Gender Equality in Times of War: Addressing Violence, Justice, and Displacement

Violence is perhaps the epitome of war and what warfare is understood to entail. However, up until relatively recently, women's experiences of war and of the violence associated with war, have largely remained invisible. This presentation will discuss how gender has been used as a lens to uncover the specific ways that violence impacts women during war, the development of evidence and approaches to understand and address that violence and why it remains imperative to continue to expand recognition of the range of gendered violence that takes place in war.

Past experiences suggest that without addressing the issue of displacement no conflict management plans can be successful. For peace to be sustainable there needs to be a pathway to address the needs of the population that has been displaced due to conflict. Their safe return and reintegration is often ignored. Also reintegration after conflict cannot be considered without gender sensitivity. It cannot be a one size fits all strategy. For peace to be sustainable it has to be just peace.