rural areas, their main activities are in agriculture, livestock management and family caregiving. These activities contribute to the household economy but are not remunerated.

16. impacts on women during taliban rule • During the rule of the Taliban ( 1996-2001)women were treated worse than in any other time or by any other society. They were forbidden to work, leave the house without a male escort, not allowed to seek medical help from a male doctor, and forced to cover  themselves from head to toe, even covering their eyes. Women who were doctors and teachers before, were forced to compile with the authoritarian regime

17. gender and conflict • Conflict-related Violence against Women in Afghanistan • The protracted conflict situation in Afghanistan has a particular impact on the status and situation of women and girls as well as on efforts geared to their emancipation and empowerment. • During three decades of fighting accompanied by widespread impunity for acts of violence, limited access to formal, effective, or credible justice systems, insecurity, and weak governance, women’s basic rights have been undermined and violence has become an everyday occurrence in the lives of a huge proportion of Afghan women.

18. Gender and conflict in Afganistan • Rape and sexual violence, including in detention facilities, so called ‘honour’ killings, the exchange of women and girls as a form dispute-resolution (often in connection with land or property issues), trafficking and abduction, early and forced marriages, domestic violence, as well as threats or attacks against women in public life, are but some of the problems that many Afghan women and girls must endure.

19. Sexual violence • Female trafficking for sexual purposes is a thriving business in Afghanistan. Girls are purchased from within Afghanistan and trafficked through Pakistan for destinations in the Gulf, Iran, and elsewhere to be wives or prostitutes. • The majority of rape cases that have been reported involve very young girls (as young as three years old) or aged between 7 and 30, with a fair number of cases involving girls ranging between 10 and 20 years of age. • Evidence has proven that victims of rape are often discouraged from taking their cases to the police, not least since it happens frequently that they are sexually abused while held in custody or detention. In addition, rape is connected with a high level of stigmatization and shame in Afghan culture which has tremendous implications on the life of survivors of such crimes

20. impacts of sexual violence • A recent report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Silence is Violence, disclosed that rape is not even a crime under the laws of Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. • However, a woman who reports a rape to the authorities will find that sex outside of marriage is a crime, and she will probably be convicted of that crime unless she can produce four male witnesses that corroborate her claim that the sexual intercourse was not consensual. • If imprisoned, she may find herself at the mercy of detention facility officials who “are said to have forced female detainees into prostitution...”

21. Impacts • If she manages to avoid punishment from the legal system, cultural mores (not Taliban decrees) often dictate acceptable resolutions of the conflict between her family and that of her assailants, including: • • killing both the victim and the rapist, • • forcing the victim to marry the rapist, or • • giving girl(s) from the rapist’s family to the victim’s family as compensation for lost honor (UNAMA).

22. gender and displacement • hunger and exploitation in camps for refugees and internally displaced persons, when men take control of food distribution; • malnutrition, when food aid neglects [their] special nutritional requirements; • culturally inappropriate and/or inadequate access to health services, including...reproductive health services. • Health services for women, girls and the children in their charge break down in wartime. Often health services available in emergency situations are dominated by men, so many women and girls, for cultural or religious reasons, underutilize these services despite their need of them. • “The population movements and breakdown of social controls engendered by armed conflict encourage, in their turn, rape and prostitution as well as sexual slavery to serve combatants. • Unwanted pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases...are the collateral physical effects of this human degradation.”

23. Some facts on afghan women • Every 30 minutes, an Afghan woman dies during childbirth • 1 in every 3 Afghan women experience physical, psychological or sexual violence • 44 years is the average life expectancy rate for women in Afghanistan • 70 to 80 percent of women face forced marriages i Source: IRIN news

24. Brief History on conflict of Srilanka • The Sri Lankan Civil War (also known as the Eelam War), was a conflict fought on the island of Sri Lanka. Beginning on July 23, 1983, there was an on-and-off insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (the LTTE, also known as the Tamil Tigers), a separatist militant organization which fought to create an independentTamil state named Tamil Eelam in the north and the east of the island. After a 26 year long military campaign, the Sri Lankan military defeated the Tamil Tigers in May 2009.[

