Abstract
Differences in women and men’s experiences of war have in recent years diverged from academia and policy into public discourse. Media highlights like the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in War, held in London in 2014, comes in the wake of UN resolutions further recognizing women’s specific vulnerabilities in war, and attempting to empower women in the aftermath. However, this renewed global focus and conceptualization of gender might distort and simplify in its quest to empower women. Some feminist scholars critique the implementation of gender programmes in post-conflict situations as being reductive and for victimizing women while enabling business as usual.
The main concern of Women and Transitional Justice, by Mayesha Alam, is to make the case for greater gender sensitivity in transitional justice and what forms this must take to be effective. The book both analyses the overarching international policy trends on the issue, and demonstrates failures of past and current transitional justice initiatives, primarily drawing examples from post-conflict Bangladesh and Kenya. Alam successfully convinces the reader that previous efforts at gender sensitivity did not sufficiently include and/or empower women, nor did those efforts recognize women with various experiences beyond stereotypically gendered categories. Including a broad range of women, at all levels and in all kinds of transitional justice processes, Alam argues, will enable a more stable peace and a more equal society.
The book opens with a foreword written by the former US ambassador for Global Women’s Issues, Melanne Verveer. By stating that peace is born out of justice, she relates to the core transitional justice debate ‘peace versus justice’ (p. viii). This theme becomes more nuanced over the course of the book, as Alam deals with justice in both retributive and restorative forms. Alam’s introduction explains that her aim is to bridge theory and practice through evidence-based analyses, and to consider how to improve gender mainstreaming in transitional justice mechanisms to the benefit of peace and equality.
Alam defines key concepts early in the book, clarifying her stances on issues such as recognizing the experiences of war as gendered and the differing responses, recognition and attention women and men receive in a transitional period. She warns against gender blindness, however, arguing against treating women and men as the same, and suggests that differences are important. In the same vein, Alam argues that any achievement made in improving inclusion of women will be undermined if this inclusion means treating them not as autonomous in transitional justice or simply as victims.
The rest of the book maps the tensions between practices of transitional justice and feminism, and critiques the former for marginalizing women and other deprivileged groups. Hinting at a continuum of inequality and violence suffered by women, Alam shows how labelling them as victims can perpetuate that inequality. She claims that instead gender justice is a more useful framework in a transition period.
Alam takes a closer look at retributive approaches, using case studies to track the evolution of gender sensitivity. Noting the shortcomings in the treatment of sexual violence at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Alam reveals the political considerations inherent in the practice of international law, as well as contextual challenges in implementing policy change in the face of the prevailing patriarchy of institutions. In the chapters that follow, she illustrates how transitional justice mechanisms are shaped both by contextual norms and local and international politics by detailing the war and its aftermath in Bangladesh and Kenya. Women and Transitional Justice provides compelling evidence for why contextual considerations matter – because both the post-conflict context and the norms of the institutions implemented to deal with transitional justice are shaped by patriarchal structures. This must be taken into account as part of a gender-sensitive approach if the aim is to be accessible to and inclusive of women.
Alam suggests that the main issue with punitive justice is a lack of trickle-down effects, and the limited resources for ensuring individual justice through retributive measures. She argues that the reach of retributive justice can, however, be improved by emphasizing public broadcasting of trials, and including women in national narratives. Although not debunking punitive justice completely, the book seems to favor the possibilities allowed by restorative justice, reparations, and, in particular, truth telling. Alam values reparations because she believes these allow women and men to be more equal stakeholders in rebuilding society, thus transforming unequal gender relations. In addition, truth commissions are preferred because they give the power of narration to the victims. Nevertheless, Alam warns that a balanced gender ratio must be maintained in truth commissions to avoid a skewed representation of experiences (i.e. framing only women as victims). Though the book illustrates that the practice of justice is strongly influenced by local contexts and norms, the analysis offers only minimal practical advice on to how ensure accurate representation when dealing with truth commissions, or how to find out what representation is an accurate reflection of experiences. Alam’s aim here, rather, seems to be to show that normative contextual challenges and a lack of political will will affect implementation regardless of the approach.
Pointing again to the ‘peace versus justice’ debate, Alam suggests that some punitive justice might be better than none at all, and is still worth pursuing – but given the presentation of myriad obstacles to criminal justice it is unclear why she would not prefer efforts placed elsewhere. She does consider, however, that because these efforts are insufficient when taken on their own, they must be complemented by grand gestures, public apologies and the like. Readers might agree that such token measures might indeed provide a sense of justice to a wider community of survivors, but is their justice and peace really being served or are such gestures simply another political tool for silencing victims’ claims? In other words, as Alam hints, should ‘true’ justice be sacrificed for peace?
The book concludes by reiterating Alam’s point that gender sensitivity is of communal value in societies recovering from war, and by stating that a more nuanced gender analysis is necessary to better understand masculinity and the perpetuation of gender inequalities. Most important, Alam noted that gender mainstreaming often means including women only as objects of transitional justice. Her insistence that reducing women’s experiences to that of victimhood is insufficient to transform unequal gender relations and ensure peace is deeply convincing.
Another strength of the book is the in-depth account of the story of Ferdousi Priyobhashinee, a survivor of multiple rapes and violence in war-torn Bangladesh. Throughout the book, Alam balances accounts of the realities of practical constraints or institutional failures with solid advocacy for women in and after war. However, although a good portion of her case studies are spent outlining the history of the conflict situations being discussed, it would be interesting to delve deeper into accounts of women’s experiences both from national narratives and transitional justice processes, which is a gap in the literature, as Alam herself notes. Overall, the book relies on concise analyses of secondary sources, but is particularly convincing when complemented by interviews conducted by the author. The richness of the depiction of the Bangladeshi survivor could have been supported by similar insights into other women’s experiences. Moreover, the chapter on Kenya could also have benefited from an equally in-depth and embodied account of a woman surviving this war. The personal account here is provided by a ‘Jane Smith’, who contributes greatly as an informant, but whose embodied experience is not given the same emphasis as Priyobhashinee’s. With these minor additions, the book could have made an even richer contribution to widening the scope of recognition.
Women and Transitional Justice is a timely piece on how feminism can help post-conflict policies move towards stability and equality, and offers useful illustrations on how current practice might be harmful to women. The book is a welcome reader for students and scholars in the study areas of global development, gender, war, or politics. Individuals involved in policy and/or implementation would also greatly benefit from using the book as a starting point for looking more closely at the multiplicity of gendered experiences and needs during and after war.