2026 WCAPS Pipeline Publication

2026 PIPELINE FELLOWSHIP PUBLICATION

13th Edition

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OUR 2026 FELLOWS

Asiyah Ball

Anavi Khanna

Cerllin Chill

Diana Teoh

Dorine Tyr

Faiza Ruksar

Hannah Williams

Kelly Huang

Lindsey Gilbert

Lois Ramilo

Mariyam Yumna Azeez

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OUR 2026 FELLOWS

Nibras Sakkir

Nkechi Ilechie

Rhiannon Rasaretnam

Sanjalee Chandrasekara

Sarina Patel

Tamyrn Sainten

Wincate Mukami

Zoya Gheisar

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CONTRIBUTORS Supporting Editors Alexandra Greig -Duarte Myriam Coulibaly Ayushi Mehta Pauline Melvin

Publication Designer and Staff Lourdes Sanchez | WCAPS Social Media & Communications Strategist Jada Quinland | WCAPS Program Officer

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Publication Disclaimer

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Publication Foreword by Exec. Dir. Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins

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Localising Women, Peace, and Security (WPS): An Integrated WPS-SDoH Approach to Feminist Security Governance

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Author: Asiyah Ball

Mandating Operational End-Use Monitoring toPrevent Civilian Harm from U.S. Arms Transfers Author: Anavi Khanna

Steady Secularization or Religious Resurgence: Understanding the Drivers of Religious Interest Amongst American Gen Z

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Author: Cerllin Chill

Automation Without Anticipation: Gendered Risks to Malaysia’s Human Capital in the Age of AI Author: Diana Teoh

Beyond the Battlefield: Identity,Interests, and the Struggle for Democratic Transformation in Sudan

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Author: Dorine Tyr

Negotiating Survival: Care as Infrastructure, Invisible Labour, and Everyday Peacebuilding Author: Faiza Ruksar

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TABLE OF CONTENTS AI-Powered Violence: Understanding Intersectional Impacts of Artificial Intelligence on Women of Color Author: Hannah Williams

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Governing Through Digital Transnational Repression: Gendered Control of Women Activists in Authoritarian and Diasporic Contexts Author: Kelly Huang

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Indigenous Women and Intersectional Inequality: Evaluation of Norway's Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act and its Protection of Sámi Women

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Author: Lindsey Gilbert

Peace and Security the Pasifika Way: Unpacking the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Policy in the Pacific Islands Author: Lois Ramilo

The Digital Frontline: Post-Conflict Masculinities and Technology-Facilitated Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Author: Mariyam Yumna Azeez

Addressing gender-based challenges in the plantations: Indonesia as a case Author: Nibras Sikkir

The Benefits of Women of Color in Counterterrorism Author: Nkechi Ilechie

94 103 116 125 6

TABLE OF CONTENTS The Benefits of Women of Color in Counterterrorism Author: Nkechi Ilechie

Women, Peace, and Security in Outer Space

125 130

Author: Rhiannon Rasaretnam

Overcoming Language Barriers: Approaches to Addressing Linguistic Barriers for Women in Global Health

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Author: Sanajalee Chandrasekara

Legal Perspectives on the Failure to Prosecute Reproductive Violence under International Criminal Law

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The Risk of Dehumanizing Conflict: The Effect on Low-Income Countries

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Weaponizing gender in electoral politics; disinformation against women politicians as a security threat in Kenya

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Migrants and Displaced People as Stakeholders and Participants in Peace Processes

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Author: Sarina Patel

Author: Tamyrn Sainten

Author: Wincate Mukami

Author: Zoya Gheisar

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PUBLICATION DISCLAIMER

This publication has been assembled by a collective of Pipeline Fellow authors as part of the Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation’s (WCAPS) Pipeline Fellowship Program components. Although the Pipeline Fellowship is the proprietary of WCAPS, the perspectives and viewpoints conveyed herein belong to the authors. The content presented in this publication is intended solely for informational purposes and should not be interpreted as professional advice or a political position endorsed by WCAPS. We encourage readers to continue their own research and consult relevant experts or professionals to address their specific needs and circumstances.

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FOREWORD Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS) remains steadfast in its mission to amplify the voices, leadership, and lived experiences of women of color within the complex and evolving landscapes of global peace and security.

At a time when the United States and the international community face mounting challenges - from protracted conflict and forced displacement to the rise of authoritarianism, climatedriven insecurity, and shifting multilateral frameworks - our commitment to cultivating equity-driven leadership is more urgent than ever.

As a force multiplier for our growing membership, WCAPS serves as both an incubator and a launchpad. We create spaces where women of color can dialogue, build coalitions, develop policy solutions, and lead the way in transforming systems that have long excluded us. Our programming centers not just the professional trajectory of our members, but also their intellectual power, cultural fluency, and commitment to justice.

WCAPS is proud to showcase the 13th Edition of the Pipeline Publication compiled with the work of our 2026 Pipeline Fellows. WCAPS has published many articles by our fellows, and each time I am impressed by the topics they choose, the perspectives they present, and the inquisitiveness they reflect. Congratulations to all of the authors.

I also want to thank our Program Officer, Jada Quinland, for her leadership of the WCAPS Fellowship Program. To our Editors, Guest Speakers, facilitators and volunteer experts who have contributed their time to the program, thank you kindly for your added imapact.

Once again, congratulations to all the authors on their incredibly impressive work and for being part of this wonderful group of 2026 WCAPS Pipeline Fellows.

With respect and admiration, Bonnie D Jenkins, Ph.D Executive Director

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2026 13TH EDITION

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EDITOR Kavitha Nallathambi

ASIYAH BALL

Asiyah Ball is an early career professional and interdisciplinary scholar, drawing from the fields of international affairs/development, critical feminist studies, critical race studies, and sociocultural anthropology. She holds an MSc in Gender, Development, and Globalisation from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her most recent research project examined how U.S. immigration detention centers facilitate reproductive violence against immigrant women of color.

Asiyah applies intersectional and interdisciplinary frameworks to trace policy gaps and inform equity-centered solutions. She has pursued several internship opportunities to develop her expertise in global gender justice, including serving as a WPS intern in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security where she contributed feminist-infomred policy recommendations

asiyahball01@gmail.com 11

Localising Women, Peace, and Security (WPS): An Integrated WPS-SDoH Approach to Feminist Security Governance

Author: Asiyah Ball Editor: Kavitha Nallathambi Institution: 2026WCAPS Pipeline Fellow Paper Format: Research Paper

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Introduction In recent years, there has been an increase in discriminatory laws, policies, and practices that work to undermine, criminalise, and reverse women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and reproductive justice.

Feminist scholars have labeled this phenomenon as a global “anti-gender movement” or“gender backlash” (Brechenmacher, 2025; The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development & UN Women, 2025).

In looking closely at cases like the United States, the long-term impacts of anti-gender legislation are made extremely clear. For example, Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA),signed into order in July 2025, cut more than 1 trillion dollars from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) (Haider, 2026). Asa result of this, a report produced by the Congressional Budget Office states that 7.8 million people will become uninsured by 2034 (Swagel, 2025; Haider, 2026). Even more critical is the impact these cuts have on reproductive healthcare access in rural areas in the United States–over 130 labor and delivery units are at risk of closure (Donelson et al., 2025; Haider, 2026). Attacks on Medicaid also impact access to reproductive healthcare services for low-income individuals as Planned Parenthood and Maine Family Planning have essentially been defunded (Haider, 2026). These statistics highlight the necessity for targeted intervention at all levels of governance (state, municipal, and community). Moreover, when situating these numbers within a much larger landscape of embedded structural violence in the United States, what also becomes clear is how women and girls of color are most at risk.

Black women, due to racialised and gendered inequality, experience high rates of reproductive injustice (maternal mortality and morbidity) within the United States (CDC, 2024). These rates are predicted to increase as access to quality healthcare, food, education, etc.is threatened by funding cuts and a growing culture of violence. Despite this,very few models attend to manifestations of gendered and racialised (in)security that are produced by structural inequality at the local level. Because of this, localizing the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) framework becomes necessary for not just addressing everyday experiences of harm, insecurity, and violence, but it also works towards creating a model for local, feminist security governance. Thus, this research paper examines the following question(s): 1) How can integrating the Social Determinants of Health with the Women, Peace, and Security agenda provide an analytical framework for understanding and operationalising a localised feminist security agenda? 2) How will this integrated framework offer a new approach to understanding feminist security governance?

This article introduces an integrated Women, Peace, and Security and Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) analytical framework that reconceptualises the social determinants of health as determinants of human security and aligns them with the WPS pillars. In doing so, it provides a concrete tool for operationalising WPS at the local levels (state-level, municipal level, community level, etc.). This localised model reframes WPS as not just a global, state-centric framework for promoting women’s peace and security, but a necessary model for addressing local, everyday threats to women’s safety and security–threats that have been exacerbated by anti-gender legislation.

This research paper will be divided into three sections. The first section will provide an overview of existing WPS literature, specifically focusing on implementation gaps. The second section will present the integrated WPS-SDoH framework and discuss how the framework grounds the WPS agenda in local contexts– going beyond the understanding that feminist security is a global, state-centric concern. The third section provides the analytical and practical scope of theframework, discussing how it helps frame and, essentially, develop feminist security governance agendas.

Literature Review On October 31, 2000, the United Nations’SecurityCouncil adopted what is widely known as the United Nations’ Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security (Otto, 2016; Pratt & Richter-Devroe, 2011). UNSCR 1325 intervened in a traditionally masculinist field and placed women and feminist interventions as necessary drivers for change. Furthermore, the framework established four key pillars that continue to shape international feminist security agendas: participation, protection, prevention, and relief and recovery. These pillars prioritise women’s meaningful inclusion and

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agency within global governance systems and processes (Baldwin & Bertea, 2024). However, despite these interventions and transformations in approaches to international peace and security, 25 years later, feminist scholars and practitioners of WPS offer essential critiques on the limitations of the agenda and framework– critiques that provide opportunities for revisiting, reimagining, and reconceptualising WPS. WPS Implementation Gaps The militarisation of WPS. Feminist scholars, in re-assessing the impact and progress of the WPS agenda, note that feminist security, overtime, has advanced and affirmed the securitisation of women's issues. Dianne Otto states that “feminist arguments have been manipulated to support the expanding exercise of unaccountable power by the Security Council…[legitimizing] its militaristic and carceral approach, in the name of protecting women, mostly from sexual violence, and promoting their rights” (Otto, 2016, 2). The militarisation of the WPS agenda not only legitimises neo-liberal-capitalist logics (expansion of market arms and increasing power of state security institutions), but it also results in the securitisation of women’s lives, which discredits the voices and experiences of women on the ground (Baldwin & Bertea, 2024; Otto, 2016; Pratt & Richter-Devroe, 2011).The securitisation of women’s peace and security has also resulted in a disengagement and disconnection from civil society, which creates implementation issues as there is little to no engagement with local stakeholders who would be responsible for localising WPS (Baldwin & Bertea, 2024; Basuetal., 2020). This critique presents the necessity for developing an intervention that can effectively localise and implement WPS in a way that moves beyond traditional understandings of safety and security– that goes beyond a militaristic understanding of WPS. Failure to address structural violence. An important critique of WPS is how the agenda and its practitioners overlook connections between structural violence/inequality and implementation of women, peace, and security.Laura Shepherd provides the example of poverty as she states that structural causes like poverty “inhibit women [from] acting as agents with truly transformative potential” (Pratt & RichterDevroe, 2011). This point is incredibly important as it underscores the death at peace and security are dependent upon one’s access to the positive and negative rights. How can practitioners expect successful implementations of WPS if people do not have access to stable income, quality healthcare, and/or affordable housing? Additionally, this critique further affirms post colonial commentary on returning to a human-centered approach to WPS as it highlights how structural inequality like poverty threaten one’s personal security. Sheri Gibbings offers a similar critique by questioning the agenda’s inability to account for intersectional violence.

She notes that continuous use of “utopian language” and a disregard for intersectionality further entrench the WPS agenda within colonial-capitalist structures, causing violence rather than preventing it (Pratt & RichterDevroe, 2011).

Gaps in Local Implementation. Another critique useful for this article is how WPS practitioners have faced challenges with local implementation. Achilleos-Sarlletal. (2025) suggest that the problem in implementing the agenda lies in the fact that WPS relies on a top-down approach rather than meaningful engagement from civil society and local actors–this is affirmed by post colonial feminists who argue that the WPS framework perpetuates power asymmetries between global elite and local agents (Basuetal., 2020).

Thus, this top-down approach is a result of the imperial co-optation of feminist aspirations via the WPS agenda. The state-centric situatedness of the WPS agenda presents as a challenge for implementation as National Action Plans (NAP’s), a widely regarded mechanism for institutionalising the WPS, fail to address everyday in security, especially in non-conflict settings (Basuetal., 2020). The literature even discusses how NAP’s often feel superficial with no real engagement of local governance (Achilleos-Sarlletal., 2025; Mesa & Boschiero, 2025). These limitations prevent WPS from being able to effectively localise, especially as local actors and civil society continue to be dismissed and overlooked.

These critiques reveal not just the agenda’s move away from human-centered security but how the institutionalisation and co-optation of WPS within and by neo-liberal institutions has limited the reach of the agenda. Specifically, the agenda’s reliance on the global elite and institutions like the Security Council prove as challenges for implementation at the local level. Moreover, security within the WPS agenda is primarily defined and understood in terms of national institutions and conflict settings, creating

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a very limited understanding of safety, peace, and security. Thus, if WPS is to address its implementation issues and truly become a radical, transformative framework, it must move beyond its state-centric situatedness and consider alternative scales at which security is defined and implemented.

Moreover, the WPS framework, as it stands, does not provide a clear analytical framework for operationalising the localisation of WPS; thus, even if practitioners were to fully engage civil society leaders or local governments in implementing WPS within their local contexts, there is no clear pathway or model to facilitate such engagement or intervention.

Existing scholarship also discusses how WPS does not adequately address violence against women and girls at the local level as it was/is not designed to do so.WPS intervention has often focused on addressing conflict-related sexual violence; however, inframing WPS in this way, it obscuresor overlooks how other experiences or manifestations of harm and violence impact the quality of life for women and girls–as Laura Shepherd and Sheri Gibbons note.WPS cannot be limited to sexual violence, especially given the ways that unequal access to quality housing, lack of stable income, or living in food deserts impact the safety and security of women and girls. Because of this, a new framework or model is needed to account for manifestations or experiences of (in)security that go beyond sexual violence.

For this reason, this article addresses the noted gaps by integrating the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH)framework with the WPS pillars, offering a structured approach to not only analysing how local governance shapes everyday experiences of (in)security but also how local leaders are able to develop a policy agenda centered on feminist security governance.

An Integrated WPS-SDoH Conceptual Framework The Social Determinants of Health, a popular public health framework, highlights how certain determinants (economic stability, access to quality education, access to quality and respectful healthcare, access to quality social infrastructure and community resources, the built environment, and social and community context) directly influence quality of life and life outcomes (Katarina Vrtikapa et al., 2025; Flaubert etal.,2021).This framework moves beyond a clinical lens as it identifies structural and systemic factors that shape a person or community’s well-being–factors such as poverty, misogyny, and racism.

(Ramsoondar et al., 2023; Beechet al., 2021).

However,theSDoH framework lacksanexplicitengagementwithpower,security,andgendered violence, despite the ways power, security, and gender shape personal and community well-being and outcomes (Aguirre et al., 2022). Conversely, while the WPS agenda has sought to broaden and transform global understandings of and approaches to security, its institutionalisation within state and militarised governance structures has limited its capacity to address the everyday, structural conditions that shape women and girls’ lived experiences of (in)security. Additionally, NAP’s often struggle to operationalise prevention and protection beyond conflict settings because they lack a localised analytical framework capable of capturing local, systemic and structural inequalities.

Thus, by integrating the Social Determinants of Health framework (SDoH) with WPS pillars (Figure 1), this article develops feminist-informed analytical tool to localise WPS. This integration highlights how structural conditions such as access to resources, services, and social support systems shape experiences of safety and (in)security. Additionally, this paper engages SDoH in a way that goes beyond looking solely at health and health outcomes; this framework reinterprets the Social Determinants of Health as determinants of human security.

Each determinant corresponds to specific domains of local governance, such as healthcare systems, education, housing, transportation, and economic policy–domains that shape conditions of safety and (in)security. Thus, by mapping these domains on to the WPS pillars, the framework provides an analytical tool for examining how everyday

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Figure 1: An Integrated WPS-SDoH Framework governance shapes gendered and racialised experiences of (in)security beyond traditional conflict settings; it also provides an understanding of insecurity that goes beyond sexual violence–issues such as predatory loaning or racist zoning practices create gendered and racialised insecurity. For example, access to quality healthcare can be understood as central to the protection and prevention pillars as the aforementioned data shows that by cutting or limiting funding that support access to these services, women become vulnerable to violence and adverse health outcomes, which impacts personal safety and security and eventually community well-being. Similarly, access to quality education and economic stability align with participation and prevention pillars by enabling autonomy and agency, building personal and community resilience, and reducing vulnerability to structural violence. Access to information and economic resources shapes women’s bargaining power and authority, giving them more leverage and agency in decision-making processes. Thus, understanding how SDoH, like economic stability and access to quality education, aligns with WPS is integral to wholistic human-centered security.

This integrated model can be used as either an analytical tool to improve local policies, or it can be used to develop policies that reflect feminist security governance. Furthermore, it shifts the analytical focus from state-centric and conflict-oriented notions of (in)security towards structural conditions that shape everyday safety and (in)security in local contexts. Thus, in bringing the Social Determinants of Health into conversation with WPS, the framework expands what counts as a security issue and where security governance takes place. However, while this article develops the conceptual foundations of this integrated framework, further research is needed to examine how it operates across specific empirical contexts.

Methodology This framework can be operationalised in three stages/phases.First, practitioners can identify relevant social determinants shaping a given context (healthcare,housing, education, etc.). Second, these determinants can then be mapped onto the WPS pillars to assesshowstructural conditions affect participation, protection, prevention, and relief and recovery. Third,this mapping can be used to diagnose gaps and inform policy interventions at the appropriate level ofgovernance (e.g., state, municipal, community)–each determinant may correspond to multiple WPSpillars, which reflects the interconnected nature of structural insecurity.

Additionally, it is important to note that this frameworkisnotmeant to be normative or prescriptive. It is intended to be a flexible analytical tool that allowspolicymakers and practitioners the opportunity to identify relevant social determinants within a givencontext and assess how these conditions shape different dimensions of (in)security across populations, as defined by the WPS pillars. In

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this way, the integrated WPS-SDoH framework provides a structured approach for diagnosing localised insecurity without requiring a single or universal method of application.

Analytical and Practical Implications of An Integrated WPS-SDoH Framework Across Local Governance Levels Rather than providing a full empirical application, this section offers several examples to demonstrate where and how the integrated WPS-SDoH framework can be most analytically and practically useful. These examples are not intended to act as comprehensive case studies but as entry points that highlight how the framework can inform analysis across different levels of governance and work towards developing feminist security governance policies.

State-Level Governance and Structural Insecurity

At the state level, recent legislation and policy developments show the types of structural conditions the integrated WPS-SDoH framework is designed to account for and address. For example, the rise in restrictions targeting trans youth, such as limitations on gender-affirming care and educational exclusion/the ban on the use of inclusive pronouns in schools, demonstrates how state-level policymaking shapes everyday security conditions (Arrayales & Redfield, 2026). Because of this, state-level restrictions on gender identity and healthcare access in the United States can be understood not only as legal or political developments but as security threats. Thus, in using the integrated WPS-SDoH framework, these policies constitute forms of structural insecurity that fall within the scope of prevention and protection, despite occurring outside of conventional conflict settings.

MunicipalGovernance and Structural Insecurity Expanding upon the previous section, engagement with municipal-level decision-making processes and policies are also equally as important when thinking about everyday safety and (in)security. At the municipal level, decisions related to housing, transportation, and public services function as sites of local security governance; they play an integral role in defining access, the allocation of resources, and ultimately decide whose priorities are met. For example, the 2025-2026 city budget in Philadelphia, which was signed by Mayor Cherelle Parker, eliminated necessary funding that made reproductive health care (contraception, STI testing, cancer screenings, and abortion care) accessible, especially after the overturning of Roe v. Wade (Anastasakos, 2025; Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates, 2025).The budget went from providing local reproductive health non-profits with 450,000 to 1.2 million dollars annually to 0 dollars (Anastasakos, 2025; Brooks, 2025). These budget cuts not only limit healthcare access in the city but also undermine and, essentially, prevent reproductive freedom. This is especially the case for low-income residents as the cuts exacerbate an already dire situation (Brooks, 2025). As highlighted, local decision-making can either exacerbate or mitigate harm, especially for women of color, making municipal decisions/policies determinantsofhuman(in)security and a necessary arena for feminist security intervention. By defining domains like public services as sites of everyday (in)security, the integrated WPS-SDoH framework highlights how everyday governance decisions produce differentiated experiences of safety and access.

Community Governance and Decision-Making One of the most important elements of the WPS framework is the meaningful participation of women and girls in decision-making processes. Oftentimes, this pillar advocates for the participation of women in the government or in the military. However, the integrated framework challenges these limits of participation and pushes for the inclusion of women not just informal, political and military settings but at all levels. From women’s involvement in local community-based organisations and advocacy networks to municipal commissions and neighbourhood advisory committees, women must be in all spaces that shape access and safety. This approach to decision-making shifts the power from a vertical, top-down approach to a more horizontal, inclusive approach as it redistributes power to local actors.

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Local actors become essential to deciding security concerns and shaping security agendas, and thus, shaping policy, programming, and practice.

Together, these examples demonstrate that localising WPS requires more than just expanding its geographic and spatial scope; it requires a fundamental shift in how security is conceptualised and governed.

Conclusion This article has argued that the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda, while transformative in its original intent, remains limited by its state-centric and conflict-oriented framing of security. In a global context marked by rising anti-gender movements, democratic backsliding, and persistent structural inequality, these limitations hinder the framework’s ability to address the everyday conditions that shape women’s lived experiences of (in)security. As an intervention, this paper has proposed a reconceptualisation of WPS through an integrated WPS- SDoH conceptual framework.

By integrating the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) with the core pillars of the WPS agenda, this research advances a conceptual framework that redefines security as something that is structurally and spatially embedded within everyday life. This approach shifts the focus and power from state institutions and conflict zones to local governance processes, social infrastructures, and everyday material conditions that (re)produce safety and (in)security. In doing so, it expands the analytical and practical scope of WPS, positioning domains such as housing, healthcare, education, and mobility as central considerations for feminist peace and security.

Localising WPS requires rethinking participation as a question of power, recognising structural inequality as a driver of insecurity, and centering the lived experiences of those most affected by violence and exclusion. This shift opens new possibilities for feminist interventions in policy, governance, and research, particularly within contexts that have traditionally been excluded from WPS analysis.

Future Research This paper represents an initial step in developing and articulating a localised WPS framework; however, further research is necessary to fully realise its analytical and practical potential. Future studies could apply the integrated SDoH-WPS framework across diverse empirical contexts–including urban, rural, and transnational settings–in order to examine how local governance structures shape differentiated experiences of (in)security. In particular, in-depth case studies of state or municipal policy/policies, urban development strategies, and community-based initiatives would provide valuable insight into how this framework can be operationalised in practice.

Additionally,future researchshouldexplore methodologicalapproachesthatcenter lived experience, including participatory and community-based research designs, to better capture the relational and embodied dimensions of insecurity. Comparative analyses across regions and governance systems may also help identify patterns, limitations, and opportunities for scaling localised WPS approaches. Ultimately, advancing this research agenda will be critical for transforming WPS from a primarily state- driven framework into a more inclusive and responsive model of feminist peace and security governance.

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Mesa , M., & Boschiero, E. (2025, August 5). The Women, Peace and Security Agenda in the Implementation of the Triple Nexus. Global Policy Journal. https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/06/08/2025/women-peace-and-security-agendaimplementation-triple-nexus Otto, D. (2016). WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL’S VISION. https://www.lse.ac.uk/women-peacesecurity/assets/documents/2016/wps1Otto.pdf Parashar, S. (2018). The WPS Agenda: A Postcolonial Critique. The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace, and Security, 828–839. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190638276.013.46 Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates. (2025, June 18). PLANNED PARENTHOOD PA AND PLANNED PARENTHOOD SOUTHEASTERN PA REACT TO CITY BUDGET THAT DOESN’T INCLUDE FUNDIN…. Plannedparenthoodaction.org; Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates. https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/planned-parenthood-pennsylvaniaadvocates/press-releases/planned-parenthood-pa-and-planned-parenthood-southeastern-pa-reactto-city-budget-that-doesnt-include-funding-for-sexual-and-reproductive-healthcare Pratt, N., & Richter-Devroe, S. (2011). Critically Examining UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 13(4), 489–503. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2011.611658 Ramsoondar, N., Anawati, A., & Cameron, E. (2023). Racism as a Determinant of Health and Health Care. Canadian Family Physician, 69(9), 594–598. https://doi.org/10.46747/cfp.6909594 Swagel, P. L. (2025). Information Concerning Medicaid-Related Provisions in Title IV of H.R. 1.

In CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE. https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-06/ArringtonGuthrie-Letter-Medicaid.pdf The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development , & UN Women.

(2025). UNDERSTANDING BACKLASH AGAINST GENDER EQUALITY Evidence, Trends and Policy Responses R E P O R T 2 0 2 5. https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/202509/understanding-backlash-against-gender-equality-evidence-trends-and-policy-responses-en.pdf Trump, D. (2025, January 20). Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. The White House; The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-genderideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/

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EDITOR Keven Hernandez

ANAVI KHANNA

Anavi Khanna is a junior at Colby College studying Government and Economics. As an aspiring diplomat, she is specifically interested in conflict and diplomacy studies with a regional focus on the Middle East and North Africa. Through her passion for foreign policy, she hopes to alter people’s perceptions of conflicts, reduce reductive reasoning, and systematically transform foreign policy solutions to create equitable policies for lasting peace. Raised in India, she speaks Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, and some German, and her experiences growing up helped her develop a passion for advocating for inclusive and empathetic foreign policies to ensure no family like hers is ever stranded over policies that affect communities globally.

At present, Anavi is studying abroad in Jordan as a Gilman scholar, where she is delving deep into the geopolitics of the MENA while also learning Arabic. She recently completed her internship at the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC), where she gained insights into bureaucratic processes and how issues of trade intersect with the realm of diplomacy. She is also a Civic Fellow with the International Leadership Foundation and a 2025 Meridian–Cox Foreign Service Fellow.

On campus, she is involved with the mock trial team, is a student advisor for Colby's public affairs center, and enjoys choreographing and performing Kathak (Indian classical) dances with her peers.

Her hobbies include reading, writing satire, and listening to rock music. She is always excited to meet new people and hopes they can remember to be much more than just a huge Brian May fan.

akhann27@colby.edu 21

Mandating Operational End-Use Monitoring toPrevent Civilian Harm from U.S. Arms Transfers Author: Anavi Khanna Editor: Keven Hernandez Institution: Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS) Paper Format: Policy Proposal

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Summary The 1979 Arms Export Control Act (AECA) delegates congressional arms transfer authority to the United States President. Since then, the executive branch has leveraged the AECA to make arms trade decisions that have deepened U.S. legal and moral complicity in humanitarian crises and violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). This proposal addresses a focal gap in U.S. arms control policies and recommends that Congress amend the AECA to mandate operational End-Use Monitoring (EUM) by establishing an interagency committee aided by non-governmental research organizations.

Introduction and Context The United States government is the world’s largest arms dealer, accounting for nearly 42% of the global arms trade and eclipsing the market share of the next seven largest exporters combined (Yousif, 2024). While the AECA gives the executive branch significant power to regulate foreign arms sales, weak statutory provisions have allowed U.S. arms policies to fuel war rather than deter it. In 2021, roughly two-thirds of global conflicts (34 out of 46) involved one or more parties armed by the United States (Hartung, 2022). The existing American foreign policy framework does not prioritize reporting on the use of exported U.S. arms, and this has limited the government’s capacity to respond when those arms are implicated in civilian harm or violations of IHL. For example, Section 40A of the AECA requires the executive branch to conduct End-Use Monitoring (EUM) of U.S. arms sales. This ensures recipients comply with requirements concerning the “use, transfer, and security of defense articles” and to use these arms solely “for the purposes for which they are provided” (22 U.S.C. § 2785a). However, the AECA does not explicitly require operational EUM—the monitoring of U.S. arms that risk

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being used to commit violations of IHL. As a result, current EUM programs focus on the diversion of U.S. arms to third parties instead of their potential use in civilian harm (Chappell & Benowitz, 2022). Operational EUM is further constrained by the lack of targeting data and limited informational coordination between EUM administrators at the Department of State (DoS) and the Department of Defense (DoD), according to RAND (2025).

Limited operational EUM has proven to be damaging to American foreign policy, most notably during the Saudi-led war against Yemen, where the U.S. sold over $64.1 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia against credible concerns of them engaging in human rights abuses (Riedel, 2021).

The Yemen Data project, as of 2022, reports that coalition airstrikes had killed nearly 9,000 civilians in the country, and, as a Washington Post investigation reveals, a substantial portion of the air raids were carried out by F-15 fighter jets developed, maintained, and sold by U.S. companies (Lee et al., 2022). Furthermore, in 2020, the DoS Inspector General admitted that they had failed to take proper measures to reduce civilian deaths from U.S.-made bombs transferred to Riyadh (RAND Corporation, 2025), showing how necessary adequate and competent monitoring is in preventing human rights violations committed using American arms.

Recommendations Congress should amend Section 40A of the AECA to statutorily require operational EUM. This will be implemented through an interagency committee that works alongside non-governmental actors. The committee would include officials from the DoD and DoS who administer their respective EUM programs while coordinating with civilian protection organizations and research firms. Groups like Security Force Monitor and Airwars have already leveraged open-source intelligence to consolidate data on how U.S. arms contribute to civilian harm and will be valuable to establishing the operational EUM process.

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Operational EUM reporting would roughly follow a three-tiered process. First, the collaborating non-governmental organizations and research firms would produce biannual EUM reports in line with predetermined evidentiary standards set by Congress. These reports, organized by country, would highlight potential IHL violations caused by exported American arms. Second, after the submission of the report, the interagency committee would convene to discuss, assess, and evaluate findings. This committee would include members from the DoS’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) and the DoD’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA). Both organizations run their respective EUM programs, namely the Blue Lantern and Global Sentry programs. Employees coordinating these programs would be a part of the suggested interagency committee. Third, following review, the committee would faithfully implement AECA reporting requirements to Congress to document IHL violations and be abetted by non-governmental organizations and verified by members of the DSCA and DDTC. Past attempts at interagency coordination highlight the potential of such models. For example, USTR’s ICTIME is a multiagency effort that often collaborates with non-governmental actors to monitor foreign parties’ implementation of trade agreements. By pooling research and expertise, ICTIME was able to recognize violators of international trade laws and contribute to successful WTO dispute cases, most notably against China and India (USTR, n.d.). Altogether, the proposed solution would mandate the executive branch to monitor the use of U.S. arms in civilian harm and, through information-sharing, also address the logistical concerns pertaining to information collection that previously prevented operational EUM. Major Obstacles/Implementation Challenges High personnel turnover within existing EUM offices risks eroding expertise. Because DoD and DoS officials administering EUM programs often serve on a rotational basis (RAND

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Corporation, 2025), the proposed interagency committee would either need to secure additional resources to train new personnel or establish more permanent positions to preserve the analytical consistency of operational EUM. This could prove challenging, given that the executive branch has recently experienced personnel reductions and budget constraints. The amendment might also require a stringent definition of the term “end-use monitoring” to circumvent vague interpretations that could be leveraged to waive executive accountability.

Furthermore, collecting accurate information on U.S. arms used during active war zones remains challenging, even with open-source intelligence and non-governmental support. Take, for example,Israel’s war in Gaza, where restricted journalism and NGO operations have severely limitedtheoutflow of information critical for reliable research. As a result, operational EUM is likelytoproduce probabilistic findings, which may require the committee to tailor its evidentiary standardstothe scope and purpose of its monitoring.

Conclusion TheArms Export Control Act must prioritize how exported U.S. arms are actually used. The consequences of this are not abstract. In Yemen, civilian strikes have been traced to U.S.-supplied munitions used by Saudi-led coalition forces (Amnesty International, 2018), and, presently in Gaza, Israeli security forces have most likely used U.S.-provided arms in a manner inconsistent with their IHL obligations (Human Rights Watch, 2025). The absence of systematic, operational EUM programs forces policymakers to be reactive rather than preventive. Many Congressional Democrats (2023) have pressed the Departments of Defense and State to properly track and monitor American-made weapons because a failure to do so would stand in contradiction to U.S. values and degrade our nation's efforts to protect civilians. Mandating operational EUM programs through interagency efforts is essential to mitigate the harmful effects of current arms trade policies that reduce civilian lives to mere figures instead of making them a central concern of foreign policy.