25. Srilanka • The ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka has many root causes and consequences that are closely interlinked. However, given its complexities, it should not be assumed that these causes are part of linear historical processes where one event led to another. Often many of the issues that may be regarded as root causes arose within a single but extended context and equally as often, simultaneously. It is primarily within the context of ethnic politics that language and education policy can be located. However, for discussion purposes it is necessary to separate these issues as clearly identifiable themes that would emerge in any analysis of the Sri Lankan conflict. In general, these themes can be broadly identified as: • • Ethnic politics and the interpretation of the past; • • Politics of language; • • Politics of education; and • • Other factors, including employment and land

26. Economic and social costs of war • The cost of the war from 1983-1996 is estimated at twice the GDP of 1996, and rose from 1 percent to 22 percent of the GDP during this period. Defence spending rose dramatically and direct and indirect war costs are estimated at 168 percent of the GDP at 1996 prices (Arunatilake, 2001; Tudawe, 2003; Kelegama, 2004). Economic growth was below 6 percent during most of the period, recording the lowest growth rate of -1.4 percent in 2000.2 • Social costs are even more staggering. Loss of an estimated 60 000 lives, internal and external displacement of nearly a million people,war widows, trauma of survivors, insecurity for children including conscription by militant groups, breakdown of the social fabric, disruption to livelihood activities and deterioration of basic services are some of the conflict’s consequences. Mixed communities in the North and East and in areas bordering these provinces have become ethnically divided.

27. gender and conflict • The armed conflict affected women and men differently. Men were the main casualties of war. Of the survivors, women were the most affected by the loss of family members, death and disappearance of income earners, migration of young men and displacement. All women were affected by the conflict though they experienced different effects based on their ethnicity, location, class and socio-economic status.

28. The more affluent Tamil population in the North fled the conflict areas either to the city or abroad. The poorer classes found refuge in India or were displaced within the country where they found shelter in camps or welfare centres. Others remained in the conflict areas amidst armed confrontations. • The Muslims evicted from the North live as displaced persons in other parts of the country, some on their own and some in welfare camps. Sinhalese women and their families fled the conflict areas to the South but those in areas bordering conflict zones, having lost their spouses, children and livelihoods, eke out a living with fear and insecurity. • Women’s responsibilities increased in the absence of basic services and insecurity. Women in LTTE-held areas live in poverty and isolation. Women were victims of sexual and gender based violence; many bear psychological scars

29. Gender and conflict • Scholars’ assessments of the conflict’s impact on gender roles and relations differ. Coomaraswamy (2003) argues that the armed conflict brought a major transformation in Tamil society and women’s roles. Most visible is the entry of women, apparently weak and powerless, as fighters. • Feminists who envision a non-violent society question the value of women’s role as fighters. Samarasinghe (1996) argues that formation of the Mothers’ Front created a new construction of gender in relation to the exigencies of war that was not a mere extension of everyday roles. Women from the North (and South) organised the Mothers’ Front to protect husbands and sons from the militants and the Government citing their gendered role of motherhood in symbolic protest (Samarasinghe, 1996).

30. Woman combatant • Popular image of LTTE women soldiers as suicide bombers and ‘armed virgins’ helped dispel the myth of Tamil women as vulnerable and ‘victims’

31. Traditional restrictions • Despite changes that affected women, traditional restrictions on women persistently were perpetuated through the caste system and attendant social practices, such as dowry, that reinforce women’s lower social status within the family, community and in larger society (Thiruchandran, 1989; Field assessments). • The conflict reinforced the practice of girls’ early marriage in the North and the East. Displaced families arrange marriages early to avoid unwanted pregnancies, as a means of providing security to young girls and to avoid recruitment to militant groups. Even LTTE women must abide by traditional forms of feminine behaviour, although marriage is not permitted while a member (TamilNet, 2003)

32. displacement and collapse of support system • Women’s physical mobility was restricted during the conflict, and the gradual collapse of support systems due to displacement and migration exacerbated women’s problems. Physical and psychological abuse within the home resulted from increased incidences of alcoholism (Wijayatilake, 2004). • Redress usually is unavailable due to traditional insensitivity of law enforcement machinery, the existence of dual justice systems and the challenge to women’s agency (Maunaguru, 2005). • While both genders experience stress, women are the more traumatised having to bear poverty, violence in the community and domestic violence

33. move from private to public • Another shift of women’s traditional to strategic roles occurred when women moved out of the domestic sphere and took on male roles in the absence of male family members; women consequently acquired more self-confidence and greater mobility and decision making powers within the family (Bennett, 1995). • “We used to do “many things. Especially after the operations by the Sri Lanka Army, we women had to shoulder more tasks and protect our men or send them away” (Quoting Thiranagama in Hoole, 1990).

