Gender-based Crimes Research Articles

Gender-Based Crimes Committed in the Republic of Kosovo

Gender-Based Crimes Committed in the Republic of Kosovo

The concept of gender-based crimes in international law

The concept of gender-based crimes in international law

Country Trafficking Protocol Compliance and the Empowerment of Girls and Women

Human trafficking is a gender-based crime of violence. The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Protocol) is one of the most important international means to counter human trafficking; however, the ability of the United Nations to enforce the Protocol is considerably limited. The primary purpose of this study is to theoretically and empirically explore the underlying societal factors that drive - or impede - a country’s compliance with the Protocol. We theorize that countries that have relatively fewer gender-based discriminatory laws, policies, and social practices place a greater value on the welfare of girls and women and are more likely to comply with the Protocol. This hypothesis is empirically tested using a cross-country dataset and a series of ordered logit regressions. Cho et al.’s 3 P index is used to measure country compliance. The degree of women’s inclusivity and empowerment in relation to laws and regulations is measured using the World Bank’s Women, Business, and the Law index. The level of socio-economic gender empowerment and inclusivity within a country is assessed using; women’s labor force participation rate, the percentage of parliament seats held by women, and the United Nation’s Gender Inequality Index. The analysis results offer empirical evidence that the degree to which girls and women experience inclusivity and empowerment is a predictor of country compliance. This study extends previous research exploring the relationship between gender inequality and human trafficking to examine how measures of gender inequality can hinder country Protocol compliance.

The Efficiency of Intersectionality: Labelling the Benefits of a Rights-Based Approach to Interpret Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes

The Efficiency of Intersectionality: Labelling the Benefits of a Rights-Based Approach to Interpret Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes

Activities of the United Nations in combating gender-based crimes

The article is dedicated to the issue of the United Nations activities in preventing and eradicating gender-based crimes. It is indicated that gender-based violence and gender-motivated killings can be classified as hate crimes motivated by intolerance towards certain groups of the population. It is noted that an important contribution to combating gender-based crimes was made by the General Assembly, the Secretary-General, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, and other bodies, institutions and structures of the Organization. In particular, the UN General Assembly has adopted a number of resolutions in this area, including Resolution 68/191, which set out recommendations to Member States and UN bodies, agencies and institutions on measures against gender-related killing of women and girls. In pursuance of this recommendation, an open-ended intergovernmental expert group meeting was convened to review promising practices and formulate a number of practical recommendations on ways and measures to improve the effectiveness of efforts to prevent and investigate gender-related killings. It is indicated that since 2019, UNODC has been implementing the Global Programme on Strengthening Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Responses to Violence against Women, providing specific solutions that complement existing UN joint programmes and country projects. It is noted that the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has played an important role in combating gender-based crimes. In particular, in its concluding observations on the periodic reports of States parties and in the context of relevant follow-up procedures, the Committee consistently condemns gender-based violence. In addition, the Committee provides clarification of the standards related to the elimination of such violence and the related obligations of States parties. The article also focuses on the work of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences in this area.

A Critical Analysis of the Prosecution of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence at the International Criminal Court

The prosecution of crimes of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) has remained a challenging issue for international criminal justice. Given that in the past, crimes of sexual violence within the context of international armed conflict were not considered substantive crimes. This is evidenced in the non-prosecution of sexual and gender-based crimes at the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals despite the incontrovertible utilisation of the "comfort women system" in Tokyo during World War II. However, with the emergence of the International Criminal Court(ICC), there seems to be a reasonable but piecemeal progression of the investigation and prosecution of SGBV. Although, previous studies have reported that investigating and gathering evidence for SGBV is a continuing concern within the jurisprudence of the ICC. The recently decided cases at the Court especially demonstrate a development and dynamics in the prosecution of SGBV at the ICC. By employing a doctrinal research method, I spotlight the nuances and hurdles of sexualised crimes within the ICC. The author recommends gender mainstreaming in the investigation and prosecution of sexual violence in order to fill the gap.

