By Anne Speckhard

In recent years, violent extremist activities have escalated dramatically. Around the world, such groups increasingly target women and women’s rights. Using sexual and gender-based violence, they terrorize communities and destroy the social fabric. Different UN Security Council resolutions have recognized that violent extremism has gender dimensions. These lead to varying consequences for women and girls, men and boys. Women are frequently seen only as victims of violent extremism. But in reality, women play multiple roles. They are on the frontlines of prevention and response. They lead civil society organizations and bolster community resilience. Promoting women as agents of peace recognizes their contributions to peacebuilding and prevention of violence and upholds respect for the human rights of everyone in areas afflicted by violent extremism. Preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) is more effective, sustainable and meaningful if it includes the participation and perspectives of women. This training manual is designed for actors involved in P/CVE in Europe and Central Asia, including state officials, members of non-governmental organizations, community activists, staff of UN agencies, international and regional organizations, to help them understand violent extremism’s gender dimensions. It is designed as a training guide for staff and trainers who are working with different counterparts engaged in P/CVE and want to help create more effective and gender-sensitive responses. The five modules in this guide include learning objectives, explanatory text, warm-up activities, practical exercises, references for further reading, and empirical experiences from Europe and Central Asia.

Istanbul: United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) 2021. 122p.

By Thea Shahrokh and Joanna Wheeler.

This pilot evaluation explores how citizenship and agency among social activists can be fostered in contexts of urban violence at the local level. Many initiatives and approaches to addressing violence, particularly urban violence, tend to focus on security sector reform and policing, infrastructure and livelihoods. The role of citizens living in slums, informal settlements and housing estates in acting to stop violence and promoting peaceful relations is less understood and supported. In the urban context, violence is often a means of getting access to scarce resources (such as employment), political power, as well as enforcing discriminatory social norms such as those surrounding gender, age, race, religion and ethnicity. The focus of this pilot is to understand how a sense of democratic citizenship and the ability to act on that citizenship at the local level can contribute to reducing different types of urban violence and promote security, and how becoming an activist against violence can contribute to constructing a sense of citizenship. The case study for this analysis is based in the informal settlement of Khayelitsha, Cape Town, and focuses on community activism against gender-based violence.

Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies, 2014. 42p.

By Oosterom, M.; Huq, L.; Namuggala, V.; Nazneen, S.; Nankindu, P.; Sultan, M.; Sultana, A. and Azim, F.

There is a strong belief that employment is a crucial avenue for the empowerment of young women, through income, greater autonomy, and bargaining power within the family. However, experiences of workplace sexual harassment undermine these potential gains. This qualitative study among agro-processing factory workers and domestic workers in Uganda and Bangladesh demonstrates that sexual harassment is widespread in both formal and informal workplaces, while domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to its most severe forms. Women’s agency to challenge harassment is severely constrained by social and gender norms. Most find that the best possible strategy is to avoid and prevent physical forms of sexual harassment from happening. Language is essential for voicing and challenging sexual harassment, but the study shows that social and gender norms constrain young women in articulating transgressive and inappropriate behaviour by men. Many women hide detail, deliberately use euphemisms, and even lack a vocabulary to explain what happened to them, ultimately limiting opportunities for redressal. At the same time, formal institutions are failing young female workers. Local authorities in both countries reproduced prejudice about women ‘inviting’ sexual attention, whereas the police are generally distrusted because of corruption and the need for bribes. To tackle sexual harassment in the workplace, multipronged strategies are needed that target employers and government actors. The right policies and adequate safeguarding and reporting mechanisms need to be implemented, whereas programmes need to support women to help them gain the confidence to speak about sexual harassment and support (collective) action. Longer-term strategies need to address gender norms that condone sexual harassment.

Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies, 2022. 84p.

Edited by Sundari Anitha and Ruth Lewis.

Policy, prevention and educational initiatives. “This collection comes in the midst of some promising and challenging times for activists, students and academics in the UK and beyond who have been researching and campaigning on the issue of gender based violence (GBV) in university communities. In the context of emerging research evidence and in the face of increasing public awareness of and media attention on this problem, these are indeed the first steps towards acknowledging and addressing it in countries including the UK and Australia.”

Policy Press (2018) 282p.

By Nicole Westmarland, Anna-Lena Almqvist, Linn Egeberg Holmgren, Sandy Ruxton, Stephen Robert Burrell and Custodio Delgado Valbuena.

Voices from Spain, Sweden and the UK. “Men’s violence against women and girls is a problem crossing all social groups. Globally, it constitutes a leading cause of the premature death of women and children, with its impacts ricocheting far into all communities (Westmarland, 2015). Many have argued that men must engage further in the movement to end violence against women. This book aims to develop an understanding of the factors that enable men to actively take a stance against men’s violence against women.”

Policy Press (2021) 160p.

By Kim Barker and Olga Jurasz.

A Challenge for Legal Regulation? The ideal of an inclusive and participatory Internet has been undermined by the rise of misogynistic abuse on social media platforms. However, limited progress has been made at national – and to an extent European – levels in addressing this issue. In England and Wales, the tackling of underlying causes of online abuse has been overlooked because the law focuses on punishment rather than measures to prevent such abuses. Furthermore, online abuse has a significant impact on its victims that is underestimated by policymakers. This volume critically analyses the legal provisions that are currently deployed to tackle forms of online misogyny, and focuses on three aspects; firstly, the phenomenon of social media abuse; secondly, the poor and disparate legal responses to social media abuses; and thirdly, the similar failings of hate crime to tackle problems of online gender-based abuses. This book advances a compelling argument for legal changes to the existing hate crime, and communications legislation.

London: New York: Routledge, 2019. 146p.

By Sabrina Marchetti, Daniela Cherubini and Giulia Garofalo Geymonat.

Intersectional Inequalities and Struggles for Rights. “Domestic workers tend to universally epitomize the figure of the low-skilled, low-valued, precarious, hidden and unorganized labourer. Overwhelmingly women, migrant and working class, they are also commonly low-caste, Black and indigenous. Belonging to society’s most marginalized groups, they are largely excluded from labour protection laws and are significantly impacted by the social shifts brought about by globalization.”

Policy Press (2021) 180p.