Latin America has seen significant advances in both women's rights and gender equality in the last three decades thanks both to external pressures (since the Beijing conference in 1995) and the strength of the women's movements in the continent. However, these advances are being threatened by populist regimes and strong conservative and reactionary groups within civil society, especially among Catholic and Protestant churches. This kind of anti-'gender ideology' reactions is part of a backlash that slides in a scale from constant and structural discrimination to open reversals of gender equality previous gains. This chapter will try to illustrate how left and right-wing populism in the case of Mexico and Brazil, limit or setback gender equality gains in several areas, particularly regarding political parity and the fight against gender-based violence (GBV). We chose these two cases as we think they represent two sorts of backlashes, but also because they represent two examples of populism, different in their ideological positioning but not so different in their defence of patriarchal structures and support of family values.

Several studies have examined the humanitarian Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) in postconflict environments. However, there has been limited focus on establishing and making available an institutional setup for child welfare, which harnesses CIMIC experiences in the post-conflict rehabilitation phase. This paper aims to address this gap in the Newly Merged Districts (NMDs) of Pakistan, where the local population experienced a series of crises in the form of terrorism, subsequent military operations, and conflict-induced internal displacement, making children, in particular, extremely vulnerable. In doing so, the paper outlines the underreported vulnerabilities related to the children of NMDs and further identifies the related institutional dynamics of CIMIC in the immediate post-conflict environment. The key findings encompass the delineation of direct and indirect vulnerabilities and the identification of a lack of distinction between child welfare and protection for adequate redressal policies. Regarding the pre-existing institutional infrastructure, the study confirms the prominent role of national and international development organizations and further validates the discord between relevant government departments in providing child welfare services. Furthermore, this research argues that the Pakistan military deployed throughout the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) effectively utilized the pre-existing social-tribal hierarchy to provide protection and development services. The research suggests that the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), specifically through its Gender and Child Cell, collaborates closely with the Social Welfare Department, which is responsible for providing child protection and welfare services in the post-merger environment. The objective of this collaborative effort is to facilitate the effective and practical implementation of Child Protection Units (CPUs) in the NMDs.

Elections have generally been recognized as the most democratic means of establishing governments. However, whereas Ghana has seen a remarkable increase in the occurrence of elections in the post-third wave period, this democratic gain has been battered by a corresponding proliferation in the incidence of electoral-related violence in certain parts of the country before, during and after elections. This study intends to contribute to the existing literature on the intersection between democracy, electoral violence and human security in Ghana and Africa at large by exploring the effect of such violence on human security in the Odododioidio constituency in the Greater Region of Ghana. Drawing mainly on qualitative data generated through group discussions and in-depth interviews, the study revealed seven key human security concerns that are undermined by electoral violence in the study location. The paper proposes interventions that could contribute significantly to avert the situation.

Using descriptive and analytical legal research, this study analyses the relationship between the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and sustainable human security. It involves critically analysing the rules on the prohibition of nuclear weapons and what has been written and argued regarding human security and sustainable human security. The findings indicate that the TPNW consists of legal obligations for all state parties to abolish nuclear weapons as a prerequisite to permanent human security. It also comprises provisions for achieving sustainable human security. Therefore, the total ban on nuclear weapons is meant to protect human security and sustain it by eliminating the factors of insecurity of human beings due to the threat of using nuclear weapons.

Within vivacious international relations, human rights dictums developed whilst racing to advance offensive and defensive capacities. Lately, artificial intelligence (AI) systems have been utilized in the spectrum of these advancements. This has led to a new form of arms race and human rights abuses whilst resisting any attempt to conclude a binding regulation in developing or using AI technology, and although AI has been a frontline issue in many disciplines from various angles, it nonetheless has not been as much in the legal profession, and specifically in international law. The unprecedented AI technology changes, despite the many advantages, alarms the need to continuously explore its impact within various aspects of international law. The absence of a conclusive international threshold for AI development and use might cause hindering international relations if international law orthodoxies in humanitarian law and human rights become improperly effected. Accordingly, this paper examines whether there is a need to develop the existing international legal order, whether directly or indirectly, and suggest establishing an IGO entity with a mandate to reshape rules and embedded values in the face of a rapid AI technological advancement.

