It is widely
acknowledged that a significant number of victims of authoritarian regimes and
conflict are women, and that they experience both in distinct ways. Similarly,
women usually play a crucial role in the aftermath of violence, searching for
victims or their remains, trying to reconstitute families and communities, and
upholding memory and demands for justice. Despite all of this, reparations
programs are rarely designed with an explicit gender dimension in mind. This
project seeks to explore ways of introducing this dimension into reparations
programs, in order to maximize the potential redress for female victims and
their families.
In 2006, the ICTJ launched the publication of The Handbook of Reparations (Oxford, 2006), containing
the results of a multiyear, large-scale research project on reparations for
victims of human rights abuse-the single largest study of reparations anywhere
in the world. This global study highlighted an important gap: an absence of
information and understanding of the ways in which reparations programs could
incorporate a gender perspective.
Despite the fact that truth commissions have become increasingly sensitive to
gender issues, they have not expressed this sensitivity in drafting reparations
plans shaped by a deep understanding of the impact of reparations benefits on
women. Just as until now there has been almost no factual information on the
different needs of men and women regarding reparations, there has been almost
no normative work on the difference a gender perspective would have on
reparations. This has made it exceedingly difficult to articulate arguments for
gender-differentiated reparations measures and to influence emerging policies.
One of the goals of a reparations program is to provide a measure of justice, albeit
imperfect, to victims. But reparations are also intimately tied to building a
just and peaceful foundation for a transitioning society. A program that fails
to provide redress or justice to women in effect undermines the link between
the goals of reparations and establishing a democratic state.
The ICTJ's research project on gender and reparations aims to:
- Collect and analyze information about how past and ongoing
reparations programs have dealt with a variety of gender issues
- Articulate views about how the adoption of a gender perspective
in reparations could better serve women's justice interests
- Contribute to the more general debate about gender equity
- Strengthen local and international expertise on the topic of
reparations
- Facilitate and solidify a network of experts on the issue of
gender and reparations
- Identify best practices
- Enrich the tools available to transitional and post-conflict
societies for redressing victims, particularly women
The results of the first part of the project are gathered in the book What Happened to the Women? Gender and Reparations
for Human Rights Violations (SSRC, 2006), edited by Ruth
Rubio-Marín, which discusses reparations for women in Guatemala, Peru, Rwanda,
Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Timor-Leste. The book is the first publication
in the ICTJ's new Advancing Transitional Justice Series. The thematic studies were
commissioned in October 2005, and will be published in an edited volume
entitled The Gender of Reparations in
late 2008. The book's chapters include:
- The
Gender of Reparations in Transitional Societies
- Gender
and Violence in Focus: A Background for Gender Justice in Reparations
- Sexual and Reproductive Violence through the Lenses of Reparations
- The
Widow, the Spouse and the Parents: Reparations and Family Members as
Communities of Harm
- The
Role of Reparations in Recognizing and Addressing Crimes and Grave Rights
Violations Against Girls and Boys
- Tort Theory, Microfinance, and Gender Equity Convergent in
Pecuniary Reparations
- Gender, Memorialization, and Symbolic Reparations
- Gender and Collective Reparations
Two dissemination activities have been organized to discuss the results and
policy implications of the initial phase of research. The first one targeted
policy makers specifically and took place in Caux, Switzerland,
February 23-24, 2007, under the auspices of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. The second activity took place March 26-28, 2007, in Bogotá, Colombia,
targeting a wider audience that included academics, practitioners, activists,
and major institutions and officials currently involved in discussing and
designing reparations policies in the country.
What Happened to the Women? Gender and Reparations
for Human Rights Violations is available for purchase or free download from the Social Science
Research Council.
(Updated June 2008)