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References Amnesty International. (2018, March 26). Yemen: Three years on, US and UK arms supplies to Saudi Arabia-led coalition are devastating civilian lives. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/yemen-three-years-on-us-and-uk-arms-sup plies-to-saudi-arabia-led-coalition-are-devastating-civilian-lives/ Arms Export Control Act, 22 U.S.C. § 2785a.

Center for Civilians in Conflict, & American Bar Association Center for Human Rights. (2022).

Human rights, civilian harm, and arms sales: A primer on U.S. law and policy. https://civiliansinconflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/US-Law-and-Arms-Transfers_Fi nal.pdf Chappell, J. R. & Brittany, B. (2022). Human rights, civilian harm, and arms sales: A primer on U.S. law and policy. Center for Civilians in Conflict & American Bar Association Center for Human Rights.

Hartung, W. D. (2022, October 20). Promoting stability or fueling conflict? The impact of U.S. arms sales on national and global security (Quincy Paper No. 9). Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. https://quincyinst.org/research/promoting-stability-or-fueling-conflict-the-impact-of-u-s-arm s-sales-on-national-and-global-security/ Human Rights Watch. (2025, February 4). Suspend arms transfers to end US complicity in Israeli abuses. https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/02/04/suspend-arms-transfers-end-us-complicity-israeli-abu ses Lee, J. S., Kelly, M., & Mirza, A. (2022, June 4). Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen have been called war crimes. Many relied on U.S. support. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/saudi-war-crimes-yemen/ Office of the United States Trade Representative. (n.d.). Interagency Center on Trade Implementation, Monitoring, and Enforcement (ICTIME). https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/enforcement/ictime RAND Corporation. (2025). Expanding the scope of end-use monitoring policies to address operational use of U.S.-origin weapons (RRA2961-2). https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2961-2.html

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Riedel, B. (2021, February 4). It's time to stop US arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/its-time-to-stop-us-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia/ Warren, E., Sanders, B., & Lee, M. (2023, May 15). Letter to the Departments of Defense and State on tracking and monitoring of U.S.-origin weapons. United States Senate. https://www.warren.senate.gov/oversight/letters/warren-sanders-lee-call-on-departments-ofdefense-and-state-to-improve-tracking-and-monitoring-of-us-origin-weapons Yousif, E. (2024, December 16). The hidden costs: Transparency and the US arms trade.

Stimson Center. https://www.stimson.org/2024/the-hidden-costs-transparency-and-the-us-arms-trade/ Yemen Data Project. (n.d.). Data. https://yemendataproject.org/data/

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CERLLIN CHILL

EDITOR Andreanna Mond

Cerllin Chill is a GIS Technical Specialist for local government. In her current role, she is responsible for analyzing, updating, integrating, and interpreting geospatial data in support of city projects and programs. She earned her Master’s degree in Human Security and Geospatial Intelligence from the University of Southern California, as well as two bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Criminology, Law, and Society from the University of California, Irvine. Cerllin has a well-rounded background in research across multiple disciplines, including legal studies, social sciences, transportation, humanitarian operations, policy, and marketing. She is interested in further applying her spatial science skills within a geopolitical context.

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STEADY SECULARIZATION OR RELIGIOUS RESURGENCE

Steady Secularization or Religious Resurgence: Understanding the Drivers of Religious Interest Amongst American Gen Z

Cerllin Chill Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation Edited by: Andreanna Mond

Research Paper

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STEADY SECULARIZATION OR RELIGIOUS RESURGENCE Abstract This paper examines the drivers that spark religious interest among Generation Z. Gen Z is the least religious generation in U.S. history, but still retains an unconventional connection with the institutions themselves (i.e, churches, mosques, and temples to name a few). Results from this paper suggest that while not all of Gen Z is becoming religious in a traditional sense, belief in God and participation in spiritual communities are gaining traction within sizable segments – particularly where religion is presented as meaningful and community-oriented.

Please note: This paper draws on limited data across religions, with a disproportionate focus on Christian and Catholic perspectives, which may influence the scope of this analysis.

Introduction Generation Z, or Gen Z, was widely expected to become the most secular generation in American history. Yet, in recent years, signs of renewed religious interest among young people have emerged across digital communities and social spaces. According to Pew Research, Gen Z, also known as Gen Zers or Zoomers, refers to anyone born between 1997 to 2012 (Dimock, 2019).

Known as the first truly digitally native generation, they are characterized by their hyperconnectivity, intense focus on authenticity, diversity, and social activism (De Witte, 2022). This contradiction raises an important question: how can the least religious generation also exhibit signs of religious engagement? This paper argues that, despite expectations of continued secularization, some segments of Gen Z are engaging with religion due to a search for authenticity, a desire for community in an increasingly digital world, the need for structure amid social and political uncertainty, and a shift toward more personalized and non-institutional expressions of faith.

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STEADY SECULARIZATION OR RELIGIOUS RESURGENCE Methodology This research employs a mix of quantitative, qualitative, and phenomenological approaches involving data research, journals, news outlets, and anecdotes to examine what the shift in religious interest among Gen Z means (Soto, 2025). An integrative literature review was conducted to identify secularization and religious trends among Gen Zers. Data sources were selected based on their credibility, relevance, and currency. Anecdotes, although biased, are particularly helpful as faith is ultimately a personal and subjective journey that cannot be fully captured through formal research alone (Soto, 2025).

Important Definitions 1. Spirituality: “The freedom of investigating a number of beliefs and practices to see what feels right” (Springtide, 2022) 2. Faith Unbundled: “The way young people increasingly construct their faith by combining elements such as beliefs, identity, practices, and community from a variety of religious and non-religious sources, rather than receiving all these things from a single, intact system or tradition” (Springtide, 2021) 3. Nones (also “none” as religiously unaffiliated): “Respondents who choose atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” (Center, 2024) Literature Review Gen Z as a Whole: Secularization and Religious Trends According to Daniel Cox (2022), a senior fellow in polling and public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute and the director of the Survey Center on American Life, around one-third of Gen Z (34%) identify as religiously unaffiliated, compared with 29%, 25%, 18%, and 9%, from Millennials, Generation X, Baby Boomers, and the Silent Generation, respectively.

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STEADY SECULARIZATION OR RELIGIOUS RESURGENCE Furthermore, Gen Z’s ties to religion seem even weaker with 54% claiming they “seldom/never” attend religious services, according to Pew Research Center’s most recent Religious Landscape Study (RLS) (2025). Similarly, data from Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) indicates that 34% of Gen Z identifies as “nones,” beating the average of 27% of all Americans identifying as religiously unaffiliated, reflecting a broader shift away from organized religion (2024). These trends suggest a continuation of long-term secularization patterns, in which institutional religious participation and identification have diminished over time.

However, declining religious affiliation does not necessarily indicate a decline in belief or spirituality among Gen Z. ”Listening carefully to the language of young people provides a more nuanced picture that statistics on religious affiliation do not capture” (Poma, 2024). The Nones are not uninterested in questions of God and meaning, but rather they tend to be skeptical of traditional religious institutions (Springtide, 2025). According to Springtide Research Institute, a sociological research institute listening to the inner and outer lives of young people ages 13 to 25, 60% of unaffiliated Gen Zers say that they are at least slightly spiritual (n.d). Since many Gen Zers are unchurched, conversations on this topic often use language that differs from or stretches beyond traditional faith-based terminology. Despite their non-affiliation, 61% of Nones practice meditation, 51% pray, and 31% study sacred texts (n.d.). Digging into the language of young people also compels us to openness, realizing that Gen Z is finding “church,” whether that be community or transcendent experiences, outside of the Church itself (Poma, 2024).

Analysis Gen Z in Segments: Four Thematic Drivers Theme 1: Desire for an Authentic Community: Seeking deeper meaning amid digital fatigue and social isolation

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STEADY SECULARIZATION OR RELIGIOUS RESURGENCE One of the most significant factors influencing renewed religious interest among some members of Gen Z is the desire for an authentic community. As a generation raised in highly digital environments, many young people experience social interactions that are frequent but often perceived as shallow or performative. This has contributed to a sense of digital fatigue and social isolation. 22-year-old Christian influencer, Bryce Crawford, believes young Americans are rediscovering faith out of frustration with “fake stuff” on social media. He says, “We’re fed fluff through our phones, through desires, through whatever we think is going to satisfy. Every human being is on a quest for love, and we try to fill that void with different things” (News, 2026).

Religious communities can offer a space for deeper, more meaningful interpersonal connections.

These environments often emphasize shared values and a sense of belonging, which may be difficult to replicate in online spaces. The in-person interaction central to these communities not only strengthens social bonds but also serves as a critical response to the emotional and psychological disconnection associated with digital life.

For some individuals, engaging with faith-based communities or spiritual practices can help alleviate feelings of isolation. According to research conducted by GlobalWebIndex (GWI), an audience insights company, eight in ten Gen Z respondents (80%) agree they’ve felt lonely in the past 12 months (Harlow, 2025). While not all members of Gen Z turn to religion for mental health support, the widespread psychological distress within this demographic helps explain why religious identity has regained relevance for certain segments of the population (Park et al., 2024). Springtide data show that many young people recognize the value of religion and spirituality for mental wellness. According to their The State of Religion & Young People 2022 study, young people who say they are religious are more likely to agree or strongly agree that they are in good physical and emotional condition and 57% agree that their religious or spiritual

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practices matter for their mental health (Mental Health & Gen Z - Springtide Research Institute, 2023). Herein, religion can serve as a coping mechanism that provides a sense of purpose.

Theme 2: Social Media Influence and Digital Religion: Online Groups Bypassing Institutions The rise of social media has fundamentally transformed how religion is accessed and practiced.

For Gen Z, exposure to religious ideas is no longer limited to traditional institutions. Instead, digital platforms have created new forms of religious engagement, where individuals can explore faith through videos, online discussions, and influencer-driven content. These digital spaces allow for personalized and flexible interactions with religion, often bypassing institutional structures altogether. So much so that digital platforms are often used in conjunction with, or as a replacement for, physical church attendance, adapting practices to fit Gen Z’s lifestyle (Ninan, 2021). This shift highlights how online spaces are not only supplementing traditional religious engagement but also actively shaping personal spiritual exploration and identity formation. For example, Gen Zer, Gordon Cooke, a young American who recently converted to Catholicism, cited that he was influenced by the "Gen Z faith revival" taking place on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. He discovered a subculture of "hip, young Catholic content creators" who made the ancient faith feel relevant and accessible to his generation (Angle, 2026). Cooke, like many young people, is learning about religion for the first time via social media. The pictures, videos, reels, and posts from social media are not only accessible, but digestible to appeal and spark curiosity among Gen Zers.

Theme 3: Social and Political Dynamics Broader social and political dynamics also play a role in shaping religious interest among Gen Z. This generation has come of age during a period marked by political polarization, global

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STEADY SECULARIZATION OR RELIGIOUS RESURGENCE crises, and social change. Events such as the pandemic, economic uncertainty, and ongoing political tensions have contributed to a sense of instability. In such environments, religion can provide a sense of structure. Rev. Therm James Jr. from New Macedonia Baptist Church, believes COVID-19 forced many young people to deal with their mortality driving them back to church with questions about the impact of faith and issues generations prior didn’t ask (Boulware, 2025). Additionally, religion serves as a way for individuals to navigate complex socio-political issues or to anchor their values in a rapidly changing world. According to How Americans Are Responding to Charlie Kirk’s Death (2025), a study conducted by the Barna Group, the brutal murder of Charlie Kirk in 2025 has fueled a surge of religiousness in Gen Z members, with 22% reported becoming spiritually active, 7% politically active, and 6% both more spiritually and more politically active. Another possible influence is a broader shift toward conservatism among some segments of Gen Z, reflected in growing support for figures like Donald Trump and Pierre Poilievre. Given conservatism’s emphasis on tradition, this trend may also reinforce interest in the church as a stabilizing institution (Aiken, 2025). While the relationship between religion and politics varies widely, these broader conditions help explain why some individuals may turn toward faith.

Theme 4: Faith Unbundled: Spiritual vs. Religious Perhaps the most defining characteristic of Gen Z’s relationship with religion is the distinction between spirituality and organized religion. Many young people do not identify with formal religious institutions, yet still engage with spiritual beliefs and practices. This phenomenon, often referred to as “faith unbundled,” reflects a shift away from traditional models in which belief, practice, and identity were closely aligned (Springtide, 2021). According to The State of Religion & Young People 2021 study, more than half of young people (53%) say, “I

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STEADY SECULARIZATION OR RELIGIOUS RESURGENCE agree with some, but not all, of the things my religion teaches” (Springtide, 2021). To put it simply, young individuals who identify as "religious" may not actually engage in traditional religious activities. Most people reject the entire "bundle" of customs and rituals that religious organizations provide (Springtide, 2021). This results in a more individualized and flexible approach to faith, where spirituality is maintained even as institutional affiliation declines.

Discussion and Conclusion There are limitless reasons why one looks to religion for an answer. Gen Z is at a unique spot where older and newer generations are looking to them to answer questions on how to navigate this new world. This overarching power of “having” to know everything combined with unprecedented uncertainties from external factors is a recipe for a shift, not a revival.

Key Findings: Religious decline is institutional, non spiritual.

Community functions as a primary entry point into religion.

Social media platforms are reshaping religious engagement Periods of social and political instability increase openness to religion.

Gen Z favors personalized spirituality over organized religion.

The data points aren’t contradictory, just complex. As of now, the safest argument to make would be that Gen Z is more compelled to engage with religion via spiritual and interpersonal means than traditional institutions. Ultimately, it comes down to needing more data. In the next five years, survey results will significantly clarify the trajectories of Gen Z when it comes to religion.

Amid this research, one thing can be found consistent: Gen Zers are redefining traditional institutions.

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References 18- to 29-year-olds | Religious Landscape Study (RLS) | Pew Research Center. (2025, February 26). Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/agedistribution/18-29/?cb_view port=tablet&dialogId=dialog_consider-selfspiritual&activeChartId=e432878587efd08af 331a94f1869c0af&selectedYear=2024 Aiken, O. (2025, November 4). The Rise of Gen Z Churchgoers - The McGill Daily. The McGill Daily. https://www.mcgilldaily.com/2025/11/the-rise-of-gen-z-churchgoers/ Angle, I. (2026, April 4). New trend shows Gen Z returning to faith | Fox News Video. Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/video/6392550078112 Boulware, D. S. (2025, September 11). Survey: Millennials and Gen Z Are Going to Church Again. Word in Black. https://wordinblack.com/2025/09/millenials-gen-z-returningchurch/ Center, P. R. (2024, January 24). 1. Who are the “nones”? How are they defined? Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/01/24/who-are-the-nones-how-are-they-defin ed/ Cox, D. (2022, March 24). Generation Z and the Future of Faith in America. The Survey Center on American Life. https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/generation-z-futureof-faith/ De Witte, M. (2022, January 3). What to know about Gen Z. News.stanford.edu. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2022/01/know-gen-z Dimock, M. (2019, January 17). Defining generations: Where millennials end and generation z begins.PewResearchCenter. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generati on-z-begins/ Harlow, S. (2025). Connecting the Dots: 2025 Consumer Trends | GWI. Gwi.com. https://doi.org/1023116164/1731408981082/module_181023116164_Navigation-new How Americans Are Responding to Charlie Kirk’s Death. (2025, December 4). Barna Group. https://www.barna.com/research/impact-charlie-kirk/ Mental Health & Gen Z - Springtide Research Institute. (2023, September 29). Springtide Research Institute. https://springtideresearch.org/resources/mental-health-genz?srsltid=AfmBOoo-4n-DL0L EDQFyTla_DEhgRtNk1uQbI7ZsF4tFbCBNt07W8VfM#mental-health

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STEADY SECULARIZATION OR RELIGIOUS RESURGENCE News, F. (2026, March 17). Gen Z Christian influencer says young Americans are “tired of fake stuff,” turning to Jesus. New York Post. https://nypost.com/2026/03/16/media/gen-z-christian-influencer-says-young-americans-ar e-tired-of-fake-stuff-turning-to-jesus/ Ninan, S. (2021). SOCIAL MEDIA: THE IMPACT ON SPIRITUAL FORMATION AMONG GENERATION Z FRESHMAN COLLEGE STUDENTS. FireScholars, 1–82. https://firescholars.seu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1081&context=coe Park, S. Y., Do, B., Yourell, J., Hermer, J., & Huberty, J. (2024). Digital Methods for the Spiritual and Mental Health of Generation Z: Scoping Review. Interactive Journal of Medical Research, 13(13), e48929. https://doi.org/10.2196/48929 Poma, G. (2024). “Personal, Relational, and Extr ersonal, Relational, and Extraordinary”: Learning fr ”: Learning from the Spiritual Language of Gen Z . Digital Commons. https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=/context/etd/article/2264/& path_info=GabrillePoma_Theology_PSP_2023.pdf PRRI Generation Z Fact Sheet. (2024, March 29). PRRI. https://prri.org/spotlight/prri-generation-z-fact-sheet/ Soto, H. (2025). Generation Z and the Church: A Phenomenological Study of Perceptions, Barriers, and Opportunities for Church Engagement [Review of Generation Z and the Church: A Phenomenological Study of Perceptions, Barriers, and Opportunities for Church Engagement]. Digital Commons. Scholars Crossing. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8602&context=doctoral SpringtideTM Research Institute Data Show Nuance, Complexity, and Diversity in the Ways Young People Understand and Express Their Religious and Spiritual Lives. (n.d.). https://www.springtideresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/religion-and-young-peo ple-overview.pdf Springtide. (2021, October 7). Spotify as a religious metaphor? (Yes, go with it). Springtide Research Institute. https://springtideresearch.org/post/research-resources/introducingfaith-unbundled Springtide. (2022, November 29). An Inside Look at Gen Z’s Spiritual Practices - Springtide Research Institute. Springtide Research Institute. https://springtideresearch.org/post/religionand-spirituality/an-inside-look-at-gen-zs-spirit ual-practices? srsltid=AfmBOoruAZg5BFk7NPzQyVetnuxDFzdJegaTLa5lqDyRz1OI203 N4aBI Springtide. (2025, April 15). The Newest Generation of Religious “Nones” - Springtide Research Institute. Springtide Research Institute. https://springtideresearch.org/post/religionand-spirituality/the-newest-generation-of-religious-no nes

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EDITOR

DIANA TEOH

Haruka Noishiki

Diana Teoh is a global development and capital mobiliser for impact professionals working at the intersection of climate security, gender equity, and international partnerships. She has over a decade of experience advancing resilience-focused innovation across Africa, China, Southeast Asia and Oceania region.

As a General Partner at NextBlaze Ventures, she co-leads IP driven deeptech investment strategies supporting investment deployment, inclusive growth and market access. She also serves as Director & General Manager of Scandic Nexus, guiding ESG, sustainability compliance, and crossborder risk mitigation for regional enterprises.

Diana previously supported 150+ African startups and mobilized capital for ventures operating in fragile and emerging markets. Her work with UN Women and She Loves Tech has empowered 800+ women innovators building solutions for security, climate resilience, and social impact.

She is an AsiaGlobal Fellow at Hong Kong University, trained in global governance, geopolitics, and sustainable development. She is also an Africa–Asia Impact Investing Fellow through AVPA/AVPN, focusing on mobilising catalytic capital.

Diana brings deep experience in blended finance, Public private partnerships, Monitoring and evaluation learning systems, and multilateral partnerships. She is committed to elevating women of color in global security and advancing peace-positive development across the Global South.

dianateohhuili@gmail.com 40

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Executive Summary Malaysia’s artificial intelligence (AI) transition is advancing without a workforce strategy that adequately addresses its gendered effects. TalentCorp estimates that about 620,000 jobs across ten priority sectors face high impact from AI and digitalisation within five years, including 32 percent in Global Business Services (TalentCorp, 2024). Women are concentrated in exposed roles such as clerical work, retail, food manufacturing, and routine business processing, yet women’s labour force participation stood at only 56.6 percent in late 2025, behind regional peers (DOSM, 2025; World Bank, 2025). The risks extend beyond employment into household stress and social instability. This paper recommends Option 2: a binding Gender-Responsive Just Transition framework with measurable targets, ring-fenced reskilling support for women in high-exposure sectors, and household-stability measures.

Introduction Malaysia is rapidly expanding its AI policy architecture. The National AI Roadmap 2021–2025 will be followed by the AI Technology Action Plan 2026–2030, while the New Industrial Master Plan 2030 targets 3,000 smart factories (MITI, 2023; NAIO, 2024). These policies have largely framed automation as a competitiveness issue. This paper argues that automation must also be treated as a human security issue because the groups most exposed to displacement face risks that can undermine household resilience and community stability.

Background First, Malaysia’s AI transition is unfolding in a labour market where women’s workforce participation is already weak. Women’s labour force participation plateaued at 56.6 percent in late 2025, below the Madani Economy target and below Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore

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(DOSM, 2025; World Bank, 2025). Many Malaysian women leave the workforce in their thirties because of caregiving and family responsibilities and do not return in significant numbers, creating a single-peak participation pattern (World Bank, 2025).

Second, AI disruption is likely to affect women disproportionately because the most exposed jobs are routine occupations where women are overrepresented. The TalentCorp MyMahir Impact Study estimates that nearly one-fifth of workers in priority sectors are already in highexposure bands, with the Global Business Services ecosystem facing especially acute risk (TalentCorp, 2024). World Bank and ISIS Malaysia analysis also shows that clerical and administrative roles are among the most susceptible to generative AI substitution because they rely on codifiable, repeatable tasks (Said & World Bank, 2025).

Third, automation-related displacement could spill beyond employment into household vulnerability and social instability. Women comprise 69.2 percent of those outside the labour force, largely due to unpaid care work (DOSM, 2025), limiting their capacity to absorb job loss or reenter work quickly. In Sabah, where absolute poverty reached 17.7 percent in 2024, even modest income shocks can have immediate household effects (DOSM, 2024). Youth unemployment remained 10.2 percent in September 2025, indicating limited alternative income pathways. Past crisis evidence also shows that economic stress can coincide with increased domestic violence (Harun, 2022; WAO, 2020).

Policy Options Malaysia’s policy gap is not simply a skills gap. The deeper problem is that AI-related disruption is still being managed mainly as a productivity and training issue, while its gendered labour-market and household effects remain insufficiently addressed.

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Option 1: Add gender targets to existing reskilling instruments.

This option would integrate gender-disaggregated targets into existing mechanisms such as HRD Corp, MyMahir, and sectoral programmes under NIMP 2030. Its main advantage is feasibility because it builds on existing institutions. Its limitation is that it treats women’s AI exposure mainly as a training issue and does not address fragmented coordination or household-level risks.

Option 2: Adopt a binding Gender-Responsive Just Transition framework.

This option would establish a coordinated cross-ministry approach linking labour, AI, industry, and social protection under the 13th Malaysia Plan. It would combine measurable gender targets, ringfenced reskilling support for women in high-exposure sectors, and household-stability measures.

Compared with Option 1, it is better suited to addressing both workforce and human-security risks and aligns with Malaysia’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2025–2030 (MWFCD, 2025).

Recommendations This paper recommends Option 2: a binding Gender-Responsive Just Transition framework, because it addresses both the labour-market risks and the household-stability risks of AI-driven displacement. The framework should be implemented through four concrete actions.

1. National AI Office and Ministry of Digital Include a dedicated gender chapter in the AI Technology Action Plan 2026–2030 with a minimum 40 percent women’s participation target in publicly funded AI and digital reskilling programmes, supported by annual public reporting on enrolment, completion, placement, and wage outcomes.

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2. Ministry of Human Resources and HRD Corp Reserve at least one-third of annual training places for workers in occupations identified as highly exposed by the MyMahir study, with a sub-target for women in clerical, retail, and Global Business Services roles. Pair this with a temporary automation-displacement income-support scheme funded through the 13th Malaysia Plan’s MTLM Trust Fund.

3. Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development Allocate dedicated funding for household-stability and gender-based violence response in districts and sectors with high automation exposure, including hotlines, shelters, referral services, and support for affected households.

4. Economic Planning Unit Commission a 2027 inter-agency review to assess whether the framework is improving women’s labour force participation, reskilling completion, job placement, income recovery, and domesticviolence reporting trends in high-exposure districts.

Conclusion Malaysia has built a strong AI policy architecture in a short period. Its next test is whether that architecture can protect the workers most exposed, particularly women, and prevent economic disruption from spilling into household and community instability. A Gender-Responsive Just Transition framework is feasible within the 13th Malaysia Plan and consistent with Malaysia’s existing commitments. The question is no longer whether Malaysia can act, but whether it can afford not to. Without targeted intervention, AI-driven displacement risks widening labourmarket inequality and creating avoidable social costs. Acting now would strengthen both competitiveness and stability.

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References Departmentof Statistics Malaysia. (2024). Poverty in Malaysia 2024. Government of Malaysia. https://www.dosm.gov.my/portal-main/release-content/poverty-in-malaysiaDepartment of Statistics Malaysia. (2025). Labour force survey report, fourth quarter 2024 and 2025. Government of Malaysia. https://www.dosm.gov.my/portal-main/release-content/labour force-survey-2024 Harun, R. (2022, March 15). Parliamentary reply by the Minister of Women, Family and Community Development on domestic violence cases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dewan Rakyat.https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2022/03/778648/42pc-spike-domestic-violence-cas es-last-year Khazanah Research Institute. (2019). Time to care: Gender inequality, unpaid care work and time use survey. https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/684b55df28cddcbe52b406f2/68b7e94789e108896c33 68e8_Publications_Time-20to-20Care_Full-20report.pdf Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry. (2023). New Industrial Master Plan 2030.

Government of Malaysia. https://www.nimp2030.gov.my/ Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development. (2025). Malaysia National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2025–2030. Government of Malaysia. https://wpsfocalpointsnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/NAP-WPSMalaysia_compressed.pdf National AI Office. (2024). About the National AI Office. Government of Malaysia. https://ai.gov.my/about-naio/ Observer Research Foundation. (2024). Online radicalisation in Malaysia: Regional risks and

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responses.https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/online-radicalisation-in-malaysia-regional-risk s-and-responses Romahani, R., & Rahman, H. A. (2022). Intimate partner violence among married women during the COVID-19 movement control order in Sarawak, Malaysia. Journal of Public Health and Development, 20(2), 137–150. https://he01.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/AIHD-MU/article/view/256442 Said, F. (2024). The future of Malaysia’s AI governance. Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia. https://www.isis.org.my/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/AI-Governance-white-paper.pdf Said, F., & World Bank. (2025). Novel AI technologies and the future of work in Malaysia.

Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia and World Bank. https://www.isis.org.my/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Novel-AI-technologies-PB.pdf TalentCorp. (2024, November 18). TalentCorp launches landmark study on workforce impact of AI, digitalisation and the green economy. https://www.talentcorp.com.my/images/uploads/publication/192/Impact-Study-of-Artificial-Intel ligence-Digital-and-Green-Economy-on-the-Malaysian-Workforce-Volume-1-175074811 1.pdf Women’s Aid Organisation. (2020, May 19). Budget 2022: A Resilient National Recovery for Women.https://wao.org.my/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Budget-2022_A-Resilient-National-Rec overy-for-Women.pdf World Bank. (2025). Inclusive employment practices survey: Malaysia 2024. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/malaysia/publication/inclusive-employment-practices-sur vey

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EDITOR Cecilia Ayebare

DORINE TYR

Dorine Samuella Tyr is a Togolese PhD student in Political Science at the University of Idaho, with her areas of focus spanning conflict processes, political psychology and attitudes towards democracy. She was Fulbright Scholar at the Maxwell School in Syracuse University where she earned an M.A. in International Relations, and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Conflict and Collaboration in 2025. Dorine is also a 2026 Fellow with the Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS).

She holds a Master of Laws from the University of Lomé, Togo, her home country, and has experience working as a jurist and radio host. Dorine was a consultant and researcher for the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the Africa Women Journalism Project (AWJP). In this role, she co-authored a report on gender representation and the role of women journalists in Francophone African Newsrooms. She authored relevant work in the field of contract law. Dorine is a sought-after speaker who has addressed audiences at high-impact events such as The Commonwealth Annual Women’s Machineries during the UN CSW 69 in New York.

As a Princeton Visiting Editor, she contributed to policy analysis and offered perspectives towards the 36th issue of the University of Princeton’s Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA).

Before attending the Maxwell School, Dorine founded and hosted the English Within Your Reach radio program, through which she contributed to enhancing Togo’s bilingual educational system. As a campaign lead at the Commonwealth Youth Gender Equality Network (CYGEN), Dorine continues to expand her policy and advocacy work on fundamental rights. She is particularly interested in fostering a better world through the practice of conflict transformation.

tyr_dorine@yahoo.fr

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Policy Paper

Beyond the Battlefield: Identity,Interests, and the Struggle for Democratic Transformation in Sudan

Author: Dorine Tyr Editor: Cecilia Ayebare Institution: WCAPS 2026 Pipeline Fellowship

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Executive Summary The counterrevolutionary war in Sudan constitutes one of the most lethal and protracted conflict experiences in contemporary African politics. While diverse accounts have been provided regarding the drivers of this conflict, this paper posits the centrality of identity and interests as alternative explanatory variables using a gendered analytical lens. By emphasizing women and girls as both bearing the largest cost of this conflict and being instrumental to its transformation, this paper integrates those vulnerable populations in the peacebuilding discourse, fostering an inclusive and grassroots approach to induce a hurting stalemate and over time the cessation of hostilities.

Although the ongoing conflict is not Sudan’s first contact with war, it officially erupted on April 15, 2023, between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), after both parties joined forces to oust former president al-Bashir in April 2019.

Introduction The ongoing power struggles between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have forestalled Sudan’s democratic transition till date. As the war enters its third year, it continues to unfold as the parties intensify strategic offensives as well as key military partnerships with domestic, regional and international players. The conflict, which is not Sudan’s first contact with war, is marked by a series of escalatory dynamics with both actors engaging in offensive strategies to maintain control of key government and territorial areas, thereby expanding the complexity of the war (Ali, Birru & Eltayeb, 2025). The ongoing conflict is characterized by a wide array of tactics entailing the use of weaponry, capturing air and ground bases, airstrikes and militarism amongst others. The war has created the world's largest displacement crisis, with over 12 million people displaced and famine officially confirmed in several parts of the country. Despite mediation efforts by organizations like the United Nations and the African Union, the conflict has yet to reach a hurting stalemate. Instead, both parties pursue total military victory, undeterred by international sanctions or regional suspensions (Eldin, 2025). The imposed sanctions, namely economic and travel restrictions, and suspension from participating in regional organizations have not yielded any change. The war has inflicted a devastating humanitarian toll with women and girls standing at the frontlines and bearing disproportionate costs through widespread gender-based violence, displacement, and economic insecurity. Yet they also serve as core catalysts for transformation. As key sites where identity-based marginalization, militarized power struggles, and eroded civic trust are most acutely experienced and contested, their mobilization and leadership offer critical pathways to reshaping the adversarial dynamics between the SAF and RSF.

Background The counterrevolutionary war in Sudan constitutes a solid ground where competing yet complementary conflict drivers cooperate towards its escalation. While emotions, structures and framing contribute to the conflict in their own respect, interests and identity-based drivers offer the greatest utility in understanding the conflict’s emergence and continuous escalation. It is worth noting that although the war in Sudan is not an emotional conflict in essence, there are high emotions already involved. In this regard, an attempt at transforming the conflict over time would require that these emotions be settled first before handling the identity disparity and interests that divide the primary actors. Nevertheless, interests matter to the conflict in Sudan because it stemmed from the fact that the SAF and RSF were greatly opposed over the security sector reform towards Sudan’s unified military as well as the timeline of the merger. The April 2023 war began

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after the SAF ordered the RSF to integrate into its command structure within two years which the RSF rejected, fearing loss of autonomy. The SAF, on the other hand, does not approve of this rebellious and insubordinate demeanor from the RSF as it wants to perpetuate the traditional military hierarchy. Thus, the conflict between the SAF and RSF escalated due to incompatible interests that underpin both parties’ position, as none of the stakeholders is willing to yield to each other. These interest-based clashes over autonomy and hierarchy are further gendered, as militarization reinforces patriarchal structures that marginalize women's voices in security sector decisions. The refusal to integrate risks perpetuating a male-dominated military order, where women's exclusion from power-sharing sustains broader inequalities and erodes potential for democratic legitimacy.

