Radicalization and Extremism

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering from November 9 to November 18, was compiled with support from Becky Allen, Anne Connell, and Lauren Hoffman. U.S. House passes Women, Peace, and Security Act The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2016 by voice vote last week with bipartisan support. The bill now awaits approval in the Senate, where Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Mark Kirk (R-IL), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) have introduced similar legislation. If passed, the bill would build upon the 2011 U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security by requiring the president to work with heads of federal agencies to implement a government-wide strategy; update Congress with public progress reports; and provide training to U.S. defense, diplomatic, and development personnel on the strategic value of including women in security processes. The bill would codify the existing U.S. commitment to women’s participation in all aspects of conflict prevention, management, and resolution, which a growing body of research shows could reduce violence, advance stability, and make peace agreements longer-lasting. Nigeria deploys female police forces Following highly-publicized accounts of sexual violence perpetrated by guards in seven camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs), the Nigerian government announced it would deploy an initial group of one hundred female police officers to improve protection of civilians in camps. The move follows the release of a Human Rights Watch report documenting the assaults of forty-three female IDPs by members of the Nigerian government’s security forces. The surviving women and girls have been described as “victims twice over,” having first been displaced by violence perpetrated by Boko Haram extremists in the region, who frequently target females as a tactic of terror. According to Damian Chukwu, police commissioner of the Nigerian state of Borno, the women police officers will be responsible for “day-to-day interaction in the camps” and civilian protection, while male officers will “be limited to [the] handling of the territorial coverage and patrol within the camps.” Chukwu believes that victims of abuse in the camps will be more likely to report cases to female officers, a notion supported by research on women’s participation in police forces and all-female peacekeeping units deployed by the United Nations. Access to family planning increases A new report finds that modern contraceptive use in the world’s poorest countries increased by 30 million users over the past four years. The report evaluates the midway mark of the Family Planning 2020 initiative, launched in 2012, which aims to reach 390 million women and girls by 2020 and advance progress toward the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of universal access to family planning. According to the report, 12 million more women and girls now use contraceptives in Africa, with particularly large gains in Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, and Mozambique. Close to 7.7 million more women in India and 296,000 in Afghanistan now use contraceptives. Evidence confirms that access to family planning not only improves maternal and newborn health, but also results in better educational outcomes for children and economic productivity for families.

Today, October 31, 2016, marks sixteen years since the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 (S/RES/1325), the landmark international legal framework that addresses the inordinate impact of war on women and the pivotal role women can play in conflict management, conflict resolution, and sustainable peace. In the sixteen years since the passage of UNSCR 1325, sixty countries have drafted National Action Plans to increase women’s participation in peace negotiations, peace-building, peacekeeping, humanitarian response, and post-conflict reconstruction. Learn more about the UNSCR 1325 in these six publications from the Women and Foreign Policy program. New CFR Discussion Paper: How Women’s Participation in Conflict Prevention and Resolution Advances U.S. Interests An October 2016 Discussion Paper highlights a growing body of research that suggests that standard peace and security processes routinely overlook a critical strategy that could reduce conflict and advance stability: the inclusion of women. Authors Jamille Bigio, adjunct senior fellow, and Rachel Vogelstein, senior fellow and director of the Women and Foreign Policy program, present compelling evidence about the value of women’s contributions to peace and security efforts and urge increased U.S. investment in women’s participation in peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and post-conflict reconstruction around the world. Read more » The first all-female unit of UN peacekeepers stand at attention as they arrive at Roberts International Airport outside Liberia’s capital Monrovia January 30, 2007. The group of more than 100 police women from India will stay in Liberia for six months, helping to train the local police force. REUTERS/Christopher Herwig Building the Case on Women, Peace, and Security In 2015, the UN Security Council reaffirmed its commitment to UNSCR 1325 by adopting Resolution 2242, which aims to improve implementation of the women, peace, and security agenda and double the number of women involved in peacekeeping missions by 2020. This concrete commitment is a welcome step: although UNSCR 1325 offers a clear roadmap for implementation, fifteen years after its adoption, women continue to be excluded from peacemaking, peacekeeping, and governance. The numbers are stark: women constituted only 4 percent of all