Communicating Justice: Cambodian Press Coverage of the eccc’s Final Judgment

Abstract This article explores Khmer-language media reporting of the final appeal judgment at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (Case 002/02). Media reports are interesting for two reasons. First, as a source of opinions expressed in Cambodia’s official language (Khmer), which often remain beyond purview of international observers. Second, as one of the few sources of information about the eccc available to the Cambodian public now that official Court outreach has largely ceased. Yet, free media is significantly curtailed in Cambodia, and reporting on the eccc is likely to be shaped by what is politically safe to print, as well as what is deemed publicly interesting. Against this backdrop this article explores: the press’s tendency to downplay Cambodian political interference in the eccc proceedings; its (mis)representation of the eccc’s genocide findings; its reporting on the prosecution of sexual and gender-based crimes; and its use of ‘justice for victims’ rhetoric.

Inside Victims, Outside Offenders: A Case Study on Crime Reporting

In political and media rhetoric throughout Europe, migrants and refugees are often linked to crime; especially to gender-based crimes. This paper, focusing on Hungary, examines whether media discourses perpetuate this image and to what extent do other attributes of offenders (such as ethnicity and class) influence the way the media represent those involved in rape cases. The 720 articles sampled for this study were analysed using qualitative content analysis and critical discourse analysis, with Lindgren and Lundström’s model on inside victims/offenders and outside victims/offenders and Nils Christie’s theory on ideal victims being applied to the findings. Results show that the media in Hungary is more likely to grant victim status to those who are insiders (Hungarian, white, middle class) when their offenders are outsiders (migrant, Roma, lower class), while socially marginalised offenders are automatically externalised. The paper also shows that marginalised people are externalised collectively, while insiders are externalised individually. The application of Christie’s theory further strengthens the relational hypothesis that the ideal (or outsider) offender makes the ideal victim.

ICC: Prosecutor v. Dominic Ongwen

The International Criminal Court for the first time found guilty and sentenced a perpetrator of gender-based crimes under international law. Moreover, it did so by defining a new crime of forced marriage, which was considered by the international criminal law as “other inhumane act.” In its judgements, the International Criminal Court dealt with the challenges based on violation of legality and non-retroactivity principles. Further, it dealt with distinguishing the crime from sexual-based crime of sexual slavery. It upheld that the forced marriage is distinctive crime from the sexual-based crimes like forced pregnancy, sexual slavery, or rape, and that the principle of speciality does not bar cumulative convictions. Regarding the definition of forced marriage, it is not necessary for its commission to conclude valid marriage and the crime itself is continuing one, thus not only the act of entry into marriage is considered as criminal, but the whole duration of forced marriage. The third chapter puts the present development of international criminal law in the broader perspective of attempts to prosecute gender-based crimes and to distinguish them from the sexual-based crimes. Author comes to conclusions that the gender has to be interpreted in a conservative way and more extensive understandings of gender would require revision of the Rome Statute. International Law Commission itself was not firm in answering what the current rules on gender are.

The evolution of funding for the International Criminal Court: Budgets, donors and gender justice

In this article, we introduce a new dataset on financial support for the International Criminal Court (ICC) and examine how this support has changed over its two decades of existence. We first consider how the ICC’s overall budget has changed over time. Then, we explore the evolution of support from individual donor governments. In addition, given former Prosecutor Bensouda’s emphasis on the effective investigation and prosecution of sexual and gender-based crimes, we examine the extent to which ICC funding is consistent with its apparent commitment to gender justice. Our research contributes to debates about the cost of justice, donors and norm diffusion, South–North clashes over the definition and delivery of justice, and gender mainstreaming within costly international justice processes. We argue that the level of funding state parties and other bodies allocate to particular forms of justice is a better proxy for their commitment to justice than their rhetoric, and conclude that the patterns of funding seen at the ICC support the claim that the Court remains, to a significant extent, a tool of powerful states.