The conflict in the Sudan also unveils a divergence in identity that helps explain its escalation. The RSF who feels marginalized seeks state power to break up the historical dominance of the elite and boost their sense of belonging in the Sudanese community. Meanwhile, the SAF withholds the sharing of power because it believes the members of the RSF are unworthy of it due to their background as mere camel traders and merchants (Horton, 2023). It is worth mentioning that the SAF has a privileged identity, as it originates from Khartoum, Sudan’s capital located at the center of the country and near major economic attractions. As the central military force, it has long been tied to the ruling class and the Sudanese elite.

On the contrary, the RSF emerged from rural areas of Darfur, in western Sudan, lacking educational and economic opportunities. This separate identity gives rise to a strong system of mutual existential threat and bias that rigidify the parties in their position. In conclusion, an analysis of the conflict in Sudan provides an in-depth understanding of the many drivers that sustain the war over time. Nevertheless, the interplay between divergent interests and discrepancies in the stakeholders’ respective identity offers further insights into this conflict’s escalatory dynamics.

This mutual existential threat manifests acutely in gendered violence, where sexual violence serves as a tool to humiliate, displace, and dismantle community cohesion, rigidifying divisions and blocking shared identity formation. As of early 2026, the SAF’s recapture of Khartoum has pushed the conflict beyond stalemate, repositioning the RSF as an insurgent force and changing how identity is weaponized in rural areas (Karr et. Al., 2026).

Policy Options The conflict situation between the SAF and the RSF, being rooted in an identity divide due to deepseated inequalities, must be addressed through a combination of behavioral and community-based changes. The inclusive platforms will be created with the support of grassroots movements led by women and youth along with traditional leaders to foster equal participation of both elite and marginalized populations. The focus on women and youth in this initiative is motivated by their longstanding legacy of mobilization and resistance against violence and authoritarianism in Sudan.

In this regard, they constitute a solid revolutionary force to leverage in the transformation of the ongoing conflict (Bajec, 2021). Women and girls, as primary bearers of the conflict's gendered costs, disproportionate displacement, economic collapse, and exposure to sexual violence as a weapon, embody the very sites where identity divides and interest incompatibilities are lived daily.

Their leadership in inclusive platforms thus directly contests militarized legitimacy, humanizes the other through shared experiences of suffering, and rebuilds civic trust eroded by elite capture.

While Sudanese have seemed to lose trust in the political system due to the selfishness of transitional government led predominantly by the military, it is relevant to underline that they hold

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traditional leaders and elderly in high esteem (Elsanousi, 2017). Thus, we posit that engaging them in applying contact theory from a bottom-up perspective would be most effective in achieving conflict transformation. Since Sudan’s political dynamic has traditionally favored Arab and Muslim ethnic groups concentrated in Khartoum over marginalized groups located in Khartoum.

Facilitating intergroup humanization through cooperative civic projects initiatives between locals from the urban areas and marginalized peripheries such as Darfur and Kordofan will foster a shared national identity (Maiese, 2003).

The end goal of this theory of change is to arrive at changing the dynamics of the relationship between the Sudanese people divided by taking sides with either the SAF or the RSF (Northup, 1989). Furthermore, if we foster dialogue between the representatives of the leaders of the SAF and the RSF using an interest-based approach, we will be able to decrease hostilities and create a platform for mutual understanding. It is essential to note that representatives must include women's perspectives to address gendered impacts on autonomy and power-sharing. An interest-based perspective looks at the rationale behind the expressed demands of conflict stakeholders, thus offering the parties mutually satisfying options based on their underlying needs (Fisher & Ury, 1977). Prioritizing the representatives of the warring parties is salient because the latter have a track record of ditching negotiation talks due to mutual hatred (Abdulshafi, 2024). In this regard, they usually send representatives or delegates given that each has established parallel governments. Because the primary stakeholders fear losing their respective autonomy over the merger agenda, a facilitated dialogue between them, through the agency of their representatives, can transform their adversarial relationship into a solid partnership built upon a shared project around the democratization of Sudan and the reformation of security sector.

Recommendation A proposed conflict transformation pathway for Sudan involves establishing locally grounded peace committees in key urban conflict zones, particularly Khartoum and major cities in the Darfur region such as El Fasher and Nyala. These locations represent critical sites of fragmented governance, where the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have established parallel systems of authority. Despite this division, these urban and peri-urban spaces remain socially heterogeneous, with civilians holding diverse and often competing political loyalties. Leveraging this demographic complexity, locally led peace committees will convene structured and informal dialogues aimed at fostering trust, rebuilding social ties, and reducing polarization among community members. These committees will be facilitated primarily by Sudanese women and youth leaders, supported by respected elders who hold moral authority within their communities. This approach draws on both contemporary peacebuilding methods and indigenous Sudanese conflict resolution traditions, particularly Joudiyya, a widely recognized form of community-based mediation that emphasizes reconciliation, compensation, and social harmony. Embedding such culturally resonant practices enhances the legitimacy and acceptance of the intervention, especially in contexts where external actors may be viewed with suspicion.

The selection of women and youth as primary facilitators reflects their dual positionality as both affected stakeholders and potential agents of change. Women occupy influential roles as caregivers, educators, and community anchors, while youth, often marginalized and disproportionately impacted by conflict, represent a critical constituency for reducing long-term cycles of violence and exclusion. To ensure inclusivity, the committees will incorporate representation from key social groups, including market vendors, traditional leaders, and

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educators. Dialogue sessions will initially be held on a weekly basis to build momentum and trust, gradually transitioning to a bi-monthly format as conditions stabilize. These engagements will combine facilitated discussions, cultural exchanges, and experience-sharing platforms. Committee members will receive targeted training in dialogue facilitation, nonviolent communication, and conflict transformation, enabling them to operate effectively within highly volatile and politically sensitive environments.

Conclusion Transforming the ongoing conflict in Sudan requires a solid peacebuilding agenda that extends beyond the negotiation of formal peace agreements and the reform of the security sector. The conflict is the playground of incompatibilities in identity and interests among the warring factions. While the latter are the direct actors contributing to the escalation, this paper ha argued that women and girls are an integral part to the outcomes of the war. This is underlined by the duality of their contribution to the conflict as both victims and catalysts to its transformation.

Women serve as the essential social anchors of the Sudanese family and community unit. This influence is rooted in precolonial African societal structures where women held significant mediatory authority and must be leveraged as a central pillar of conflict transformation. Amidst the failures of both regional and international conflict resolution efforts, it is essential to resort to peace frameworks that emphasize gendered local ownership to facilitate a peacebuilding informed by realities on the ground and with more voices of the war-torn area.

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Bibliography Abdulshafi, Q. (2024). Breaking the deadlock: New talks needed to help end Sudan’s violence and offer a glimmer of hope. Freedom House. https://freedomhouse.org/article/breakingdeadlock-new-talks-needed-help-end-sudans-violence-and-offer-glimmer-hope Ali, M., Birru, G. J. & Eltayeb, N. (2025). Two years of war in Sudan: How the SAF is gaining the upper hand. ACLED. https://acleddata.com/2025/04/15/two-years-of-war-in-sudan-howthe-saf-is-gaining-the-upper-hand/ Bajec, A. (2021). Sudanese women are back on the frontlines of resistance. ZNetwork. https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/sudanese-women-are-back-on-the-frontlines-ofresistance/?amp=1 Eldin, A. G. (2025). Forgotten and Neglected, War-Torn Sudan Has Become the Worlds’s Leading Displacement Crisis. The Online Journal of the Migration Policy Institute. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/sudan-civil-war-displacement Elsanousi, E. A. Y. (2017). Traditional Judiya Leaders in Sudan as Actors of Humanitarian Diplomacy: Are They Eligible to Fulfill These Roles in the Darfur Humanitarian Crisis? https://www.scienceopen.com/document?vid=d4286e1c-3a4f-4167-a929-7063576b4932 Fisher, R. & Ury, W. 1997. Getting to Yes. Negotiating agreement without giving in. 2nd edition, Penguin Books.

Karr, L., DeAngelo M., Ford, Y., Sommer, Z. & Thomas, A. (2026). Sudan War Continues Despite Iran War: Peace Efforts. Critical Threats. https://share.google/FOeMvxhZnDqN3ZaMX Horton, M. (2023). Can the SAF Defeat the RSF in Sudan?. The Jamestown Foundation. https://jamestown.org/program/can-the-saf-defeat-the-rsf-in-sudan/ Maiese, M. (2003).

Dehumanization.

Beyond https://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/dehumanization

Intractability.

Northrup, A. T. (1989). The dynamic of identity in personal and social conflict. Intractable Conflicts and Their Transformation. Ed. Louis Kriesberg, Terrell A. Northrup and Stuart J. Thorson. Syracuse University Press.

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FAIZA RUKSAR

EDITOR Dr. Binyam Yitay

Faiza Ruksar Arif is a gender specialist and feminist researcher from India who works to mainstream gender conversations through an intersectional lens. She advances gender justice by co-creating grassroots programmes and curricula, facilitating inclusive trainings, and supporting institutions, non-profits, schools, and corporates to embed equity into their systems and strategies. Her work spans education, healthcare, and livelihoods, with longterm engagement alongside adolescents, rural women, LGBTQ+ communities, and frontline facilitators. Faiza contributes to research and policy on minority politics, labour, the care economy, and transgender healthcare, centring the lived experiences and structural realities of marginalised groups. She has collaborated on studies examining women’s entrepreneurship, SHG collectivisation, care-economy and gendered labour precarity in the Global South. Beyond research, Faiza is a mixed-media artist whose work explores embodiment, memory, and resistance.

faizaa.khan96@gmail.com 55

Negotiating Survival: Care as Infrastructure, Invisible Labour, and Everyday Peacebuilding

By FAIZA RUKSAR ARIF Edited by Dr. Binyam Yitay

Women of Color Advancing Peace,Security and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS) Research Paper, Final Draft

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Peacebuilding scholarship (Paris, 2004; Mac Ginty & Richmond, 2013) has historically rooted itself in event-based imaginations of conflict: war, ceasefire, agreement, and reconstruction.

The “local turn” in Peacebuilding and Security Frameworks emerged as a response to liberal constructs of elite bargains, institutional templates, and externally defined indicators of stability (Mac Ginty & Richmond, 2013). Mac Ginty’s (2014) notion of “everyday peace” illustrates how conflict-calming occurs through ordinary practices that are rarely registered in formal policy discourse but remain central to community life sustenance. Feminist peace research (Aggestam & Holmgren, 2022; Vaittinen et al., 2019) frames the ‘everyday’ as a site where violence and peace coexist through social reproduction and intimate power relations. Aggestam and Holmgren (2022) document how mainstream peacebuilding has rhetorically embraced ‘gender and resilience’ but remains procedurally thin.

Climate, Health and the Global-Intimate Climate-security debates often resort to linear narratives of environmental stress and violent conflict. Ide (2017) argues that “space” is politically constructed, through discourses of scale, boundary, and place, that shape how environmental problems are interpreted and governed. Feminist political ecology further sharpens this narrative. Bee et al. (2015) introduce the “global-intimate” that disrupts the binary of global climate processes and local experience, thereby illustrating how climate change is governed and felt through everyday life, in activities such as fetching water, food preparation, caregiving, and bodily adaptation.

However, behaviour-change governance shifts responsibility onto individuals, masking structural drivers, and as climate stress deepens, it further heightens the privatisation and feminisation of care (Sjoberg, 2013).

Health scholars only reinforce this privatisation and feminisation of care. Tanyag (2020)’s feminist analysis of ‘planetary health’ highlights how ecological degradation and gendered bodily vulnerability are inseparable. Reproductive risk, malnutrition, infectious disease exposure, and mental strain cannot be understood independently from environmental stress and political economy. Yet health within the peacebuilding discourse is treated as a humanitarian concern rather than as constitutive of stability and security. The Humanitarian-Development-Peace nexus (Humanitarian Aid European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, 2021) attempts to bridge such fragmentation by recognising the interconnected nature of climate crises and conflict. Ensor (2022) categorised gender within this nexus, where women are expected to sustain communities but lack the agency and systemic support to reshape the very conditions that produce insecurity.

Research Gap Four gaps emerge across these literatures: the limited integration of feminist care and embodied insecurity in everyday peace frameworks (Vaittinen et al., 2019; Aggestam & Holmgren, 2022); the neglect of gendered care labour in climate–peace scholarship (Ide, 2017; Bee et al., 2015); the under-theorisation of intergenerational and intersectional survival practices (Panter-Brick et al., 2025); and the insufficient documentation of Global South feminisms in peacebuilding (Ensor, 2022; Sändig et al., 2024).

Methodology

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This study is a qualitative research enquiry, anchored in a central research question: How is peace negotiated and sustained in everyday life through locally rooted feminist practices of care and survival in contexts shaped by climate stress, health insecurity, and gendered vulnerability. The study further examines (i) how climate stress and health insecurity converge, (ii) how gendered and often invisible forms of care labour emerge in peace building; (iii) how intersectionality shapes both vulnerability and the capacity to negotiate survival; and (iv) how practices of care, coping, and resistance are intergenerational. The study draws on 30 in-depth interviews conducted across India, including 20 community participants engaged in Community-Based-Organisations-led programmes on gender, health, and climate, and 10 key informant interviews with practitioners and feminist actors. Participants were selected through purposive sampling. Ethical protocols, including informed consent and confidentiality, were strictly followed. Data were analysed thematically to identify key patterns and insights.

Analysis 1. The Body as a Site of Everyday Conflict Climate stress and health insecurity are constructed as enmeshed entities that reorganise daily life.

Participants treated climate change experientially and not as a formal category. Imageries included: heat that makes work and movement unbearable, water systems that collapse, floods that destroy homes, contaminated spaces, and ecological shifts that disrupt food and medicine systems. Narratives repeatedly return to bodily thresholds, invoking descriptions of exhaustion, pain, infections, breathlessness, malnutrition, dehydration, and reproductive strain. These were not treated as anomalies but expected consequences in the face of absent or exclusionary protections. Another critical framing has been climate as a continuous, slow violence that is enacted upon the body. For example, fisher women of coast al Kerala characterise high-tide flooding as a persistent condition where homes remain water logged, sanitation systems fail, and domestic life must be reorganised around draining water and maintaining minimal hygiene. Narratives also corroborate that it is women’s bodies that absorb the consequences: skin infections, recurring fevers, menstrual management difficulties, and the fatigue of repeatedly cleaning and securing household spaces. Furthermore, the home that is often imagined as refuge and safety becomes a site of bodily contention where maintains ‘livabilty’ turns into a struggle against dampness, contamination and infastructure breakdown.

Reproductive risks remained at the centre of participants’ health narratives, where they did not exclusively arise from service gaps but from the political economy of gender: early marriage, son preference, repeated pregnancy, restricted mobility, and a denial of adolescent agency. Narratives repeatedly described forced conception driven by male-child aspiration, and a reluctance towards formal institutional delivery shaped by distance, cost and distrust. Furthermore, structural failures pushed healthcare precarity into life-or-death bodily risk, characterised by transport gaps, absent doctors, and weak referral systems. Similarly, in drought-prone regions of India, such as Bundelkhand and parts of Maharashtra, climate stress is articulated through ‘continuity’, not ‘rupture’. Vicious drought cycles not only affect agricultural outputs but disorganised the household economy of health. Within the household, the first thing that is compromised is women’s nutrition because survival strategies are structured through gender rationing, where women eat last, reduce intake during scarcity, and defer treatment to preserve resources for others. Overtime, this leads to chronic anaemia, weakness, reproductive risk and compromised immunity. For participants of the study,

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climate change was not a singular catastrophic event but a long-term, prolonged process of bodily depletion.

2. Gendered Care Labour If climate stress and health insecurity are lived in the body, then peace is sustained through gendered care labour. It emerges as the hidden infrastructure of everyday peace by keeping households and communities intact, despite the extraction of their time, energy and health. Consistently across rural, urban, coastal and tribal contexts, women’s narratives of care centred on minimisation and negotiation: rationing food when crops fail, stretching water through scarcity cycles, negotiating informal loans to cover medical costs, calculating which treatment can be delayed, and mediating conflict when stress spills into domestic tension.

In cases of illness or vector-borne disease, women deferred their own care, took on additional workloads, and managed household finances to prevent a collapse. Here, care emerged as damage control, and peace was framed not as mitigation but as containment of deterioration.

Care narratives also extended beyond the household and into collective and political domains. In the case of urban water crises, women resorted to collective action by organising neighbourhood coordination, sustained protests, confronting authorities, and maintaining pressure for weeks. The root of these actions were grounded in immediate survival needs and caregiving, such as ensuring water for children, elders, and the sick. Similar dynamics appear in Adivasi (tribal) narratives that are centred on militarisation and land conflict. Tribal Women developed collective strategies to prevent sexual violence, maintained food distribution during prolonged protests, erected barricades, and sustained village functioning when the men fled arrest or surveillance.These practices are rarely discussed informal peacebuilding discourse, yet they prevent community disintegration during extreme pressure. A less visible dimension of care is that of psychological stress and emotional labour that is shouldered by women.

Across sites, care labour frequently substitutes for the absence or failure of formal institutions. Women’s collectives or associations and peer educators reported mediating disputes, regulating access to scarce resources, providing first-response healthcare, managing debt, and negotiating with officials. In rural and peri-urban areas, women’s groups managed water distribution schedules and monitored service delivery.

These are governance acts at a micro level that stabilise everyday life under scarcity, but remain informal, precarious, and contingent on women’s continued availability. The most critical piece of care labour, however, lay in a uniformly felt tension among the participants: empowerment initiatives heavily relied on women’s capacity to care without redistributing labour or structural support. Women were “empowered” to manage more crises, not relieved of burden. Care-based peacebuilding, while stabilising, can entrench unequal burdens. The participant narratives repeatedly returned to exhaustion, burnout, and the quiet normalisation of overwork. Participant activists also described “firefighting” as a permanent condition, responding to crisis after crisis without time or resources for long-term transformation. Fatigue does not always produce visible breakdown; instead, it is absorbed as part of life. These challenges demonstrate narratives of resilience and community strength. Everyday peace is sustained through continuous gendered labour, yet it does so by drawing disproportionately on the bodies and time of women and gender-diverse people that already navigating structural marginalisation.

3. Intersectional and Layered Vulnerabilities

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Every day, peace is negotiated within systems of caste, class, religion, age, disability, gender, sexuality and geography that decide whose bodies absorb these risks, and whose suffering remains invisible or expendable. In the participant narratives, caste emerges as a decisive axis in the context of water, sanitation and labour. Participant narratives show how women avoid public taps to evade caste-based humiliation, often taking longer, unsafe routes. Climate-health vulnerability is thus mediated through social power, as the body absorbs harm to preserve dignity. Sanitation labour functions as informal environmental governance, yet its costs are borne by workers’ bodies through constant exposure to waste and toxicity such as sewage, dead animals, and hazardous materials. Urban order is thus sustained through caste-marked bodily sacrifice. Geography only intensifies these dynamics. In tribal and forested regions, Adivasi (tribal) women face layered dispossession, including ecological degradation through mining, deforestation, industrial expansion, weak health infrastructure and political marginalisation. Similarly, for gender and sexually diverse communities, vulnerability sits at the intersection of environmental stress with public visibility and heightened stigma. Transgender narratives document how extreme heat, flooding, and water scarcity disrupts livelihoods, housing and transitioning medical aid. Unlike cisgender women, trans people lack safe private spaces and must navigate survival in environments that are marked by harassment and violence. Peace is negotiated through informal networks: resource-sharing, mutual checking, and avoiding unsafe spaces, while safety often requires invisibility through restricted expression and movement. These strategies reduce immediate harm but deepen longer-term exclusion from public services.

Disability introduces another layer of segmented peace. During floods, heatwaves, or displacement, evacuation systems assume mobility, autonomy, and cognitive capacity. Those who do not meet these assumptions are often left behind. Participants reported prioritising able-bodied members and leaving disabled individuals to absorb risk silently. Caring for disabled family members is defaulted to women, further intensifying heavy labour burdens. Simultaneously, disabled women themselves are excluded from livelihood programmes and collective spaces, reinforcing dependency while denying agency. Stability in communities is achieved by concentrating protection around bodies deemed productive or manageable.

Additionally, age shapes vulnerability across the life course. Adolescent girls are disproportionately susceptible due to early marriage, nutritional deprivation, and restricted sexual agency. Climate stress intensifies household pressures that prioritise marriage as an economic strategy, redistributing financial strain onto girls’ bodies. At the other end of the life course, elderly women face declining mobility and chronic illness under intensifying environmental stress, yet relief systems rarely address age-specific needs.

Intersectional hierarchies also operate within movements and collectives. In several cases, women from marginalised backgrounds initiated mobilisation and sustained collective action under risk, only to be sidelined once movements formalised. As struggles gained visibility, leadership shifted toward men or more socially privileged actors. Women who bore early risk care, coordination, and confrontation found themselves excluded from decision-making when power was consolidated. Intersectional agency expands during a crisis, when survival requires collective mobilisation, but contract shrinks as stability returns.

4. Intergenerational Knowledge & Local Feminisms

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Intergenerational knowledge emerged as a critical response to climate and health insecurities. Mothers, grandmothers, elders, and peers transmit strategies for managing bodies, households, and relationships under strain. This transmission unfolds through observation, repetition, correction, and storytelling rather than explicit instruction. For example, participants shared instances of how girls and young women learn when to reduce their intake during scarcity, how to conserve water during supply cuts, how to tend to illness without clinical access, and how to negotiate with husbands or in-laws without escalating conflict.

Over time, such practices crystallise into parallel systems of everyday governance. In climate-affected regions, older women also serve as ecological memory holders. They recall shifts in rainfall patterns, water tables, crop cycles, and food systems across decades, and were able to situate present distress within longer histories of extraction, displacement, and infrastructural neglect. This temporal depth complicates narratives of a crisis and instead frames environmental stress as part of an extended continuum of marginalisation. Younger generations are then able to adapt inherited strategies to new realities: urban precarity, informal labour markets, digital surveillance, and fragmented family structures. What persists is not a fixed repertoire but a feminist logic of survival, one that prioritises relational stability, risk anticipation, and quiet conflict management. However, intergenerational knowledge hinges on endurance rather than structural transformation, teaching women how to tolerate scarcity, absorb violence quietly, and sacrifice personal well-being for collective survival. Several participants articulated this tension directly: women are empowered to manage crisis more efficiently, not to exit it. Training programmes enhance women’s capacity to perform care but rarely reduce the volume of care required.

Discussion What emerges from this study is that peace itself is structurally dependent on unequal endurance and continuous labour that absorbs environmental stress, redistributes scarcity, and contains escalation before it becomes visible. Peacebuilding frameworks must therefore account for chronic insecurity not as background, but as constitutive of peace itself. These conditions are not episodic disasters but chronic states that stretch bodily capacity, producing an ongoing health precarity shaped by access to water, care, mobility, and dignity. Women’s bodies, in this sense, emerge as life-course archives of deprivation, archives deepened by food scarcity, intensified labour, and crisis-driven barriers to care. This is further compounded by infrastructural exclusion, where governance systems such as water reforms privilege technical effecicany over social inclusion. Scarcity enables technocratic restructuring: Public-Private Partnership models, cost-recovery logics, and the erosion of public access, that displace risk downward.

Women in low-income settlements are pushed toward unsafe, labour-intensive alternatives, where bodily strain and exposure become routine. State responses thus reallocate rather than reduce harm. Care here moves beyond moral disposition or ethical abstraction; it functions as infrastructure precisely because it compensates for institutional absence, yet in doing so, it masks systemic failure. What appears as strength: stretching food, delaying treatment, mediating conflict, securing water, is in fact the labour of filling structural gaps. Peace that depends on such absorption of harm remains inherently fragile. Much of this stability operates outside formal institutions. The broader implication is straightforward but uncomfortable: peace under chronic climate and health stress is already being built. The question is whether institutions will continue to depend on their unequal foundations, or whether they will invest in redistributing risk, labour, and protection. Without that shift, everyday peace will persist, but unevenly, precariously, and at high cost.

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References Aggestam, K., & Eitrem Holmgren, L. (2022). Feminist peace research and gendered peacebuilding: Continuities, debates, and future directions. International Studies Review, 24(2), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viac021 Bee, B. A., Rice, J., & Trauger, A. (2015). A feminist approach to climate change governance: Everyday and intimate politics.

Geography Compass, 9(6), 339–350. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12218 Ensor, M. O. (2022). The meaningful participation of women in solving our common crises: Gendered perspectives on climate change and the humanitarian–development–peace nexus.

Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, 17(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/15423166221102878 Ide, T. (2017). Space, discourse and environmental peacebuilding. Third World Quarterly, 38(3), 544–562. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2016.1199261 Mac Ginty, R. (2014). Everyday peace: Bottom-up and local agency in conflict-affected societies. Security Dialogue, 45(6), 548–564. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010614550899 Mac Ginty, R., & Richmond, O. P. (2013). The local turn in peace building: A critical agenda for peace. Third World Quarterly, 34(5), 763–783. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2013.800750 Panter-Brick, C., Williams, B., Ebnou Abdem, A., Dhehby, K., Coulibaly, Y., & Bilal Eli, T. (2025). Pathways to everyday peace: Visualizing local knowledge to model system change.

Frontiers in Political Science, 7, 1614779. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2025.1614779 Paris, R. (2004). At war’s end: Building peace after civil conflict. Cambridge University Press.

Sändig, J., Dalmer, N., Ide, T., & Vogler, A. (2024). From climate conflicts to environmental peacebuilding: Exploring local dimensions. Environment and Security, 2(1), 3–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/27538796241231090 Sjoberg, L. (2013). Gendering global conflict: Toward a feminist theory of war. Columbia University Press.

Tanyag, M. (2020). A feminist call to be radical: Linking women’s health and planetary health.

Politics & Gender. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X20000367 Vaittinen, T., Donahoe, A., Kunz, R., Ómarsdóttir, S. B., & Roohi, S. (2019). Care as 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/21647259.2019.1588453

European Commission. (2021). The humanitarian–development–peace nexus: Bridging the divide between humanitarian and development cooperation. Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO).

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HANNAH WILLIAMS

EDITOR Rheaa Anand

Hannah Williams is a senior at Wellesley College studying International Relations–Political Science and Japanese interested in US-Japan relations, and race and gender in comparative politics. Motivated by her mixed Japanese-Black heritage, she has cultivated her passion in US-Japan relations through the Japanese American Storytelling program, Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA and the Japan Society of Boston. Outside of academics, her hobbies include reading poetry and talking during movies.

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AI-Powered Violence: Understanding Intersectional Impacts of Artificial Intelligence on Women of Color

Hannah Williams Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation APA7

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Abstract. Gender-based cyberstalking, image manipulation, surveillance – while technology can be a tool to improve communication, it can also be a weapon that perpetuates abuse and harm. Global and public-facing women of color are particularly vulnerable in the face of unconsensual image generation, among other AI-assisted programs and tools. This paper seeks to analyze and systematize emerging online abuse and violence faced by women of color amid an international lack of legal protections for victims of online violence.

The digital landscape has become a daunting battleground. Violence can rapidly ignore borders as AI tools, specifically generative AI, lower barriers to entry and remain sub-optimally regulated. Abusers and offenders of online violence are enabled through Generative AI’s perpetuation of racial and gender bias, as well as a lack of legislation that both explicitly protects public-facing women and young girls, and holds AI tech companies accountable.

Literature Review. Needless to say, online violence is a threat to women and girls, with current literature heavily suggesting that both groups are the principal targets of AI-assisted harm. As defined by The Conversation, online violence is “any act involving digital tools which results in or is likely to result in physical, sexual, psychological, social, political or economic harm, or other infringements of rights and freedoms” (2025). Online violence sits within the larger category of technology-facilitated violence, and includes abusers accessing partners’ location data and the generation or sharing of unconsensual images. According to a global 2021 survey, 38% of women have been victims of online violence, and 85% of women have witnessed digital violence (The Economist, 2021). Moreover, a 2024 UNWomen study found that 300 million children were affected by online child sexual exploitation and abuse in just the last 12 months (2024).

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When a female user logs onto social media platforms or inboxes, there is a chilling understanding that she may be at risk of abuse, such as rape videos generated by stalkers that bypass content monitoring guidelines or AI-altered videos of female celebrities. In 2024, female writers and social media influencers experienced the highest exposure, with 30.3% of those surveyed reporting that they were subjected to online violence (The Conversation, 2024). Female human rights defenders and activists had the second-highest exposure rate in 2024, with 28.2% of those surveyed reporting exposure; female journalists had the third-highest exposure rate, with 19.4% reporting exposure (The Conversation, 2024). Based on these statistics, women in public-facing roles are more likely to experience online violence.

Deepfakes present new modes of harassment and digital violation by strangers and intimate partners alike, with the vast majority of AI-generated unconsensual sexual images depicting women. UN Geneva points out, “many deepfake tools, developed by male teams, are not even designed to work on images of men,” and – with one in every three deepfake tools allowing users to generate pornography – a gendered nature behind unconsensual deepfakes is revealed (2025). This underscores not only the importance of inclusive user protection by Generative AI development teams, but also the importance of defining what is ethical under AI. Security Hero found that, between 2019 and 2023, the number of deepfake videos increased by 550% (2023). As Generative artificial intelligence becomes widely accessible with little regulations set by majority male teams, the frequency of unconsensual deepfake images could continue to skyrocket. The cybersecurity firm also found that 98% of all deepfake videos online were pornographic, and 99% of targeted individuals were women (Security Hero, 2023). Moving into more recent times, Twitter/X’s AI Assistant, Grok, generated an estimate of 3 million sexualized images, over 20 thousand of which featured children (Center for Countering Digital

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Hate, 2026). Social media accounts that thrive on clicks also generate images that intentionally perpetuate racial stereotypes to drive shock factor and engagement in order to increase monetary gain or recognition (Lamensch, 2023). Because provocative images are near-impossible to completely delete or prove as false from the internet and minds of viewers, the public perception and digital footprint of featured victims(s) are negatively impacted for the long-term. It is undeniable that the soaring usage of Generative AI goes hand-in-hand with a surge in online sexual and racial violence.

Strangers behind a keyboard are not the only perpetrators of AI-Assisted Violence. AI is often used as a weapon in Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). IPV can be defined as “abuse or aggression that occurs in a romantic relationship. Intimate partner refers to both current and former spouses and dating partners” (Centers for Disease Control, 2026). Victims of IPV can be as young as teenagers (Leemis et al., 2022). IPV can include sexual violence, psychological aggression, and stalking, which can all be enhanced through digital platforms and platforms that record targets’ daily lives and details. A UK-based domestic violence charity, Refuge, told The Guardian that they experienced a 62% increase in the last three months of 2025 for women who experienced technology-facilitated abuse, with stories such as abusers altering videos of women to make them appear as unfit mothers before custody battles and generating authentic-looking fraudulent documents (Hall, 2026). Therefore, digital abuse and larger online violence should not be viewed as simple ‘Stranger Danger’ issues, nor can they be solved by instructing women to be more careful. AI-Assisted online violence is a fruit grown from a larger, rotten tree rooted in how users are allowed and enabled to utilize technology, and how user privacy is protected.

Despite high rates of targeted violence, little has been done to regulate artificial intelligence and online platforms to protect women and girls. In 2021, only 27% of economies

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had criminal penalties for offenses associated with cyber harassment (Recavarren & Elefante, 2023). Only 9 out of the economies with cyber harassment-specific laws specifically protect women with disabilities, and only 21 economies have laws that specifically protect children, illustrating how disproportionately affected vulnerable groups do not have strong and explicit legal protection (Recavarren & Elefante, 2023). As of 2025, 117 countries have either drafted or introduced efforts that address digital violence, showing initial political will. However, much of this progress ultimately lags in legislative priority and is left by the wayside. As found by UNWomen, there are only 46 legislative measures worldwide in 2025 that address technologyfacilitated violence against women and girls, revealing a lack of global standards that both explicitly protect vulnerable groups and impose criminal offenses (UNWomen, 2025).

Companies can mitigate the harmful use of AI-assisted tools by implementing Content Credentials (CC), or “a system of watermarks and metadata designed to ensure authenticity and flag AI-generated content” (Booth, 2026). With potential for increasing transparency, CCs are especially important for tracking AI-generated images that feature real women's likenesses. This being said, 51.7% of all AI-related incidents in 2025 were produced on platforms that do not use CCs, and thus are not held accountable (MIT AI Risk Initiative, 2025). Although over 5,000 entities used CCs in 2025, it is clear that more implementation is necessary (Tse, 2025).

Online violence is not isolated from the real world and can lead to real-world attacks.

Research suggests that cyber harassment can be a step in the process of victimization or a precursor to offline abuse (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2022). According to The Conversation, “four in ten (40.9%) of women [...] surveyed reported experiencing offline attacks, abuse or harassment that they linked to online violence,” including physical assault, stalking, swatting, and verbal harassment (2025). Returning to female journalists, the Committee to

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Protect Journalists reported that “about 93% of murder victims are local reporters” who cover politics and corruption in their home countries, and that at least 40% of murder victim cases reported “receiving threats before they were killed,” including online threats (Witchel E, 2017).