signatories, 2.7 percent of chief mediators, and less than 9 percent of negotiators in official peace processes over the past two decades. Read more » Female members of a Philippine peacekeeping force bound for Liberia stand at attention during a send-off ceremony at the military headquarters in Manila, January 2009 (Romeo Ranoco/Reuters). What’s the Problem with Women, Peace, and Security? In a guest post on Women Around the World, Cathy Russell, U.S. ambassador-at-large for Global Women’s Issues, writes about the women in a southern Afghanistan community who raised an early warning about spreading extremism. Women learned that their community’s boys were being targeted for recruitment by militants. Twelve of the women traveled to Kabul to sound the alarm, and tracked down a government minister to voice their concerns. But instead of taking notes during the meeting, the minister laughed, sending them home frustrated and empty-handed. Within a month, the militants attacked a bus and dozens of people were killed. Read more » Shukria Barakzai, a member of parliament, hands out leaflets during her August 2005 election campaign in Kabul, Afghanistan. Barakzai later survived a suicide bombing attack in December 2014 (Courtesy Zohra Bensemra/Reuters). NATO: Women Make Us Stronger When the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) gathered in Warsaw on July 8, 2016, the 28-member organization laid out a vision for its future. Facing pressing security challenges ranging from what to do about Russia to how to handle the self-proclaimed Islamic State, NATO leaders assessed how to make the Alliance more modern, ready, and responsive. They agreed that one way to prepare itself for the challenges of the 21st century was to better engage women. Read more » A female member of the NATO KFOR Joint Enterprise for Kosovo in February 11, 2010. REUTERS/Srdjan Zivulovic Implementing UNSCR 1325 in Afghanistan After a CFR roundtable meeting with Nahla Valji, deputy chief of peace and security at UN Women, Senior Fellow Catherine Powell analyzes progress toward implementing UNSCR 1325 around the world. In Afghanistan, for example, civil society groups initiated the call for a national action plan in 2007, and official meetings on the potential document started in 2009. In July 2015, the government of Afghanistan launched an Afghan National Action Plan. Read more » An Afghan woman walks inside a police compound in Herat province, Afghanistan, March 2013 (Courtesy Reuters/Mohmmad Shoib). Global Progress Toward Gender Equality: A Timeline March 8 marks International Women’s Day, an internationally-celebrated day dedicated to recognizing the social, political, economic, and cultural contributions women around the world have made to their countries and their communities. Last year’s International Women’s Day offered an opportunity to evaluate the progress made for the world’s women as well as build momentum to accelerate the 2030 Agenda and close remaining gender gaps. Read more » Women hold the "peace torch" during the opening ceremony for the Non-Governmental Organizations Forum on Women in Beijing. (AP)    

A new CFR Discussion Paper, How Women’s Participation in Conflict Prevention and Resolution Advances U.S. Interests, presents compelling evidence about the value of women’s contributions to peace and security efforts and urges increased U.S. investment in women’s participation in peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and post-conflict reconstruction around the world: "Recurrent and emerging armed conflicts, expanded terrorist and extremist networks, increased targeting of civilians, and record levels of mass displacement have defined global security in the twenty-first century. Data shows that standard peace-making methods have proven ineffective at addressing these trends: nearly half of the conflict-resolution agreements forged during the 1990s failed within five years. Recidivism for civil war is alarmingly high, with 90 percent of civil wars in the 2000s occurring in countries that had already experienced civil war during the previous thirty years. New thinking on peace and security is needed. A growing body of research suggests that standard peace and security processes routinely overlook a critical strategy that could reduce conflict and advance stability: the inclusion of women. Evidence indicates that women’s participation in conflict prevention and resolution advances security interests. One study found that substantial inclusion of women and civil society groups in a peace negotiation makes the resulting agreement 64 percent less likely to fail and, ac-cording to another study, 35 percent more likely to last at least fifteen years. Several analyses suggest also that higher levels of gender equality are associated with a lower propensity for conflict, both between and within states. Despite growing international recognition of women’s role in security, their representation in peace and security processes has lagged. Between 1992 and 2011, women represented fewer than 4 percent of signatories to peace agreements and 9 percent of negotiators.  In 2015, only 3 percent of UN military peacekeepers and 10 percent of UN police personnel were women, substantially lower than the UN target of 20 percent.  And despite the role that local women’s groups could play in preventing and resolving conflicts, they received just 0.4 percent of the aid to fragile states from major donor countries in 2012–2013. The next U.S. administration should require women’s representation and meaningful participation in conflict resolution and postconflict processes, increase investment in efforts that promote women’s inclusion, reform U.S. diplomatic and security practices to incorporate the experiences of women in conflict-affected countries, improve staffing and coordination to deliver on government commitments, strengthen training on incorporating women in security efforts, and promote accountability. These steps will help the United States respond effectively to security threats around the world, improve the sustainability of peace agreements, and advance U.S. interests." Read the full CFR Discussion Paper>>

