Development Channel

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is by Christina Asquith, a journalist who has covered women’s rights in the Middle East for ten years and the author of Sisters in War: A Story of Love, Family and Survival in the New Iraq. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) atrocities against women have provoked worldwide outrage, generating increased support for U.S. action in the region and hundreds of airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since August. Yet for all this indignation, similar abuses against women, including child marriage, legalized marital rape, and domestic abuse, occur in countries across the Middle East, often without legal consequences. With or without ISIS, defense of women’s rights in the region has long been weak. Domestic violence was legal in Saudi Arabia until 2013 and in Lebanon until this year. In Turkey, rates of domestic violence are two to three times higher than in either the United States or Europe, and increasing. In Saudi Arabia, women accused of adultery are still stoned to death in public settings, and as recently as 2011, a Saudi woman was executed on charges of “sorcery.” Furthermore, crimes committed against women, such as rape, not only go unpunished, but are also frequently blamed on the victims. This belief that a woman bears responsibility for her rape often results in an “honor crime,” in which the victim’s family kills her to restore their honor.  Thousands of honor crimes are estimated to occur each year in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, Turkey, and elsewhere, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. ISIS’s atrocities against women are not so unique in a region that ranks at the bottom of indices that measure women’s political empowerment, property rights, and economic freedoms. In January 2014—six months before the arrival of ISIS in Mosul—the Iraqi government pushed forth legislation known as the Jaafari Personal Status Law that would allow child marriage, facilitate polygamy, and restrict women’s rights in matters of inheritance and parenting after divorce. In Saudi Arabia, women are forbidden from driving, must be accompanied by a male chaperone, and are required to wear a full facial covering in public. Until the United States directly addresses this violence and inequality, women in the Middle East will continue to be oppressed and brutalized, and the misogyny underlying ISIS’s actions will not change. Along these lines, there is much the West can do, such as include trained gender advisors in military missions, fund female police training and recruitment, support the inclusion of women in peace negotiations, and pressure allies such as Saudi Arabia to support the advancement of women. To begin, the United States should regularly communicate with women’s advocates when developing their military policies in places like Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. When the United States sends military and political advisors to conflict zones, for example Iraq and Afghanistan, it should also include those trained in women’s issues and sexual violence, according to Michelle Barsa at the Institute for Inclusive Security. Though the U.S. military does not currently deploy gender advisors, such positions do exist in other militaries, for example, Sweden’s. Women are also critical in the fight against domestic violence; in the 1970s and 1980s, the United States witnessed higher rates of reporting of domestic violence, better treatment of victims, and stronger efforts to prosecute offenders by integrating women into the police force. Yet in many countries, women are largely left out of security forces that respond to such crimes. In 2014, the United States appropriated $25 million for recruiting, retaining, and training of women in the Afghan security forces. The same steps could be taken throughout the Middle East and in Pakistan, where the United States also funds security forces and less than 1 percent of the police force is women. Women should be included at the negotiating table in peace processes and post-conflict scenarios. Negotiating teams that include women are far more likely to prioritize issues related to protection measures for women, such as ending sexual violence, while all-male teams tend to overlook those issues. The United Nations can support this effort by appointing more women as special representatives and envoys and expanding women’s role in peacekeeping operations, particularly among military observers. Women’s involvement in negotiations is also beneficial in creating long-lasting stability. Peace processes that include women tend to be more stable and resilient than those where women are absent. In Syria, for example, women are leading the cease-fire negotiations in the Damascus suburbs and elsewhere. By taking advantage of the perception that they are less threatening, women are able to move more freely across borders, access restricted spaces, and engage with parties to the conflict that would not otherwise be available to men. Yet despite all they have to offer, a UN review of twenty-one major peace processes since 1992 found that women comprised less than 8 percent of the delegates to talks and less than 3 percent of agreement signatories. Those numbers are not only unacceptable; they represent a missed opportunity. Though ISIS’s recent atrocities have generated a tidal wave of media attention, the problems of gender inequality and violence against women are not new to the Middle East. It is time for the United States to address this issue head on and take concrete steps to empower women in the region. Only when women hold positions of power and influence is it possible to imagine a Middle East in which violence against women is not just exclusive to extremist groups—it is nonexistent.