The frequency of offline attacks spawned by online violence has only soared: in 2020, 20% of women surveyed reported offline attacks related to online violence, and in 2025, that figure doubled to 42% of surveyed women (The Conversation, 2025). Current measures for ensuring online safety are also not reassuring: 41% of women surveyed by Amnesty International felt that their physical safety was threatened after online attacks, and 26% of women in the United States felt that their family’s safety was at risk after online violence (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2022). The online-offline connection is only growing stronger as abusers and offenders use both to enhance harm and victimize women. Therefore, legal protections that only address either one or the other are not enough when abuse from one bleeds into the other. Real-world attacks connected to AI use and online abuse may also manifest through harmful racial bias.

Teams that develop datasets within training models often disregard equity, enabling AI to continually perpetuate racial prejudice as a result. For example, across the United States, justice departments are and have utilized AI tools that provide risk assessments of defendants for the sentencing process – a role that was typically under the discretion of a human judge (Center for Justice Innovation, 2026). ProPublica found that in Florida, based solely on photos from which the machine could detect race, Black defendants were 77% more likely to be flagged as future “violent” criminals. while only 45% of white defendants were labeled to commit a future crime “of any kind” (Angwin et al., 2016). Without efforts by developers to minimize biases from the beginning, as well as dedicated, proper monitoring systems, artificial intelligence’s usage of sensitive data can inflict racial harm, such as increased wrongful imprisonment of Black people.

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In the face of online abuse, artificial intelligence can also be used to fight the biases perpetuated by AI. One rising example is Bodyguard.AI: an app that uses AI to filter out online abuse against tennis players on social media (Khan, 2023). Bodyguard.AI was implemented during the 2023 French Open and brought tennis players relief after seeing less online hate and abuse (Bearne, 2023). While efforts like Bodyguard.AI are helpful, it is critical to note that not all issues can be, or should be, fought with AI, and that solutions should be proactive.

Discussion. At the hands of AI-assisted tools, public-facing women and People of Color are more likely to suffer consequences from AI-assisted tools. With the heavy real-world impact of these likelihoods, what does this mean for people who are both women and People of Color?

It is imperative that solutions for AI-powered violence explicitly address and examine the “interlocking” effects that race, class, gender, and (dis)ability have on AI-powered harm (Brisson-Zelenina, 2023). Doing so helps to ensure that artificial intelligence systems’ development, accessibility, and utilization are fair and equitable. A legislative approach to AI harm that only provides broad, general strokes would have a direct, negative impact on forgotten women of color with different abilities, in abusive relationships, and/or in public-facing industries; efforts must explicitly name and protect disproportionately affected victims.

Continuing down this path of lesser limits to how AI can be used would render AI, and the larger digital space, as only safe and accessible to those not targeted by these racial and sexual biases; in other words, an AI-utilizing platform or service would only be built as safe and comfortable for straight, white men. Therefore, releasing AI with little explicit safeguards places vulnerable groups even more at risk for targeted online abuse.

Furthermore, policies that do not address the connection between offline and online attacks perpetuate the outdated thinking that what happens online stays online. When companies

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do not implement CCs, the tracking and monitoring of harmful use of Generative AI becomes exponentially more difficult. As a result, when harm does occur, companies are enabled to skirt away under anonymity and without accountability for the damage that their product and users cause. A company policy’s decision not to use Content Credentials, or any other reporting and auditing system, shows that accountability and ethical AI use are not prioritized.

Framework for the Future. There is a deep need to eliminate, if not decrease, online violence by keeping women of color safe within relationships, their careers, and their daily lives.

The onus should not be on female users themselves; technology companies that develop AI platforms, chatbots, and tools, as well as political representatives, should be held responsible.

Using a two-year timeline, technology companies must be held accountable for their role in allowing users to enact harm through AI products and services that generate unconsensual images and allow for cyberstalking, hacking, doxxing, and sextortion. The first mechanism that should be enacted across companies is mandating companies to utilize CCs. The use of CCs would open the door for victims to confidently defend themselves in the public eye against manipulated images. Furthermore, content could be traced back to its AI developer to begin an audit process to ensure that similar content will not be generated by that company again. If a company refuses, then a penalty for noncompliance can be that images and videos featuring humans and humanoids cannot be generated. A quantifiable benchmark of success would be that reporting systems, such as the MIT AI Risk Initiative, would see a 30% yearly decrease in the number of unknown AI developers and a yearly increase in the number of identifiable AI developers.

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WORKS CITED Angwin J, Larson J, Mattu S, & Kirchner L. (2016, May 23). Machine Bias. ProPublica.

Bearne, Adam. (2023, June 8). Tennis stars get lots of hate online. The French Open gave them AI 'bodyguards'. Nhpr. https://www.nhpr.org/2023-06-08/tennis-stars-get-lots-of-hate-onlinethe-french-open-gave-them-ai-bodyguards.

Booth, H. (2026, January 19). What the Numbers Show About AI's Harms. Time. https://time.com/7346091/ai-harm-risk/.

Brisson - Zelenina, Y. (November 2023). "Beyond Words: Exploring the Experiences of Women of Colour in Voice-Activated Artificial Intelligence Interactions.” https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/375922091_Beyond_Words_Exploring_the_Experiences_of_Women_of_ Colour_in_Voice-Activated_Artificial_Intelligence_Interactions.

Center for Countering Digital Hate. (2026, January 22). Grok floods X with sexualized images of women and children. https://counterhate.com/research/grok-floods-x-with-sexualized-images/.

Centers for Disease Control. (2026, Feb 11). About Intimate Partner Violence. https://www.cdc.gov/intimate-partner-violence/about/index.html.

The Conversation. (2025, December 17). AI tools are being used to subject women in public life to online Violence. https://theconversation.com/ai-tools-are-being-usedto-subject-women-in-public-life-to-online-violence-271703 The Economist. (2021, March 1). Measuring the Presence of Online Violence Against Women. https://onlineviolencewomen.eiu.com/ European Institute for Gender Equality. (2022, November 25). Combating Cyber Violence against Women and Girls. https://eige.europa.eu/publications-resources/publications/ combating-cyber-violence-against-women-and-girls.

Hall, R. (2026, Jan 30). Abusers using AI and digital tech to attack and control women, charity warns.

The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jan/30/ abusers-using-ai-and-digital-tech-to-attack-and-control-women-charity-warns.

Khan, S. (2023, September 25). How AI Exacerbates Online Gender-Based Violence. Organization for Ethical Source. https://ethicalsource.dev/blog/ai-and-gender-based-violence/.

Lamensch, M. (2023, June 14). Generative AI Tools Are Perpetuating Harmful Gender Stereotypes.

Centre for International Governance Innovation. https://www.cigionline.org/articles/ generative-ai-tools-are-perpetuating-harmful-gender-stereotypes/.

Leemis RW, Friar N, Khatiwada S, Chen MS, Kresnow M, Smith SG, Caslin S, & Basile KC. (2022). The National Intimate Partnerand Sexual ViolenceSurvey:2016/2017 Report onIntimate Partner Violence. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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MIT AI Risk Initiative. (2025). AI Incident Tracker. https:// airisk.mit.edu/ai-incident-tracker/alleged-developers.

Recavarren, I. & Elefante, M. (2023, November 27). Protecting women and girls from cyber harassment: a global assessment. World Bank Blogs. https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/developmenttalk/ protecting-women-and-girls-cyber-harassment-global-assessment.

Tse, Jen. (2025, August 8). 5,000 members: building momentum for a more trustworthy digital world.

Content Authority Initiative. https://contentauthenticity.org/blog/5000-membersbuilding-momentum-for-a-more-trustworthy-digital-world UN Geneva. (November 20, 2025). AI and anonymity fuel surge in digital violence against women. https://www.ungeneva.org/en/news-media/news/2025/11/113136/ai-andanonymity-fuel-surge-digital-violence-against-women.

UNWomen. (2024, October 8). Intensificationofeffortstoeliminateallformsofviolenceagainstwomen and girls: technology-facilitated violence against women and girls: report of the Secretary-General. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4064890?v=pdf UnWomen. Global Database on Violence against Women and Girls. https://data.unwomen.org/global-database-on-violence-against-women.

SecurityHero. (2023). State of Deepfakes: Realities, Threats and Impact. https://www.securityhero.io/state-of-deepfakes/ The White House. (March 20, 2026). President Donald J. Trump Unveils National AI Legislative Framework. https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/03/ president-donald-j-trump-unveils-national-ai-legislative-framework/ Witchel, E. (2017, October 31). CPJ's 2017 Global Impunity Index Spotlights Countries Where Journalists are slain and the Killers go free. Committee to Protect Journalists. https://cpj.org/reports/2017/10/impunity-index-getting-away-with-murder-killed-justice-2/.

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KELLY HUANG

EDITOR Dr. Mercy Kathina

Kelly Huang is a recent graduate of the University of Southern California with a Bachelor’s in Intelligence and Cyber Operations, an interdisciplinary degree focused on cybersecurity and international relations. As a first-generation college graduate, Kelly is passionate about connecting underserved students with opportunities. As a student, she served as a senior advisor for USC’s cybersecurity club and co-founded a language exchange program for middle school students. Currently, Kelly works as a Cybersecurity Consultant in the Washington D.C. area. Her goal is to one day obtain her Master’s in Foreign Service and promote global security. In her free time, she enjoys learning languages, hiking, and music.

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Governing Through Digital Transnational Repression: Gendered Control of Women Activists in Authoritarian and Diasporic Contexts

Kelly Huang Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security Mercy Mweni Kathina, PhD

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Abstract As digital platforms increasingly shape political participation, advocacy, and peacebuilding efforts, women activists face growing risks of surveillance, censorship, and digital transnational repression. Existing scholarship has documented the rise of digital authoritarianism, yet limited attention has been given to its gendered impacts on women peacebuilders and human rights defenders, particularly in diaspora contexts surrounding the Global South. This paper argues that digital transnational repression against women activists is not merely a tactic of coercion but a broader mechanism of gendered governance. It examines how states use digital systems to regulate women’s political participation, reinforce patriarchal norms, and extend control beyond territorial borders. Drawing on published reports from digital rights organizations and academic literature, this paper highlights critical gaps in existing platform guidelines and argues for gender-responsive moderation systems that better protect women’s participation in peacebuilding and conflict resolution.

Keywords: Digital Transnational Repression, Digital Authoritarianism, Gendered Governance

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Introduction As digital platforms become increasingly politicized, women activists face mounting risks of surveillance, censorship, and coordinated harassment at the hands of authoritarian regimes. Digital transnational repression against women activists is not merely a tactic of coercion, but a mechanism of gendered governance. States engage digital systems to regulate women's political participation, reinforce patriarchal norms, and extend social control beyond territorial borders. Specifically, authoritarian regimes engage in tactics like targeted smear campaigns and social engineering attempts not simply to suppress dissent, but to dictate how women activists tolerate political leadership. Through a qualitative thematic analysis lens, this paper examines the pattern among digital transnational repression tactics and attributes the disproportionate impact on diaspora women activists in the Global South to the lack of gender-responsive governance systems in online platforms.

Framework on Digital Repression There are three concepts central to this analysis: digital transnational repression, digital authoritarianism, and gendered governance. Digital transnational repression refers to the use of technological tools and digital infrastructure by states or state-aligned actors to suppress political opposition and control information flows. It includes methods such as “the deployment of intrusive spyware, malware attacks, online harassment, and coordinated smear and disinformation campaigns” (Michaelsen & Anstis, 2025, p. 1525). These tactics frequently aim at monitoring communications, disabling organizational capacity, and mongering fear.

“Digital authoritarianism” has two meanings according to a 2024 report published by Roberts and Oosterom. They cited previous studies, noting that “Although the term was originally applied to China, and Polyakova and Meserole limit its application to authoritarian

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regimes, Wijayanto et al. (2022) argue that there are now two competing conceptions of digital authoritarianism: one which frames it as the digital practices of regimes classified as authoritarian, and a second which argues that the same practices are also carried out by governments classified both as democracies and as hybrid regimes.” (Roberts & Oosterom, 2024, p. 863). I will be referring to the latter definition because it acknowledges that authoritarian practices, like any form of government, is practiced on a spectrum. Even the so-called “democratic” states can engage in authoritarian digital practices.

Lastly, we have gendered governance. Gendered governance refers to “the attempts to change gender regimes by inserting new policies, procedures, and values through global and multilevel governance, for example via the UN and the EU” (Kronsell, Annica, 2017).

These concepts inform one another: digital transnational repression functions as a tactic, digital authoritarianism describes the governing logic, and gendered governance explains how these systems disproportionately target women. A case study approach best demonstrates the extent of this conceptual relationship. The research primarily draws on ideas from the Citizen Lab report 'No Escape' (Aljizawi et al., 2024), a collection of 85 interviews of human rights defenders across 24 home countries who share their experiences of being subjected to digital transnational repression abroad, due to both their identity as primarily diaspora women and their occupation involving some form of political and social activism. All together, these concepts form an analytical framework for understanding digital transnational repression as a system of gendered governance that operates across state, platform, and individual levels.

Strategies of Repression and Governance Failures Through digital transnational repression, authoritarian states extend their control well into diaspora communities. Women activists in exile frequently report persistent online harassment,

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spyware concerns, and coordinated defamation campaigns attributed to actors linked to their country of origin. For example, one activist from Bahrain engaged in advocacy around gender-based violence. She described how attacks on social media targeted her specifically for being a woman, believing that they were coming from her home country in order to defame and discredit her work: “The same interviewee described how she lives all of her ‘waking minutes and hours and days … of being anxious that all of my devices have a spyware on them’ and that she is being tracked, which has had an important impact on her mental health” (Anstis & LaFlèche, 2024, p. 679). An Iranian-diaspora journalist named Farzaneh described her experience of facing harassment from media organizations with ties to Iranian security. Not only was her Instagram hacked and called out as an “attention-seeking whore” who owes her work to a sexual relationship with her manager, but she recalls how she felt in that situation: “I feel like I have never really escaped the oppression of the Islamic Republic” (Michaelsen & Anstis, 2025, p. 1518-1519). Both experiences illustrate how digital repression functions beyond borders.

Authoritarian states aim to reassert control over individuals who have escaped their jurisdiction.

In more extreme cases, they seek to sever activists from their communities by framing them as politically defiant.

Gaps in Existing Platform Governance Social media platforms such as Meta, X, and YouTube are not neutral infrastructure.

Their design choices, from how threats are classified to how algorithms amplify content, constitute their own form of governance. As such, these sites have become a primary site through which authoritarian regimes engage in digital transnational repression.

Research from Citizen Lab’s report attributes the platforms' failures to several factors.

For instance, there’s a lack of native or fluent speakers of the language who work on the content

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moderation teams. As a result, these platforms fall short of detecting and preventing online abuse, particularly outside the context of English-speaking communities (Aljizawi et al., 2024, p.

62). This failure becomes more apparently dangerous to women in the Global South as “women in the Middle East and Central and South America report higher rates of experiencing and/or witnessing online violence” (Aljizawi et al., 2024, p. 65).

Existing platform governance frameworks are structurally ill-equipped to respond to attacks because they operate under the assumption that threats are gender-insensitive and individualized. Current moderation systems are designed to resolve individual violations. Think of an explicit message, a reported account, or a flagged image. However, when a woman activist is targeted by a state-sponsored attack, each event may fall below the threshold for platform action. The end result lies in the cumulative effect, or the systematic dismantling of her public presence and organizing capacity. Despite platforms having the option to report hate speech, some women activists have reported that the sheer number of accounts involved in threats and trolling made it impossible for them to flag everything. One respondent in the Citizen Lab report noted that “Re-reading or re-watching harsh messages is difficult, and most of the time, the content of these messages is not easily translatable,” (Aljizawi et al., 2024, p. 63). The additional burden that falls on women activists is not incidental. There is no recognition of the political coordination, cross-platform scope, or authoritarian intent behind the attacks. To resolve this gap, platforms must formally classify coordinated gendered harassment as a distinct threat category, separate from general harassment policies. When executive decisions fail to account for gender, they actively reproduce the conditions that make gendered digital repression possible. If left unaddressed, these platforms may continue to promote digital transnational repression at the personal level.

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Gendered Impacts on Personal Security For women activists, digital transnational repression often includes attacks that target their perceived morality and social legitimacy, thereby constituting more ad-hominem attacks than their male counterparts. Accusations of sexual impropriety, threats to family reputation, and the circulation of manipulated images are common tactics. Aggressors frequently rely on three interrelated strategies to attack women activists: intimidating, shaming, and discrediting (Michaelsen & Anstis, 2025, p. 1522). These attacks become increasingly more complex when a woman is part of a marginalized community and/or simply existing in a male-dominated space.

Women activists may be accused of sexual impropriety, infidelity, abortion, or moral deviance.

One human rights activist from Tanzania describes how, in addition to being labelled a “whore” and “sex-deprived,” there was a whole discussion “about whether I should be in the kitchen or having sex with my husband” (Aljizawi et al., 2024). Such attacks aim not only to undermine credibility but to remove women from public political life altogether. It implies a woman's sexual relationships and promiscuity negates the advocacy work she has done. The objective is not merely to silence political speech. In extreme cases, it is to push women out of the public sphere altogether. By reinforcing the notion that political engagement is incompatible with acceptable gender roles, regimes sustain broader systems of patriarchal authority. Gendered digital governance thus serves as a mechanism for maintaining political and social order both in the authoritarian state and in diasporic communities.

Conclusion By centering gender within the analysis of digital authoritarianism, this paper makes two contributions. Theoretically, it reframes digital transnational repression as a form of gendered governance rather than merely a coercive political tactic, revealing the patriarchal logics that

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shape how repression is designed, deployed, and sustained. Empirically, it demonstrates that these dynamics are actively reproduced through platform governance failures that render coordinated gendered campaigns invisible, treating systematic state-sponsored repression as a series of individual incidents rather than a politically motivated pattern.

Moving forward, tackling gender-based digital transnational repression requires reform at two levels. First, platforms must develop gender-sensitive AI moderation systems that can spot patterns of coordinated gendered harassment. Current AI moderation tools are trained on generalized threat data that does not take into account political motivations or the gendered nature of state-sponsored attacks. Without disaggregated training data and gender-informed threat classification, these systems will continue to fail the women most at risk. Second, host state governments must establish diaspora protection policies that recognize digital transnational repression as a form of foreign interference. They must also extend institutional protections to activists targeted by their countries of origin. Women peacebuilders and human rights defenders in diaspora communities are particularly vulnerable to the protection gap. Closing this gap requires bilateral and multilateral frameworks that treat gendered digital repression as a human rights violation that warrants state-wide response.

Together, these reforms reflect a broader principle that digital repression is not a technical problem with a technical solution, but a governance problem requiring a governance response.

Protecting women's political participation across borders is not a minor concern. It is a prerequisite for inclusive peacebuilding and a meaningful commitment to human rights in an increasingly digital world.

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References Aljizawi, N., Anstis, S., Michaelsen, M., Arroyo, V., Baran, S., Bikbulatova, M., Böcü, G., Franco, C., Geybulla, A., Iliqud, M., Lawford, N., LaFlèche, É., Lim, G., Meletti, L., Mirza, M., Panday, Z., Posno, C., Reichert, Z., Taye, B., & Yang, A. (2024). No escape: The weaponization of gender for the purposes of digital transnational repression (Citizen Lab Report No. 180). University of Toronto.

Anstis, S., & LaFlèche, É. (2025). Gender-based digital transnational repression as a global authoritarian practice. Globalizations, 22(4), 671–688. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2024.2401706 Kronsell, Annica, 'Gender and Governance' (22 Dec. 2017), in Nalanda Roy (ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies (New York, NY, online edn, Oxford Academic, 21 Nov. 2017 - ), https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.186, accessed 28 Mar. 2026.

Michaelsen, M., & Anstis, S. (2025). Gender-based digital transnational repression and the authoritarian targeting of women in the diaspora. Democratization, 32(6), 1518–1540. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2025.2476178 Roberts, T., & Oosterom, M. (2025). Digital authoritarianism: a systematic literature review.

Information Technology for Development, 31(4), 860–884. https://doi.org/10.1080/02681102.2024.2425352

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EDITOR

LINDSEY GILBERT

Ara Asgarian

Lindsey Gilbert is originally from Toledo, Ohio, where she earned her undergraduate degree in Liberal Arts from the University of Toledo. She previously lived in New York and Atlanta, working as a model, a role that offered valuable opportunities for travel and cross-cultural experience. In 2021, she relocated to Italy to teach English, and in 2023, she began her master’s degree in International Relations and Diplomacy at the American Graduate School in Paris, having graduated last year with her thesis focusing on women's rights policy and implementation gaps.

While in Paris, she has worked for the National Peace Corps Association, The International Chamber of Commerce, L'Oreal, UNESCO and most recently, The Women's Forum for The Economy and Society.

Lindsey is recently an alumni of the Women@Dior and UNESCO mentorship program for young women. An advocate for women’s rights, she looks forward to completing her PhD, further continuing her studies on women's rights policy.

Outside of her studies and work, she has recently signed with a literary agent for her debut novel, a historical supernatural horror, with themes of racism, injustice, and female retribution.

lgilbert720@gmail.com 84

Indigenous Women and Intersectional Inequality: Evaluation of Norway's Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act and its Protection of Sámi Women

Lindsey Gilbert

Editor: Ara Asgarian

April 2026

Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS)

WCAPS Research Paper

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Executive Summary Sámi women in Norway, an Indigenous population estimated between 50,000 and 100,000 people (International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, n.d.), face compounded discrimination at the intersection of gender and Indigenous identity. This discrimination is evident across multiple areas, most notably in schools, workplaces, and local communities, as well as in other public spaces and online (Hansen, 2016). According to the 2012 SAMINOR 2 questionnaire study by Astrid M.A. Eriksen, Ketil Lenert Hansen, Cecilie Javo & Berit Schei, in the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, research indicates that 49% of Sámi women report having experienced physical, mental, or sexual violence at some point in their lives, compared to 31% of women in the majority population in the same region. Sámi women also report higher rates of sexual violence during childhood (before the age of 18), at 17%, compared to 11% among women in the majority population. Despite Norway’s efforts to address discrimination through policies such as the 2018 Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act. This Act consolidates anti-discrimination protections and recognizes multiple grounds of discrimination (Ministry of Culture, 2018), but implementation gaps and the current lack of data collection (Norwegian National Human Rights Institution, 2020) limit its effectiveness for Indigenous women.

Introduction Over the past several years, Norway has formally committed to addressing gender-based discrimination and strengthening Indigenous rights protections. Most notably, in 2002, Norway ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) (Ministry of Children, 2022) and ILO Convention 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (Ministry of Children, 2022). These commitments are embedded in the country’s Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act of 2018, which consolidates protections against

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discrimination on multiple grounds including gender and ethnicity (Ministry of Children, 2022).

But, despite this strong legal framework, Sámi women today still face compounded discrimination based on their gender and Indigenous identity. This research paper evaluates Norway's 2018 Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act and its effectiveness in addressing intersectional discrimination affecting Sámi women. The central question is whether this anti-discrimination framework sufficiently protects Indigenous women experiencing overlapping forms of discrimination, or whether more targeted policy instruments are needed to achieve substantive equality.

Discrimination Against Sámi Women The Sámi are a group of Indigenous people living in Northern Europe, in the northwest of Russia and in the northern reaches of Sweden, Finland and Norway, with a population estimated between 50,000 and 100,000 people (International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs). Around 49% of Sámi women report lifetime exposure to physical, mental, or sexual violence (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2021). According to SAMINOR, “almost half” of Sámi female respondents reported any lifetime experience of violence, compared to “one‑third” of non‑Sámi female respondents (Eriksen et al., 2015). In addition, according to a study cited by the Sámi Parliament, 17% of Sámi women reported having experienced sexual violence in childhood (up to age 18), compared to 11% among women in the majority population (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2021).

These studies consistently show a higher prevalence of violence against Sámi women than against non‑Sámi women in the same geographic areas.

In April 2018, the UN Human Rights Committee recommended that Norway should investigate further the root causes of the higher levels of violence against women in the Sámi

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community (Norwegian National Human Rights Institution, 2018). Later that year in May, the UN Committee Against Torture recommended that Norway also develop an action plan aimed at preventing, protecting from violence, and enhancing efforts to build up confidence towards public authorities, in consultation with the Sámi community (Norwegian National Human Rights Institution, 2018).

Norway’s Current Legal Framework The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 18, 1979, and entered into force on September 3, 1981 (Ministry of Children, 2022). CEDAW is an international treaty that requires countries to eliminate discrimination against women and girls in all areas and to promote women’s and girls’ equal rights (UN Women, 2019). CEDAW is often described as the “international bill of rights for women,” (UN Women, 2019) and is one of the key international agreements that guides the work of UN Women in achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls worldwide (UN Women, 2019). Norway has taken several steps to incorporate CEDAW’s requirements within its domestic legal framework. In 1989, Norway signed off on the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, which grants the Sámi the status of an Indigenous people in Norway and defines specific rights for Indigenous peoples (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2004), including Article 1 that states Indigenous and tribal peoples shall enjoy the full measure of human rights and fundamental freedoms without hindrance or discrimination and Article 5 that integrity of the values, practices and institutions of these peoples shall be respected (United Nations, 1989). On January 1, 2018, Norway’s Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act came into force, replacing four earlier statutes that provided legal

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protections against discrimination on the grounds of gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and sexual expression (Ministry of Children, 2022).

Policy Recommendations For women who face discrimination on multiple fronts, both because of their gender and their racial or in this case, Indigenous identity, systemic change requires more than policy on paper. Anti-discrimination laws remain hollow without meaningful accountability mechanisms, as compounded discrimination continues unchallenged when institutions face no real consequences.

Women's empowerment initiatives face a similar problem, often defaulting to the experiences of non-Indigenous women and leaving Indigenous women, like the Sámi, and other minority women behind. Below are some policy recommendations that should be used to better strengthen what is already in place.

Table 1. Summary of policy recommendations targeting Sámi women

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Timeline The following timeline outlines a phased approach to implementing the policy recommendations outlined above. Beginning with foundational steps in year one and building toward full implementation by 2030, this timeline is intended to reflect a realistic and sequenced path to change. It should be read as a living framework, subject to revision in response to community feedback and evolving policy conditions.

Figure 1. Sample implementation timeline for policy recommendations targeting Sámi women. *Subject to change*

Conclusion Norway's 2018 Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act is a good starting point, as the analysis proved, it does provide the framework to promote equality, ensure equal opportunities and rights and prevent discrimination based on ethnicity, national origin, descent, skin colour, language, religion or belief. However, it fails to explicitly address the root causes of discrimination against Indigenous people, like Sámi women, who continue to face higher rates of discrimination-based violence than any other group in Norway (Norwegian Institute of Public Health, 2024). These recommendations seek to provide a framework of turning legal protections into real accountability by enforcing anti-discrimination laws, creating targeted programs to empower Sámi women on the basis of gender and Indigenous identity, and improving data collection to

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make the specific inequalities they face visible and addressable. The collective goal is to ensure that Norway's commitment to both gender equality and Indigenous rights translates into measurable improvements in Sámi women's lived realities.

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WorkCited

Eriksen, A. M. A., Hansen, K. L., Javo, C., & Schei, B. (2015). Emotional, physical and sexual violence among Sami and nonSami populations in Norway: The SAMINOR 2 questionnaire study. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 43(6), 588–596. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/45151032 Hansen, K. (2016). 9 Self-Reported Experience of Discrimination against Samis in Norway. https://gtsvn.uit.no/freecorpus/orig/eng/science/samilogut/2016/9_self_reported_discrimi nation.pdf International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. (n.d.). Sápmi - IWGIA - International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. Iwgia.org. https://iwgia.org/en/sapmi.html Ministry of Children, E. and S. I. (2022, December 21). Discrimination based on ethnicity, religion or belief. Government.no. https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/equality-and-diversity/discrimination-based-on-ethn icity-religion-or-belief/id670393/ Ministry of Culture. (2018). Act relating to equality and a prohibition against discrimination (Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act). https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2019/12/N orway_2017-Equality-and-Anti-discrimination-Act.pdf Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (2004, December). Report on Convention no 169 concerning indigenous and tribal peoples, 1989. Government.no.

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https://www.regjeringen.no/en/historical-archive/Bondeviks-2nd-Government/ministry-of foreign-affairs/2004/Report-on-Convention-no-169-concerning-indigenous-and-tribal-pe oples-1989/id420365/ Norwegian Institute of Public Health. (2024, August 23). FHI.no. Norwegian Institute of Public

Health.

https://www.fhi.no/en/publ/2024/Harassment-and-discrimination-of-the-

Sami-people/ Norwegian National Human Rights Institution. (2018). Violence and Abuse in Sámi Communities. https://www.nhri.no/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Thematic-report2018-Violence-and-A buse-in-S%C3%A1mi-Communities.pdf Norwegian National Human Rights Institution . (2020). A Human Rights-Based Approach

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Sámi

Statistics

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Norway.

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content/uploads/2020/08/StatistikkUrfolk_ENG_web_1708.pdf

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. (2021). Statement by the Sami Parliament in Norway submitted to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women for consideration in relation to the ninth Periodic Report on Norway.

UN Women. (2019). Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) for Youth. UN Women. https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2016/12/cedaw-for-youth United Nations. (1989, June 27). IndigenousandTribalPeoplesConvention,1989(No. 169). OHCHR.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/indigenous-and-tribal-peo ples-convention-1989-no-169

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EDITOR

LOIS RAMILO

Tayyaba Atiq

Lois Ramilo is an emerging foreign policy professional and recent graduate of the University of California, San Diego, where she earned her B.A. in International Relations. She currently serves as a Make Room Initiative Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Previously, she interned with the East-West Center in Washington, D.C., conducting research on U.S. defense cooperation, economic strategy, and diplomatic engagement in the Indo-Pacific.

During her undergraduate career, Lois served as an APAICS Congressional Intern in the U.S. House of Representatives, a Section Editor for the Prospect Journal of International Affairs, and an Undergraduate Fellow with the Truman Center for National Policy, contributing to U.S. subnational diplomacy initiatives. She is also an alumna of the U.S. Foreign Service Internship Program (USFSIP), completing rotations in the Bureau of Counterterrorism and at the U.S. Embassy in Kolonia, Federated States of Micronesia.

Lois’s professional interests include U.S. national security strategy, great power competition, conflict prevention, human rights, U.S.–U.S.-Indo-Pacific relations, and Pacific Islands affairs. She is passionate about promoting inclusive foreign policy and advancing peace and security across the Indo-Pacific region.

loisram049@gmail.com 94

Peace and Security the Pasifika Way: Unpacking the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Policy in thePacific Islands Author: Lois Ramilo Editor: Tayyaba Atiq Institute: Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security (WCAPS) Format: Research Paper

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Intro: In October 2000, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1325, a landmark resolution that introduced the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda (United Nations, 2000). It became the first formal and legal document from the Council that advocated for greater female representation and participation and conflict prevention and resolution as well as recognized the disproportionate impact conflicts have on women. In the years since its passage, major components of Resolution 1325--such as its emphasis on women’s participation in policymaking, protection of women and girls from conflict-induced violence, and including women’s perspectives within understanding security threats-- have evolved to become the key framework of the WPS agenda as countries seek to develop and implement their own versions.

Spanning almost a fifth of the entire globe (Congressional Research Service, November 2024), the Pacific Islands are simultaneously a small yet large region of the world that is at the forefront of pressing security challenges and geopolitical issues. On one hand, Pacific Island countries (PICs) are diverse in geography, cultures, ethnicities, and economies. On the other there are several overarching themes the region as a whole collectively faces, particularly when it comes to regional security.

Women’s issues oftentimes intersect or are further exacerbated by the security threats facing these remote islands, such as climate change. Considering these issues, the region has taken steps towards developing and implementing a Women, Peace, and Security agenda. Since the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), the region's main multilateral body, released its first Regional Action Plan (RAP) in 2012, the region and its individual states have taken steps towards including female perspectives (Pacific Islands Forum, 2012). However, implementation gaps have marginally slowed or even stalled the integration of WPS issues in multilateral and national policymaking.

Background Beyond environmental issues, there are additional factors that impact the region’s peace and security. Inter-communal conflict and political unrest have been key factors that have especially threatened regional governance and stability. The Solomon Islands, for example, was embroiled in ethnic conflict from 1998 until 2003 but deep-rooted tensions resulted in the outbreak of violent protests and civil unrest in 2021 (Needham, 2021).