Below is a visualization and description of some of the most significant incidents of political violence in Nigeria from October 15, 2016 to October 21, 2016. This update also represents violence related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. These incidents will be included in the Nigeria Security Tracker. var divElement = document.getElementById(’viz1477321597389’); var vizElement = divElement.getElementsByTagName(’object’)[0]; vizElement.style.width=’100%’;vizElement.style.height=(divElement.offsetWidth*0.75)+’px’; var scriptElement = document.createElement(’script’); scriptElement.src = ’https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js’; vizElement.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, vizElement); October 15: Nigerian troops killed a would-be suicide bomber in Madagali, Adamawa. Boko Haram is suspected. October 16: Herdsmen killed forty in Jema’a, Kaduna. October 17: Fourteen herdsmen were killed in Jema’a, Kaduna. October 17: Nigierien troops repelled an attack on a prison holding militants. One attacker was killed, and MUJAO is suspected. October 17: Boko Haram killed twenty Nigerian soldiers in Mobbar, Borno. October 19: Gunmen killed ten in Katsina-Ala, Benue. October 19: The JTF killed five militants in Bakassi, Cross River. October 19: The JTF killed two pirates in Akuku-Toru, Rivers.

Below is a visualization and description of some of the most significant incidents of political violence in Nigeria from October 1, 2016 to October 7, 2016. This update also represents violence related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. These incidents will be included in the Nigeria Security Tracker. var divElement = document.getElementById(’viz1476716202011’); var vizElement = divElement.getElementsByTagName(’object’)[0]; vizElement.style.width=’100%’;vizElement.style.height=(divElement.offsetWidth*0.75)+’px’; var scriptElement = document.createElement(’script’); scriptElement.src = ’https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js’; vizElement.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, vizElement); October 10: A Romanian engineer was kidnapped in Ika South, Delta. October 10: Boko Haram killed 6 in Jere, Borno. October 11: Nigerian troops killed 2 Boko Haram militants in Jere, Borno. October 11: Nigerian troops killed 4 kidnappers in Ningi, Bauchi. October 12: Armed youths killed 4 Shiites in Kaduna South, Kaduna. October 12: A suicide bomber killed herself and 17 others in Maiduguri, Bornoz. Boko Haram was suspected. October 12: Police killed 9 Shiites in Funtua, Katsina.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering from October 8 to October 15, was compiled with support from Becky Allen. Anne Connell, and Lauren Hoffman. Boko Haram releases twenty-one Chibok girls                                      Twenty-one of the Chibok schoolgirls captured by Boko Haram militants in April 2014 were released this week in a deal brokered by the International Red Cross and Swiss government. Sources with direct knowledge of the deal suggest that the girls were freed in a swap for detained Boko Haram fighters. Nigeria’s Information Minister Lai Mohammed has evaded confirmation of these reports and the terms of the negotiation have not been released. In public statements, Mohammed insisted that the release of this small group of girls “is the first step in what we believe will be the release of all the girls.” Among the girls released, several reportedly now have children of their own as a result of the systematic rape and enslavement perpetrated by Boko Haram militants. And while many in Nigeria and around the world celebrate the release of the twenty-one girls this week, the majority of the nearly three hundred girls aged sixteen to eighteen who were kidnapped from their boarding school in 2014 remain missing. Since the high-profile abduction, approximately two thousand additional girls and boys have been forcibly taken by Boko Haram and thousands of Nigerians have been terrorized by rapes, beheadings, village burnings, and lootings. Pakistan strengthens laws on violence against women                                                 After hours of heated floor debate, Pakistan’s parliament passed new legislation last week to toughen penalties for acts of violence against women, including so-called honor killings, thereby closing an important loophole in prior law. Previously, male relatives who committed honor killings could seek pardons from jail terms with the forgiveness of victims’ families, a provision that frequently resulted in impunity for perpetrators who hailed from the same extended families as their victims. Under the new law, victims’ families will only be able to spare a perpetrator from capital punishment. The new law also requires verdicts in rape cases to be issued within three months and sets mandatory minimum sentences of twenty-five years for perpetrators. The crime of honor killing—which killed approximately 1,100 women in Pakistan last year—has gained significant attention since the release of filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s Academy Award-winning documentary on the subject, as well as this year’s widely-publicized murder of Pakistani celebrity Qandeel Baloch. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has since faced significant pressure to toughen laws on violence against women, and hailed the newly passed legislation as a landmark step. New research finds gender gap in household work                                                          A UNICEF report released to mark the UN-recognized International Day of the Girl Child on October 11 suggests that the world’s girls spend 40 percent more time on household chores than boys do. The report describes the societal effect of this gender gap, which is correlated with lower rates of school attendance for girls, decreased economic output later in life, and risk of sexual violence during travel to collect water and firewood. The gap begins early in life, with young girls between the ages of five and nine spending an estimated 40 million more hours a day on household chores than boys, and girls aged ten to fourteen years old spending 120 million more hours each day. The burden for girls is greatest in South Asia and in the Middle East and North Africa. UNICEF’s Chief of Data and Analytics Attila Hancioglu suggested that “[q]uantifying the challenges girls face is the first critical step toward meeting the Sustainable Development Goal on gender equality and breaking down barriers that confront the world’s 1.1 billion girls.” The report underscored the theme of this year’s International Day of the Girl Child, which highlighted the importance of quality sex-disaggregated data to accelerating progress toward all seventeen Sustainable Development Goals.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering September 10 to September 17, was compiled with support from Becky Allen, Anne Connell, and Lauren Hoffman. Women and the Syrian transition                                                            Last week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov negotiated a two-day extension of the ceasefire in Syria, which began September 12. A UK-based monitoring group recorded no casualties in the areas covered by the ceasefire during its first forty-eight hours, but the calm was marred by Friday morning as severe clashes were reported near Damascus. The cessation of fighting was intended to allow aid to reach civilians in besieged areas, including rebel-held portions of Aleppo, where residents are in desperate need of baby formula, flour, fuel, medicines, and wheat. The Syrian Women’s Advisory Board to the UN Special Envoy for Syria, established in February of this year, recently suggested that Syrian women bear the brunt of the humanitarian crisis, with member Insaff Hamad asserting that “women can and may well be the backbone of the Syrian reconciliation.” Last week, the High Negotiation Committee (HNC), an alliance of more than thirty moderate Syrian opposition groups, introduced a twenty-five-page transition plan for the conflict’s end. Along with proposals for a transitional governing body, the formation of a joint military council, and a commitment to democratic non-sectarian values, the plan emphasized the importance of women’s participation in the transition process, including through a 30 percent gender quota for state institutions and decision-making bodies. Female jihadists arrested in France                                                                                    Three young women who were part of a French cell of the so-called Islamic State group were arrested in Paris on charges related to a planned attack on Gare de Lyon, a main train station in the city’s center. Several others—primarily women—were later detained in connection to the plot. The arrests followed the discovery of a car packed with containers of gas and diesel beside Notre Dame cathedral. Authorities suggest that the women-led extremist cell may mark a shift in Islamic State tactics toward promoting women as terrorist agents.  As prosecutor Francois Molins stated, “if at first it appeared that women were confined to family and domestic chores by the Daesh terrorist organization, it must be noted that this view is now completely outdated.” Until recently, the extremist group barred the deployment of women in martyrdom operations.  Reports estimate that more than one-third of the approximately seven hundred French citizens who have joined the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq are women, and those returning to Europe from Iraq and Syria—as well as self-radicalized women—pose a growing challenge for law enforcement. Global Fund prioritizes gender equality                                                                    Earlier this month, the Global Fund launched its 2017-2022 strategy, which for the first time includes the promotion of gender equality as one of its four top-line strategic objectives. Previously, the Fund’s efforts to advance the health and status of women and girls were guided by a parallel Gender Equality Strategy (2008) and Action Plan (2014). The new, integrated strategy aims “to scale up programs to support women and girls and invest to reduce health inequities.” With its newly proposed allocation strategy, the Global Fund will hone investments on the ground, seeking in particular to reduce HIV prevalence among adolescent girls in sub-Saharan African countries with the highest infection rates. Target countries in which the Global Fund will address gender-related health barriers include Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The announcement of the new strategy came days before the opening of the Global Fund’s Fifth Replenishment Conference, held September 16 to 17 in Montreal, where world leaders gathered to set funding priorities.