34. Women’s labour force participation in the North and East prior to the conflict was low by national standards. Cultural norms kept Tamil and Muslim women engaged in household work and income generation within the home. Women contributed to the household economy by working in family farms. • However, the changing economic environment, economic stress and conflict related poverty brought increased labour force participation rates for rural women mainly in the rural informal sector and for educated and skilled women in the formal sector.

35. low political participation • The social welfare policies adopted by successive post independent governments brought improvement of Sri Lankan women’s status relative to education, health and nutrition and labour force participation. Nonetheless, gender inequities persist. • Women have low political participation; relatively few women have access to higher levels of decision making in the public and private sectors and violence against women and rights violations have surfaced. • Women who experienced the armed conflict in the North and East acutely felt the reversal of earlier gains in education, health, employment and political participation while at the same time they were subjected to war time rights violations.

36. decline in women’s health • During pre-conflict period women benefited from the extensive health care network established in the late 1940s with pre- and post-natal care extended throughout the country. The improved health over the decades was reflected in declining crude birth rate, crude death rate, fertility rate, maternal and infant mortality rates and child death rate. • The conflict reversed these accomplishments. Health services deteriorated and accessibility and availability of rural health care facilities is limited. Compared to the pre-conflict period, the maternal mortality rate (MMR) deteriorated in all Northern and Eastern districts.

37. Human rights violations • The conflict brought human rights violations . Women and men could not participate in elections because elections were not held in all the areas of the North and East. • Even when elections were held, allegations challenged whether they were free and fair. Unknown gunmen killed the only woman elected to a local government office. Women had no voice in the peace process

38. Livelihood strategies • Prior to the conflict North and East was a significant agricultural hub of Sri Lanka and production was higher than in most areas of the country. Due to conflict there was damage in irrigation infrastructure, lack of access to markets and lack of capital during the conflict brought abandonment of paddy lands • Women’s role in agriculture expanded during the conflict period due to absence of males, increasing poverty and demand for cheap female labour. In the Wanni region for example, casual wage labour provides income for female headed households, estimated at 20 percent of all households. • Internally displaced women who relocated in agricultural areas also engage in wage labour. Women in fishing communities do fish processing, marketing, net making and net repair.

39. women’s agency in times of conflict • In this context, the argument that two decades of war and uncertain peace may have resulted in the unintended empowerment of women (sometimes at the expense of their men folk) in Sri Lanka is dangerous and disturbing for those of us who believe in and advocate the peaceful resolution of conflicts arising from social injustice (senanayake, 2004)

40. Unlike in Afghanistan where the situation of women has unambiguously deteriorated due to conflict and the victory of the Taliban, in Sri Lanka the evidence suggests that, despite many women’s experience of traumatic violence and displacement, some changes to the gender status quo wrought by armed conflict might have empowered women whose freedom and mobility were restricted by patriarchal cultural mores, morality and convention in peacetime Several women who have faced the traumatic loss and scattering of family members due to displacement, conflict and the breakdown of family structures have also assumed new roles which were thrust upon them as a result of the disruption of peacetime community organization, social structures and patriarchal values.

41. Post taliban • Since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, many would agree that the political and cultural position of Afghan women has improved substantially. The recently adopted Afghan constitution states that "the citizens of Afghanistan - whether man or woman- have equal rights and duties before the law". So far, women have been allowed to return back to work, the government no longer forces them to wear the all covering burqa, and they even have been appointed to prominent positions in the government • Despite all these changes many challenges still remain. The repression of women is still prevalent in rural areas where many families still restrict their own mothers, daughters, wives and sisters from participation in public life.