Recent geopolitics, particularly the great power competition (Gumbaketi, 2025) between the U.S. and China, has garnered greater international attention to the Pacific Islands. As a result, much of the region’s foreign aid largely prioritizes infrastructure and security cooperation, which has led

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to a decrease in long-term funding towards human development sectors including gender equality. In 2023, only 3% of projects had a “principal” focus on gender equality while 29% of projects had a “significant” gender focus (Duke et al., 2025). Outmigration and stalling economic development have also hampered the region with island countries struggling to address local labor shortages and decreasing regional economic growth in recent years (World Bank, 2025).

Battling the Current: Driving Factors of Gender Inequality in the Pacific Islands Pacific women have always played a long and crucial role in traditional peacemaking long before WPS was even formally conceptualized in international circles. During a period of armed ethnic conflict in the Solomon Islands known as the “Tensions” from 1998-2003, local women served as village peace wardens through leaning into their traditional role and image as mothers and caretakers (United Nations Development Programme, 2012). There they encouraged both sides to cease fighting and engage in peace dialogues and led humanitarian interventions in conflict zones.

In the community, women leaders across all regions of the Pacific have been known to develop systems to encourage dialogue, promote conflict resolution, and support those impacted by periods of violence (Hunter, 2025). They were also known to wield much influence and respect even in political decisions. And yet, while much of that continues to live on in modern Pacific societies, Pacific women face pronounced social and economic inequalities. Today there are disproportionately less Pacific women in the non-agricultural workforce compared to men with close to 48% of working age women stating they don’t work (World Bank, 2025). The inequality also extends into a dire lack in political representation, with only 7% of parliamentarians being women, a far cry from the global average of 27% (World Bank, 2025). Much of this stems from socio-cultural barriers and deep-rooted traditions and customs that oftentimes bar or discourage women from engaging in politics and government and favor men (UN Women, 2022). While women in the Solomon Islands were active participants in local peacemaking process during the “Tensions "conflict, they were largely excluded from the formal peace dialogue process due to more conservative views of local cultural norms or “kastom” (United Nations Development Programme, 2012). Consequently, addressing gender inequality in the Pacific can be a delicate and layered endeavor that requires intentional and effective resources and long-term investment.

Pacific island women also face some of the highest rates of domestic violence in the world.Insome cases, 1 in 2 women experiences gender-based or intimate partner violence (GBV/IPV) in their lifetime (World Health Organization, 2026). Experts deduce that climate changefurther exacerbates the high levels of GBV/IPV, as the stresses of the economy and lifealteringimpacts of climate-related disasters increase the likelihood of violent outbursts, especiallybetween women and their partners (Stenger & Oo, 2025).

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These challenges make addressing women’s issues beyond peace and security difficult.

All these factors collectively place pressure on the Pacific Islands, with the islands having limited capacity to properly address them individually, nevertheless at the same time. This can thus create worry within the PIF and the greater international community that climate insecurity and its manifestations could potentially destabilize the region and create or exacerbate conflict or instability. With little female representation in both the economy and in government, advocating for Women, Peace, and Security issues has become a topic of discussion amongst local national governments and the PIF. That being said, however, positive progress is still evident. In 2023, with funding from Australia, the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict launched the Women Mediator Network (PWMN), the first of its kind in the Pacific. Locally led, the network work to advance for greater gender-inclusive perspectives in conflict prevention and the participation of Pacific women in all phases of conflict prevention and resolution.

The PIF and the WPS Agenda Giventhese unique sets of challenges, the PIF and Pacific Island states have made some efforts to develop and implement the WPS agenda into their policies. In 2012, the PIF was among the first regional organizations to develop the Regional Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security (RAP). The RAP primarily focused on involving women in peace processes and security decisionmaking and developing the necessary frameworks to protect women and girls during humanitarian crises and conflicts (Pacific Islands Forum, 2012). While the plan was celebrated at the time for its advocacy for a gendered perspective of peace and security and its awareness of the role Pacific women should play in peacemaking, limits quickly arose. The lack of an implementation mechanism severely limited the PIF’s ability to hold member states accountable in putting forth the RAP in action. Furthermore, the PIF’s RAP failed to support its member states in developing their own national action plans (NAP) or providing a roadmap on how to incorporate local women’s group, civil society, or traditional communal networks into national security decision making (Trojanowska, 2025). The RAP concluded in 2015, but has neither been renewed or even briefly mentioned following PIF security declarations such as the Boe Declaration on Regional Security in 2018. In 2023, the PIF released the Revitalized Pacific Leaders Gender Equality Declaration (PLGED) which briefly mentioned the PICs commitment to “the full, equal, effective, and meaningful leadership and participation of women and girls” (Pacific Islands Forum, 2023).

Some states, such as Fiji (U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, 2022), the Solomon Islands (Government of Solomon Islands, 2020), and Bougainville (Autonomous Bougainville Government, 2016), did develop their own NAPs with international financial backing and support, particularly from the UN, Australia and New Zealand. In 2023, Fiji became the first Pacific Island and second country in the world to develop a whole-of-government NAP that focuses on violence prevention for women and girls, setting a portion of its tax dollars--along with international assistance from Australia--towards its implementation (UN Women Asia and

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the Pacific, 2023). The NAPs of the other two PICs—the Solomon Islands and Bougainville— have expired and are yet to be renewed.

While Fiji may shine as a beacon of success, unfortunately however, such cases are few and far in between when it comes to the progress of advancing the WPS agenda in the Pacific Islands. Like previously mentioned earlier, the main challenges lie in financing and implementation. Given their reliance on foreign aid and stalling economic development, many PICs have a limited fiscal capacity to develop and implement initiatives within the WPS agenda (World Bank, 2025). The lack of long-term funding for gender equality issues also means that the region is missing out truly meaningful initiatives that could effectively incorporate women and their perspectives in government and security policymaking whether it’d be through deepening partnerships with local women’s networks or the PWMN, funding trainings for government officials, or holding roundtables and public events discussing WPS issues. To conclude, the 2012 RAP, which the PIF signed over a decade ago, remains merely an encouragement rather than a roadmap that should be taken seriously.

Changing the Tide: Policy Recommendations As previously stated, the onslaught of existential threats facing Pacific Island security and the layers of impact it brings to local communities emphasize the need to not just develop but actively include women in regional peace and security discussions and policymaking. Similar to Fiji’s NAP, the PIF and the region as a whole should focus on developing a roadmap that builds upon the 2012 RAP. The PIF should look to renew or implement a new RAP that actively seeks to implement four themes based on UN Security Council Resolution 1325, the UN’s landmark resolution focused on women, peace, and security: prevention, participation, protection, and relief and recovery (United Nations, 2000).

The PICs, through the leadership of the PIF, should seek to actively include encourage women to participate in political dialogues and government. Having greater female representation in all levels of government would ensure female perspectives are included and advocated for in policymaking, including discussions regarding peace and security issues as well as when it comes to address GBV/IPV in the region. Consulting with women-led NGOs and civil society groups in future PIF decisions is also crucial to ensuring Pacific women are represented at the multilateral level. Furthermore, including women’s perspectives on climate security particularly would provide key opportunities to not only deepen local governments’ understanding of the impacts of climate change on all aspects of its society, but also develop policies that the address GBV and VAW triggered by it.

However, none of these themes can be feasibly achieved without greater international financing to support these initiatives and a whole-of-government commitment to implementing the WPS agenda (Trojanowska, 2025). As one of the most foreign aid dependent regions in the

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world, the Pacific Islands need global support to make such aspirations a viable reality. To translate dialogue into tangible action, the UN and major aid partners like Australia and New Zealand should devote more of their resources towards realizing the WPS agenda both in the regional and national levels. If the WPS agenda were to be truly realized, international aid and input is needed to guide the PICs towards implementing WPS policies in all aspects of conflict and conflict resolution. Given the pressing security challenges facing the region, renewed momentum for WPS issues in the Pacific Islands is necessary to ensure not just the security and well-being of Pacific women and girls, but all Pacific Islanders impacted by the rapid changes arising in their region.

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Congress.gov. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11208 Duke, R., Dayant, A., Ahsan, N., & Rajah, R. (2025, October 27). Pacific Aid Map: 2025 key findings. Lowy Institute. https://pacificaidmap.lowyinstitute.org/analysis/2025/key-findings/ Government of Solomon Islands. (2020). Women, Peace and Security National Action Plan 2017–2020 (PDF). https://solomons.gov.sb/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Women-Peace-andSecurity-National-Action-Plan-2017-2020.pdf

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Gumbaketi, H. (2025, September 8). The Pacific’s diplomatic retreat from great power competition. Lowy Institute. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/pacific-s-diplomaticretreat-great-power-competition Needham, K. (2021, November 29). What is behind unrest in the Solomon Islands? Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/what-is-behind-unrest-solomon-islands-2021-11-29/ Oxfam Australia. (2024, November 11). Number of people impacted by climate disasters in the Pacific increased 700% in the last decade: Oxfam. https://media.oxfam.org.au/2024/11/numberof-people-impacted-by-climate-disasters-in-the-pacific-increased-700-in-the-last-decade-oxfam/ Pacific Islands Forum. (2012, October 18). Forum Chair launch Regional Action Plan on Women, Peace & Security. Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. https://forumsec.org/publications/forum-chair-launch-regional-action-plan-women-peace-andsecurity Pacific Islands Forum. (2018 September). Boe Declaration on regional security. https://forumsec.org/publications/boe-declaration-regional-security Pacific Islands Forum. (2023). Revitalised Pacific Leaders Gender Equality Declaration. https://forumsec.org/sites/default/files/202402/Revitalised%20Pacific%20Leaders%20Gender%20Equality%20Declaration.pdf Stenger, H., & Oo, P.-P. (2025, December 5). Cyclones to coups: Crises drive violence against women. The Interpreter. Lowy Institute. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/cyclonescoups-crises-drive-violence-against-women Trojanowska, B. K. (2025). The regionalization of Women, Peace and Security: ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum. International Affairs, 101(6), 2173–2191. https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiaf065 United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women).

(2022). Gender equality brief for the Pacific Islands. https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/202212/UN_WOMEN_REGIONAL_BRIEF.pdf Women’s perspectives of peace and security United Nations Development Programme. (2012). https://files.acquia.undp.org/public/migration/asia_pacific_rbap/PC_WomenPeace.pdf .

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United Nations. (2000). Status of the declaration on the elimination of violence against women (A/RES/55/178). https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n00/720/18/pdf/n0072018.pdf UN Women Asia and the Pacific. (2023, September). Fiji National Action Plan to prevent violence against all women and girls 2023–2028. https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/digitallibrary/publications/2023/09/fiji-national-action-plan-to-prevent-violence-against-all-womenand-girls-2023-2028 U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. (2022, September 30). Fiji partners with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command for Fiji’s first-ever Women, Peace and Security National Action Plan. https://www.pacom.mil/Media/News/Article/3176683/fiji-partners-with-us-indo-pacificcommand-for-fijis-first-ever-women-peace-and/ World Health Organization. (2026). Violence against women prevalence estimates, 2023 (ISBN 9789240116962). https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240116962 World Bank. (2025 June). Pacific Economic Update: Employ Women, Empower the Pacific: A Strategy for Uncertain Times. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099061125000029992/pdf/P506957-7d26eb990110-4068-8a06-4ddf33304488.pdf

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MARIYAM YUMNA AZEEZ

EDITOR De’Omini Daniely

Mariyam Yumna Azeez is an Attorney and development professional from Sri Lanka with six years of experience in human rights, peacebuilding, and gender justice. She holds an LLB (Hons) and an LLM in Public and International Law from the University of Colombo. Her work focuses on advancing the Women, Peace and Security agenda through research, advocacy, and community engagement. Mariyam currently serves as a Project Officer at the Centre for Equality and Justice, leading initiatives on peace and conflict resolution, transitional justice and human rights. Her international experience spans collaborations with institutions in Asia, Europe, and the Pacific. Mariyam has published widely on women’s roles in peacebuilding within the post-conflict context. She is passionate about amplifying women’s voices in post-conflict recovery and advancing gender-responsive governance globally.

yumnaazeezis@gmail.com 103

The Digital Frontline: Post-Conflict Masculinities and Technology-Facilitated Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Author: MariyamYumna Azeez Editor: De’Omini Daniely Institution:WCAPS Paper Format:Research Paper

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Abstract Technology-facilitated sexual and gender-based violence (TFSGBV) has emerged as a significant security and peacebuilding challenge in the digital age. In post-conflict societies, digital spaces often reproduce and amplify gendered power structures shaped during armed conflict. This paper examines how post-conflict constructions of masculinity have influenced the perpetration and normalization of TFSGBV in Sri Lanka following the end of the civil war in 2009. Drawing on feminist peacebuilding theory and scholarship on masculinities in conflictaffected societies, this paper develops a conceptual framework that positions digital platforms as extensions of post-conflict power struggles. Through a qualitative synthesis of existing literature across feminist security studies, digital governance, and masculinity studies, the research identifies a critical gap: while scholarship addresses online violence, conflict legacies, and gender norms separately, few analyses examine how these dynamics intersect in digital spaces. The paper argues that addressing TFSGBV in post-conflict Sri Lanka requires integrating gender-transformative approaches to masculinities into digital governance and peacebuilding policy. Doing so is essential for preventing the reproduction of conflict-era gender hierarchies in the digital sphere and for advancing inclusive and sustainable peace.

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Introduction TFSGBV has emerged as a significant challenge in contemporary digital societies, particularly in contexts marked by political transition and post-conflict recovery. As digital technologies increasingly shape public life, online platforms have become spaces where gendered power relations are reproduced, contested, and amplified. In post-conflict environments, where institutions remain fragile and social divisions persist, digital spaces can also serve as new arenas in which unresolved tensions and inequalities are expressed. This paper argues that TFSGBV in post-conflict societies cannot be understood solely as a technological or legal issue, but must be examined in relation to the gendered social dynamics that shape post-war reconstruction. Focusing on Sri Lanka following the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009, it explores how masculinities forged through conflict may be reproduced in digital spaces through harassment, reputational attacks, and other forms of online control.

Literature Review I. Technology-Facilitated SGBV Technology-facilitated sexual and gender-based violence (TFSGBV) is defined as the use of digital technologies to perpetrate sexual harassment, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, doxxing, and online threats targeting individuals based on their gender or sexuality (Dunn, 2020). The amount of information on TFSGBV has proliferated, with a focus on three primary areas:online harassment patterns, legal remedies, and platform accountability and regulation.

Global studies suggest that between 16% and 58% of women have experienced some form of TFSGBV, highlighting the widespread nature of the problem across different regions (Hicks,2021). Additionally, approximately 38% of women worldwide report direct experiences of online abuse, while 85% report witnessing such violence directed at other women online, demonstrating that harassment has become normalized within many online environments (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2021). Empirical studies further reveal that these forms of abuse are not confined to the digital sphere but often produce tangible offline consequences.Women journalists, activists, and political figures are particularly vulnerable; one international survey found that more than two-thirds of women journalists across 119 countries had experienced online violence (Keaten, 2025). Legal analyses advocate for updated legal frameworks, including criminalization of non-consensual intimate imagery and victim-centered redress (Citron & Franks, 2014). Globally, measures such as the EU’s Digital Services Act and laws in countries like the United Kingdom and Australia address online harms. Meanwhile, platform responsibility literature critiques algorithmic biases and moderation failures, urging tech giants to adopt feminist design principles (Gillespie, 2018). In response to growing scrutiny, major technology companies such as Meta Platforms, Google, and TikTok have introduced AIassisted moderation systems, reporting tools, and policies on online abuse. However, it should be noted that enforcement remains inconsistent and often reactive, particularly innon-English contexts and conflict-affected societies where moderation resources are limited.

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II . Masculinities in Post-Conflict Societies Existing literature on post-conflict masculinities illuminates how war reshapes gender norms and societal expectations, emphasizing militarized ideals, emasculation through power loss, and compensatory nationalism (Messerschmidt & Quest, 2024). These shifts do not operate in isolation but shape everyday social interactions, often creating environments where dominance, control, and aggression are normalized. For women and marginalized groups, this can translate into heightened scrutiny and restriction of their participation in public and digital spaces, where TFSBV becomes a mechanism for enforcing these norms and maintaining unequal power relations. Post-conflict contexts further intensify these dynamics, as fragile institutions, economic precarity, and lingering social divisions intersect with limited digital literacy and weak regulatory frameworks, creating conditions in which online harms can proliferate (Ebert, 2025). The expansion of internet access, often uneven along gender lines, enables these power imbalances to be enacted without physical proximity (Treuthart, 2019), allowing digital platforms to reproduce and amplify practices of surveillance, control, and psychological intimidation rooted in conflict-era dynamics (KhosraviNik & Kelsey, 2019). Economic disenfranchisement and demobilization exacerbate these shifts, prompting men to reclaim status via domestic control or communal vigilantism (Myrttinen et al., 2017).

Methodology This study employs a qualitative, desk-based research design that uses secondary data analysis to examine the construction of masculinities in digital spaces in post-conflict Sri Lanka. Rather than conducting primary empirical research, the study relies on authoritative institutional reports and peer-reviewed journal articles situated within studies of feminism, masculinities, and postconflict contexts. The methodology involves a theoretical analysis of these existing works and mapping them against theoretical frameworks of gendered power relations. By analyzing how militarized or traditional masculinities are reproduced and renegotiated online, the research interprets digital violence as a localized extension of broader post-conflict social hierarchies.

Ethical integrity is maintained through documentary ethics, ensuring the accurate contextual representation of secondary findings while addressing the sensitivities inherent in Sri Lanka’s transitional sociopolitical landscape.

I.Digital Spaces as Post-Conflict Battlegrounds in Sri Lanka In the Sri Lankan context, the digital “checkpoint” replaces the physical one, as coordinated groups of men use cybertsalking and doxxing to police the movements and visibility of women across ethnic and social boundaries. This transition from “boots on the ground” to “fingers on the keyboard” allows conflict-era hierarchies to persist under the guise of digital interaction, where the destruction of a woman’s social reputation through morphed imagery or gendered disinformation serves as a modern form of symbolic conquest. Consequently, the smartphone becomes a portable site of combat, enabling the democratization of "wartime" harms that enforce communal boundaries and silence dissent without the need for physical weaponry. A recent study in Sri Lanka found that over 57% of the 361 study participants reported feeling unsafe in online spaces, with 35% unaware of online safety risks (UNFPA, 2025).

In Sri Lanka, state actors have historically deployed surveillance against ethnic minorities.

Digital tools replicate these tactics, tracking dissidents, amplifying disinformation, and

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enforcing communal boundaries (Ranganathan, 2011). Platforms such as Facebook, predominantly, enable reputational violence against women, such as harassment, doxxing, or morphed imagery that erodes victims' social capital (Groundviews, 2018), akin to wartime shaming (Trottier et al., 2025). Crucially, this grim reality ruptures dominant narratives that portray Sri Lanka’s post-2009 period as one of stable peace, reconciliation, and national recovery following the end of the Civil war. State and policy discourse frequently emphasizes post-war reconstruction, economic development, and reconciliation as markers of a consolidated peace. However, these narratives often obscure persistent social tensions and gendered power hierarchies that continue to shape everyday life. The expansion of social media platforms such as Meta Platforms has created new arenas where these unresolved dynamics are expressed (Centre for Equality & Justice, 2024). Increasing internet access and smartphone penetration have amplified the reach of such practices, while entrenched cultural norms surrounding gender, sexuality, and honour contribute to the targeting of women activists, journalists, and political actors online (Centre for Equality & Justice, 2023). In this sense, digital spaces can reproduce and intensify conflict-era gender hierarchies, complicating narratives that frame the post-war period as a fully realized peace. Further, in transitional contexts, access to the internet is unevenly democratized, empowering marginalized men to wield harms once reserved for elites, thereby normalizing TFSGBV as everyday resistance to perceived emasculation (Ging, 2023).

II. Post-Conflict Masculinities in Sri Lanka Post-conflict masculinities, configured through emasculation narratives, militarized honor codes, and backlash against women's visibility (Porter, 2013), drive digital aggression as compensatory violence (Greig, 2022). Demobilized ex-combatants and economically sidelined men, confronting loss of provider roles in Sri Lanka's post-2009 economy, invoke "warrior" ideals to reassert dominance (Kanagarathnam, 2021). Similarly, hegemonic masculinities, rooted in Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism and Tamil/Sinhala ethnic binaries, manifest as "warrior" archetypes that privilege violence and moral policing (Schubert, 2016). Online, this manifests as gendered trolling that polices women's public presence, e.g., activists challenging ethnic narratives face slut-shaming or threats framed as "honour" defence. Perceived threats from women's digital visibility, such as feminist organizing or inter-ethnic interactions, provoke TFSGBV as boundary enforcement. Drawing on hybrid masculinity theory, perpetrators blend overt aggression with covert normalization (via memes or likes), rendering harms culturally legible in post-conflict settings (Myrttinen et al., 2025). This digital pivot allows circumvention of offline sanctions, perpetuating conflict masculinities without physical risk.

III. Feminist Peacebuilding Lens A feminist peacebuilding lens reframes TFSGBV as structural violence embedded in unequal power relations, demanding attention not only to the immediate cessation of harm but also to long-term processes of reconciliation and social transformation. Core principles such as dismantling patriarchal structures, centering gendered power dynamics, and fostering inclusive security reveal masculinities as pivotal sites for intervention (Moura, 2025). In Sri Lanka, where peace processes have sidelined gender perspectives, addressing perpetrator masculinities counters the persistent "add women and stir" approach that focuses on women’s participation without transforming the gendered systems that enable violence. Instead, it

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highlights deeper drivers of conflict-shaped gender identities, including militarized and nationalist constructions of masculinity (Myrttinen et al., 2025).

Building on this perspective, this paper proposes a theoretical framework that situates digital masculinities within peacebuilding analysis, arguing that technology governance must be integrated with gender-transformative programs that engage men and boys in challenging harmful norms. While Sri Lanka has introduced legal mechanisms such as the Online Safety Act and the Computer Crimes Act (2007) to regulate harmful online behavior, these frameworks rarely address the gendered dynamics that underpin technology-facilitated abuse.

Consequently, unchecked post-conflict masculinities can become reproduced in digital spaces, where online abuse undermines women’s agency and complicates broader efforts toward social reconciliation. Engaging men as allies in transforming these norms is therefore essential for advancing feminist peacebuilding and building more inclusive forms of digital security in post-conflict societies.

IV. Implications for Feminist Security and Peacebuilding TFSGBV violence must be understood not merely as a byproduct of digital expansion, but as a peacebuilding concern rooted in post-conflict power relations. In societies emerging from armed conflict, violence does not simply cease with the signing of peace agreements; rather, it often mutates, reappearing in less visible and socially sanctioned forms. Digital spaces increasingly function as sites where gendered hierarchies disrupted during conflict are reasserted, allowing harm to persist beyond the battlefield, adversely affecting women (Jones et al., 2018). Treating TFSGBV as a peacebuilding issue, therefore, requires recognizing it as part of the continuum of conflict-related violence that undermines women's social trust and political participation, and as a long-term impediment to reconciliation (Santos & Pourmalek, 2022).

Feminist social peacebuilding frameworks emphasize structural violence, gendered power, and the everyday reproduction of insecurity (Smith, 2021). These principles seek to dismantle patriarchal power structures, center gendered experiences of conflict and recovery, and promote inclusive forms of security that address the social conditions enabling violence. Yet policy responses to TFSGBV, both globally and in Sri Lanka, frequently remain detached from these principles. Globally, responses have largely focused on legal regulation, platform governance, and digital safety initiatives led by governments, technology companies, and international organizations. While such measures have increased awareness and provided reporting mechanisms, these responses remain fragmented, often failing to address the structural gender norms that underpin digital abuse. In Sri Lanka, the challenge is particularly acute in the aftermath of the war. As post-war peacebuilding efforts, such as economic reconstruction, national security, and reconciliation narratives, have been prioritized, gender perspectives have often been marginalized within formal peace processes and digital governance frameworks.

Existing legal responses, including provisions within the Computer Crimes Act and more recent regulatory measures such as the Online Safety Act (2024) of Sri Lanka, provide mechanisms to address certain forms of online harassment or harmful digital content. However, these policies do not explicitly address technology-facilitated gender-based violence or the gendered social dynamics that shape it, leaving significant gaps in protection and prevention.

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By failing to interrogate masculinities, many of the Sri Lankan State interventions focus on managing symptoms rather than addressing root causes. Harmful post-conflict masculinities, as stated before, can manifest in digital aggression as a means of reclaiming power and enforcing gender norms. In Sri Lanka, masculinities shaped by militarization, nationalist rhetoric, misogyny, and patriarchal cultural expectations continue to influence social behaviour. These dynamics intersect with longstanding norms of female modesty, honour, and respectability, which have historically regulated women’s participation in public life.

Such practices can function as a mechanism for policing women’s visibility in public and political discourse, reflecting broader struggles over gender roles and authority in the postconflict period. When policies overlook these dynamics, they risk reinforcing a narrow understanding of security that prioritizes technological fixes while leaving underlying socioeconomic drivers intact (George et al., 2025).

The dominance of platform-centric and legalistic responses further limits the effectiveness of current approaches. Content moderation and regulation, reporting mechanisms, and criminalization are necessary but insufficient tools when deployed in isolation. In Sri Lanka, interventions addressing online violence have included awareness campaigns by civil society organizations, digital safety training programs, and advocacy initiatives calling for stronger protections against online harassment. While these initiatives play an important role in documenting abuse and supporting survivors, they often operate alongside state regulatory measures that focus primarily on content control rather than gender justice. Such measures tend to individualize harm, positioning TFSGBV as a matter of user behaviour or platform governance rather than as a manifestation of broader gendered power structures. In postconflict societies, where trust in institutions may already be fragile, purely punitive or technocratic solutions may also deter reporting and fail to resonate with lived realities on the ground (Akinbi, 2025).

Integrating a feminist security lens into digital governance requires moving beyond reactive measures toward transformative peacebuilding strategies. In practice, this would involve embedding gender-transformative approaches within multiple levels of governance, including national digital policy frameworks, post-conflict recovery initiatives, and community-based reconciliation processes. Collaboration between governments, technology companies, civil society organizations, and international institutions to develop policies that address both technological harms and the social norms that enable them is also essential. Potential measures could include gender-responsive digital governance policies, educational programs engaging men and boys in challenging harmful masculinities, and stronger partnerships between technology platforms and women’s rights organizations to improve reporting systems and survivor support. Addressing harmful masculinities alongside legal and technological reforms is essential to ensuring that digital spaces do not become new frontlines for old conflicts. Without such integration, efforts to combat TFSGBV risk reproducing the very exclusions and silences that feminist peacebuilding seeks to dismantle.

Results/Findings: The Missing Link These contributions, while vital, exhibit key limitations. Much of the work individualizes harm, treating TFSGBV as a decontextualized psychological or juridical issue rather than a structural manifestation of power (Barker, 2025). Critically, it rarely situates digital violence within post-conflict power structures, such as those in Sri Lanka, where wartime ethnic

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divisions and militarized surveillance persist into online spaces. This oversight neglects how transitional contexts intensify vulnerabilities through uneven digital access and state complicity in online harms. Yet, these studies remain analogue-centric, overlooking how digital tools enable new expressions of post-conflict manhood, from ethno-nationalist memes to virtual harassment enforcing gendered hierarchies. Far from a post-war anomaly, TFSGBV represents a continuation of conflict dynamics, where wartime patterns of gendered aggression migrate online, amplified by accessible tools and anonymity (Onditi, 2021). The critical research gap lies at the intersection of post-conflict masculinities and TFSGBV. The analysis of existing literature reveals that while significant scholarship exists on digital violence, conflict-related masculinities, and feminist peacebuilding, these bodies of work largely develop in isolation from one another. As a result, few studies explicitly examine how masculinities shaped by armed conflict may influence the emergence or normalization of TFSGBV in post-conflict societies.

First, research on online violence frequently focuses on emphasizing technological or regulatory responses. While these contributions are important, much of this work individualizes harm by treating TFSGBV primarily as a psychological, behavioural, or legal issue rather than as a structural manifestation of gendered power. This tendency risks obscuring the broader social and political dynamics shaping digital violence, particularly in societies emerging from conflict where power relations remain deeply contested.

Second, scholarship on masculinities in post-conflict environments provides valuable insights into how militarization, nationalism, and conflict legacies reshape gender identities, yet these studies remain largely analogue-centric and rarely examine how digital technologies enable new expressions of post-conflict manhood. In digital environments, conflict-shaped masculinities may be reproduced through practices such as reputational attacks, coordinated harassment, or the circulation of ethno-nationalist digital content that reinforces gendered and ethnic hierarchies. In this sense, technology-facilitated abuse can be understood not as a post-war anomaly but as a continuation of conflict-era dynamics expressed through new technological forms.

Third, feminist peacebuilding scholarship highlights the persistence of gendered power hierarchies after conflict but has only recently begun to engage with the role of digital technologies in reproducing these inequalities. Together, these patterns reveal a fragmented research landscape in which the social dynamics of masculinity and the technological dynamics of online platforms are seldom analyzed together. Another significant finding is the limited availability of context-specific research examining TFSGBV in Sri Lanka. While reports and anecdotal evidence suggest that online harassment and reputational attacks are used to police women’s participation in digital spaces, systematic empirical studies linking these practices to post-conflict gender norms remain scarce. This lack of integrated data restricts the ability to fully understand the scope of the issue and highlights an important area for future research.

Addressing this gap requires an interdisciplinary approach. Future research should prioritize empirical investigations into how post-conflict gender identities are expressed and contested within digital environments, particularly in societies undergoing political and social transition.

Such work would not only strengthen academic understanding of TFSGBV but also inform peacebuilding strategies capable of addressing emerging forms of gendered digital spaces. In particular, survivor-centered and ethically grounded insecurity in

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methodologies, such as digital ethnography and participatory research, could provide critical insights into how online violence is experienced, resisted, and negotiated by women and marginalized communities. Strengthening collaboration between researchers, policymakers, civil society organizations, and technology companies will also be essential to translating feminist security insights into practical interventions that promote digital safety while supporting inclusive and sustainable peacebuilding outcomes.

Addressing TFSGBV in post-conflict societies requires policy approaches that move beyond reactive regulation toward structural and gender-transformative interventions (Koch et al., 2025). While the governance aspect through policy and legislative means remains important, feminist security frameworks underscore the need for policies that engage with the social conditions and power relations that enable digital violence to persist. In post-conflict contexts, this necessitates situating TFSGBV within broader peacebuilding, reconciliation, and security agendas rather than treating it as a discrete digital harm (Santos & Pourmalek, 2022).

Recommendations Governments and peacebuilding actors in Sri Lanka should integrate gender-transformative approaches to masculinities into post-conflict recovery and peacebuilding programs. The current transitional justice mechanisms and community reconciliation efforts in the country often overlook how gender identities and power relations are reshaped after conflict.

Incorporating structures of engagement with masculinities, through community dialogue, education programs for men and boys, and gender-sensitive peacebuilding initiatives, can help address how power, control, social status, and legitimacy are renegotiated in the postwar period, including within digital spaces. In Sri Lanka, where the end of the war did not fundamentally transform patriarchal norms or militarized gender identities, integrating critical engagement with masculinities into reconciliation and recovery programs could help prevent the reproduction of violent gender norms online and offline. Such integration would align digital governance with feminist peacebuilding principles that emphasize prevention, accountability, and long-term social transformation.

Governments should embed gender analysis into national digital governance frameworks to address TFSGBV as part of broader security and governance agendas. The Computer Crimes Act and Online Safety Act in the country operate in silos. While these legal tools aim to regulate harmful online content, they rarely incorporate gender analysis or recognize online abuse as part of the continuum of violence affecting women’s political participation, freedom feminist security approach would require coordination between digital policy actors, gender ministries, peacebuilding institutions, and civil societies to ensure that online violence is addressed as a structural gender and security issue rather than a purely technological one.

These efforts should be supported through partnerships between governments, regional organizations, and civil society actors working on digital rights and gender justice. Further, policy responses must prioritize survivor-centered approaches, including safe reporting mechanisms, stronger legal protections, and digital safety initiatives that ensure confidentiality, informed consent, and protection from retaliation.

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Conclusion In conclusion, this paper theorizes TFSGBV as a digital prolongation of post-conflict masculinities. By conceptualizing digital platforms as extensions of post-war power struggles, it reframes TFSGBV not as an anomaly of technological change but as a continuation of conflictrelated violence. In post-conflict societies, such harms perpetrated by TFSGBV threaten hardwon gains under the Women, Peace, and Security agenda. This analysis underscores that feminist peacebuilding responses must engage masculinities alongside survivors' needs, legal reform, and platform accountability. Addressing TFSGBV requires integrating gendertransformative approaches into post-conflict recovery processes holistically, such as DDR, digital literacy initiatives, and cybersecurity frameworks. By bridging feminist security studies, masculinity theory, and digital governance, this paper offers a conceptual framework for understanding how digital violence can undermine reconciliation and long-term peace if left unaddressed.