The precariat is a new social category that exists in all countries around the world and consists of people who work in the gig economy and/or are employed under civil law contracts. One of the key factors that determines membership of the precariat is the uncertainty felt by individuals in the labour market as a result of, inter alia, being employed on flexible forms. The research aim of this article is to define the specificity of the Polish precariat and their sense of social security in the context of the current employment support and social policy of the Polish government. The utilitarian goal is to evaluate the Polish Deal programme currently proposed by the Polish government in terms of its strengths and weaknesses in order to reduce the precariat phenomenon and boost the Polish precariat's sense of social security. The article also attempts to demonstrate the effects of actions taken by the Polish government since 2015, which were aimed at improving the situation on the precariat labour market. In order to determine the extent to which the current government in Poland affects the social security of the precariat and satisfies their needs by taking social welfare action and implementing indirect operations related to education, a questionnaire was used, conducted via the Internet, involving a survey panel of respondents. In this study, a stratified-quota sample selection was used, corresponding to the proportions of people working on the basis of various flexible forms of fixed-term employment and self-employment. One thousand respondents employed on flexible terms participated in the study. The study was carried out at the turn of March/April 2021.

Over the last five years, violent non-state actors have acquired armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and have been using them extensively. This paper presents the main non-state actors involved and the areas in which they have used this tool, as well as how UAVs are used and procured. To date, armed UAVs have mainly been used by non-state actors in the Middle East and Central Asia. They have also been used in the conflict zones of Ukraine, Myanmar, Mexico, and Ecuador. While this is worrisome, limited evidence suggests that violent non-state actors use armed UAVs intentionally in areas where mostly civilians are present. The paper details the state of UAV usage by non-state actors and develops a thesis of cyclic adaptation between state and non-state actors. Not only do non-state actors learn from state actors, so does state and state-backed actors learn from non-state actors in conflict zones. This process have been visible on the battlefield in Ukraine, where state-backed actors on both sides have incorporated smaller consumer style UAVs into their repertoire. As the use of armed UAVs developed substantially following Hezbollah’s early UAV operations in 2004 and spread to many regions of the world, the adaptation of non-state cleverness and ingenuity can be harnessed by state actors in times of poor or limited access to weaponry and support systems.

This article presents a methodological proposal for formulating a Human Security Index ( HSI ), including information from institutional sources and the inhabitants' perception of security. The developed methodology uses quantitative methods to evaluate HS (Human Security) in small municipalities with large rural areas affected by the confluence of different social and economic problems. Given the security conditions in the area, it was impossible to use a random sampling mechanism. Therefore, the data collected have a sample size that cannot be considered significant enough to make inferences using a frequentist statistics approach. The method to construct the index is illustrated using Miranda's data, a Colombian municipality exposed to decades of armed conflict. With the answers given by 55 interviewees to questions related to the armed conflict such as presence-absence reminders and retained values of violent events, a proposal of 36 indices was made, and two of them were selected for the study, following some statistical criteria. In the construction of one of these selected indices, we used information from binary variables and, for the other index, we used information from count data. The values obtained by both indices for the municipality of Miranda were, respectively, 46.4 and 35.8. According to HS experts, both values can be considered moderate levels in the perception of insecurity by residents of the municipality.

Youth are the backbone of any nation, and they are decisive in its development or destruction. A considerable portion of the population in both Afghanistan and Pakistan consists of youth. This paper discusses the impacts of unemployment, poverty, drug abuse, corruption, conflicts, and extremism on the experiences of young people in these countries. Vulnerabilities can become risk factors that, in turn, can increase the likelihood of youth being involved with the police. Although vulnerability and insecurity are common to both young women and men, girls and young women face additional challenges that increase their vulnerability to insecurities, such as gender-based violence. This article details how livelihood and personal insecurities are closely intertwined and further considers how these insecurities involve the police in one way or another. It argues that local community-oriented police initiatives and civil society organisation contributions can increase cooperation between youth and law enforcement agencies in addressing these challenges in a collaborative and trustful manner.

This article examines the construction of gender agendas in left-wing populist movements that mobilise for armed struggle, by focusing on the case of the Maoist movement in Nepal. Feminist scholarship has highlighted how left-wing populism, when appealing to a generalized “people”, tend to produce homogenizing discourses that erase inequalities and difference, even when such movements integrate a gender dimension. Examining the trajectory of the Maoist movement over time, we argue that this ‘sameness’ may become contested and utilized by women participating in the lower echelons of the movement, as the political reality shifts from conflict to post-conflict context. As our main contribution, we develop a bi-directional approach that employs the concept of collective identity and allows us to examine the construction of populist agendas as a two-way interaction between the leadership of a movement and its grass roots supporters. Through this approach we show how the gender dimension was not merely a bi-product but central to both the construction of the Maoist movement’s war time ‘progressive’ identity, and the fragmentation of this identity and the movement’s populist appeal in the post-conflict context.