Gender, sexual violence and justice in war-torn societies

摘要

Despite a growing awareness among scholars and policymakers of the role that gender plays in mobilising war crimes and human rights abuses and the need for attention to gender in the aftermath of violent conflicts, the international community has not yet paid sufficient attention to gender in the construction of mechanisms intended to promote justice in war-torn societies. Similarly, scholars have neglected gender as an explanatory concept in their analyses of efforts to promote 'post-conflict justice'. In an effort to address this void, this paper examines the limitations of prevailing approaches to justice in war-torn societies due to their failure to adequately consider the role of gender norms as a constraint on participation in the dominant mechanisms for pursuing 'post-conflict justice'. It also considers how mechanisms intended to promote justice in war-torn societies might be most appropriately constructed in an effort to bring justice to all victims of wartime violence.