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NIBRAS SAKKIR

EDITOR Annaleah Westerhaug

Nibras Sakkir is a Social Governance Analyst at Kaleka, a non-profit research organization focused on sustainable resource management. She is responsible for conducting social research, supervision, and data collection to monitor plantation conflicts. She works closely with communities and district governments in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, to ensure that Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) are honoured in conflict resolution processes. She is knowledgeable on global market standards, certifications, grievance mechanisms, and specializes in oil palm standards (RSPO and ISPO). Nibras holds degrees in Social Anthropology from the University of Kent (BA) and the University of Cambridge (MPhil).

nibras.sakkir@gmail.com 116

Addressing gender-based challenges in the plantations: Indonesia as a case

Author: Nibras Sakkir (nibras.sakkir@gmail.com) Editor:Annaleah Westerhaug Institution: WCAPS Paper Format: Policy paper Key Words : plantation economy; grievance mechanism; gender committee, labor

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Executive Summary Women play an important role in the palm oil industry in Indonesia. The industry roughly absorbs 4.6 million workers in Indonesia, half of which are women. Nevertheless, women are experiencing precarious working conditions in plantations and mills due to their remote locations. With that in mind, palm oil growers should create a body specifically designed to handle gender-based grievances. With Indonesia as a reference point, this paper will present a series of recommendations for policymakers of all jurisdiction levels to mandate the creation of gender committees for workers in the palm oil sector. In this instance, policy makers also include those who are experienced at drafting company policies to improve working conditions, business transparency, and accountability within their respective businesses. Promoting equitable working conditions requires coordinated advocacy through multistakeholder collaboration.

Introduction Indonesia’s palm oil industry plays a central role in the global supply of vegetable oil and serves as a major source of employment domestically. With millions of workers engaged across plantations and mills, the sector is particularly significant for women, who make up a substantial proportion of the workforce (Maftuchan and Harja 2021). Despite their contributions, women workers often face disproportionately precarious working conditions, especially in remote plantation areas where access to formal protections, healthcare, and grievances mechanisms is limited (UNICEF 2016). These challenges are compounded by gendered divisions of labor, exposure to occupational hazards, and limited institutional support to address workplace concerns.

Ensuring equitable and safe working conditions in the palm oil sector is therefore not only a labor issue, but also a matter of governance, accountability, and sustainable development.

While existing certification schemes and regulatory frameworks aim to improve industry practices, gaps remain in addressing gender-specific vulnerabilities. In particular, the absence of accessible and gender-responsive grievance mechanisms limits the ability of women workers to report and resolve workplace issues effectively.

This policy brief aims to address these gaps by advocating for the establishment of dedicated gender committees within palm oil plantations and mills. Using Indonesia as a reference point, it provides targeted recommendations for policymakers at various levels, as well as industry actors, to strengthen institutional accountability and promote more inclusive labor practices through multistakeholder collaboration.

Methodologically, this policy brief is based on a qualitative review of existing literature, including academic studies, policy reports, and publications by government agencies, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and industry bodies. It is difficult to estimate exactly the amount of reports being collected regarding gender-based violence that specifically took place in Indonesian plantations. The National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) produced annual reports of gender-based violence that are gathered from multiple resources. These data are derived from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society elements, think tanks, and government agencies (Komnas Perempuan 2024). This presents methodological challenges as each organization possesses their respective definitions of what counts as violations in the plantation settings.

The analysis of this policy brief draws on relevant regulatory frameworks and documented industry practices in Indonesia. By synthesizing these sources, the brief identifies key challenges faced by women workers and formulates evidence-based, policy-oriented recommendations.

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Background The plantation as an institution has always had a place in Indonesian history as a site of labor control and social experiments. Under Dutch colonialism, social life in the plantations was stratified according to race, class, gender, and ethnicities. As Ann Stoler (1985) observed when studying about the history of the Sumatran timber plantations, social life in the plantations was constantly changed to regulate workers, maximise profits and reap benefits for colonial economic gain. Under these stratifications, various forms of resistance also came into shape on the plantations; unions and communities were formed, and workers became agents of social change.

Fast forward to forty years later, the plantations remain an important part of the postindependent Indonesian economy. Where Stoler was writing about the Sumatran timber plantation belt, former timber concessions have now transformed into palm oil concessions. In 2016, it was recorded that Indonesia and Malaysia account for at least 85% of the total global production of palm oil (UNICEF 2016). There is a steady demand for vegetable oil around the world, and palm oil and its derivatives are important ingredients in many household goods used daily.This means that the industry absorbs a significant amount of the workforce. In Indonesia alone, this number is at 4.6 million workers, half of which are women (Fatimah, Santoso, Sudaranti 2022). As palm oil plantations are mostly located in the islands of Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua, many workers come from other parts of the country as transmigrants in search for income on the plantations.

A substantial number of workers in the palm oil sector are considered informal workers and takeup labor-intensive roles in the field that includes harvesting fresh fruit bunches (FFBs), pesticide spraying, pruning, applying fertilizers and weeding (de Vos and Delabre 2018). They are paid based on harvest quotas, and are recruited informally by the leader of their group. As a result, workers are sometimes not provided with formal contracts, which limits them from job security and prevents them from accessing certain benefits and insurance to which they are legally entitled (CNV International, Daemeter, and Proforest 2022).

As a consequence of stratified labor divisions and limited job options, women who are informal workers in the plantations are constantly experiencing discrimination, stereotyping, and overwork (Rohani and Arifin 2023). They are usually assigned jobs that require the mto run maintenance around the estate, which mainly involves applying fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides.While jobs that are considered to involve a lot more heavy-lifting areas signed to male workers (Risdayati et al 2024). Nevertheless, women’s shifts do not end at thee state; it continues into the domestic sphere where women are still expected to be the primary carer of children and other families living in the house.

The remote locations of palm oil plantations render women vulnerable to various types of harassment.Various investigations conducted by the media, NGOs, and advocacy groups have indicated an accepted practice of sex work in plantations (Colchester et al 2006). Challenges that are presented are not just coming from the plantation management but are systemic in nature (Li 2014; Mason and Mcdowell 2020). These cases were found to be underreported (IJRS 2022) because women workers are scared of the consequences that they would have to bear once they are publicized. Culturally, it is a taboo if women are found to be working alone with a man who is not her husband. She is shamed through gossips if found being alone with male harvesters (Li 2014: 9), which is a blame-shifting tactic that made it increasingly more challenging to report sexual harassment cases. Companies also do not make it a practice to disseminate their standard operating procedures (SOPs) on reporting harassment. As a consequence, sexual harassment reports coming from women informal workers are not followed with concrete next steps or are responded with retaliations against workers (Mason and Mcdowell 2020).

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Existing modes of protections for women are the laws enacted by the Indonesian government, as well as palm oil market-based modes enacted by certification bodies, both domestically and globally. Indonesia has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and produced several regulations related to labor practices concerning women workers and their rights (Retnaningsih et al 2021). Nevertheless, its implementation remains a challenge as complaints from women workers remain unresolved and not appropriately addressed by local governments who are responsible for monitoring the activities of companies operating in their jurisdictions (Colchester et al 2006). As a result, market-based standards and civil society organization (CSO) advocacies became integral to the protection of women workers. The Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) requires all companies who are to be certified by their standards to follow a series of criteria to ensure the protection of women workers’ rights. This includes the formation of gender committees as the first point of contact in the company for reports regarding all forms of discrimination against women (RSPO 2025).

A gender committee is a dedicated group within an organization that is established to promote gender equality (CNV Internationaal, Daemeter, and Proforest 2022). They are women and men within the company who can produce policies to protect workers against gender-based violence, and provide a safe and confidential space for complaints regarding sexual and gender violences. They are also able to create a series of programs to build capacity on gender equality issues, conduct early assessments of rights, responsibilities, and gender-based discriminations, and conduct due diligence (Gender-Responsive Due Diligence 2021).

Findings As previously explained, women are disproportionately impacted in palm oil plantation operations. Male informal workers are responsible for harvesting FFBs and are expected to meet specific harvest quotas in a day. This work requires heavy-lifting of FFBs that can weigh between 10-30 kg (roughly 22-66 lbs) and puts them at risk of back-related injuries. This results in women being assigned jobs that require less heavy-lifting, but are nonetheless just as risky as it exposes them to chemicals (Moulin et al 2017; Ramdan, Candra, and Purwanto 2020).

Women are assigned to spray pesticides, manually weed and clear lands, apply fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, and pick up loose fruits to meet the harvest quota.

Findings show that there are serious occupational health hazards for female workers exposed to certain chemicals. The World Health Organization (2020) restricted the use of highly hazardous pesticides according to the Stockholm Convention and Rotterdam Convention. The severity of these chemicals are categorized based on its acute toxicity and lack of antidote (Moulin et al 2017). Some of the most commonly used chemical that is banned in several countries but remains commonly found in Indonesian palm oil plantations is paraquat, which is a type of herbicide used to remove weeds. Effects from paraquat poisoning leads to shortness of breath and potential death from hypoxia due to the scarring of lungs, rendering them unable to transfer oxygen into the bloodstream effectively (Ramdan, Candra, and Purwanto 2020). For women, it has been recorded that pesticides and herbicides exposure, including paraquat, have adverse effects that include disturbed reproductive cycles and stillbirths in the agriculture sector (Lu 2009; Mason and Mcdowell 2020). Protection equipment such as aprons, gloves, eyewear protection, masks, and boots are often not provided adequately. This then forces workers to buy their own protection equipment and bring them into their homes in the workers’ barracks (Li 2014), potentially exposing their children to these chemicals too. This is especially evident when rinsing stations are not easily accessible to all workers throughout a plantation estate.

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Aside from bearing social expectations, women informal workers are marginalized from accessing resources and facilities that they are legally entitled to. For instance, workers are entitled to a menstrual leave during the first and second day of their period (Fatimah, Santoso, and Sudaranti 2022). Under various company policies, this leave is often regulated differently, and some companies can be more stringent than others. For instance, by law, women workers are not required to attach a doctor’s note to request their menstrual leave. However, some companies made it a requirement for workers to obtain one. Additionally, women informal workers experience job insecurity once they have become pregnant or are nursing their children.

The often unknown status of their contract makes it difficult for them to access medical paid leave and maternity leave. In some cases, they become subject to dismissals and layoffs (Wendy 2024), which makes it more difficult economically not just for the women to survive, but also for the rest of her family members if the woman is the breadwinner of the family.

As women workers' identities and expectations overlap with being a primary caretaker of the household, impacts are also reflected on the protection of children’s rights and wellbeing. In often very remote locations, workers have to find a way to send their children to school if companies are not providing transport, a local school, or nursery facilities. In addition, Living amongst a palm oil plantation means less safe space for children to explore the surrounding nature, as being in specific parts of the estate can be hazardous. The long hours mothers work also contributes to lower breastfeeding rates and poor infant health nutrition (UNICEF 2016).

This puts their children at risk of becoming stunted in their early growth and development years.

Findings on the activities of gender committees in Indonesian palm oil plantations remain scarce, though present literature have indicated that programs and activities related to motherhood and children are becoming popular (Risdayati et al 2024: 397). Though lessons from Kenya show that activities on child nutrition and care are easier to be approved by the gender committee budget panel compared to addressing challenges of gender empowerment and issues of conflict transformation (Said-Allsopp and Tallontire 2014). Even within the gender committee panel, the male voice can become dominant and marginalize women workers. This shows that a gender committee project remains constrained by budget approvals and other bureaucratic selection within the organization.

There is much work to be done in shaping gender committees as the forefront of a safe space for victims of gender-based violence. Some challenges identified include a lack of direction both from management and local government in regards to how gender committees are supposed to develop themselves as a body within a company (Risdayati et al 2024). There is no blueprint on how an ideal gender committee should be run. Each gender committee experienced different problems and local contexts across Indonesia, which results in various issues being handled differently. Additionally, committee members are highly reliant on capacity building and training conducted by NGOs that specialize in labor or environmental advocacy.

Recommendations For local governments: : Village, sub-district, or district governments have the ability to lobby companies for decent wages and working conditions for informal workers. Ensures that governments also keep a copy of workers’ contracts and notes of any negotiation procedures and agreements. The District's Manpower Agency should have a comprehensive database of workers’ contractual status to ensure their rights are met. Aside from the Manpower Agency, the District’s Women Empowerment and Child Protection Agency should maintain a database for all reports collected on all forms of discrimination against women and children. The Agency should create a forum where gender

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committees from multiple companies can come together and share lessons learned from handling cases in their respective companies. A coordinated effort with the help of gender committees could create a much more efficient coordination between companies and district representatives when dealing with cases of sexual violence. The district government should build contacts with national bodies such as the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK) to provide care and mental support for victims of sexual violence.

For workers: Workers should join a trade union to leverage their bargaining position with management. It is within a worker’s rights to be freely associated with a trade union to protect their economic and social interests. Work with paralegals, legal aid organizations, NGOs, or any organization that can provide legal counsel and advice when needed. Organize and push companies to create gender committees that assign individuals with specific jobs and tasks to carry out its functions as the first point of contact for any gender-based grievances. This can be sexual harassment, alerts of child abuse, or improvements on facilities. Produce annual work plans, identify yearly targets, and conduct meetings consistently. Strategic plans discussed during these meetings should be written on minutes of meetings (MoMs), archived systematically, and followed up consistently.

For palm oil plantation companies: Company management should invest in gender committees as part of the company’s sustainability and certification requirements. Beyond compliance, these committees serve as dedicated grievance mechanisms, enabling clearer and more traceable resolution processes. Companies should also support training and capacity building initiatives for gender committees, facilitate social dialogue with trade unions, and promote the adoption of anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies within the organization.

For all stakeholders: District governments can facilitate a multistakeholder working group that specifically focuses on sustainability, protection of women and children, and conflict transformation. Important issues that can be addressed in these working groups include a more equitable working environment for women, prevention of child labor, and promoting controlled use of hazardous chemicals. For districts with palm oil as their top export commodity, this can be centered around palm oil governance improvements. This working group can focus on delivering district-level regulations, systems, and a centralized database of palm oil production. In line with this policy brief, a regulation which mandates the formation of gender committees in every plantation should be formulated and consulted with the working group. The working group has to make sure that all decision-making processes within this working group involve trade unions, smallholders, Indigenous Peoples, women, and representatives of various levels of the local government.

Conclusion Women’s significant contribution to Indonesia’s palm oil industry stands in stark contrast tothe precarious and often invisible conditions under which many of them work. Addressingthis gap is not only a matter of fairness, but also of long-term industry resilience. The establishment of well-resourced trade unions and gender committees must become a policy priority to strengthen oversight and safeguarding workers’ contractual rights. Ultimately, meaningful reform requires multistakeholder collaboration through a coordinated action across government, workers, companies, and civil society elements.

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Komnas Perempuan (2024). CATAHU 2024: MENATA DATA, MENAJAMKAN ARAH: REFLEKSI PENDOKUMENTASIAN DAN TREN KASUS KEKERASAN TERHADAP PEREMPUAN. Available from: https://komnasperempuan.go.id/catatan-tahunan-detail/catahu-2024-menata-datamen ajamkan-arah-refleksi-pendokumentasian-dan-tren-kasus-kekerasan-terhadapperemp uan Li, T. M. (2014). The Gendered Dynamics of Indonesia’s Oil Palm Labour Regime. ARI Working Paper 225. Asia Research Institute. National University of Singapore.

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Mason, M. and Mcdowell, R. (2020). Rape, abuses in palm oil fields linked to top beauty brands. AP News. Available from: https://apnews.com/article/palm-oil-abuseinvestigation-cosmetics-2a209d60c42bf0e8 fcc6f8ea6daa11c7 Moulin, M., Wohlfahrt, J., Caliman, J., Bessou, C. (2017). Deciphering agricultural practices

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NKECHI ILECHIE

EDITOR Amb. Bonnie Jenkins

Nkechi Ilechie is a Policy Director specializing in the U.S.–Africa relations, conflict prevention, and humanitarian policy. She leads national advocacy efforts for immigrant relief measures and champions policies that protect immigrant communities affected by the harsh security, economic, and governance realities in their home countries. Her work focuses on strengthening governance, advancing people-centered foreign policy, and addressing the root causes of conflict. She aspires to become a minister and develop lasting, transformative policies that promote peace and stability across Africa.

nkechi.nelu@gmail.com 125

The Benefits of Women of Color in Counterterrorism

Counterterrorism policy has often been shaped by military institutions, intelligence agencies, and political leadership circles that do not always reflect the perspectives of the communities most affected by insecurity. Over the last two decades, however, research and field experience have made one thing clear: security is more sustainable when it includes broader voices. Women of color, in particular, bring lived experience, cultural fluency, and community trust that strengthen prevention, response, and long-term stability efforts.

This is not about representation for its own sake. It is about effectiveness. When women of color are involved in counterterrorism policy, intelligence work, and prevention programs, outcomes improve in measurable ways.

Lived Experience Strengthens Prevention Counterterrorism is no longer understood solely as military operations against armed groups. Since the early 2000s, the field has shifted toward prevention and stopping radicalization before violence occurs.

This includes addressing drivers such as marginalization, economic exclusion, identity-based grievances, and political underrepresentation. Women of color often come from communities that have experienced some of these pressures firsthand. That proximity matters. It provides insight into how extremist groups recruit and how exclusionary narratives are framed.

Research from UN Women shows that women are often the first to detect early signs of radicalization within families and communities. ¹ Mothers, educators, and local leaders frequently notice behavioral shifts before authorities do. In contexts affected by violent extremism, women have intervened to discourage recruitment and redirect vulnerable youth toward safer paths.² When women of color are included in designing prevention strategies, programs tend to be more grounded in local realities. They are less likely to rely solely on enforcement and more likely to incorporate education, access to employment, and community dialogue, factors that research increasingly links to long-term reductions in extremist recruitment.

Community Trust and Access Trust is a foundational component of effective counterterrorism. Intelligence gathering, early warning systems, and intervention efforts all rely on cooperation from local populations. Without trust, communities are less likely to share information, engage with authorities, or support prevention initiatives.

In many marginalized communities, trust in state institutions is weakened by historical experiences of over-policing, discrimination, or political exclusion. This creates a legitimacy gap that undermines even well-designed security policies.

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Women of color often operate as trusted intermediaries within these environments. Through leadership roles in community organizations, faith networks, and grassroots initiatives, they build long-term relationships grounded in shared experience and sustained engagement. These relationships facilitate access to information and enable de-escalation efforts that formal institutions may struggle to achieve.

The Women, Peace, and Security agenda, established through United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, recognizes the strategic value of women’s participation in peace and security processes.³ While initially focused on conflict resolution, its principles of participation, protection, and prevention are directly applicable to counterterrorism.

Empirical studies show that peace agreements involving women are significantly more durable, with a 35 percent higher likelihood of lasting at least 15 years.⁴ This durability is linked to increased legitimacy and broader societal buy-in. In counterterrorism contexts, the same principle applies: strategies that incorporate trusted community actors are more likely to generate cooperation and sustain long-term stability.

Policy Integration Policy blind spots can create unintended consequences. Counterterrorism strategies that fail to consider gendered impacts may overlook how extremist groups specifically target women, exploit gender grievances, or use sexual violence as a tactic. Groups such as Boko Haram have used women and girls both as victims and as forced participants in attacks. In Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State developed highly gendered recruitment narratives aimed at women, promising belonging and purpose. ⁵ When women of color are at the policy table, these dynamics are less likely to be ignored. They bring attention to how extremist messaging intersects with identity, race, migration, and economic vulnerability.

This results in more comprehensive threat assessments and more targeted prevention strategies. Data from the Global Counterterrorism Forum highlights that gender-responsive approaches improve community resilience and disrupt recruitment pipelines. ⁶ Policies that integrate women into security planning also tend to invest more in education, health systems, and economic empowerment areas that research consistently links to decreased conflict risk.

Diaspora Insight and Transnational Awareness Contemporary security threats are transnational, operating across borders through digital communication, financial networks, and diasporic connections. As a result, effective counterterrorism requires both local knowledge and global awareness.

Diaspora communities occupy a unique position within this landscape. They maintain connections to their countries of origin while navigating the political and institutional systems of their host countries. Women of color in diaspora leadership roles often act as bridges between these contexts, translating local realities into policy-relevant insights.

This dual perspective is particularly valuable in regions such as the Lake Chad Basin, where efforts to counter Boko Haram have evolved beyond military responses. Community-based reintegration programs,

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many led by women, focus on rehabilitating former fighters and preventing re-recruitment through psychosocial support and vocational training.⁷ These initiatives address both individual and community-level dynamics, including stigma, trauma, and economic vulnerability.

Women of Color in Leadership Research continues to support the link between gender inclusion and security effectiveness. A 2020 study by the Council on Foreign Relations found that countries with higher levels of gender equality are less likely to experience internal conflict and violent extremism. ⁸ The World Bank has similarly noted correlations between women’s labor force participation and increased economic stability. ⁹ Traditional counterterrorism has often emphasized reactive measures, arrests, military strikes, and surveillance. These tools remain necessary in certain contexts. However, long-term security increasingly depends on prevention.

Women of color tend to emphasize upstream solutions: access to education, youth engagement, economic opportunity, and community mediation. These are not “soft” issues; they are structural risk factors. The cost of global terrorism reached over $33 billion at its peak in the mid-2010s.¹⁰ By contrast, preventive community-based programs operate at a fraction of that cost while addressing root causes. Integrating women of color into counterterrorism leadership helps shift the balance toward sustainability rather than constant crisis response.

Across Africa and the Middle East, women of color have proven essential to counterterrorism effectiveness. In northeastern Nigeria, organizations such as Women Without Walls Initiative have facilitated reintegration programs for women and children who escaped Boko Haram. By combining psychosocial support with vocational training, these programs improve community acceptance and reduce the risk of re-recruitment. ¹¹ In Kenya, women-led initiatives under the national counter-violent extremism framework have helped identify early signs of radicalization among youth, strengthening trust between communities and law enforcement in regions such as Garissa and Mombasa.¹² Across the Sahel, women’s associations in Mali and Burkina Faso have organized dialogue forums bringing together elders, youth, and security officials to address grievances exploited by extremist groups.¹³ In Libya, organizations such as Voice of Libyan Women have mobilized community leaders to support inclusive dialogue on security and governance, strengthening resilience against extremist influence. ¹⁴ The importance of women’s leadership extends to international counterterrorism structures. Bonnie Jenkins provides a clear example. During her tenure at the U.S. Department of State and leadership roles in the G7 Global Partnership, she helped coordinate multilateral efforts to prevent extremist access to weapons of mass destruction. ¹⁵ She also founded Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security, expanding the pipeline of diverse leadership in national security.¹⁶

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Taken together, these examples show that leadership by women of color from grassroots organizing in Africa and the Middle East to policymaking at the international level strengthens counterterrorism through prevention, trust-building, reintegration, and multilateral cooperation. Their participation is both practical and strategic; it improves operational effectiveness while addressing the root drivers that allow extremist networks to flourish.

Conclusion Counterterrorism is most effective when it is comprehensive. Military strength, intelligence capacity, and law enforcement tools remain important. But prevention, legitimacy, and community resilience are equally critical. Women of color contribute uniquely to these areas through lived experience, trusted networks, cultural insight, and policy perspective. Data shows that gender-inclusive approaches correlate with stronger peace and security outcomes. Field experience confirms that community-driven strategies reduce recruitment and strengthen reintegration.

The benefit is clear: when women of color are meaningfully included in counterterrorism strategy and leadership, policies become more informed, more grounded, and more sustainable. The future of counterterrorism will not depend solely on force. It will depend on whether security institutions reflect the communities they aim to protect and whether they are willing to incorporate the full range of expertise available to them.

Footnotes 1. UN Women, Women and Countering Violent Extremism, 2019.

2. United Nations Development Programme, Journey to Extremism in Africa, 2017.

3. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).

4. Council on Foreign Relations, Women’s Participation in Peace Processes, 2019.

5. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, HandbookonGenderDimensionsofCriminal Justice Responses to Terrorism, 2019.

6. Global Counterterrorism Forum, Gender and CVE policy framework.

7. International Organization for Migration, Disarmament,DemobilizationandReintegration Programs, Lake Chad Basin reports.

8. Council on Foreign Relations, 2020 gender equality and conflict study.

9. World Bank, Gender and economic participation data.

10. Institute for Economics and Peace, Global Terrorism Index, 2016.

11. Women Without Walls Initiative program reports.

12. Government of Kenya, National Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism.

13. UN Women, Sahel women’s peacebuilding initiatives.

14. Voice of Libyan Women, program documentation.

15. U.S. Department of State, Threat Reduction Programs overview.

16. Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security, organizational mission and activities.

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EDITOR Faith Riri

RHIANNON RASARETNAM

Rhiannon Rasaretnam is a young professional with experience in the non-profit sector. She served as an AmeriCorps fellow with the University of Washington’s Dream Project program, serving local Seattle high school students. She also worked at TeenTix as a program coordinator, supporting youth arts initiatives. In her recent role at the World Affairs Council, she organized citizen diplomacy initiatives with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

These diverse experiences cultivated Rhiannon’s belief in community advocacy and educational opportunities. She is interested in studying emerging technology policy, with an emphasis on supporting mechanisms to democratize access to space.

Rhiannon is currently studying Russian in Almaty, Kazakhstan, as a Fulbright-Hays fellow with American Councils, and will be receiving her B.A. in International Studies from the University of Washington.

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Women, Peace, and Security in Outer Space

Rhiannon Rasaretnam Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS) Policy Paper

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) successfully returned to the moon in April 2026, with the first crewed flyby since 1972 (NASA, 2026). Notably, this spacecraft carried the first woman beyond low Earth orbit, and who will eventually land on the moon. This mission is named Artemis, but not simply as a complement to the prior Apollo missions. Artemis was the goddess of the moon - and the hunt. This symbolism underlies the universal and historical entanglement between women, space, and security.

As the United States constructs and implements its space security policy, it must center Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) as its central tenets. Space security is critical to military and civil infrastructure, which in turn relates to the security of women, who directly impact the state of the world, and beyond.

The Women, Peace, and Security act was confirmed on the international stage in 2000 with the passage of United Nations Resolution 1325. Its significance was due to women being acknowledged as a central role in conflict. Despite being a signatory, and expressing commitments in 2017, in early 2025, the Trump administration proposed and enacted significant cuts to WPS staffing and resources across agencies including the Pentagon, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the State Department, mistakenly blending the operational program with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives (Hegseth, 2025).

The instability and democratic backsliding of the federal government means that viewing WPS as a distinct agenda makes it vulnerable. It is essential to build its principles into the foundations of space security policy while also creating multi-sector approaches and building strong grassroots collaborations. This not only fulfills the government’s responsibility to ensure that all its people share equal rights, but it also creates a more secure world overall.

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The United States lacks a distinct space security strategy, and technological developments in the commercial sector are outpacing government oversight. At the domestic level, this is not unintentional. In August 2025, the Trump administration passed an executive order explicitly designed to remove regulatory barriers for novel space activity (Exec. Order No. 14335, 2025).

This crossroads determines whether we re-entrench outdated mentalities or take the opportunity to foster inclusive excellence.

Despite outer space being depicted as a new frontier, the consequences of replicating our current approach to security are not a mystery. Women are already disproportionately impacted by space technology, specifically satellites which have dual-use applications -- the capability of performing civilian and military duties. The ability of satellites to track humans using geolocation, monitor climate patterns, and act as vessels for global communication, means that they are critical technologies to regulate, and must be done so in accordance with WPS principles.

Civilian Applications Satellites play an integral role in the communication and aiding victims of gender-based violence and domestic violence, particularly through the Global Positioning System (GPS) and other forms of geolocation. These mechanisms can also fall under technology based gender violence (TBGC). Disruptions to climate change monitoring and agricultural technology can also create more consequences for women’s safety (Muneri, 2023). Lack of land ownership, limited financial agency, and discriminatory social norms, all constitute barriers that prevent women from adequately responding to climate and food insecurity.

Once the civil sector expands to space itself, gender responsive policies and infrastructure will be required to responsibly address domestic violence, emergency situations and support for

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women. One example can be found in research stations in Antarctica, where the remote environment isolated women from fast and adequate support in cases of harassment (Kushner, 2024). The systematic lack of protection for women on Earth proves that current approaches to security are deficient. Women, aided by lived experience, are essential to discussions determining security protocol in outer space in order to proactively address their safety.

Military Applications Satellites are also integral to U.S. military operations, carrying data and facilitating communication during war or conflicts. The Russian cyberattack in February 2022 on Viasat communication systems directly impacted thousands of Ukrainians. In addition, Starlink has played an outsized role in the Russia-Ukraine war. Reports were coming out that Starlink’s access allowed Russian forces to move with intelligence. The Ukrainian minister requested the Starlink CEO, Elon Musk, to cut off access. Musk complied at the beginning of February 2026, which began to be reported a few weeks later as disrupting Russian movement into Ukraine (Adams 2026).

Spacefaring states are already testing and demonstrating their capabilities. Anti-satellite tests date back to 2007, with China destroying its own weather satellite, and creating the largest orbital debris field. More recently, Russia’s 2021 direct-ascent anti-satellite test (ASAT) provoked concerns revealing the potential for aggressive attacks in space.

Women are the most vulnerable as a result of social, political, and economic constructs, but also possess the greatest capacity for change. The beauty of WPS agenda is recognizing that women can, and have, played an active role in their own protection and advancing peace. They are not simply the affected groups of these military and civil policies and therefore, this should not be viewed as a one way process of change. Indeed, the involvement of women increases the

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success of peace negotiations, decreases a state’s likelihood of using violence by 5 times, and reduces overall likelihood to go to war (United Nations Secretary General, 2015).

Policy Approach, Limitations, and Recommendations Policymakers must adopt principles of WPS. There is already precedence in other security agreements. The Arms Trade Treaty recognizes the importance of equal participation of women and uses gender-based violence among the risk criteria. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons acknowledges the disproportionate impact of nuclear testing and warfare on women and young girls. Therefore, updates to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and the Artemis Accords should also include specific mention of WPS as part of its commitment to create a cooperative environment where everyone benefits from space activity.

This approach does not adequately address the issue of gender binaries or effectively weigh the relevance of other marginalized identities. However, women are the broadest category and being the majority of people makes it the most effective mechanism to have more nuanced and specific groups follow. More distinction should also be made regarding how non-state actors, particularly private space companies, are becoming much more powerful than state actors and how that in turn impacts WPS. But this just underlies how the government’s rate of response is falling behind and why space must be quickly prioritized as a form of national security.

In order for the United States to have the greatest strategic advantage in space security, it must: 1. Include the Women, Peace, and Security agenda as part of its space security strategy 2. Strengthen the pipeline of women and workforce development 3. Advocate for demilitarization

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4. Invest in more data collection of representation of women, in order to increase visibility and clarify necessary actions 5. Align theory and practice by bringing in and centering community leaders and grassroots organizations Conclusion Security should be seen as proactively pursuing peace. It is the key to de-escalating conflicts, avoiding militarization, increasing collaboration, preventing resource conflicts, and strengthening resiliency. With countries like China, India, and Japan hoping to leave their own imprint on the moon and further, the United States must use its diversity of perspectives and skills to confirm space superiority. There is a wave of emerging technology, and as we enter new worlds, both virtual and physical, how we conduct ourselves now will have an outsized impact on the future. NASA's Artemis program prepares to launch and it is paramount to do as Artemis did: fiercely protect women and demonstrate their strength. But in order to capitalize on this momentum, the United States must prioritize WPS as normative frameworks around space exploration are beginning to solidify.

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References Adams, P. (2026, February 19). MuskcutsStarlinkAccess for Russian forces, giving Ukraine an edge at the front. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0q3ndj7052o Exec. Order No 14335, 3 C.F.R. 1 (2025) https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/enabling-competition-in-the-com mercial-space-industry/ Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. (2022, May 10). Russia behind cyber-attack with Europe-wide impact an hour before Ukraine invasion. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/russia-behind-cyber-attack-with-europe-wide-impac t-an-hour-before-ukraine-invasion Hegseth, P. (2025, April 29). This morning, I proudly ENDED the “Women, Peace & Security” (WPS) program inside the @DeptofDefense. WPS is yet another woke [Post]. X. https://x.com/PeteHegseth/status/1917203362396639518 Kushner, D. (2024, April 4). These women came to Antarctica for science. then the Predators emerged. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/women-antarctica-science-predators-whistleblower/ Muneri, Eunice. 2023. Norms and institutional obstacles cause differences in women’s and men’s adoption of climate-smart agriculture. Nairobi, Kenya: CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform.

