WOMEN, INK. BOOKLINK #74
March 2008
Katherine Toth & Joeyta Bose

  
 
New Titles: Conflict & Peace Processes
Welcome to the Women, Ink. Booklink, the monthly e-mail bulletin on what's new in our collection in March. If you have friends or colleagues whom you think would find Booklink useful, please let us know. To subscribe to Booklink, send an e-mail to joey@womenink.org and type the word "subscribe" in the subject line.

Before we dive into this month's selection, we would like to apologize for any problems you have been having purchasing books from our website. We have been experiencing some problems with processing non-US orders. If you would like to call in your order, please phone us on 1.212.687.8633. Alternatively, you could send your order by e-mail to marywong@womenink.org or fax it to us at 1.212.661.2704. A handy fax order form is available on our website for your convenience. We apologize for any inconvenience and do hope you will bear with us while we repair these problems.

This month's Booklink features an exciting array of titles and additional resources about conflict and peace processes. The new titles for the month are:

1. Reversing the Ripples of War (DVD)

2. Leading the Way of Peace (DVD)

3. Women's Experiences during Armed Conflict in Southern Sudan,
1983-2005: The Case of Juba County Central Equatorial State

4. What Happened to the Women? Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations

5. Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women's Violence in Global Politics

6. Men, Militarism & UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis

 

Visit our website at www.womenink.org for further information and to buy any of the featured titles.

 

1. Reversing the Ripples of War (DVD)
Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice and the University of San Diego

Each year, the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice invites four women who are on the frontlines of efforts to end conflict and secure a just peace in their home countries for an eight-week residential workshop in San Diego. Seldom able to record their experiences, activities, and insights due to a lack of time and formal education, the women share and record their unique peacemaking stories in a variety of formats. This short, but powerful, film tells of the undeniable heroism of women peacemakers during brutal conflicts in countries like Uganda, Cambodia, Zimbabwe and the Philippines. The women peacemakers featured are Sister Pauline Acayo (Uganda), Thavory Huot (Cambodia), Emmaculetta Chiseya (Zimbabwe) and Mary Ann Arnado (Philippines)
2007. DVD. 21 min. WE870. $15.00

 

2. Leading the Way of Peace (DVD)
Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice and the University of San Diego

This movie presents personal stories of courage, achievement and hope from four women that who are at the forefront of building peace in their countries - Christiana Thorpe (Sierra Leone), Zarina Salamat (Pakistan), Shreen Abdul Saroor (Sri Lanka) and Luz Mendez (Guatemala). All four women were participants at the Joan B. Kroc Women Peacemakers Program at the University of San Diego and used their time there to document their stories of building peace in their countries. It presents a dynamic group of women from extraordinarily diverse backgrounds who reveal in-depth stories of the struggles they have been involved with and the progress that they have made in their countries.
2006. DVD. 1 hr 5 min. WE871. $25.00

 

3. Women's Experiences during Armed Conflict in Southern Sudan, 1983-2005: The Case of Juba County Central Equatorial State
Isis-Women's Cross Cultural Exchange (Isis-WICCE)

As a result of the prolonged civil armed conflict in Southern Sudan the women experienced acute poverty, food insecurity, poor health and sexual and gender-based violence. Aimed at documenting the experiences and circumstances of the Southern Sudan women in the two decades (1983-2005) of the armed conflict, this study adopts a descriptive and analytical approach that utilizes a mix of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Issues addressed include the pre-armed conflict environment, causes of the conflict and womenís experiences in the outbreak of conflict, including atrocities committed during the war, damages to property, sexual and gender-based violence, flight, life in refugee camps and the causes of death.
2007. ISBN 9970-574-21-1. 114 pages. WE872. $25.00

 

4. What Happened to the Women? Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations
Editor: Ruth Rubio-MarÌn

What happens to women whose lives are transformed and curtailed by human rights violations? What happens to the voices of victimized women once they have their day in court or in front of a truth commission? Women face a double marginalization under authoritarian regimes and during and after violent conflicts. Reparations programs are rarely designed to address the needs of women victims and the introduction of a gender component is vital and necessary in order to improve their response to female victims and their families. This book considers these questions and ideas through contributions from a wide range of actors in transitional justice work, including human rights lawyers, NGO representatives, and members of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. Gender and reparations policies in Guatemala, Peru, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Timor-Leste are also explored.
2006. 346 pages. ISBN 0-9790772-0-6. WE865. $30.00

 

5. Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women's Violence in Global Politics
Laura Sjoberg & Caron E. Gentry

Images of women capturing hostages, engaging in suicide bombings, hijacking airplanes or abusing prisoners runs counter to inherited perceptions of women as maternal, emotional and peace-loving. Surveying empirical evidence and historical events on the execution of violence by women in the global political arena, this book analyzes the biological, psychological and sexualized stereotypes through which women are depicted, as well as how these acts of violence serve to break this mold of what is seen as traditionally appropriate for women. Several case studies are used, including those of female prison guards at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, participants in the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides, suicide bombers in the Middle East, and Chechen ìblack widows.î This feminist re-valuation provides the opportunity to see these women as proactive and in control of the violence that they perpetrate.
2007. 276 pages. ISBN 978-1-84277-865-1. WE864. $32.00