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering August 13 to August 19, was compiled with support from Becky Allen and Lucy Leban. Aid Workers Raped in South Sudan News reports emerged this week suggesting that South Sudanese troops attacked, raped, and abused foreign aid workers and local civilians at a residential compound in Juba this past July. A local journalist was killed during the rampage, while many other individuals were beaten, looted, and gang-raped. According to the Associated Press, neither the local UN peacekeeping force nor embassies responded to pleas for help during the four-hour targeted assault. Ambassador Samantha Power described the United States’ outrage over the attacks and concern about the lack of response by UN peacekeeping forces. In an August 15 statement, she wrote, “[i]t is especially reprehensible that the perpetrators appear to have targeted those who came to South Sudan despite risks to their own personal safety to help the country and its people.” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for an investigation into the UN peacekeeping force’s failure to respond. Boko Haram releases video of Chibok girls More than two years after Boko Haram abducted nearly three hundred schoolgirls from Chibok, Nigeria, the terrorist group released a video of about fifty of the abductees and demanded that the Nigerian government release militants in exchange for the girls’ return home. Since the abduction in 2014, a few girls have escaped and numerous others allegedly have been killed in airstrikes, but about two-hundred of the kidnapped girls are still believed to be held captive by Boko Haram, with many reportedly subject to forced marriage and sexual abuse. While the Chibok incident galvanized significant media attention with the hashtag BringBackOurGirls, human rights groups report that the kidnapping of children continues, with nearly 2,000 girls and boys abducted by Boko Haram since 2014. Gender equality and the Olympic Games A review of ninety-eight nations revealed a strong, positive correlation between gender equality and the number of Olympic medals won by athletes in countries around the world. The analysis drew upon data from the UNDP’s annual Human Development Reports, which measure gender equality in the health, economic, social, and political sectors, as well as data from the International Olympic Committee between 1996 and 2012. The results suggest that increased gender equality not only provides women with greater opportunity to bring home medals, but also is associated with more medals for men. The findings corroborate a 2014 study, which found that a ten-point increase in gender equality is correlated with two to three additional medals won by male athletes and four to five more won by female athletes, even when controlling for known predictors of Olympic success, such as a country’s population or GDP.

I hosted United Nations (UN) Under-Secretary-General Zainab Hawa Bangura, the special representative of the secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict, at CFR last week to discuss her work combating the use of sexual violence, not only as a weapon of war, but also as a tactic of terror. Rape in combat has now been well-established as a weapon of war. Earlier this year, for example, the International Criminal Court (ICC) convicted Jean-Pierre Bemba of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the mass rapes committed under his command, marking the first time that the ICC convicted a defendant of rape as a war crime or crime against humanity. The next challenge will be establishing rape (and other forms of sexual violence) as a tactic of terror used by extremism groups like Boko Haram and the self-proclaimed Islamic State. As I have written before, extremist groups use sexual violence as part of their political economy. While not a new phenomenon, with growing attention to terrorism since the September 11 attacks, increasing reports are emerging of terrorist groups using rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy and other forms of sexual violence to consolidate power, spread fear, foster their ideology, generate revenue, create a new generation of fighters, and destroy existing community structures. During our conversation, Bangura described her mandate, which was established by UN Security Council Resolution 1888, and discussed the variety of tools she uses to address sexual violence in conflict, in coordination with survivors, military and civilian leaders, and nontraditional allies, including religious leaders and men. She noted that her job is like peeling an onion, because with each layer of the onion that is revealed through her work, there are various levels of pain and tears. In addition to establishing sexual violence as a tactic of terror, Bangura’s work is aimed at ending rape in war by strengthening prevention, protection, and punishment. Beyond these “3Ps,” she acknowledged that the fight against rape in war must focus on a fourth P—namely peace. During our discussion Bangura noted that “We cannot stop sexual violence unless we stop the wars,” and emphasized that countries and international institutions need to do a better job of promoting peace. Bangura also pointed out that preventing war should include preventing the spread of conflicts to neighboring countries. She gave the example of the civil war in Liberia in the 1980s that spread to the surrounding countries, including her home country of Sierra Leone and then Cote d’Ivoire. Illustrating this point, she warned, “[W]hen you see your neighbor’s house on fire, you don’t have to wait because at the end of the day your house will be next.” International institutions, including the UN, should focus on preventing internal conflicts before they spread to neighboring countries. Promoting peace would not only help prevent sexual violence as a weapon of war, but also create circumstances for greater prosperity and well-being.