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NASA. (2026, April 11). ArtemisII:NASA’s first crewed lunar flyby in 50 years . NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/ Stover, D. (2025, April 9). As more countries enter space, the boundary between civilian andmilitaryenterpriseisblurring. dangerously.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

https://thebulletin.org/2025/04/as-more-countries-enter-space-the-boundary-between-civili an-and-military-enterprise-is-blurring-dangerously/ Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. (2025, April 30). Annual report on sexual assault in the military, Fiscal Year 2024. SAPR.mil. https://www.sapr.mil/Portals/156/FY24_Annual_Report.pdf United Nations. (2023, October 19). Outer Space becoming contested domain for supremacy with space-based communications, intelligence assets, anti-satellite weapons, First Committee hears | UN meetings coverage and press releases. United Nations. https://press.un.org/en/2023/gadis3722.doc.htm United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. (2023, October 25). Factsheet: Gender and the arms trade treaty → UNIDIR. UNIDIR. https://unidir.org/publication/factsheet-gender-and-the-arms-trade-treaty/ United Nations Secretary General. (2015). Women’s participation and a better understanding of the political. Women’s Participation and a Better Understanding of the Political | Global study on the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1325. https://wps.unwomen.org/participation/

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SANJALEE CHANDRASEKARA

EDITOR Amb. Bonnie Jenkins

I am a language enthusiast and linguist from Colombo, Sri Lanka, driven by a passion for multilingual communication, technology, and meaningful global impact. With experience spanning localization, project management, and language technology, I thrive at the intersection of people, language, and innovation. I currently serve as the Global Manager for the Job Board at Women in Localization, where I connect language professionals with global career opportunities and support a thriving international community. Alongside this, I work with CLEAR Global as a Project Officer, managing language support initiatives that improve access to information for vulnerable communities worldwide. With a growing interest in language technology and innovation, I strive to explore new ways of meaning-making and expand access to multilingual communication. I am currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Technology and Innovation Management at the University of Colombo, further deepening my commitment to bridging language, technology, and global development

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Overcoming Language Barriers: Approaches to Addressing Linguistic Barriers for Women in Global Health

Author -Sanajalee Chandrasekara Editor -Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins Institution - Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS) Paper Format -

Research Paper

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Introduction Imagine in a rural clinic, a woman tries to explain a persistent, unfamiliar pain in her lower abdomen to a doctor who only speaks the national language. The discomfort is not severe, but it has lasted for weeks and feels different from her usual menstrual cramps. She struggles to find the right words in what may be her second language or a completely foreign one. The details she understands, when the pain began, how it changes throughout her cycle, what feels unusual compared to her normal experience, remain trapped in her mind, untranslated and unheard.

Without a shared language, her embodied knowledge of her own health is minimized. The doctor may interpret the symptoms as routine or minor, offering general advice without fully grasping her concern. Beyond the clinical misunderstanding, this gap is often widened by the provider’s own positionality. In the absence of clear communication, medical professionals may consciously or unconsciously fall back on prejudices, viewing the patient as 'the other' and providing lower-quality care based on perceived social or linguistic distance. The issue is not a lack of medical resources, but a lack of mutual understanding or incorrect assumptions. As a result, a manageable condition such as a mild reproductive or urinary tract infection may go untreated longer than necessary, simply because she cannot fully describe what her body is telling her in her native language.

In this article, I will explore how linguistic barriers act as a hidden wall between women and the care they deserve. It is necessary to move beyond the idea that language is just about "words" and instead look at it as a tool for equity. The focus would be on identifying actionable linguistic interventions and localization strategies such as cultural mediators, audiobased accessibility services and medical glossaries in refugee camps which can help ensure that a woman’s access to health services is not treated as a luxury, but as a right. Specifically, the following sections will consist of a literature review detailing the gendered impact of these gaps and a breakdown of strategic interventions. Finally, the article includes a discussion of real-world implications to show how these changes lead to measurable improvements in marginalized communities.

The core of the issue lies in how language acts as a silent "gatekeeper," determining who is allowed to access the benefits of health services and who is left outside the gates. In many non- Anglophone regions, healthcare systems and international aid organizations operate using English by default or only a national language, which creates a significant power imbalance. For women who speak local, less widely spoken languages or different regional variants of the main language, this barrier is doubled. Because women in many developing regions often have lower literacy rates or less access to formal education than men, they are less likely to speak the language used by doctors or supporting medical staff. This creates a specialized form of linguistic marginalization where a woman’s inability to speak the "right" language is treated as a lack of knowledge, rather than a failure of the system to communicate.

Furthermore, this gatekeeping effect turns medical consultations into one-sided monologues.

When a woman cannot articulate her symptoms, she loses her medical agency, the power to make informed choices about her own body. In global health, this leads to a dangerous gap, because if women cannot communicate their experiences, their specific health needs are never recorded in official statistics, leading to poorly designed programs that fail to address what is required in the community. In short, linguistic barriers don't just cause misunderstandings, they actively exclude women from the global health narrative, reinforcing a cycle where their voices are neither heard nor counted.

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Literature Review Linguistic barriers function as a primary determinant of health inequity, disproportionately impacting women’s access to global health services. As Yeo (2004) describes, language is the primary means by which patients access care, yet individuals who are female, older, or marginalized and economically disadvantaged are significantly more likely to face severe communication obstacles. Evidence suggests that migrant women often suffer from more maternal and general health problems than native populations, with Origlia Ikhilor et al. (2019) noting a direct link between language barriers and adverse birth outcomes. Furthermore, as Eslier et al. (2023) describe, women with limited host-country language skills face a heightened risk of inadequate prenatal care utilization, characterized by late care initiation and a higher frequency of missed diagnostic screenings.

However, these barriers are not merely technical, they are deeply influenced by the positionality and prejudices of healthcare providers. When a shared language is absent, medical professionals may consciously or unconsciously view the patient as "the other," leading to a significant clinical empathy gap. (Hall et al., 2015) Research into maternal health in the United States highlights that Black women frequently receive lower-quality treatment compared to white patients due to systemic racial prejudices. In global health settings, a language barrier often serves as a proxy for this "otherness," reinforcing a provider’s internal biases. This dynamic transforms the consultation into a "stripped down" interaction where the woman’s pain may be dismissed or her symptoms interpreted as routine because the provider cannot or chooses not to bridge the communicative divide (Smedley et al., 2003).

This linguistic "gatekeeping" extends to preventive gynecology; Schmidt et al. (2018) identify that migrant women report significantly lower rates of cervical and breast cancer screening because they cannot navigate complex healthcare systems or understand technical medical terminology in translated materials. Ultimately, these barriers correlate with decreased satisfaction and less frequent clinical follow-up.

The gendered impact of language barriers is further reflected in the erosion of patient autonomy and the failure of the informed consent process. As Barrio-Ruiz et al. (2024) describe in this article, communication barriers undermine a woman’s right to make informed decisions concerning her health. In clinical settings lacking language support, Origlia Ikhilor et al. (2019) observe that communication is frequently "stripped down" to non-verbal gestures, leading to "imposed health services" where interventions are performed without the woman’s full understanding or agreement. This lack of agency is often exacerbated by a reliance on ad hoc interpreters, such as children or spouses; as Schmidt et al. (2018) describe, this practice violates a woman’s right to privacy and prevents the disclosure of sensitive issues like reproductive health taboos. Furthermore, Bauer et al. (2000) emphasize that such barriers are particularly obstructive for women seeking help for intimate partner violence. The resulting feelings of anxiety, embarrassment, and perceived discrimination during these interactions discourage future health-seeking behavior, effectively marginalizing women within the global health landscape.

Furthermore, Yeo (2004) highlights that women of color from diverse ethnic backgrounds, including those from Mexico, various Latin American countries, and Asian regions, are disproportionately represented among patients with the most severe language barriers. These barriers are often intensified by sociopolitical factors; as Bauer et al. (2000) describe, immigrant women, particularly those who are undocumented, may avoid seeking help for sensitive issues like intimate partner violence due to a fear of deportation or a belief that they

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lack legal rights in the host country. Consequently, the "double burden" of linguistic exclusion and provider-side prejudice functions as a significant deterrent, discouraging women of color from engaging with essential reproductive and preventive health systems. This exclusion is not solely patient-side, it is mirrored in provider bias. Research into maternal health in the United States, for instance, has shown that Black women often receive lower-quality treatment than white patients due to systemic 24/7 access prejudices. When a language barrier is added to this dynamic, providers are even more likely to dehumanize the patient, leading to a 'clinical empathy gap' where the woman’s pain is dismissed or her intelligence is underestimated because she cannot speak the dominant tongue.

Strategic Interventions: Linguistic & Localization Approaches To bridge the gap between theoretical gatekeeping and actual health equity, global health organizations must move beyond simple word-for-word translation toward holistic localization. In this section, I explore specific, practical strategies that can dismantle the linguistic barriers surrounding women’s healthcare. From community-empowered approaches to the use of technology, the possibilities are extensive, if we correctly identify the issue and the target populations.

1. Cultural Mediation Culture is an integral part of language, and the two cannot be separated, as they are deeply interconnected. While a translator converts words from one language to another, a cultural mediator translates meaning. In medical settings, women are more likely to feel safe and heard when supported by someone from their own community who understands the social norms, taboos, and traditions that may prevent them from speaking openly. For example, in maternal healthcare, a mediator can help patients navigate sensitive topics such as reproductive rights or domestic violence, issues that a professional translator might render literally but without the necessary cultural context. Therefore, a professional translator is not always the best or only solution, sometimes what is needed is someone who can bridge the cultural gap and ensure true understanding.

2. Audio-Visual & Low-Literacy Localization Translating highly technical medical jargon alone is not sufficient to make healthcare knowledge accessible in underrepresented communities. In many regions, women have historically been excluded from formal education, resulting in lower literacy rates. In such contexts, written translation, no matter how accurate, may still fail to reach those who need it most. Strategic interventions should therefore shift toward multimodal communication, including audio-based applications, visual aids, and pictorial glossaries. Voice-recorded instructions in local dialects help ensure that a woman’s inability to read does not become a barrier to receiving essential or even life-saving medical advice.

3. Standardized Medical Glossaries in Indigenous Tongues One of the major challenges in global health is the lack of clarity in medical terminology. Many Indigenous languages may not have direct terms for certain conditions, or they may use concepts that differ significantly from the biomedical terms used in English. Without shared vocabulary, explanations can become inconsistent, overly simplified, or reliant on metaphors that may create confusion. A critical strategy is the collaborative development of standardized medical glossaries. By working with local linguists, healthcare providers, and female

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community leaders to agree on culturally and linguistically appropriate terms, health workers can deliver consistent, accurate information that avoids unnecessary technical jargon while preserving medical precision.

4. Gender-Sensitive Professional Interpretation In many cultural contexts, women may feel uneasy or embarrassed discussing reproductive or intimate health concerns in front of a male interpreter. A highly human - centred approach is to provide female interpreters and, where possible, female healthcare providers for female patients. Whether in person or via secure video-remote platforms, matching the patient and interpreter by gender fosters a safe environment that encourages openness and honesty about symptoms and medical history. During medical emergencies, being judged or harassed can compound stress and create lasting emotional impacts. Ensuring gender-sensitive interpretation not only improves access to care but also protects women’s mental well-being, making healthcare both safer and more supportive.

5. AI-Powered Localized Health Assistance Chatbots A more technologically innovative approach involves using chatbots as companions that speak a woman’s own language, allowing her to discuss her health privately. For highly stigmatized health issues, such as HIV or contraception, the main barrier is often fear of judgment from a human listener. Localized AI chatbots, delivered through platforms like WhatsApp or SMS in local dialects, provide an anonymous, safe space for women to seek guidance. These tools provide 24/7 access to accurate health information in a woman’s native language, enabling her to ask sensitive or otherwise “forbidden” questions without fear of community repercussions or social stigma. On the other hand, a key concern is the handling of sensitive medical data.

Privacy must be prioritized and protected through end-to-end encryption and strict data-sharing protocols to safeguard the user’s identity.

Case Studies Reflecting Real-World Implications Real-world interventions demonstrate that when we remove linguistic "gatekeeping," we don't just improve communication, we improve clinical outcomes and community trust. The examples below demonstrate that linguistic inclusion is not a luxury, but a medical necessity. To promote better accessibility across the sector, global health organizations must acknowledge that delivering care in a woman’s native language is one of the most effective ways to safeguard her health.

CLEAR Global’s audio-visual glossaries used in Rohingya refugee camps transformed lifesaving information into a format accessible to women with lower literacy. In North America, the "Doula-Interpreter" hybrid has proven that language-congruent support significantly drops the rate of emergency C-sections. By empowering women to advocate for their own labor preferences, these programs reduce maternal health disparities and create a safer, more respectful birthing environment. Italy’s "Cultural Mediator" model at the Ospedale degli Infermi showed that when women can discuss sensitive topics (like FGM or domestic violence) in a culturally safe environment, prenatal check-up rates soar. These mediators bridge the gap between standard medical care, which can often feel distant, and the patient’s specific cultural context. In Sub-Saharan Africa, Conversational AI (like Uji or Zolela) provides a vital safe space. Because privacy is a main concern that should be safely handled, these bots allow women to ask about contraception or STIs in their native tongue without fear of judgment, facilitating access to care for highly stigmatized conditions.

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Conclusion At its core, language serves as an invisible barrier that prevents women from fully accessing global health services. For many women in non-Anglophone regions, the inability to speak a dominant national or colonial language isn't just a communication hiccup; it is a barrier to lifesaving care. When a woman cannot describe her symptoms or understand her treatment in her own tongue, she loses her medical agency. This gatekeeping effect is backed by sobering evidence: in places like the Rohingya refugee camps or rural Sub-Saharan Africa, women with lower formal literacy are often excluded from health dialogues, leading to undiagnosed maternal infections and a deep-seated mistrust of medical institutions. To dismantle these barriers, the article proposes five strategic interventions that go beyond literal translation and aim for genuine linguistic bridging. The necessity of these approaches is proven by real-world results. Whether it is the interpreting Doula program or localized conversational AI, the evidence is clear: when the health services speak a woman's language, we save her life.

Linguistic inclusion is not a bonus feature of a health program; it is a fundamental requirement for equity. We must stop expecting women to learn the language of the system and instead demand that the system learn to speak to them.

References Yeo, S. (2004). Language barriers and access to care. Annual review of nursing research, 22, 59-76.

Origlia Ikhilor, P., Hasenberg, G., Kurth, E., Asefaw, F., Pehlke‐Milde, J., & Cignacco, E. (2019). Communication barriers in maternity care of allophone migrants: Experiences of women, healthcare professionals, and intercultural interpreters. Journal of advanced nursing, 75(10), 2200-2210.

Schmidt, N. C., Fargnoli, V., Epiney, M., & Irion, O. (2018). Barriers to reproductive health care for migrant women in Geneva: a qualitative study. Reproductive health, 15(1), 43.

Eslier, M., Deneux-Tharaux, C., Schmitz, T., Luton, D., Mandelbrot, L., Estellat, C., ... & Azria, E. (2023). Association between language barrier and inadequate prenatal care utilization among migrant women in the PreCARE prospective cohort study. European Journal of Public Health, 33(3), 403-410.

Hughson, J. A., Marshall, F., Daly, J. O., Woodward-Kron, R., Hajek, J., & Story, D. (2018).

Health professionals’ views on health literacy issues for culturally and linguistically diverse women in maternity care: barriers, enablers and the need for an integrated approach.

Australian Health Review, 42(1), 10-20.

Squires, A. (2018). Strategies for overcoming language barriers in healthcare. Nursing management, 49(4), 20-27.

Bauer, H. M., Rodriguez, M. A., Quiroga, S. S., & Flores-Ortiz, Y. G. (2000). Barriers to health care for abused Latina and Asian immigrant women. Journal of health care for the poor and underserved, 11(1), 33-44.

Barrio‐Ruiz, C., Ruiz de Viñaspre‐Hernandez, R., Colaceci, S., Juarez‐Vela, R., Santolalla‐ Arnedo, I., Durante, A., & Di Nitto, M. (2024). Language and cultural barriers and facilitators of sexual and reproductive health Care for Migrant Women in high‐income

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European countries: an integrative review. Journal of midwifery & women's health, 69(1), 7190.

CLEAR Global. (2024). Why language inclusion matters for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). https://clearglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Language-inclusionsexual-reproductive-health-rights-SRHR.pdf Gorsline-Flamm, E. (2002). Prenatal, labor and delivery support through doula-interpreters.

International Journal of Childbirth Education, 17(2), 20.

Smedley, B. D., Stith, A. Y., & Nelson, A. R. (Eds.). (2003). Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/12875 Hall, W. J., Chapman, M. V., Lee, K. M., Merino, Y. M., Thomas, T. W., Payne, B. K., Eng, E., Day, S. H., & Coyne-Beasley, T. (2015). Implicit Racial/Ethnic Bias Among Health Care Professionals and Its Influence on Outcomes: A Systematic Review. American Journal of Public Health, 105(12), e60–e76. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302903

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SARINA PATEL

EDITOR Gabaikanngwe Ethel Mambo

Sarina Patel is a recent graduate of American University’s School of International Service and a former Washington DC Youth Poet Laureate. She has performed her work at the National American Poetry Museum, the National MLK Jr Memorial Library, the University of Pennsylvania Kelly Writers’ House, and more. Currently, Sarina is an Associate Fellow in War, Conflict, & Global Migration at the Global Research Network Think Tank.

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Legal Perspectives on the Failure to Prosecute Reproductive Violence under International Criminal Law

Sarina Patel Ethel Mambo Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security & Conflict Transformation Traditional Research Paper April 18, 2026

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Introduction Sexual violence is defined as any unwanted sexual act, advance, comment, coercion, or any attempt on the above, in any setting (Rajandran, 2004, 58). It is one of the broadest categories of crime in international law (Rajandran, 2004, 58). However, there is an emerging category of crime that demands recognition. That category is reproductive violence, defined as any violation of reproductive autonomy, including forced abortion, contraception, pregnancy, and sterilization (Laverty, 2021, 616). In international law, reproductive violence is often subsumed under the category of sexual violence. Both crimes are equally important; it does not compete with or diminish the significance of sexual violence to acknowledge that international criminal law should recognize reproductive violence. But it is important that sexual and reproductive violence are addressed individually, and with the same sense of urgency.

Reproductiveviolence is a severe crime that inflicts distinct and overarching harms upon its victims.When an individual’s reproductive organs are targeted through battery, rape, torture, or forced sterilization, the resulting trauma extends far beyond physical injury (Laverty, 2021, 616). It fundamentally shatters their reproductive autonomy and their psychological desire to bear children (Malabou, 2009, 33). Even when victims decide to bear children in the future, they are stripped of their autonomy to make that decision free of any reproduction-associated mental or physical trauma (Malabou, 2009, 34). On these grounds, this paper argues that reproductive violence is a multigenerational harm that sits at the specific intersection of biological and sexual violence that should not be subsumed by either category. Reproductive violence does not just control a victim’s future, but the future of their bloodline.

This paper addresses the following research question: What gaps exist in the protection against reproductive violence within the framework of transitional justice and in international

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litigation? This paper argues that international litigation lacks the jurisprudential language necessary to recognize reproductive violence as a distinct, gendered harm.

Literature Review The literature review addresses themes from broadest to narrowest. It defines and outlines types of transitional justice, the values and limitations of criminal prosecution, the values and limitations of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and why the ICC is vital to this inquiry.

Transitional justice is defined as a process of achieving societal change, distinguished by legal responses and addressing the violations of a past regime (Teitel, 2020, 69). There are six types of transitional justice frameworks: criminal prosecution, financial reparations, memorials, public apologies, structural reform, and truth commissions (Revkin, 2024, 1591). Criminal prosecution, the focus of this research inquiry, is the legal process by which an organization brings formal charges against a person or group of people accused of violating international criminal law (Revkin, 2024, 1596). Criminal prosecution has its strengths: casting “individual responsibility for violations” and “punish[ing] perpetrators accordingly” (Revkin, 2024, 1596).

At a deeper level, it can transform the laws used to reach future judgments. But criminal prosecution is not without its flaws. Scholars have long criticized the framework’s focus on detention, incarceration, and the punishment of perpetrators (Hafez Hassan, 2023, 8). Criminal prosecution often obsesses over a punitive objective, with little consideration for what happens after punishment is delivered (Hafez Hassan, 2023, 22).

Nowhere is this system more evident than in international law. The ICC was founded in 2002. Despite its novelty in the international litigation system, the ICC has successfully indicted over 40 individuals (Kerr, 2020, 16). The ICC has jurisdiction over four categories of crime: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, and it can hold individuals responsible for perpetrating such crimes (Murphy, 2004, 5). For a case to appear

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before the ICC, the crime must belong to one of the four categories listed above, and the crime must have occurred in a member state. If a crime happens in a non-member state (such as China, India, Russia, and the US), the ICC does not have jurisdiction (Murphy, 2004, 33).

Some scholars have praised the ICC, citing that the ICC offers greater neutrality than domestic justice systems (Ford, 2016, 4) and that it has more resources and technical experience than any domestic justice system (Ford, 2016, 4). Other scholars have criticized the ICC, citing that mechanisms of criminal prosecution are often pioneered by judges, lawyers and others who, by nature of them being litigators and not practitioners, lack knowledge of the localized inequalities they seek to address in court (Sarkin, 2025, 268). Additionally, while the Rome Statute provides rights for victim participation at the ICC, the ICC has been criticized for its strict criteria for victim eligibility (Yang, 2023, 72). Courts rarely acknowledge victims’ rights; for these rights to be realized at all, most have to file “applications” with the court”, which are often complex for the victims to write and difficult for the ICC to process (Yang, 2023, 72). Once admitted, victims are rarely given “enough financial compensation” or “control” over their own litigation process (Yang, 2023, 72). Instead, the ICC often centers allies’ and global superpowers’ desires to punish and make spectacle of punishment on the world stage, leading to what some scholars have deemed a ‘victor’s justice’ (Sarkin, 2025, 271).

Many legal challenges have made the prosecution of reproductive violence inordinately difficult. Research on the subject is limited, as it often brings shame and stigma to its victims.

Moreover, reproductive violence can become ritualized in situations of conflict, making it less likely for victims to identify when they or others are experiencing it, discuss these experiences, and report instances of crime (Rautio, 2026, 87). Victims who do report instances of reproductive violence are liable to face targeted discrimination, harassment or retaliation from those government or police officials, and sometimes, even the continuation of reproductive violence

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itself (Rautio, 2026, 90). It is impossible to investigate every single perpetrator of a large-scale crime, especially a gender-based crime which comes with its own challenges of survivor reporting, like reproductive violence. But the ICC has shown interest in recent years. By litigating on issues of reproductive violence in 2019 (Colombia) and 2021 (Uganda), the court has heightened critical inquiry and legal attention towards this type of crime.

Methodology This paper will conduct qualitative research in the form of a thematic discourse analysis.

It will analyze the ICC’s official document “Policy on Gender-Based Crimes” for language pertaining to reproductive justice. Associated values and limitations are listed below.

General Values: First, the level of analysis provided by this methodology. A discourse analysis offers a vital opportunity to analyze a single case study and determine what it reveals about a broader phenomenon. Next, the dynamics of this analysis. Language exacerbates existing inequalities, and policy is no different. A discourse analysis can highlight power dynamics by highlighting what is said, how it is said, and what the language reveals about its subject.

Document-Specific Values: First, the ICC has a moral and systemic incentive to publish a policy report addressing reproductive violence, as a leading human rights organization. Next, the ICC is globally considered to be a reputable source of international legal knowledge. Its policy report should provide relevant assessments of in-field perceptions of reproductive violence.

General Limitations: First, bias. A discourse analysis relies on the researcher’s interpretation of key arguments. Next, time. It would be impossible to access, read and analyze every single document that references crimes of reproductive violence; this paper focuses on one.

Document-Specific Limitations: First, the language is not going to be overtly biased, being an official and legal ICC document. Next, three years have elapsed between the publication date of the policy report (2023) and of this paper (2026), wherein more atrocities

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involving reproductive violence have occurred. As it was written in 2023, the policy report does not reflect any of these more recent incidents, and how the ICC may have updated policies, prosecutorial standards, or organizational statements in light of these incidents.

Ethical Concerns: None. All the data is available online, so there will be no participant interaction.

Data Collection This inquiry visited the ICC’s official website, selected the “Office of the Prosecutor” tab, selected the “Policies and Strategies” tab, and read the “Policy on Gender-Based Crimes” policy report, published in 2023 (Khan, 2023, 1). From there, this inquiry scanned the document, and conducted a thematic analysis via open coding: analyzing the report and organizing data very generally, for the intertextuality or repetition of key words. Then, this inquiry analyzed the data more specifically, examining each line for its use of language. Finally, this inquiry analyzed the data for a third time, and highlighted what gaps were observed.

Intertextuality This inquiry organized the data for the intertextuality or repetition of key words associated with reproductive violence. Not including footnotes or works cited, it was as follows: 28 mentions of “rape”, 21 mentions of “reproductive violence”, 11 mentions of “forced marriage”, 7 mentions of “forced pregnancy”, 6 mentions of “abortion”, and 4 mentions of “forced contraception”. The policy report covered the standard crimes, but scarcely included reproductive violence beyond conventional observations of the phenomenon: “infertility” (1), “infection” (2), “labour” (1), “experimentation (2) (Khan, 2023, 45).

Language Accountability: The ICC cites a plethora of factors including “discrimination, stigma, underreporting, and survivor reservations about law enforcement” for why most GBC “evades

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accountability” and why justice actors fail to treat GBC as seriously as other crimes (Khan, 2023, 1). The language is vague and does not consider how the ICC has adhered strictly to the Rome Statute in “considering sexual violence and violence against children” (Khan, 2023, 1).

GBC: GBC, or gender-based crimes, is the grouping of “sexual, reproductive, and other types” (Khan, 2023, 1). Refers to crimes as GBC in almost every sentence. By lumping these categories together and abbreviating them, it somewhat trivializes and desensitizes readers to the acute horrors of gender-based crime.

GBV: GBV, or gender-based violence. Claims ICC “includes” sexual and reproductive violence, once again lumping reproductive violence under the broader category established (Khan, 2023, 5).

Gender: To define gender, ICC cites Article 7(3) of the Rome Statute, which states that “gender refers to the two sexes, male and female” (Khan, 2023, 6). Limits the visibility, discussion, and reporting of crimes experienced by gender fluid/minority/trans people.

Gender Perspective: Defines gender more comprehensively in later sections. Still uses “men and women”, “including LGBTQI+ persons” and vague language like “an awareness of how gender-related norms can vary” without specifying how they might (Khan, 2023, 11).

Office’s Internal Tools: Writes that investigations must be “guided by the Office’s internal tools”, both limiting the nature of investigative inquiry and vague (Khan, 2023, 12).

Relevant Factors: Mentions “gender competent” investigation and analysis and “relevant factors” as prerequisites for determining the “nature” of a case, in two sections, without specifying what those may look like (Khan, 2023, 11).

Reproductive Violence and its Crimes: Does not name outside of the three specifically in Rome Statute (forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, genocide by preventing births). Other acts are not “explicitly named”, but “could be charged” “under different provisions”. Lists other

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possible types of crimes but does not specify how they could qualify for different provisions (Khan, 2023, 15).

Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes → Gender Based-Crimes: Mentions how earlier wording in ICC policy labeled these crimes as “sexual and gender-based crimes”, but now refers to them as “gender-based crimes”, a further reduction on an already cramped space for reproductive violence in international law (Khan, 2023, 12).

Sexual Violence vs. Reproductive Violence: Articulates that sexually and reproductively violent crimes are “closely related” in “motivations, forms or impacts”. Lists a comparison of physical trauma (rape and torture affecting genitals), but not a comparison of the mental trauma both induce (affecting one’s relationship to themselves, their community, their decision to have a family, their identity, their reproductive organs, and their sexuality, etc.) (Khan, 2023, 20).

Conclusion Owing to the discourse analysis above, this paper maintains that international litigation lacks the jurisprudential language necessary to consider reproductive violence in a way that accounts for distinct and gendered harms. While the ICC does in certain sections acknowledge the existence of reproductive violence, this policy report and its language has belied an overall organizational hesitancy to quantify reproductive violence as a separate and tangible harm. This being the only policy report the ICC has published on gender-based crimes indicates that research in this thematic area is needed.

This paper is in no way asking international policymakers and litigators to divest from using the law to combat reproductive justice. The law has and will always have useful mechanisms for protecting groups against categories of harm. Rather, this paper is asking international policymakers and litigators to be mindful about the language used to talk about, think about, and pursue crimes of reproductive violence. This will manifest differently across

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fields. International policymakers must aid the ICC in writing policy recommendations for gender-based crimes, and in prioritizing survivor involvement in data collection. Meanwhile, international litigators must aid the ICC in adjudicating on new models for prevention, leadership, and accountability where reproductive violence crimes are discovered, and in shaping the practice of law to be more restorative (at the very least, to create a symbiotic relationship between transitional justice frameworks so that criminal prosecution isn’t offered in isolation).

There is no exhaustive and perfect way to approach the law. Of course, that is why the law is called a practice. As the law evolves, so should legal notions on what qualifies as reproductive violence, how justice can be restored to victims of reproductive violence, and who is eligible to receive justice under the law.

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References Ford, Stuart. (2016). What Investigative Resources Does the International Criminal Court Need to Succeed?: A Gravity-Based Approach, Washington University Global Studies Law Review. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_globalstudies/vol16/iss1/5.

Hafez Hassan, K. (2023). Reparation for The Irreparable: Is Punishing International Crimes a Universalist Hoax? American University in Cairo. https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/2097.

Kerr, Christa-Gaye. (2020). Sovereign Immunity, the AU, and the ICC: Legitimacy Undetermined. Michigan Journal of International Law. https://www.mjilonline.org/journal/sovereign-immunity-the-au-and-the-icc-legitimacy-un dermined/.

Khan, Karim A.A. (2023). Policy on Gender-Based Crimes. The International Criminal Court. https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/2023-12/2023-policy-gender-en-web.pdf.

Laverty, Ciara, et. al. (2021). Reproductive Violence as a Category of Analysis: Disentangling the Relationship between ‘the Sexual’ and ‘the Reproductive’ in Transitional Justice, International Journal of Transitional Justice. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijab022.

Malabou, Catherine. (2009). Ontology of the accident: An essay on destructive plasticity. Polity.

Murphy, Ray. (2004). International Criminal Accountability and the International Criminal Court, Irish Center for Human Rights, School of Law, https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/casestudy/mur01/mur01.pdf.

Rajandran, Malaika. (2004). Sexual Violence and International Law, Refugee Survey Quarterly, http://www.jstor.org/stable/45054864.

Rautio, Sirpa. (2026). Seeking Safety From War: Violence and Rights Abuses Against Women From Ukraine, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/fra-2026-women-fleeing-war-ukraine_ en.pdf.

Revkin Maya, et. al. (2024). Evidence-Based Transitional Justice: Incorporating Public Opinion into the Field, with New Data from Iraq and Ukraine, The Yale Law Journal. https://yalelawjournal.org/pdf/133.5.RevkinAlrababahMyrickFinalDraft_sknpcgmp.pdf.

Sarkin, Jeremy Julian. (2025). Why the International Criminal Court Should Apply Restorative Justice and Transitional Justice Principles to Improve the Impact of Its Criminal Trials on Societies around the World, International Journal of Transitional Justice, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijaf005.

Teitel, Ruti G. (2020). Transitional Justice Genealogy, Harvard Law Journal, https://journals.law.harvard.edu/hrj/wp-content/uploads/sites/83/2020/06/16HHRJ69-Teit el.pdf.

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Yang, Yidou. (2023). TheGapbetweentheInternationalCriminalCourt and Victims: Criminal Trial Reparations as a Case Study, University of Macau Law, https://doi.org/10.3390/laws12040072.

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TAMYRN SAINTEN

EDITOR Mahan Aslam

Tamryn Sainten is a student John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies pursuing her master’s degree in Global Risk in Bologna, Italy. She recently earned her Bachelor’s Degree in International Affairs from Howard University. Having minored in Spanish and Journalism, Tamryn possesses multidisciplinary areas of specialization including policy writing, film production and editing, qualitative and quantitative data analysis, and research. At Johns Hopkins Tamryn currently serves as the president of the Black Student Union, aligning with her primary focus of the advancement of marginalized communities within the field of international affairs.

tamst10@gmail.com 159

The Risk of Dehumanizing Conflict: The Effect on Low-Income Countries Author: Tamryn Sainten Editor: Mahan Aslam Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security Research Paper

April 17th, 2026

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Abstract: This paper seeks to examine the risks present when using Lethal Automated Weapons Systems (LAWS) in developing countries, where artificial intelligence has the potential to exacerbate harm if allowed to operate without extensive testing and safety measures. LAWS refers to weapons systems that use artificial intelligence to identify and engage human without or partial human control. Using the rules of warfare, deterrence theory, and international human rights law as a basis for their usage we can assess the fatal, infrastructural, and societal impacts that the usage of LAWS has on developing countries which are disproportionately affected by conflict.