Domestic violence against women during COVID-19 pandemic. Support options

Domestic violence is a common phenomenon all over the world and in every environment, regardless of the level of education, material conditions, place of residence, race, or even religion. Historically viewed as a private issue, domestic violence is now recognized as a gender-based crime and is a significant public health problem affecting the well-being of victims, their families and communities. Numerous evidence shows that domestic and sexual violence escalate in times of disasters and pandemics. One of the main reasons for the escalation of domestic violence during the period of anomie is social isolation, economic instability, loss of income and related stress, as well as chaos and change of legislation, including the introduction of introduction of restrictions. Such periods of forced intimacy between partners extend the time they spend together and make it more difficult for victims of domestic violence to “escape” from home. The aim of the article is to present both the scale of the phenomenon of violence in a global perspective and the actions taken in selected countries, including Poland and Ukraine, for the victims of domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research focuses on the following questions: What is the scale of the phenomenon of violence during a pandemic? What measures have countries taken to support victims of violence? The article is based on the monographic method, an analysis of available scientific sources (published in English, Polish and Ukrainian) describing the diagnosed phenomenon. The article may contribute to further research and reflection on this issue, especially in the current political situation in the world (war in Ukraine), which is conducive to aggressive behaviour.

Hybrid machine learning methods for risk assessment in gender-based crime

Gender-based crime is one of the most concerning scourges of contemporary society, and governments worldwide have invested lots of economic and human resources to foretell their occurrence and anticipate the aggressions. In this work, we propose to apply Machine Learning (ML) techniques to create models that accurately predict the recidivism risk of a gender-violence offender. We feed the model with data extracted from the official Spanish VioGen system and comprising more than 40,000 reports of gender violence. To evaluate the performance, two new quality measures are proposed to assess the effective police protection that a model supplies and the overload in the invested resources that it generates. The empirical results show a clear outperformance of the ML-centered approach, with an improvement of up to a 25% with respect to the preexisting risk assessment system. Additionally, we propose a hybrid model that combines the statistical prediction methods with the ML method, permitting authorities to implement a smooth transition from the preexisting model to the ML-based model. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that achieves an effective ML-based prediction for this type of crimes against an official dataset.

Normative Evolution of Gender-Based Crimes Against Humanity

This article traces the history of gender-based crimes against humanity, examining the process by which the International Criminal Court came to recognize this specific category as differentiating from existing sexual crimes. Focusing on the prominent case of former Lord’s Resistance Army commander Dominic Ongwen, various perspectives across international law are explored in order to understand the justification for creating new charges addressing gender-based crimes, such as forced marriage. Considering the recent conviction of Mr. Ongwen in 2021, this 2020 article provides excellent insight into the current paradigm shift occurring within international law concerning the prosecution of gender-based crimes against humanity.

Correction to the Review Essay: Feminist Perspectives on the International Prosecution of Conflict-related Gender-based Crimes

Journal Article Correction to the Review Essay: Feminist Perspectives on the International Prosecution of Conflict-related Gender-based Crimes Get access Journal of International Criminal Justice, Volume 20, Issue 2, May 2022, Page 539, https://doi.org/10.1093/jicj/mqac024 Published: 04 May 2022

Women Victims of Domestic Violence as a Gender-Based Crime

This study aims to find out why women are the dominant victims of domestic violence. This research uses a descriptive qualitative method, with a literature study. The result of this study is that the relationship between men and women is still unequal, which still considers men to be more than women in all respects so that the wife/woman is only in charge of household matters. The wife's economic dependence on her husband is also one of the triggers for the violence. So that the husband commits violence with the intention that the wife no longer refuses the husband's will, as well as to show masculinity. This oppression is also caused by a subordinate view that is supported by socio-political dynamics rooted in a hierarchical, submissive level and legitimizes violence as a control mechanism. The conclusion of this study is that domestic violence is part of gender-based violence because violence was born as a result of an imbalance in the pattern of power relations between men and women which was then justified by both state law and religious beliefs as a result of interpretation gender-biased religious texts. Building a pattern of relations that is egalitarian and fair and away from the practice of violence in the context of family life is part of both humanitarian and religious duties.

Use of Technological Devices and (Re)victimization in Gender-based Crimes in Spain: A Qualitative Study on Professionals’ Perceptions


 
 
 
 In Spain, compliance with protection orders in gender-based violence crimes are sometimes monitored with electronic devices. The objective of this paper is to analyze the use of electronic devices from the perspective of professionals involved in the assistance of victims. Method: We have carried out in-depth interviews with professionals in the gender-based violence sector in the region of Madrid. In particular, 59 workers (n=59), such as lawyers, social workers, psychologist, police officers, etc., have been interviewed. Results: From the perspective of the professionals electronic devices do not contribute to the well-being of the victims, but revictimizes survivors who wear the device. Moreover, these devices might be counterproductive because they could reduce the fear of crime but does not decrease real vulnerability.
 
