Topic: Development
This year, the UN launched its first all-women peacekeeping unit. The unit, comprised of Indian policewomen, is stationed in Liberia. They serve a variety of traditional police roles, from guard duty to patrolling, crowd control, and providing armed back-up to the local police force. Less traditionally, it is hoped that their presence will inspire Liberian women to join the local police and reduce the incidence of rape and abuse of local people by UN personnel.
Reported cases of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN personnel in Liberia were reduced from 45 in 2005 to 30 in 2006, even before the all-women was launched, according to the Christian Science Monitor. The leader of the unit hopes that the presence of women peacekeepers will lead to a further reduction in these numbers, by increasing respect for women in Liberia and in peacekeeping operations generally.
It will be interesting to see what the early effects of the all-women force will be. One possiblity is that the number of reported cases of sexual abuse and exploitation, both by UN personnel and by local people, may rise. Crimes of sexual violence often are not reported to authorities, due to social stigma and inappropriate or unclear structures for handling such crimes. Local women may feel more comfortable reporting sexual abuse to other women, rather than male peacekeepers. Or they may not - common identity based on sex might not override the obstacles posed by the Indian policewomen's position as foreign people holding power in terms of legal authority, armed force, and economic wealth relative to local women. As Richard Reeves points out in the Christian Science Monitor: "You get [these abuses] not just with peacekeepers but with soldiers in general, and it gets worse the further they are from home and the more destitute the local population." Abuse is not fueled solely by sex, but by the degree of power peacekeepers hold over local people. Women peacekeepers will hold power just as men peacekeepers do.
Will adding more women help with the problem of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN personnel? Constant Lampey, a UN gender adviser, is of the opinion that the presence of women helps dilute a macho culture among peacekeepers: "if you have a contingent of 50 peacekeepers that are all men, the dynamics will be different than if you suddenly have 15 women, and 35 men." However, the research I did for my thesis indicated that including a minority presence of women in the military has, at best, mixed results. Women are as apt to adapt to the macho culture of the military as to attempt to change or mitigate it, so the simple introduction of women into military forces is unlikely to result in a substantive change to the attitudes that contribute to the abuse and exploitation of local people, especially if there is a pervasive attitude that being in a position of power entitles soldiers to treat civilians in whatever way they see fit.
Sandra Whitworth has argued that one problem with UN peacekeeping is that it follows a military paradigm and relies on personnel who are trained in aggressive tactics by their national militaries (for example, see her article on abuses in Somalia perpetrated by Canadian peacekeepers). Even an all-women unit trained in police tactics may be vulnerable to perpetrating abuse on local people, if the organizational culture and systems in which they work do not do enough to discourage abuse of civilians. The UN has instituted policies and structures aimed at reducing abuse of local populations, but still must rely heavily on troop-contributing nations to train and discipline peacekeepers. Even if the UN has the best and most effective abuse prevention policies and practices in place (which remains to be seen, since most of them have only been in place for a few years), implementation is likely to be uneven because of the high degree of control that troop-contributing countries retain over their forces.
I hope I'm not portraying the deployment of the all-women unit as a bad thing, or an ineffective effort. Women peacekeepers may have access to people and places that men don't - for example in communities where men and women have clearly defined spheres of activity that are defined by sex. Women peacekeepers would presumably gain access to women's areas more easily than men in such cases, and be able to offer more effective assistance to women and children. I am hopeful that the presence of women police officers in Liberia may indeed contribute to greater respect for women's capabilities, expand the range of roles open to women, and encourage women to become police officers themselves. But I am reluctant to embrace what I see as a perception that women have a "civilizing influence" on men. I think it asks too much of women, presumes too little about men, and obscures the impact of social or organizational control (or lack thereof) over its members. The UN needs more women, but it also needs to take a hard look at why some people who work for it are convinced that they can get away with abusing local people, and I worry that recruiting more women will be seen as sufficient "fix" and that other problems rooted in inequality may not receive as much attention.