 

6. Men, Militarism & UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis
Sandra Whitworth

There is a fundamental contradiction between portrayals of peacekeeping as altruistic and benign and the militarized masculinity that underpins the group identity of soldiers who undertake peacekeeping missions. In this important, controversial, and at times troubling book, Whit worth employs a feminist perspective to investigate some of the realities of military intervention under the UN flag. Examining evidence from Cambodia and Somalia, she argues that sexual and other crimes can be seen as expressions of a violent "hypermasculinity" that is congruent with militarized identities, but entirely incongruent with missions aimed at maintaining peace. She also asserts that recent efforts within the UN to address gender issues in peacekeeping operations have failed because they do not challenge traditional understandings of militaries, conflict, and women. This unsettling critique of UN operations, which also investigates the interplay between gender and racial stereotyping in peacekeeping, has the power to confront conventional perceptions, with considerable policy implications.
2004. 225 pages. ISBN: 978-1-58826-552-4. WE861. $22.50

 

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RESOURCES

Free resources on conflict and peace processes available over the Internet:

1. New Translations of SCR 1325
Peacewomen
The text of UNSCR 1325 is available online in 79 languages and has recently been translated into Bengali, Khmer, Korean, Romani. If you want to add a translation in any other language, write to
info@peacewomen.org

Find out more at:
http://www.peacewomen.org/1325inTranslation/index.html

 

2. Ending Sexual Violence in Darfur: An Advocacy Agenda
Refugees International, 2007
Sexual violence defines the conflict in Darfur, but international efforts to prevent and respond to the issue have been insufficient. While this report critiques the international response, the primary obstacles to preventing rape and assisting survivors are the perpetrators and the Sudanese government officials who actively block the work of international agencies. From police officers who arrest raped women to the harassment of humanitarian organizations, the Sudanese government has shown itself unwilling to treat the issue of sexual violence seriously. Nevertheless, the international community has also failed to do everything within its power to meet the needs of survivors of sexual violence in Darfur. This report summarizes Refugees Internationalís work on sexual violence in Darfur through 2006 and includes recommendations for improvement in the international communityís response.

Download a copy:
http://www.peacewomen.org/resources/Sudan/RI_sgbv12-07.pdf

 

3. Women, Girls, Boys and Men: Different Needs - Equal Opportunities
Gender Handbook in Humanitarian Action Inter-agency Standing Committee, 2007
Can attention be paid to gender issues when a disaster hits or a conflict erupts and humanitarian actors have to move quickly to save lives, meet basic needs and protect survivors? This handbook aims to provide actors in the field with guidance on gender analysis, planning and actions to ensure that the needs, contributions and capacities of women, girls, boys and men are considered in all aspects of humanitarian response. It also offers checklists to assist in monitoring gender equality programming. The guidelines focus on major cross-cutting issues and areas of work in the early response phase of emergencies. It is also useful to make sure that gender issues are included in needsassessments, contingency planning and evaluations. It can be used as a tool for mainstreaming gender as a cross-cutting issue.

Get your own copy:

http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/gender/
conflict-and-emergencies/manuals-and-toolkits&id=31201&type=Document

 

4. Girls in Fighting Forces: Moving Beyond Victimhood
Canadian International Development Agency, 2007
The issue of child soldiers has become one of global concern. More than 250,000 soldiers under the age of 18 are fighting in conflicts in over 40 countries around the world. It highlights the main findings of three research projects that explored the unique realities of girls affected by armed conflict in Angola, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Northern Uganda. Lessons include: (1) in conflict or within post-war programming, girls are, for the most part, rendered invisible and marginalized; (2) in spite of this profound invisibility and marginalization, girls are fundamental to the war machine ñ their operational contributions are integral and critical to the overall functioning of armed groups; (3) girls in fighting forces contend with experiences of persecutions and insecurity; and (4) in many instances, girls act as active agents and resisters during armed conflict.

Read more at:
http://www.crin.org/docs/CIDA_Beyond_forces.pdf

 

5. Children and Armed Conflict - Report of the Secretary General
United Nations, 2007
This annual report is a survey of the global situation of children involved with armed conflict and highlights the situation of child soldiers and how children are affected by violence. It also touches on a number of issues, including sexual and gender-based violence, the link between recruitment of children and internal displacement, use of indiscriminate weapons that impact civilians, refugees/IDPs targeted for recruitment and/or forced service, and systematic attacks on schoolchildren, teachers and school buildings.

The full report can be found here:
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWFiles2007.nsf/FilesByRWDocUnidFilename/
EGUA-7BBTF3-full_report.pdf/$File/full_report.pdf

 

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