Feminism in the Humanitarian Machine. Introduction to the Special Section on ‘The Politics of Intervention Against (Conflict-Related) Sexual and Gender-based Violence’

ABSTRACT

The prevention and mitigation of sexual and gender-based violence in (post-) conflict societies has become an important humanitarian activity. This introductory article examines the analytical discourses on these interventions, the institutionalization of SGBV expertise in international politics, and the emancipatory potential of anti-SGBV practices. It argues that the confluence of feminist professional activism and militarized humanitarian interventionism produced specific international activities against SGBV. As part of the institutionalization of gender themes in international politics, feminist emancipatory claims have been taken up by humanitarian organizations. The normal operating state of the humanitarian machine, however, undercuts its potential contribution to social transformation towards larger gender equality in (post-) conflict societies.     

我国网络环境下儿童性权益保障的缺失及对策探讨

随着互联网的迅速发展,儿童已成为我国网络使用的重要群体。网络作为一种新的社会因素,对儿童成长的影响逐渐凸显。儿童在上网过程中,网络环境中充斥的淫秽、色情等不良有害信息以及某些网络违法者对儿童实施的性骚扰及性侵害等行为严重侵害了儿童的性权益。近几年来,网络环境下侵犯儿童性权益的案件频繁发生,如何有效的预防和制止这类犯罪,在复杂的网络环境中减少侵犯儿童性权益的犯罪行为,是我国目前应重视的问题。通过提出网络环境下儿童性权益受到侵害的现状,探析网络环境下儿童性权益被侵害的原因,进而提出网络环境下儿童性权益保护的对策,通过完善我国目前的法律法规,加强对儿童网络安全的管理,加强学校和父母对儿童的性教育与网络安全教育等相关措施,净化网络环境,保护网络环境下儿童性权益,保障儿童的健康成长。     

青少年网络途径认知及其网络行为

青少年对网络途径的认知可从他们对网络的态度、对网络影响的认知、网络规范的认知和网络信度的认知四方面分析,青少年的需要、价值观及生活阅历等决定他们对网络社会化途径的认知和选择,从而导致青少年产生特定网络行为,表现为青少年上网的目的、时间与地点、迷恋程度以及对不良信息的阅读。要将网络的消极作用抑制在更小的范围,最佳方法就是教育:对青少年来讲,要加强“善待网络”的教育;对家长来讲,应系统的接受网络技术和网络道德方面的教育;对学校来讲,应该加强网络人文教育,培养“善待网络”的一代。此外,还要从整体上净化青少年成长的环境,重视媒介素质教育。     

性犯罪药物防治入刑的正当性及本土形塑

近年来,我国性犯罪出现的一些新情况令人堪忧,需要探索新的治理政策。有的国家采取性犯罪药物防治作为性犯罪的治理手段,值得借鉴。性犯罪药物防治是利用口服或者注射药物方式减少罪犯的雄激素、降低其性欲,达到控制性犯罪目的。有人认为这是残虐、不人道的,侵犯身体健康与性权利。而性犯罪药物防治相比起物理阉割更具人道主义精神,有利于保障基本人权,其尊重受者自由意志,具备一定的社会容忍度,执行方式高效经济。但此种手段需要加以本土化改造,需要规范法律术语,明确刑法性质与适用对象,细化执行程序。     

Postmortem Changes of Female External Genitalia and Their Importance in Suspected Sexual Abuse

Examination of the female external genitalia to assess for sexual abuse is performed in living individuals, and the interpretation of the findings is based on evidence-based studies. However, in the deceased, no such studies are available, and postmortem changes could present as suspicious findings that can be mistaken for trauma. Patches of discoloration in the hymen were reported previously in one case as hypostasis (i.e., livor and lividity), and based on this finding, it was listed as a finding that is not associated with trauma. This was a retrospective study that was conducted in the Center of Forensic and Legal Medicine in Dammam, Saudi Arabia over a 4-year period. The study included 30 deceased women in whom photographic documentation of their external genitalia was assessed for postmortem changes. The postmortem interval ranged from less than 24 h to more than 100 days, and the ages of these deceased women were in the 20–40 year-old age group. In cases where the hymen, vagina, and/or fossa navicularis were clearly visible, none of these areas showed any hypostatic discoloration. A comparison between antemortem and postmortem appearance of the hymen in one case clearly showed the absence of hypostatic changes in the hymen. In conclusion, any discoloration of the external genitalia that is detected in a female decedent requires serious consideration.     

Perceptions of Racism and Depressive Symptoms in African American Adolescents: The Role of Perceived Academic and Social Control

Experiences with racism are a common occurrence for African American youth and may result in negative self perceptions relevant for the experience of depressive symptoms. This study examined the longitudinal association between perceptions of racism and depressive symptoms, and whether perceived academic or social control mediated this association, in a community epidemiologically-defined sample of urban African American adolescents (N = 500; 46.4% female). Structural equation modeling revealed that experiences with racism were associated with low perceived academic control, which in turn was associated with increased depressive symptoms. Findings suggest that experiences with racism can have long lasting effects for African American youth’s depressive symptoms, and highlight the detrimental effects of experiences with racism for perceptions of control in the academic domain. Implications for intervention are discussed.