42. Culture of peace ( an initiative of UNESCO) • “Since wars began in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed” (UNESCO constitutional principle). • It was in 1989, during the International Congress on Peace in the Minds of Men, in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire, that the notion of a “Culture of Peace” was first mentioned. • In 1994, Federico Mayor, Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), launched an international appeal on the establishment of a right to peace; in February 1994, UNESCO launched its Towards a Culture of Peaceprogramme; in 1997, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the year 2000 as the “International Year for the Culture of Peace”; and in 1998, the same Assembly declared the period 2001-2010 the “International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World”.

43. What Does “Culture of Peace” Mean? • Although the expression “Culture of Peace” took shape in 1989, such a culture already existed before the word was created. UNESCO’s creation is a testimonial to the existence of such a culture as early as 1945. • The purpose of the Organisation is to contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world” (Article I of the Constitutive Act of UNESCO). • The notion of a “Culture of Peace” existed long before it was so dubbed.

44. The idea of consensus, or peace, is sometimes mistaken for an absence of conflict or for society’s homogenization process. • However, in order to achieve mutual understanding, there must first be differences with regard to sex, race, language, religion, or culture. The quest for mutual understanding begins with the recognition of these differences and of a will to overcome them to reach a common objective. • Achieving mutual understanding protects a society from self-destruction by letting it build foundations so as to design a new way to live together. Indeed, mutual understanding fosters certain values vital for peace, including non-violence, respect of others, tolerance, solidarity and openness to others.

45. Mutual understanding does not mean homogenization of society. On the contrary, a culture of peace is enhanced by the variety of traditions. The fact that a common vision emerges from a multi-cultural society proves that living together is possible and that this society lives according to the pulse of a culture of peace. • Culture of peace is intrinsically linked to conflict prevention and resolution. The key-values of this culture are tolerance, solidarity, sharing and respect of every individual’s rights—the principle of pluralism that ensures and upholds the freedom of opinion—that strives to prevent conflict by tackling it at its source, including new non-military threats to peace and security such as exclusion, extreme poverty and environmental degradation. Finally, it seeks to solve problems through dialogue, negotiation and mediation, so that war and violence are no longer possible. (This paragraph takes its inspiration from the Dossier d’information de l’UNESCO, CAB-99/Ws/4, page 14).

46. The expression “Culture of Peace” implies that peace means much more than the absence of war. • Peace is considered as a set of values, attitudes and modes of behaviours promoting the peaceful settlement of conflict and the quest for mutual understanding. In fact, peace is one way to live together. The expression “Culture of Peace” presumes that peace is a way of being, doing and living in society that can be taught, developed, and best of all, improved upon.

47. links between culture of peace and women’s movement • Culture of peace is consistent with the women’s movement theme that equality, development and peace are inextricably linked. There can be no lasting peace without development and no sustainable development without full equality between men and women.

48. Women’s role in peacebuilding • Women’s involvement in peacebuilding is as old as their experience of violence. As colonialism and the state system spread around the world, women often lost their traditional roles in leading and building peace in their communities. • In 1995, the United Nation’s Fourth World Conference on women held in Beijing, China raised range of different issues relating to women and armed conflict and women’s participation in peace process.

49. In 1999, the UK-based organization International Alert launched a “Women Building Peace” global campaign with the support of 100 civil society organizations around the world. • The campaign aims to address women’s exclusion from decision-making processes that address peace, security, and development. The civil-society campaign on women in peacebuilding led to the October 2000 signing of UN Security Council resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security. • 1325 recognizes that civilians - particularly women and children – are the worst affected by conflict, and that this is a threat to peace and security. • 1325 for women’s participation in conflict prevention and resolution initiatives; the integration of gender perspectives in peacebuilding and peacekeeping missions; and the protection of women in regions of armed conflict. • 1325 has further mobilized women around the world to recognize the important roles women play in peacebuilding and to “mainstream gender in peacebuilding.”(Shirch and Sewak, 2005)

50. Informal and formal peace process • Informal peace process: • Informal peace process are usually complementary to formal peace process • Mainly carried out by civil society, negotiators and facilitators • Successful informal peace process results on formal peace agreements • Formal peace agreement • An agreement or accord is a formal commitment between hostile parties to end a war. Peace agreements often seek to resolve protracted conflicts and provide a new vision for inter-group and interstate relations at the regional, national or local level