USIP’s Work on Women, Peace and Security

USIP’s Work on Women, Peace and Security

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

Violent conflict upends and polarizes societies, disrupting social structures and gender roles. Policies and projects intended to assist communities that are fragile or affected by violence are more successful when they consider the different effects conflict has on men, women, boys, girls and gender and sexual minorities.

Type: Fact Sheet

Gender

Can the Taliban’s Brazen Assault on Afghan Women Be Stopped?

Can the Taliban’s Brazen Assault on Afghan Women Be Stopped?

Thursday, January 12, 2023

By: Belquis Ahmadi;  Kate Bateman;  Andrew Watkins;  Scott Worden

The Taliban marked the New Year by doubling down on their severe, ever-growing restrictions on women’s rights. On December 20, they banned women from all universities — adding to their prior ban on girls attending middle and high school. Then the Taliban announced on December 24 that women cannot work for NGOs, including humanitarian organizations that are providing vital food and basic health services to the population that is now projected at 90 percent below the poverty rate. Western and regional governments have responded with uncommonly unified outrage and many humanitarian organizations have suspended their operations until women are allowed to return to their jobs.

Type: Analysis

GenderHuman Rights

The Role of Women in Myanmar’s Evolving Security Institutions

The Role of Women in Myanmar’s Evolving Security Institutions

Thursday, December 15, 2022

By: Hkawn Htoi;  Gabriela Sagun

Myanmar’s women have assumed an unprecedented leadership role in the pro-democracy resistance since the 2021 coup. From nonviolent protest movements to fighting in People’s Defense Forces (PDF) to the National Unity Government (NUG), women have been instrumental in the fight against the ruling junta’s brutality and oppression. But as Myanmar’s network of resistance groups slowly weakens the junta’s grip, resistance leaders are now faced with a daunting task: How do you re-establish security and stability in a country long plagued by civil conflict?

Type: Analysis

Conflict Analysis & PreventionGenderJustice, Security & Rule of Law

The Taliban Continue to Tighten Their Grip on Afghan Women and Girls

The Taliban Continue to Tighten Their Grip on Afghan Women and Girls

Thursday, December 8, 2022

By: Belquis Ahmadi;  Scott Worden

Since the Taliban’s August 2021 takeover of Afghanistan, they have ratcheted up restrictions on women and girls as the group consolidates power. These restrictions include limitations on employment, education, public interactions and other fundamental rights such as access to justice. These restrictions have only tightened over time with increasingly draconian enforcement — the latest being public floggings that harken back to the Taliban’s 1990s rule. Amid the U.N.’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, USIP has compiled a comprehensive archive of Taliban decrees and public statements on the treatment of women and girls. While leaders and activists around the globe strategize and develop plans to address gender-based violence in their respective countries, Afghanistan stands out as a worst-case example, with two decades of hard-won progress rapidly unwinding.

Type: Analysis

GenderHuman Rights

We Have Strategies to Address Gender-Based Violence — It’s Time to Implement Them

We Have Strategies to Address Gender-Based Violence — It’s Time to Implement Them

Monday, December 5, 2022

By: Negar Ashtari Abay, Ph.D.

Gender-based violence against women and girls is the most pervasive breach of human rights worldwide and a tactical weapon that is fueling violent conflict. In just the last year, we have witnessed an increase in targeted attacks on women leaders, push back against women’s rights, shrinking of civil society space, virulent online harassment, and conflict-related sexual violence all in conjunction with the strengthening of authoritarianism and state aggression. This unparalleled trend is evident in many countries, including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Iran, Myanmar and Russian-occupied Ukraine.

Type: Analysis

GenderConflict Analysis & PreventionHuman Rights

Women Help Nonviolent Campaigns Succeed, But Nonviolent Discipline Remains Crucial

Women Help Nonviolent Campaigns Succeed, But Nonviolent Discipline Remains Crucial

Wednesday, November 9, 2022

By: Matthew D. Cebul, Ph.D.

In recent weeks, the world has watched in awe as Iranian women rise in peaceful protest against their country’s violent and patriarchal theocracy. Their courage is at once extraordinary and familiar, paralleling other inspiring episodes of women-led nonviolent activism. Indeed, women have played central roles in many of the world’s most impressive nonviolent campaigns.

Type: Analysis

GenderNonviolent Action

Taliban Escalate New Abuses Against Afghan Women, Girls

Taliban Escalate New Abuses Against Afghan Women, Girls

Thursday, October 27, 2022

By: Belquis Ahmadi

Afghanistan’s Taliban are escalating restrictions against women, sending armed men into girls’ classrooms and forcing staff to inspect girls’ bodies for signs of puberty to disqualify them from further schooling. Afghan women report Taliban enforcers beating women whom they find wearing Western-style pants beneath their regime-mandated outer robes. The Taliban are intensifying these assaults in response to women’s rights campaigns in Afghanistan and Iran, and amid their own struggle to consolidate power. The Taliban’s intensifying violations against women risk mass atrocities and may presage greater violent extremism and threats to international security. Policymakers must respond.

Type: Analysis

GenderGlobal Policy

Iran’s Protests ... and the Afghan Sisters Next Door

Iran’s Protests ... and the Afghan Sisters Next Door

Thursday, October 13, 2022

By: Belquis Ahmadi;  Palwasha L. Kakar

Iran’s women are seizing worldwide admiration with 26 days of courageous defiance against their authoritarian government’s violent confinement of females as second-class citizens who may not freely work, marry, divorce, travel or even be seen with their heads uncovered. Less noted are this audacious movement’s existing, and potential, connections to the tenacious, 14-month campaign by Afghan women resisting the even tighter oppression of the Taliban. Street protest slogans, social media posts and other links illustrate a synergy between the movements that both should use in the difficult task of converting their inspiring courage into real change.

Type: Analysis

GenderNonviolent Action

In Papua New Guinea, Homegrown Solutions Should Guide U.S. Aid

In Papua New Guinea, Homegrown Solutions Should Guide U.S. Aid

Monday, October 3, 2022

By: Jessica Collins

“The world stands today at the dawn of a decisive decade — a moment of consequence and peril, of profound pain and extraordinary possibility,” President Biden declared in April. These words came just two months into Russia’s war on Ukraine and during a time of concern for Western countries as China flexed its muscular diplomacy in the Pacific Islands region. Biden’s statement also sets the scene for the U.S. administration’s new approach to peacebuilding, which aims to prevent conflict from erupting in fragile states by disrupting drivers of instability.

Type: Analysis

Fragility & ResilienceGender