The methodology analyzes previous military interventions in developing countries by "Advocating Nations" to establish a baseline for civilian fatalities and post-conflict stability. It also ranks the automation levels and lethality of these weapons to support data from automated systems usage in Palestine and Libya. Results indicated that the lethality and environmental damage from LAWS is contingent upon (1), the goal of its user, (2) testing to ensure that it can accurately identify and engage targets rather than civilians and civilian infrastructure, and (3) regulations surrounding their usage that add a layer of humanity to the decision making process on taking a human life.

Ultimately, the goal is to estimate the effect that large-scale, global usage of LAWS could have onpostwar stability and limiting civilian causalities.

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Introduction According to U.S. Congress, Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) refers to a “special class of weapons systems” utilizing complementary sensors that apply real-time analysis of conflict and computer algorithms to “independently identify and employ an onboard weapon system to engage and destroy the target without manual human control of the system,” (Sayler, 2025). While the international community has no universally agreed upon definition for automated weapons systems, their usage is contentious given that artificial intelligence in conflict has the potential to either reduce military and civilian fatalities with the necessary provisions in place or exacerbate harm if allowed to operate without extensive testing and safety measures. This paper seeks to examine what are the risks present when using lethal automated weapons systems in developing countries.

Literature Review: With the development and usage of LAWS taking place in dozens of countries (Bhatt, 2024), many believe getting ahead of the curve in terms of regulating or prohibiting this weaponry is a necessary preventative measure. The debate against LAWS has been pioneered by states and non-governmental organizations, with the concern being that they “fundamentally challenge the right to life by removing human judgement from lethal force decisions,” as articulated by Algeria during the 2025 United Nations (UN) General Assembly Meeting (Human Rights Watch, 2025), alongside the fear that automated weaponry inherently cannot adhere to International Humanitarian Law (IHL).

Under IHL or jus in bello “the right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring is not unlimited,” (Hague Convention IV, 1907, art. 22) and includes provisions that prevent the employment

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of “arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering” (Hague Convention IV, 1907, art. 23e). It also prohibits the type of weaponry used in warfare, specifically those that are “inherently indiscriminate” (Mulligan, 2022) such as LAWS. While signatories of the Hague Convention and the United Nations Charter such as the United States, Australia, Japan, Israel, and Russia are technically bound by these rules of warfare, the way they have operated during conflict is contradictory to their membership. With the inclusion of LAWS, this contradiction is taken a step further as artificial intelligence has no ability to employ the moral regulation necessary to adhere to these principles.

At the 2023 Data, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence Adoption Strategy, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks argued that “from the standpoint of deterring and defending against aggression, AI enabled systems can help accelerate the speed of commanders’ decisions and improve the quality and accuracy of those decisions, which can be decisive in deterring a fight,” (Clark, 2023). Conversely, organizations like the American Red Cross point to automation bias, the human tendency to over-rely on automated systems because they believe that they have superior analytical abilities, to explain this belief (Klaus, 2024). They also argue that AI enabled decision support systems can result in ethical violations and hinders meaningful human control in favor of accelerating the decision-making process (Klaus, 2024), effectively replacing morally based decisions with data-driven optimization. The most obvious example of deterrence was during the Cold War when the U.S. and Russia’s nuclear advancements resulted in mutually assured destruction upon usage.

While this worked because the U.S. and Russia were evenly matched in terms of military capabilities, this is often not the case for low-income countries. If countries with huge defense and technology budgets and widespread influence develop LAWS to threaten countries who do not possess them or whose AI capabilities are not as advanced, then there would be asymmetric

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deterrence which further invites cyberwarfare, terrorism, and continues military escalation from low-income countries to offset this advantage (Beehner & Collins, 2019).

Countries that are classified as experiencing violent conflict and high levels of institutional and social fragility by the World Bank Group (WBG) are especially sensitive to food insecurity, forced displacement, and economic and geopolitical implications (WBG, 2025). With fragile and conflictaffected situations making up two-thirds of low-income countries, their development is at risk if it holds true that automated military weaponry does not deter war, but encourages and exacerbates it (WBG, 2025).

Methodology: To support this argument, this paper measures the level of lethality and autonomy of LAWS to determine the impact on infrastructure and civilian fatalities. Then, we analyze the effect of LAWS in conflict by integrating data from their usage in Palestine and Libya, allowing us to estimate the effect of autonomous weapons systems by Advocating Nations on long-term stabilization and causality rates in developing countries.

Findings: Using the Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence three levels of increasing autonomy (DrespLangley, 2023), we can assess some of the weapon’s systems of advocating countries currently in combat with developing nations to understand the level of automation and key factors that increase or decrease lethality (in this case referring to civilian causalities and infrastructure damage): • Semi-Autonomous Weapon: Autonomously engages specific target groups that have been selected by a human operator • Fully autonomous Weapon: Can select, search for, and attack intended targets over a specified area or electronically jam communications without human intervention once activated.

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• Supervised Autonomous Weapon: Human operators can intervene and terminate engagements before unacceptable levels of damage occur

Figure 1: Autonomy and Lethality of Land & Air Weapons Systems by Advocating Countries Currently in Conflict Source: (Automated Decision Research, n.d.)

Figure 2: Conflict Figures from Advocating Countries Sources: Airwars, n.d., New York Times(2019), PBS(2025), Brown University n.d., AutoNorms (2020), Amnesty International (2025), The Lancet (2026), UN OCHA n.d., Reuters 2026, AFSC n.d,CBC (2026), Council on Foreign Relations (2024)

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Figure 2 gives context to the lethality of these manual weapons in conflict by analyzing fatalities from previous and current conflicts involving countries that voted for the usage of LAWS. Systems like the unmanned MQ-9 reaper and STM Kargu-2 drones already have some level of automation.

Discussion: The level of lethality and devastation coupled with the number of civilian fatalities give us an idea of what their usage looks like or what it will look like without regulation. In Figure 2 we can see that heavy usage of unmanned reaper drones by the U.S. coupled with ground combat result in between 47,000 to 47,812 civilian fatalities and millions of displaced people.

While reaper drones are remotely piloted, if LAWS being developed by the U.S. like the AeroVironment Switchblade in Figure 1, which can execute strikes even if communication is severed, fatalities could increase due to unbiased target selection which cannot employ any discernment. Israel, for example has employed the fully automated LANIUS system and has a death toll higher than the U.S. presence in Somalia, Afghanistan, and Yemen combined from 2001 to 2026.

Turkey’s presence in Libya is minor, therefore civilian fatalities is lower comparatively.

Still, examples of LAWS usage include what the UN Panel of Experts on Libya described as “an asymmetrical war of attrition” worsened by Turkish automated weapons like the Kargu-2 which reportedly hunted down and remotely engaged retreating HAF and operated in a “fire, forget and find” capability (United Nations Security Council, 2021). On a much larger scale there is the usage of the Gaza strip as a “laboratory” to test LAWS including a system called “Hasbora” which automatically generates targets at an unfathomable rate and enables the army to run a “mass assassination” according to Israeli intelligence officers (State of Palestine, 2024). Their usage also spurs the unchecked proliferation of LAWS, as companies like Spearauv, which arms Israel with the Viper suicide drone that autonomously locates and engages targets by exploding into them,

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contend that Israel’s 2023 attacks on Gaza accelerated production (American Friends Service Committee, n.d.)

Assessments of asymmetrical conflict on infrastructure and displacement in developing countries indicate that it has short and long-term effects on development and economic growth.

The United Nations estimates that approximately 81% of all structures in the Gaza have been destroyed, largely due to the use of explosive weapons like missiles, bombs, and tanks specifically designed to decimate civilian infrastructure (Humanity and Inclusion, 2023). These large, airdropped munitions with heavy explosive payloads are inaccurate, and ‘smart’ or ‘guided’ bombs could allow for better targeting through automation (Young, 2023). In cases like the Israeli invasion of Gaza where total destruction appears purposeful, there’s no reason to employ automated weapons except to increase the ability to cause destruction rather than discern between an enemy and a civilian. In situations like Turkey and Libya, however, the programmed discernment proved to be faulty. Thus, the usage of LAWS is at worst a lethal weapon of mass destruction, and at best an automated weapon with algorithmic failure that removes the layer of moral responsibility.

Conclusion: The members of IHL have a moral and civic responsibility to uphold the regulations of the IHL, but artificial intelligence does not. While humans are fully capable of committing large scale atrocities, the unchecked development of weapons of mass destruction puts civilians in a deadly position. Although many advocating countries dispute the complete prohibition of these types of weapons, the fact that most countries who voted to completely ban the usage of LAWS were lowincome countries is not a coincidence. Their vote is cemented in years of underdevelopment, oppression, and violence often at the hands of the same countries fighting to continue the usage of lethally automated weapons systems.

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Works Cited: Automated Decision Research. (2022, September 2). State positions | Automated Decision Research. https://automatedresearch.org/state-positions/ Beehner, L., & Collins, L. (2019). Can volunteer forces deter great power war? Evidence from the Baltics. Journal of Strategic Security, 12(4), 50–68. https://doi.org/10.5038/19440472.12.4.1747 Civilians killed & displaced. (2025, June 7). Costs of War | Brown University. https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/costs/human/civilians-killed-displaced Clark, J. (2023, November 2). DOD releases AI adoption strategy. U.S. Department of War. https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3578219/dod-releases-ai-adoption-strategy/ Hague Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land. (1907, October 18). International Committee of the Red Cross. https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/195 Hammad, N., Khafif, M. E., & Hanna, N. (2020). Cost optimization of high-speed railway prestressed box girder bridge. International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology (IJCIET), 11(4). https://doi.org/10.34218/ijciet.11.4.2020.008 Japan. (2024, May 24). Working paper submitted by Japan to the United Nations on emerging technologies in the area of lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS). United Nations. https://docs-library.unoda.org/General_Assembly_First_Committee_-Seventy-Ninth_session_(2024)/78-241-Japan-rev-EN.pdf Mulligan, S. P. (2026, February 23). The law of war and the Russian invasion of Ukraine (CRS Report No. LSB10710). Congressional Research Service. https://www.congress.gov/crsproduct/LSB10710 Peri, D. (2024, January 10). Autonomous systems becoming preferred choice in Order of Battle for nations across the globe: Navy Chief. The Hindu. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/navy-chief-formally-receives-drishti-10-long-endurance-uav-from-adani-defencein-hyderabad/article67726088.ece Republic of Estonia Ministry of Defence. (2025). Defence artificial intelligence strategy for Estonia. https://kaitseministeerium.ee/sites/default/files/defence_artificial_intelligence_strategy_for_estonia.pdf Sayler, K. M. (2026, February 24). Defense primer: U.S. policy on lethal autonomous weapon systems (CRS Report No. IF11150). Congressional Research Service. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11150 State of Palestine. (2024, May 24). Submissionby the State of Palestineonautonomousweapons systemssubmittedbytheStateofPalestine to theUN Secretary-Generalpursuantto

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resolution 78/241 adopted by the General Assembly on 22 December 2023. United Nations. https://docs-library.unoda.org/General_Assembly_First_Committee_-SeventyNinth_session_(2024)/78-241-State_of_Palestine-EN.pdf UN: Start talks on treaty to ban ‘Killer robots.’ (2025, May 23). Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/05/21/un-start-talks-treaty-ban-killer-robots United Nations Security Council. (2021, March 8). Letterdated8March2021fromthePanelof Experts on Libya established pursuant to resolution 1973 (2011) addressed to the President of the Security Council (S/2021/229). https://undocs.org/S/2021/229

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WINCATE MUKAMI

EDITOR Amb. Bonnie Jenkins

Wincate Mukami is a highly organized communication professional specializing in media development, stakeholder coordination and event management. With experience in project management, content development and customer relations, she is adept at fostering partnerships and driving impactful media initiatives. Her strong writing and editing skills combined with proficiency in various communication technologies enable her to produce compelling content and effective reports that resonate with diverse audiences. Driven by intellectual curiosity and a commitment to addressing key issues in communication and media, she continuously seeks out new knowledge and innovative approaches to enhance her professional practice. Whether coordinating with stakeholders, managing high-profile events or developing impactful content, her goal is to contribute to the success and growth of the organization she works for.

w.muriithi@unesco.go.ke 170

Weaponizing gender in electoral politics; disinformation against women politicians as a security threat in Kenya.

Author: Wincate Mukami Editor: Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins Institution: Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation Research Paper

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ABSTRACT This paper explores how gendered disinformation targeting women politicians in Kenya is both a political weapon and an emerging security threat. By looking into secondary research such as policy reports, academic literature and social media listening analyses, the paper examines how well coordinated online attacks against women weaponize the already existing gender stereotypes to undermine their credibility, competence and political legitimacy in a male dominated landscape. The findings highlight patterns of sexualised narratives, morality, body shaming and emotions of few prominent women politicians. Most of the attacks tend to shift the focus away from policy debates and toward profiling the women by reinforcing the already existing patriarchal norms that have placed profiled women as mere caregivers. The paper clearly argues that gendered disinformation, as a security issue, threatens the women as well as electoral integrity and democratic participation. It further calls for a multistakeholder approach response on content moderation reforms and digital governance.

INTRODUCTION Kenya’s digital transformation continues to gain momentum, with the latest Sector Statistics Report by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) revealing a remarkable increase in the uptake of mobile, broadband, and digital services. The report further indicates that as of June 2025 Smartphone penetration reached 83.5 per cent (Communications Authority of Kenya report 2024/2025).

According

to

a

proprietary

analysis

conducted

by Kepios,there

were 18.4 million active social media user identities in Kenya in October 2025.

Social media platforms have long been acknowledged as a platform of representation for diverse sections of society including marginalized groups and communities. These spaces offer platforms for women politicians to express their views and reach their audiences. On the flipside, these same

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platforms have exacerbated the patriarchal silencing of women that happens offline. Social media platforms

namely;

Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram,

Telegram,

TikTok and YouTube have emerged as spaces of targeted attacks against women with the rise of gendered and sexualised disinformation campaigns. Gendered and sexualised disinformation can be defined as, “a subset of online gendered abuse that uses false or misleading gender and sexbased narratives against women, often with some degree of coordination, aimed at deterring women from participating in the public sphere. This type of harassment is planned and set in motion intentionally with the aim of silencing women ((Boberg, Citation2021).

According to (Tshuma et al), women are not only targeted for their gender and sexuality, but also for their professional capabilities and credibility. Women politicians tend to face gendered attacks with an aim of undermining their professional capability, competence and credibility mainly leading to a pivot from their campaign agendas and manifestos, shifting the focus to their personal lives. These attacks often demean their roles, profiling them as caregivers, domestic workers, and emphasizing their looks instead of pursuing politics. These attacks clearly highlight misogynistic comments that reinforce gender stereotypes with the goal of silencing women and discouraging their participation in public life.

According to (Kimeu, 2023), misogynistic discourse is increasingly prevalent in the expanding Kenyan manosphere, which has been defined as "a loosely connected network of websites and social media platforms that promote misogyny online.” This in many instances involves the portrayal of female political candidates through patriarchal perspectives (Kishwar et al., 2024), which corroborates (Nyabola, 2018,0.266) statement of male dominance in Kenyan politics (as cited in Too Aggressive or Slay queens 2026).

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Gendered disinformation constitutes a very broad security concern, however, in most instances it is dismissed as online harassment. These well-coordinated attacks discourage women from political participation, distort electoral discourse and amplify polarisation. In Kenya, where electoral environments are competitive, social media attacks always exacerbate into offline attacks leading to risks such as personal safety and political instability.

It is for this reason that this paper seeks to examine gendered disinformation targeting women politicians in Kenya as a political weapon and a security threat, and also weakens democratic processes in a male dominated political landscape.

LITERATURE REVIEW Women have made significant inroads into politics in recent years, but in many parts of the world, their increased engagement has spurred attacks, intimidation, and harassment intended to deter their participation (Krook Mona Lena, 2020). Lena posits that violence against women in politics is not simply a gendered extension of existing definitions of political violence privileging physical aggressions against rivals. Rather, it is a distinct phenomenon involving a broad range of harms to attack and undermine women as political actors. Blatnik (2022), posits that disinformation is gendered if it targets women on the basis of their identity as women. Research shows at least one of two contrasting approaches is usually taken when it comes to online attacks on women politicians. First, there is the presentation of women leaders as enemies and, secondly, as victims without agency, In doing so, rather than directly attacking the policy decisions women make, as is the case with male politicians, gender stereotypical characteristics (like being emotional or polite) and physical appearance are used instead to challenge female politicians. Such disinformation may come in different forms, from harmful graphics to conspiracy theories.

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Barry Buzan posits that the understanding of security should be broadened beyond its traditional scope whereby an issue becomes a security threat in the event it is coined existential (Buzan et al., 1998). In that respect, gendered disinformation particularly against women politicians tends to also threaten electoral integrity, women’s political participation, and democratic integrity which are also security concerns.According to the U.N Human Rights Council, the erosion of women’s human rights “is a litmus test for the human rights standards of the whole of society,” and this tech-enabled backlash against women’s rights has broader ramifications including threatening democratic integrity, social cohesion and global peace and security (Di Meco & Wilfore, 2021) METHODOLOGY I will rely heavily on desktop, also known secondary research or library research, as my preferred method of gathering information and insights. This research will provide a solid analysis and synthesis of existing data and sources as opposed to conducting primary data collection through fieldwork or surveys. I have scoured through journal articles, published reports, studies, newspaper articles and videos and other publicly available materials to extract valuable knowledge and make informed decisions.

Findings In my findings, I highlight some of the key women politicians in Kenya who have time and again experienced gendered disinformation based on their physical appearance, spanning around sexualised comments, hate speech, morality, body shaming, claims of incompetence, and profiling based on gender roles. (Nendo)conducted a social media listening research on some of the sentiments women in leadership positions experience that uncovers a list of attacks from the online social media space. These politicians include Martha Karua, Esther Passaris, Aisha Jumwa and Millicent Omanga.

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Esther Passaris is one of the main victims of attacks through news headlines, political commentators and social media. Users consistently oversexualize her body with suggestive sexual comments. Some comments regarding Martha Karua portray her as rigid, difficult to work with, and egotistical. Aisha Jumwa is criticised for not being “feminine” enough while Milicent Omanga is oversexualised for being curvaceous and dancing in political gatherings. (Nendo) Based on these few examples as outlined in the report, there are patterns of gendered disinformation that targets women politicians in Kenya based on sexuality, morals, their physical appearance, emotions and competency, all whose main aim is to silence the women in a patriarchal dominated political battle ground (Nendo).

DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION In the context of Kenya, the 2010 constitution stipulates that no gender should make up more than two-thirds of the members of any public body. However, despite this constitutional mandate, the representation of women in leadership remains alarmingly low. As of 2023, women held only 22.5% of the seats in the National Assembly, even though they represent over half of Kenya’s population. (Eva-Maria Okot 2025). Eva further highlights that there are several barriers that prevent women from accessing leadership positions in governance, namely structural and institutional, socio-cultural, political and economic, as well as systemic barriers. Deep-rooted socio-cultural and gender stereotypes have inherently perceived leadership to be masculine.

During the colonial period, the British administration systematically appointed only male chiefs, thereby institutionalizing patriarchal governance structures and excluding women from formal leadership. These norms have therefore entrenched leadership to be seen as a male role.

Additionally, religious bodies, patriarchal family systems, and clan-based structures still continue to uphold male leadership as the norm.

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With the proliferation of social media platforms, these stereotypes are amplified with women who manage to rise into leadership positions being subjected to disproportionate scrutiny whereby the media often focuses on their personal lives, diminish their professional credibility, and subtly undermine their authority leading to online coordinated attacks. Disinformation campaigns against women politicians weaponize gender stereotypes by targeting the women’s morality, physical appearance, motherhood and sexuality subsequently undermining their competence in leadership roles.

These attacks and online facilitated gender-based violence against female politicians in Kenya are very prevalent. It is evident that gendered disinformation against women politicians in Kenya is not just online harassment but a deliberate strategy that weaponizes the already existing patriarchal norms to censor women and weaken the democratic process. Looking at these coordinated attacks from a security lens, we clearly see how they threaten democratic legitimacy and electoral integrity especially in already polarised electoral contexts well amplified by highly fragmented and digitally polarized social media platforms. Gendered disinformation must be identified as a democratic governance issue and a nontraditional security threat that requires urgent intervention.

To address gendered disinformation, Kenya requires a multistakeholder approach. Violence against women in politics is a systematic strategy that undermines their democratic participation and political legitimacy (Krook, 2020). From a security lens, any threat to democratic order is a security threat (Buzan et al., 1998). UNESCO in its guidelines for the governance of digital platforms further advocates for localised content moderation and multistakeholder approach with relevant stakeholders (UNESCO,2023). Therefore, recognising gendered disinformation in this framework, is imperative in protecting electoral integrity in Kenya particularly as the country prepares for the 2027 general elections.

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REFERENCES 1. Ana Blatnik (2022). https://wiisglobal.org/an-overlooked-threat-to-democracy-gendereddisinformation-about-female-politicians/ 2. Emma Lygnerud Boberg. (Blog, 2021) Digital misogyny: Why gendered disinformation undermines democracy | IMS 3. Full article: social media and gendered disinformation: the double-edged sword for women journalists 4. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2026 kenya#:~:text=Internet%20use%20in%20Kenya%20in,from%20numerous%20reputable %20sources%2C%20including 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-55587-784-2 https://www.academia.edu/39047709/Buzan_Waever_and_De_Wilde_1998_Security_A_ New_Framework_For_Analysis#outer_page_6 6. https://www.ca.go.ke/sites/default/files/202509/Sector%20Statistics%20Report%20Q4% 202024-2025_1.pdf 7. Jamil, S., Çoban, B., & Appiah-Adjei, G. (2025). Social media and gendered disinformation: the double-edged sword for women journalists. Media Asia, 52(4), 539– 546. https://doi.org/10.1080/01296612.2025.2564860 8. Mona

Lena

Krook.

Violence

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https://academic.oup.com/book/36672 9. Nicola Davies-Laubscher, Dani Madrid-Morales & Herman Wasserman (2026) ‘Too aggressive’ or ‘slay queens’: gendered attacks, threats and disinformation in Kenyan elections, The Round Table, 115:1, 44-57, DOI: 10.1080/00358533.2025.2588589

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10. Nyabola, N. (2018). Digital democracy, analogue politics: How the internet era is transforming Kenya. Zed Books.

11. Public, M. Buzan, Waever and De Wilde 1998 Security - A New Framework For Analysis. 12.

Public, M. Buzan, Waever and De Wilde 1998 Security - A New Framework For Analysis. 13.

Social Listening Analysis of Online Gender Disinformation. https://she-persisted.org/wpcontent/uploads/2022/11/NENDO-Social-Listening-Analysis-Gender-Disinfo-Kenya.pdf 14. The Polarization Footprint (part 2) | by Build Up | Medium 15. UNESCO. (2023). Guidelines for the governance of digital platforms. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. https://www.unesco.org/en/internettrust/guidelines 16. Lucina Di Meco and Kristina Wilfore March 8, 2021. Gendered disinformation is a national security problem

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ZOYA GHEISAR

EDITOR Aysha Fida Mohammed

Zoya Gheisar (She/Her) is a proud Seattleite and graduate of Denison University, with a double major in history and data analytics, concentration in political science, and minor in Spanish. She is passionate about how data can be used to create more effective and equitable policy. For the past two years, she lived in Bogota, Colombia as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant.

gheisarzoya@gmail.com 180

Migrants and Displaced People as Stakeholders and Participants in Peace Processes

Zoya A.Gheisar

Women of Color Advancing Peace,Security, and Conflict Transformation March 9, 2026

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Abstract Internally displaced people (IDPs) have long been viewed as passive players in peace processes and are typically excluded from peacebuilding efforts. This paper examines how IDPs are uniquely equipped by their lived experiences to participate in peacebuilding initiatives, and how inclusive peacebuilding can support durable solutions to displacement. Focusing on the case of Colombia, which has one of the largest IDP populations in the world, there is a clear model for how IDPs can participate in peacebuilding.

Introduction The existence of forcibly displaced people is a living testament to the effects of conflict.

Agreements like the Dayton Peace Accords recognize that the right of refugees and IDPs to return to their homes safely after conflict is fundamental to peace (Annex 7, 1995). Yet, while the lives of IDPs and refugees are defined by conflict, they are often held as passive bystanders to the resolution of the very conflicts that have shaped their experience. However, the paradigm of how refugees and IDPs participate in peacebuilding is shifting. Increasingly, programs are being designed to utilize the unique experience and skillset refugees and IDPs have from their lived experience in conflict resolution. Peace initiatives incorporating IDPs and refugees fortify the peace process, while simultaneously preventing further displacement and supporting durable solutions to forced displacement.

Colombia offers a compelling case for how IDPs can be incorporated into peacebuilding.

There are over 7 million Colombians who have been displaced by conflict living within the country (Avril, 2025). The impacts of displacement dynamics are far reaching; for example, from 1985 to 2019, it is estimated that 16% of the Colombian population was displaced by conflict (Prada Ramírez & Murphy, 2025, p. 47). The country has taken an innovative approach for incorporating IDPs into its peace process.

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Literature Review Reflecting the peace processes they study, peacebuilding and conflict transformation scholarship has historically centered privileged and powerful actors. Yet, as innovative inclusive approaches to peacebuilding are being introduced and implemented around the world, scholars are also increasingly considering the participatory potential of groups that have been marginalized in these processes. One group that has received significant attention is forcibly displaced people, a group that encompasses IDPs and refugees.

Scholars generally acknowledge that displaced people have long been sidelined in peace processes, often perceived as “passive recipients of outcomes” from peace agreements negotiated by elites, rather than autonomous individuals who have the capacity to make significant and valuable contributions to peacebuilding (Jacobsen et al., 2008, p. 313). However, at the end of the twentieth century, the way conflicts were resolved and negotiated shifted, and with that, the role of displaced people in negotiations. For the majority of modern history, conflicts had been settled via violence and force. Even during most of the twentieth century, only one-in-five conflicts were settled in peace talks (Sisk, 2001). However, in the last decades of the twentieth century this changed cataclysmically: from 1990 to 2000, nearly half of armed conflicts ended with negotiated peace agreements (Sisk, 2001). It was the context of this shift in conflict resolution that permitted displaced people to take on a new role in peace negotiations, increasing academic interest in the potential of these new players.

In this new era, Refugees and IDPs have engaged in peacebuilding in diverse manners around the world, both in their new communities and homelands. For example, in independence referendum held in Eritrea in 1993, which concluded Eritrea’s 30-year war for sovereignty from Ethiopia, approximately 300,000 members of the Eritrean diaspora voted, compromising nearly 30% of the electorate, demonstrating the power of displaced people to help their nations progress

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beyond conflict, even when overseas (Janmyr, n.d.). Diasporas have also worked to fill critical gaps in resources essential for stability in their homelands, as was the case when exiled Syrian professors established the Free Syrian University for Syrian refugee youth in Turkey, with the aim of educating future generations who hope to support a country of peace and justice (Janmyr, n.d.). Colombia has pioneered “citizen-based peacemaking” which refers to organized initiatives

by IDPs to stop military activity in their territories (Jacobsen et al., 2008, p. 321).

Methodology Focusing on the example of Colombia, this paper will examine case studies and community-level research examining how displaced people have participated in peace processes in the country and how they have been able to uniquely contribute through programs established by the 2011 Victims Law. Particularly Victim Participation Tables, which ensure displaced people are given a voice in policy and recieve resources and reparations. This paper uses this evidence to consider how such programs support durable solutions for displacement, including permitting displaced people to return to their original territories and integrating them into their new communities.

Results Colombia is a highly centralized country, where resources have historically been concentrated in the capital. For this reason, during the over 50 years of armed conflict preceding the agreements, impacts were felt disproportionately in rural areas and small towns, and among Indigenous and Black Colombians. Frequently, these populations were forced by conflict to flee their communities to urban centers, where many lived in under-resourced neighborhoods and

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informal settlements. However, despite being the most impacted by conflict, their marginalized identities often resulted in their voices and experiences being erased in law and policy.

The Victims Law of 2011 was established to give reparations to victims of the conflict and was the first Colombian law to be defined as a transitional justice mechanism (MonroySantander et al., 19). The law recognizes Colombia’s immense population of IDPs as victims of the conflict, which is critical for understanding how this law facilitates IDPs’ participation in peacebuilding. The Victims Law implemented the creation of a registry of victims, processes for their stolen lands to be returned, and programs to ensure victims are centered in peace negotiations. In fact, delegations of victims of government, paramilitary, and guerilla violence were invited to participate in the peace negotiations that began in 2012 and ultimately culminated in the 2016 Peace Agreement (Siegfried).

The 2011 law also enacted the Victim Participation Tables, which have been a critical instrument through which IDPs can influence the peace process in Colombia. Victim Participation Tables occur at local and national levels in Colombia, resulting in victims being represented at multiple levels of government policy negotiations related to the conflict and its impacts (Unidad para la Victimas). Victims at the local level choose representatives for the departmental level roundtables, who then choose representatives for the national level. Notably, the national Victim Participation Tables include victims of the conflict living abroad, incorporating the perspectives of Colombians who have been forced to live in exile by the conflict (Unidad para la Victimas). These tables also are often organized by identity, like race or sexual orientation, capturing the unique ways identity and conflict intersect.

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Discussion Victim Participation Tables have resulted in a peace process that is more responsive to the needs of IDPs and supports them in creating spaces for community and healing. IDPs connected with people who have similar experiences to them through the Victim Participation Tables, which led them to embark on other shared initiatives together.

A report examining the impacts of Victim Participation Tables organized for women describes how women from the group connected over their shared experiences of sexual violence during the conflict, which led them to start memory quilt projects (Monroy-Santander et al., 42). The memory quilt projects, centered around their experiences with sexual violence, served as an outlet for both political advocacy and healing from trauma. This example shows how Victim Participation tables fortified community organizing already happening among IDPs and other victims, allowing them to build new communities and lives.

Conclusion Colombia’s approach to centering IDPs in their peace process and policy development should be used as a model by other countries navigating conflict negotiations. Their Victim Participation Table model recognizes how IDPs and other victims have a unique perspective which must be considered during conflict resolution, and how structures can be put in place to engage with these communities. Simultaneously, incorporating IDPs in peacebuilding recognizes their right to belong in both their new and original communities, and can facilitate collective healing. Going forward, countries experiencing conflict should prioritize creating programs that promote IDPs’ role in peacebuilding.

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References Office of the High Representative (n.d.). Annex 7. https://www.ohr.int/dayton-peaceagreement/annex-7-2/ Avril, H. (2025, November 3). Colombia: Forced displacement reaches a 10-Year peak.

European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations. https://civil-protectionhumanit arian - aid.ec. europa.eu /new s -s tories /s tori es /c olombia-for ced-dis pl acem ent-re aches 10-year-peak_en Jacobsen, K., Young, H., & Osman, A. (2008). Refugees and IDPs in Peacemaking Processes. In Contemporary Peacemaking Conflict, Peace Processes and Post-war Reconstruction (pp.

313–327). essay, Palgrave Macmillan.

Janmyr, M. (n.d.). Refugees as Contributors to Peace. Global Policy Journal. https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/06/06/2016/refugees-contributors-peace Monroy-Santander, L., Colmenares, L. J., Cortés, L. X., Espitia Perdomo, V., & Otálora Gallego, G. (2022). Colombian victim and survivor leadership and participation in informal transitional justice. Impunity Watch & BSocial. https://www.impunitywatch.org/wpcontent/uploads/2022/11/Final-EN-Colombia_Report-Colombian-victim-and-survivorleadership-and-participation-in-informal-transitional-justice.pdf.

Prada Ramírez, M., & Murphy, E. (2025). The Right to Peace and the Right to Stay: Insights from Approaches to Peace and Migration in Colombia. JournalonMigrationandHuman Security, 13(1), 45–55. https://doi.org/10.1177/23315024241309721

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Siegfried, K. (2016). What Colombia’s peace process can teach the world. The New Humanitarian. https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/2016/07/20/what-colombias-peace-process-can-teach-world.

Sisk, T. (2001). Peacemaking in Civil Wars: Obstacles, Options, and Opportunities. Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/wps/sit02/ Unidad para las Victimas (2019). Paipa will be the scene of the election of the National Victim Participation Board. https://www.unidadvictimas.gov.co/noticias/551382/#:~:t ext=Th e%20end%20res ul t%20is %20tha t,tab l es %20and%201%20N ationa l%20Tabl e).

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CONTACT US Email Address:

pipelinefellowship@wcaps.org Website:

www.wcaps.org

THANK YOU

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