Gender Violence And The State In Asia

While gender-based violence occurs in all societies irrespective of the level of development or cultural setting, whether in conflict or peacetime, the challenges for legal responses to gender-based violence are particularly acute in Asia. This book addresses the lack of academic discourse on gender-based violence in Asia beyond domestic violence, by demonstrating that gendered violence exists within many different contexts and is perpetuated by multiple actors. Bringing together scholars, legal practitioners and human rights advocates, the book examines the intersections between gender, violence and the state in Asian contexts. It considers the role of state institutions in perpetuating and preventing violence based on gender and identity, and thus contributes to growing scholarship around due diligence standards under international law. Analyzing both physical and structural gender-based violence, it scrutinizes how such violence exists within a landscape shaped by distinct cultural norms, laws and policies, and grapples with how to practically translate international human rights standards about state responsibility into these complex domestic environments. Contributors from diverse backgrounds draw on case studies and empirical research to ground this academic scholarship in lived experiences of individuals and their communities in Asia. By bridging the divide between policy, laws and practice to offer a unique insight into both theoretical and practical responses to how gender-based violence is understood within communities and state institutions in Asian countries, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Asian studies, Gender Studies and Law.

In the last couple of decades, violence as an analytic category has loomed large in the historical, literary, and anthropological scholarship of South Asia. The challenge of thinking violence in its gendered incarnations fully and in all its complexity is not only theoretical or critical but also irreducibly ethical and political, given the proliferation of civil wars, pogroms and riots, fundamentalist movements, insurgencies and counterinsurgencies, and new technologies of violence and injury. All of these simultaneously feature and help constitute gendered actors and gendered scripts of violence. States of Trauma seeks to examine this terrain by staging a set of questions. How are we to think about the moral charge that accrues to violence? What is the relationship between violence and non-violence? In considering the moral and affective economy of violence, how may we speak of the seductions of the idioms and practices of militarism and sexualized violence for women? How are these seductions/pleasures distinct from those proffered to men, if indeed they are distinct?

Violence against women is a violation of women's human rights and a priority public health issue. It is endemic worldwide. While much has been written about it in industrialized societies, there has been relatively little attention given to such violence in Asian societies. This book addresses the structural and interpersonal violences to which women are subject, both under conditions of conflict and disruption, and where civil society is relatively ordered. It explores sexual violence and coercion, domestic violence, and violence within the broader community and the state, avoiding sensationalised accounts of so-called cultural' practices in favour of nuanced explorations of violences as experienced in Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and India.

This book presents new research on gender-based violence in Southeast Asia, bringing together varied scholarly work in law, policy, and practice. It enables a greater understanding of violence against women as an international concern, highlighting particular issues that arise in the region. Against a background of international obligations to ensure women's rights through laws and policies that are geared at ending violence against women and girls, this research documents the state failures, individual shame and fear, and societal culture that collectively affects the reporting, investigation, prosecution of perpetrators, and protection of victims. The research explores differing legal mechanisms both internationally, and within nation states, relating to cases of physical and sexual violence. It recognizes the need for functioning mechanisms to ensure women can report their cases safely and be provided with protective and therapeutic services in a way that is systematic, effective, and measurable. Laws and court decisions are analyzed, crisis and safety centers are examined, and in-depth interviews are conducted with actors and NGOs with relevant roles and functions in the mechanism of cases of violence against women. The result is a comprehensive assessment of the incalculable harm it does within Southeast Asian society, and the obstacles it presents for law enforcement. The chapters uncover mechanisms with unique characteristics across Southeast Asia, providing a nuanced understanding of the cultural and social backgrounds, as well as the religious structures, that can both help and hinder suitable frameworks. It is relevant to scholars, policymakers, and practitioners in law, criminology, and gender sociology. “This is a valuable contribution towards empowering the women of South East Asia out of victimhood to valued equality, involvement in governance and leadership through the elimination of violence and discrimination and an excellent resource not just for those working in this field but for those involved in law making, the media and the people of South East Asia.” - Professor Felicity Gerry QC, Barrister at Crockett Chambers Melbourne and Libertas Chambers, London, and Professor of Legal Practice at Deakin University and Honorary Professor at Salford University.

This report documents the dynamics of violence against women in South Asia across the life cycle, from early childhood to old age. It explores the different types of violence that women may face throughout their lives, as well as the associated perpetrators (male and female), risk and protective factors for both victims and perpetrators, and interventions to address violence across all life cycle stages. The report also analyzes the societal factors that drive the primarily male — but also female — perpetrators to commit violence against women in the region. For each stage and type of violence, the report critically reviews existing research from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, supplemented by original analysis and select literature from outside the region. Policies and programs that address violence against women and girls are analyzed in order to highlight key actors and promising interventions. Finally, the report identifies critical gaps in research, program evaluations, and interventions in order to provide strategic recommendations for policy makers, civil society, and other stakeholders working to mitigate violence against women in South Asia.

This book uses an interdisciplinary approach to chart how various forms of violence – domestic, military, legal and political – are not separate instances of violence, but rather embedded in structural inequalities brought about by colonialism, occupation and state violence. The book explores both case studies of individuals and of groups to examine experiences of violence within the context of gender and structures of power in modern Indonesian history and Indonesia-related diasporas. It argues that gendered violence is particularly important to consider in this region because of its complex history of armed conflict and authoritarian rule, the diversity of people that have been affected by violence, as well as the complexity of the religious and cultural communities involved. The book focuses in particular on textual narratives of violence, visualisations of violence, commemorations of violence and the politics of care.

This book revisits the issue of Domestic Violence (DV) in Asia by exploring the question of family ambiguity, and interrogating DV's relationship between concept, law and strategy. Comparative experiences in the Asian context enable an examination of the effectiveness of family regulations and laws in diverse national, cultural and religious settings. Key questions relate to the limits and relevance of the human rights discourse in resolving family conflicts; the extent to which power and control in intimate relationships can actually be regulated by a set of inanimate, homogeneous and uniform policies and legislations; and how the state relates to the family as an "ambiguous" unit given state rules of governance that perpetuate unequal gender relations. Many of the difficulties in understanding DV have sprung from the fact that the family unit is ambiguous. When the state intervenes (e.g. reproductive health) the family is treated as a public concern; yet with respect to individual human/multicultural rights, the family is considered a private domain. Complications and contradictions arise with regard to different legislative/religious practices across Asia: for example, the enforcement of Sharia; technocratic imperatives with regard to demographic goals of marriage and reproduction; and state interference of gender imbalances and inequality. The politics and culture around DV is thus a mirror of modern-day Family-State collusion, which sustains rather than curtails discrimination based on sexuality and gender. This book views gender inequality for instance in relation to heteronormativity as the fundamental basis of intimate violence, rather than violence as a generic and neutral phenomenon, requiring generic solutions. It offers news theoretical insights to the conceptualisation of the family, culture and law with respect to DV. And it provides reasoned new perspectives on the effectiveness/inadequacy of present policies, laws and enforcement strategies against domestic violence in Asia.

A brutal gang-rape of a young woman in India in 2012 caused a global outcry against rising brutal violence against women. In response to the young woman's death and the protests that followed, the contributors analyze the position of women in South Asia, the issue of violence, women's political activism and gender inequalities.