Police officers’ perceptions of false allegations of rape

Abstract

The idea that women lie about rape is a long standing rape myth with little or no supporting evidence. Previous research has demonstrated a belief in high levels of false allegations among police officers, despite no evidence to suggest rape is falsely reported more than other crimes. This has implications for complainants’ willingness to report sexual violations, for the treatment of complainants within the justice system, and wider societal understandings about what constitutes rape. The data that informs this paper comes from an Economic and Social Research Council-funded study that focussed on rape attrition and the institutional response to rape. Forty in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with serving police officers in a UK force who regularly deal with reported cases of rape, and explored perceptions, practices and processes around rape. The research found police officers’ estimate of false allegations varies widely from 5 to 90%. The paper will discuss how police officers make judgements about perceived veracity of complainants in rape cases. This will demonstrate that whilst significant progress has been made in how police officers and police forces respond to rape, gender stereotypes about women as deceitful, vengeful and ultimately regretful of sexual encounters, continue to pervade the thinking of some officers. It will show that police officers differentiate between ‘types’ of reports they consider to be false, and operate with a notional ‘hierarchy’ of presumed false allegations that ranges from vengeful/malicious to mistaken/confused, with a corresponding reducing level of culpability attributed to women for the supposedly false allegation. It concludes that this serves to reinforce a culture that both supports and reproduces gender inequality and its manifestation in the form of sexual violence, and that intervention, training and institutional and policy frameworks are not wholly successful in addressing sexual violence in this context.     

(Re)centering street harassment – an appraisal of safe cities global initiative in Delhi,India

Abstract

In 2012, New Delhi (India) was catapulted into the global limelight for the brutal gang rape of a 23-year old woman travelling in a bus. This wasn’t the first time that sexual violence had been perpetrated on the streets of Delhi and nor would it be the last. Yet this universal fact of everyday violence in public spaces particularly streets, though acknowledged by activists and feminists, has been examined minimally in academic scholarship. Further, even though the United Nations has been instrumental in foregrounding gender-based violence as a critical human rights issue, it has only recently turned its attention to street harassment through its ‘Safe Cities Global Initiative’. Therefore, in this paper, we trace how a routine but understudied form of violence becomes central to United Nations’ agenda to eliminate violence against women. By specifically, analysing the Delhi Safe Cities programme as a case study, our second contribution lies in examining the adequacy of the contemporary Safe Cities framework as a model for addressing sexual violence in public space. We conclude the paper by offering critical conceptual and methodological recommendations to further strengthen the framework.     

‘Feel what I feel’: making da(r)ta with teen girls for creative activisms on how sexual violence matters

Abstract

Inspired by feminist new materialist and posthuman activist philosophy, this paper speculates on what happens when data entangles with arts-based methodologies in a school-based participatory activist project with six teen girls (age 15) on gender-based and sexual violence. Mapping the journey of how data become da(r)ta and how da(r)ta become d/artaphacts, the paper follows how the Runway of Disrespect, the Shame Chain, the Ruler-Skirt and the Tagged Heart ripple through peer cultures, school assemblies and national policy landscapes. Each journey provides a small glimpse into how bodies, space, objects, affects and discourse ‘intra-act’ in dynamic assemblages to produce d/artaphacts crafted from and carrying experience. The paper concludes to consider the ethical-political affordances of how participatory arts-based methodologies and the im/personal vitality of objects might support young people to safely and creatively communicate and potentially transform oppressive sexual cultures and practices.     

“Excuse Me,But Are You Raping Me Now?” Discourse and Experience in (the Grey Areas of) Sexual Violence

In feminist research on sexual violence and victimization, the relationship between discourse and experience has often been at the forefront of intense debates. Poststructuralist scholars have emphasized that the discourses used to name sexual violence may in fact perpetuate the very problem they set out to describe, by freezing women into powerless positions of rapability. Others have likened this sort of argument to anti-feminist trivialization of the pervasively gendered experiential reality to which such discourses refer, highlighting that women’s victimization is not a discursive problem. In this article, I seek to carve out a path that cuts through such polarization by exploring the multifaceted dialectical relationship between, on one hand, gendered discourses on sex and sexual violence and, on the other, people’s reported experiences of these phenomena and, in particular, of the “grey area” between sex and sexual violence. I do this by analysing autobiographical stories from the influential Swedish campaign #prataomdet (#talkaboutit), which emphasized the need for a new language that can do justice to people’s experiences of sexual violence and the grey area between sex and sexual violence.