ANALYSIS OF GENDER DYNAMICS OF ARMED CONFLICT AND VIOLENCE

Abstract

Women suffer disproportionately from violent conflicts including wars. Not only they suffer during these conflicts but their suffering and trauma continues to long much after the conflict or war is over. The actors at
conflict at times target women as a strategy of war besides the suffering and hardships which are meted out to them as the by-products of war and conflict situations.

Physical violence appears to be a universal and widespread characteristic of warfare. It is considered as a norm of war in which women suffer severe forms of violence during and after the conflict as an instrument of war. This violence continues even in the refugee camps where women are targeted to physical violence with respect to recent history. Rwanda and Sudan are the examples where women were humiliated and subjected to more rape in the refugee camps as against in the war zone itself.

Physical violence occurs frequently in all phases of armed conflict and sometimes carried out by armed forces, combatant and civilians alike as in the case of Afghanistan, Bosnia and Rwanda. The finding reveals that besides gender-based violence, widowhood is one of the brutal consequences that many women suffer and face in situation of conflict and crisis. Rwanda, Iraq and Afghanistan are identified as countries of widows where approximately 80% of women population comprises of widows. This widowhood instantly changes the social and economic roles for the females. The impact varies widely between different societies. Afghanistan is an appropriate example where widow were deprived of their rights to earn a living or even run their household due to the misunderstood and misinterpreted religious values along with social norms in which women are not allowed to work or go out without accompanying male member of the family.