This week, reports of Yazidi women forced into marriage, raped, and sold as slaves to Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters have spurred horror and outrage around the world. Human Rights Watch reports that these captives, some as young as ten or twelve, have been abducted from their families and been beaten into submitting to marriage to their captors. Yazidi girls who have escaped ISIS report seeing women and girls sold to ISIS fighters. Their captors hardly tried to hide their atrocities; in fact, they boasted of their acts in their magazine. This episode is but the latest in a series of crimes that try the imagination committed by ISIS and other actors in the Syrian conflict, gathering more international attention for a conflict with no apparent end in sight. As is often the case in conflict zones, women and children have been particularly affected by the ongoing crisis. A UNICEF report from March estimates that 5.5 million children have been affected by the conflict, with up to one million living under siege or in hard-to-reach areas where humanitarian aid is rarely available. A conservative UN estimate places child casualties at ten thousand, and witnesses cited in the UNICEF report have described children and infants killed by sniper fire. A July Human Rights Watch report describes the egregious casualties and injuries resulting from barrel bomb attacks from the Syrian government in Aleppo, Syria. Among the casualties are children. One particularly horrific account describes a young girl playing on a third floor balcony at the time of a barrel bomb attack; the balcony was partially destroyed, throwing the girl to the ground. Reporting on these tragedies has given way in recent months to the tide of reporting on ISIS’s human rights violations. Multiple accounts have surfaced of civilian summary executions at the hands of the armed extremist group, and the group has specifically targeted minority groups. Women have been in the crosshairs as ISIS has taken hold of ever-larger swathes of territory. According to a report released by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq in October, ISIS fighters have repeatedly harassed and targeted female professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and politicians. In August, a group of female doctors in northern Iraq went on strike, contesting ISIS’s demand that they wear a religious face cover while working. In retaliation, the extremist group attempted to abduct at least one doctor and killed her when she resisted. Last month, a female lawyer known for her human rights work was abducted, tortured, and publicly executed by ISIS. As the conflict in Syria drags on and spreads into Iraq, reports of such brutality continue to flood the media internationally. And with no prospects for resolution on the horizon, we can only expect to hear more stories of suffering.

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is by Alicia Ely Yamin, lecturer on global health and policy director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University. At the UN General Assembly last month, world leaders moved toward a new development agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which build upon the soon-to-expire Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As these discussions continue, policymakers must prioritize creating equitable and effective health and social protection systems, rather than only focusing on stand-alone, single-issue initiatives. As a recent John and Katie Hansen Family Foundation study conducted through Harvard University demonstrates, the challenges of development are complex, often cutting across multiple aspects of wellbeing, including health, nutrition, education, and socioeconomic status.  Over generations, these interrelated problems are too often compounded, and they can persist in the face of narrow interventions that tackle only a single issue and ignore the big picture challenges of developing communities. Consider the broad-reaching impact of maternal mortality: though the actions needed to stop women from dying in pregnancy and childbirth have long been known, approximately every ninety seconds, a preventable maternal death occurs. The Hansen Foundation study investigates the intergenerational impacts of maternal deaths on children in Malawi, South Africa, Ethiopia, and Tanzania and finds that losing a mother can ruin an impoverished child’s chances for future prosperity. Indeed, consequences range from elevated mortality levels in infants and young children to early school dropout and early pregnancy. Isolated programs, such as those focused on nutritional supplementation or ensuring appropriate vaccinations for children, are beneficial, but this piecemeal approach leaves many gaps in the system through which orphans might slip. The study reviews the few programs that exist for maternal orphans in Tanzania, Malawi, and Ethiopia and finds that all three countries lack sufficient coordination both horizontally—among the health, educational, and other sectors—and vertically—between national and local government structures. Even in South Africa—a country with a higher GDP per capita than the others studied and a history of social protection grants—the process of applying to social welfare programs can be fraught with delays. These delays are due, at least in part, to weak linkages within the system, such as the communication between a health facility and social development office. The result is fragmented orphan care; for example, if an orphan was born to an HIV-positive mother receiving prevention of mother-to-child transition (PMTCT) care, that orphan often does not receive follow up care, either medical care for AIDS or other social support. These disconnects and delays place a burden on families in need of more immediate assistance and, in some cases, prevent individuals from accessing government services. Rather than single initiatives, these countries need systemic linkages and multisectoral programs that support both women’s reproductive health and the health, educational, and other needs of orphans and their communities. Social protection programming needs to take a holistic approach to the analysis, planning, and budgeting processes from the beginning of the policy cycle, incorporating orphans’ needs for income, educational support, food security, and health care throughout. These integrated, multisectoral plans of action then need to come to fruition in full and include measures to ensure orphans receive care across the different sectors of social protection, such as referral services. This streamlined approach could remove vulnerable populations’ barriers to accessing services, prevent individuals from falling through the system’s gaps, and empower affected families and communities to make holistic decisions about their needs. Social protection systems are within reach for all countries, even impoverished ones,  and investments in universal social protection systems have high returns. In economic terms, these systems typically generate internal rates of return from 8 percent to 17 percent. Yet their more important effect is on social inclusion and equity. By accelerating progress for the most vulnerable and often excluded populations, social protection systems help to level the playing field across societies, thus promoting more democratic inclusiveness. All of these outcomes—increasing healthy years of life, productivity, and economic growth and improved social equity—have been identified as SDG aims. As the debate continues over the SDG agenda, the full intergenerational costs of failing to prioritize reproductive and maternal health within functioning health systems should be considered, but so too should the broader role that social protection systems can play in improving cross-cutting social and economic rights, substantive equality, and meaningfully “sustainable” development.