 
 

Review Essay: Feminist Perspectives on the International Prosecution of Conflict-related Gender-based Crimes

Feminist legal scholars played a prominent role in surfacing gender-based crimes and developing the international criminal justice system in the last three decades,1 from as early as the first horrific reports of the systematic mass rape of mainly Bosnian Muslim women throughout the Yugoslav dissolution war of 1992–1995.2 Due to the failure of the international criminal tribunals and courts to adequately prosecute wartime rape and other forms of sexual violence in the past three decades, gender-based crimes were inflicted on a massive scale as an integral part of ethnic and civil armed conflicts, by both enemies and supporters,3 in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sierra Leone, and other countries recently torn by sectarianism and civil war, particularly Libya and Syria.4 As a result of the rampant mass rape that prevailed in conflicts over the past three decades, international criminal law has witnessed unprecedented developments,...

Will Universal Jurisdiction Advance Accountability for Sexualized and Gender-based Crimes? A View from Within on Progress and Challenges in Germany

AbstractThis Article is based on the professional experiences of the authors working as lawyers and activists towards accountability for sexualized and gender-based crimes under international law. It provides a critical evaluation of universal jurisdiction cases in Germany addressing conflict-related sexualized violence. In particular, the article looks deeper into the Office of the German Federal Prosecutor General of the Federal Court of Justice’s (GBA) approach to gender while taking note of the barriers in the way of investigating and adjudicating crimes under international law. Both authors have been following universal jurisdiction developments in Germany closely, particularly in relation to the investigation and prosecution of sexual and gender-based crimes. With regard to the proceedings against two high-rank representatives of the armed rebel group Forces Démocratiques de liberation du Rwanda (FDLR), the findings in this article are informed by trial monitoring reports organized and conducted by a group of organisations and institutions, namely Medica Mondiale, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and the Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung. In light of the fact that German trial records are absent of publicly accessible records of what was said in the court room, the consortium of groups co-monitored the FLDR trial.

Exploring the trauma of acid attack victims: a qualitative enquiry

Various researches have been carried out in the past to understand psychological trauma that suggest that gender differences can be observed in the type, prevalence, and impact of trauma. Ample evidence exists that indicates that women are often the target of different kinds of gender-based violence, causing them to experience physical and psychological trauma. However, the trauma associated with one such gender-based crime, acid attack, has been less explored and lacks due representation in media and literature. Moreover, trauma has mostly been studied from a clinical perspective. Hence the present research was conducted on 30 female acid attack victims to explore their experience of the trauma of acid attack from a social constructivist approach. Narratives focusing on their victimization experience and trauma were collected and analyzed with the help of a six-step thematic content analysis approach. Based on the patterns identified in the research, six significant sources of trauma associated with acid attack, with inter-related but mutually exclusive subthemes, were identified. These sources include violence, motive, social statement, betrayal, violation of civil rights, and embodiment. The present study increases the visibility of acid victims in scientific research and contributes to the understanding of psychologists, counselors, and other mental health professionals that might work with them.

International Criminal Court (ICC): Dominic Ongwen

On 4 February 2021, the ICC's Trial Chamber IX found Lord Resistance Army's Commander Dominic Ongwen guilty for a total of 61 crimes comprising crimes against humanity and war crimes, including many conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence crimes, committed in Northern Uganda between 1 July 2002 and 31 December 2005. On 6 May 2021, Dominic Ongwen was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for these crimes.<br/> In this Q&A we discuss this case with three renowned experts, namely Victoria Nyanjura (Survivor, Founder Women in Action for Women Uganda), Joseph Manoba (lawyer and Legal Representative for victims in the Ongwen case) and Lorraine Smith van Lin (independent victim's rights expert). By answering 11 questions, they provide insight in the complexity of this case, including how it is perceived by LRA victims and survivors in Uganda.