In a recent Council on Foreign Relations roundtable discussion, Michèle Flournoy, chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security, reflected on today’s complex and dynamic security environment and gave an unexpected answer on how to better address its threats: involve women. “There’s now a very fact-based, pragmatic case,” said the former undersecretary of defense for policy, “that says paying attention to the status of women and their inclusion in society will actually have a dramatic impact on the health and stability of that society, as well as the country’s relationships with other states.” Flournoy suggested that the knowledge, skills, and networks of women can help governments and international actors better resolve today’s security challenges. There is a growing body of academic research on the effect of women’s participation in many fields, including in peace and security. A review of forty peace negotiations since 1990 found that when women inform and influence a peace process, the resulting agreement is less likely to fail. In addition, studies have found that a higher level of gender equality in a state is associated with a lower propensity for conflict. There increasingly are policies in place to include women in addressing security challenges. A series of United Nations Security Council resolutions outline commitments and the 2011 United States National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security lays out how the U.S. government will “empower half the world’s population as equal partners in preventing conflict and building peace.” Yet, as Flournoy suggested, many U.S. government officials and contractors are either unfamiliar with or unconvinced by the need for women’s participation in security processes. As a result, there are missed opportunities—for example, to prevent violent extremism or to strengthen state institutions—where partnerships with women would improve outcomes. To address these gaps, there are several avenues through which the U.S. government can improve its security efforts. First is through committed leadership. National security leaders across the executive and congressional branches can help the U.S. government translate its policy into practice. This requires consistent attention as the U.S. government sets priorities and designs programs for specific countries, in order to make sure they engage women as partners in preventing and resolving conflict. Leaders can help hold agencies accountable for delivering on commitments by asking, as Flournoy suggested, whether women are included in a security process and whether the process is “fully leveraging the power of [women’s] insights.” Second is through regular consultation. National security leaders can model the U.S. government’s commitment to women’s participation by meeting with women leaders from around the world, both while in Washington and on travel to conflict-affected countries, in order to better learn from their perspectives on security. When Flournoy went to Afghanistan, she asked that her schedule include time with female leaders, such as entrepreneurs helping their communities recover, and girls pursuing an education. By actively seeking to “engage the other half of society,” she demonstrated to fellow U.S. officials and their Afghan counterparts the positive effects of including women and girls in the conversation. Third is through increased funding. To improve outcomes, Flournoy urged that more resources support women’s participation, including through standalone programs as well as through requiring traditional peace and security programs ensure the participation of women. Fourth is through continued education and guidance. Training and tools help officials think through what they should do differently in their daily tasks. Flournoy reflected, “a lot of what people at DoD stumble on … is ‘what do you want me to do differently?’ and ‘how does this actually work?’” To help staff answer these questions, efforts are underway to provide better training, but there is more ground to cover. Fifth is through greater documentation. While there are many examples of how the defense department has encouraged the participation of women in its security efforts, the lessons from these experiences are not widely accessible. Flournoy suggested an effort to collect case studies and vignettes that would illustrate to officials across the U.S. government how engaging women in specific situations has contributed to better results. A recent issue of PRISM, a security studies journal published by the Center for Complex Operations, is a step in the right direction, assessing the role of women in security environments from NATO to the Sahel to Yemen. The next administration has an opportunity to put new energy behind these efforts, and to help the U.S. government act on its rhetoric. As Flournoy reflected, “why wouldn’t you fully leverage all of the talent available in the society particularly when you’re trying to drive change and make progress on a very difficult journey?” Read the transcript or listen to the audio of the CFR roundtable discussion, Addressing Security Challenges: A Conversation with Michèle Flournoy

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering from May 13 to May 20, was compiled with support from Anne Connell. Women fighters combat the Islamic State                                             New reports highlight the military contributions of Kurdish women to local governments and Western allies fighting the self-proclaimed Islamic State group. Over one thousand women serving as Zeravani—the police forces of the Peshmerga military in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan—presently train alongside Italian-led coalition forces at a Kurdish base outside of Erbil, Iraq. The women receive two months of basic training as well as a month-long specialized training course, learning infantry skills, marksmanship, first aid, and tactics for battlefield extraction of wounded soldiers. Following the training, a number of women join operations on the front lines near Mosul, while others are stationed as security personnel at embassies and government buildings in local cities. Syrian women and those in the Kurdish Peshmerga have time and again proven their strategic value on the front lines in the fight against the Islamic State: in many cases, women have access to spaces and populations that men do not in traditional society, allowing them to gather critical intelligence and locate places where fighters hide among civilian populations. Two kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls return                                                              Nigerian government officials announced this week that two Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram over two years ago were recovered in northeastern Nigeria. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari hosted one of the girls, Amina Ali Nkeki—along with her infant, born in captivity—at the presidential villa in Abuja on Thursday. Government officials suggest that Nkeki and a second girl, Serah Luka, escaped Boko Haram captivity during a military campaign in the Sambisa forest, a vast swath of woodland in northeastern Nigeria that is a stronghold of the Islamist group. The Nigerian government, facing criticism about the efficacy of prior efforts to combat Boko Haram and rescue the girls, has pledged to find and return home those still missing: officials announced this week that the military will advance into the Sambisa forest and draw up plans for additional rescue operations. Turmoil for female leaders in South America                                                                Across South America, several prominent female leaders stand accused of corruption. Former Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was indicted last week and fined for illegally trading derivatives, which resulted in significant losses for the state. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is facing a highly-publicized impeachment trial pursued by a number of lawmakers who are embroiled in scandals of their own, including charges of corruption; to date, Rousseff’s interim replacement has appointed only male ministers. And in Chile, President Michelle Bachelet’s once soaring approval ratings have plummeted amid accusations of tax evasion and bribery by family members. Regional analysts suggest that while gender is not the cause of the leaders’ troubles, the “collective decline of the three women points to a persistence of macho attitudes in the region, especially within the political establishment.” Evidence suggests that traditional attitudes towards women may undermine the quota systems that have boosted rates of women’s political participation in Latin America: sixteen countries in the region have quota systems for lawmakers, and one in four Latin American legislators are women, giving the region the highest proportion of women lawmakers in the world.

Last week I hosted a CFR roundtable with Juan E. Mendez, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment, to discuss his new report on gendered aspects of torture. The groundbreaking report, released earlier this year, addresses gendered aspects of torture and other ill-treatment of persons in detention. It stresses the need to apply gender analysis to torture and cruel treatment to reveal abuses that would otherwise be invisible or normalized. During our discussion, Mendez noted that, when thinking about prisoners and torture, people often think about men—nearly ninety percent of prisoners globally are men—and the experiences of women and girls are downplayed. But torture and other abusive treatment does not only occur in detention or in formal government custody.  It can occur on the battlefield, in health facilities, and at home. The special rapporteur spoke about how domestic violence by private actors may also violate the main treaty on torture—the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment—where the state fails to punish perpetrators and protect victims, and creates “conditions under which women may be subjected to systematic physical and mental suffering, despite their apparent freedom to resist.” While the Torture Convention requires state involvement in the abusive conduct, the state can be held accountable for its failure to act. Mendez also notes that in some countries women and girls, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex persons, face particular risks of harsh punishment or targeting for actions that are considered “moral crimes.” In one case that prompted international attention, a young Nigerian woman, Amina Lawal, was sentenced to death by stoning after she became pregnant by a man whom she said had promised to marry her—he failed to, and left her to raise the child alone without any support. When women, but not men, are sentenced to be stoned for such “crimes,” allowing for discriminatory application of harsh penalties (as in Lawal’s case, until the ruling was overturned by a higher court), it is not only grossly unfair, it can constitute torture or cruel treatment. Under the Torture Convention, severe pain or suffering that is imposed to discriminate against someone (or to intimidate, coerce, punish, or extract information or a confession) constitutes torture (or cruel treatment, if it is less severe). In his report, Mendez notes that “offences that are aimed at or that solely and disproportionately affect women, girls and persons on the basis of their perceived or actual sexual orientation or gender identity,” may contribute to the perpetuation of gender-based violence that can amount to torture or cruel treatment. The report also points out that states that fail to criminalize or enforce laws banning "cultural" practices such as honor killings or female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C), for example, are contributing to gender-based violence that may violate the Torture Convention.  I recently hosted a roundtable with Time magazine Person of Influence honoree, Jaha Dukureh, who spoke about her success in pressing the Gambian government to ban FGM/C, a harsh practice used to control the sexuality of women and girls. State enforcement of that legal ban will be critical. In his report, Mendez urges that “States must finally implement their heightened obligation to prevent and combat gender-based violence and discrimination perpetrated by both state and private actors against women, girls, and persons who transgress sexual and gender norms.”