Why gender-based violence is a security issue?

When we hear the words 'security, security sector', 'security threat', we often think of the military, weapons and war. Or perhaps, for some, these words are associated with repression, control and surveillance. But when we, as humans, think about what it means for us to be safe and secure, probably something along these lines comes up: ‘security encompasses human rights, good governance, access to education and health care and ensuring that each individual has opportunities and choices to fulfil his or her potential.’[i] This is how Kofi Annan[ii] defines security and what the human security framework aims to address. If we understand security as a human-based approach that revolves around fundamental human rights, we will see how deeply gendered the concept is.

In the framework of this study, which was conducted with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Georgia, we interviewed 48 ethnic Azerbaijani and Armenian women from Georgia to understand what security meant for them and what were the main problems they experienced in their everyday lives. We found that ethnic minority women in Georgia experience various security issues related to their gender (gender-based violence, patriarchal malpractices) and ethnicity (language barrier, cultural stereotypes, lack of access to resources and quality education). The combination of these factors results in their dual vulnerability to repression, violence, and discrimination. Thus, ethnic minority women experience additional problems across the main components of the human security framework related to their personal security, economic security, food security, health security, and political security. While all these problems require urgency, this short blog focuses on gender-based violence as one of the most critical security issues affecting women in Georgia.

Women's security is closely connected to their security at home. Violence in the private sphere of the home is a critical security issue that affects individuals and impacts core principles of the human security framework, which revolves around fundamental human rights. Labelling something as a security issue is a powerful tool for mobilizing governments and the public's attention and can play a tremendous role in relocating available resources for a 'common good. What counts as a security issue is ultimately a political decision and determines who is seen worthy of protection and how much resources are allocated to curb the problem.

The respondents' narratives show that gender-based violence is one of the most gendered security issues for ethnic minority women living in Georgia. While high femicide rates and domestic violence remain essential problems for all women, ethnic minority women are particularly vulnerable due to a combination of several factors that will be discussed below.

Even though it's often the most critical issue of survival that women face, whether the security sector considers it a security problem is questionable. When women have limited access to the security discourse, many threats experienced in their everyday lives are ignored. Access to the security discourse is particularly problematic for ethnic minority women who experience a dual vulnerability due to their gender and belonging to a minority ethnic group. The combination of gender-based and ethnic identity-based insecurities exacerbate the detrimental effects of widespread problems in Georgia, making ethnic minority women more vulnerable to human rights abuse and discrimination. The lack of a gender perspective in the mainstream security sector combined with Georgia's ethnopolitical anxieties continuously influences ethnic minority women's security or, perhaps more accurately, their (in)security.

We also found that many ethnic minority women face a “silent security dilemma” - their conditional security often depends on invisibility and silence as a survival strategy. Therefore, speaking up can aggravate the threats they face. Three main factors enforce security as silence, including a lack of information and awareness about domestic violence, cultural stigma and stereotypes, and a perceived lack of institutionalized support and safety nets. One of the respondents shared deeply personal story about her struggles. She also raised a well-grounded and legitimate question: what happens after she goes to the police? The quote below illustrates the daily struggles of domestic violence for women in Georgia:

Society believes that women should keep silent, and if she is beaten, then that's what she deserves. Ethnic Azeri or ethnic Armenian women in our region rarely go to the police, because when she leaves, she must either go to her own parents or… It is dangerous to return to her husband... She has nowhere to go. I would also think about it. What is next, after the police? I also had such cases [of domestic violence] in my family, and I did not contact the police. I did not want to return to my parents' house with my children, and I had nowhere to go on my own. I did not see any support from the state. It was tough for me, so I did not dare to leave. I haven't made up my mind yet, but then we'll see (Marneuli FGD, age group 30 and more).

An important limitation of the state's effort to combat gender-based violence is its disregard of a focus on women subjected to multiple forms of discrimination, including women belonging to ethnic minority groups.[iii] Although the legislative environment has improved in recent years and a number of mechanisms has been developed for combatting gender-based violence, in practice, there are a variety of gaps and these tools are often limited to a formalistic approach, and effective implementation and monitoring is still lacking.[iv] In addition, the measures to eliminate femicides and gender-based violence are primarily reactive and ineffective for prevention.[v],[vi] In order to improve gender equality for all women and girls across Georgia, the state should adopt special measures targeting vulnerable groups of women, develop practical impact assessment tools, and collect statistical data disaggregated by gender and ethnicity, age, and disability status. Making such information publicly available would help to monitor the effective implementation of intersectional gender-mainstreaming policies and help to eradicate gender-based violence.

Furthermore, violence against women is not only women’s everyday problem, but as emerging scholarship argues, it is also a national security issue.[vii],[viii],[ix] According to these studies, the level of gender-based violence better predicts state security and peacefulness than indicators that measure the level of economic development, democracy, or religious identity. Thus, gender equality can be another powerful explanatory factor influencing state security and conflict de-escalation.

Despite some progress, the Georgian security sector has no coherent, intersectional approach to address the security problems of vulnerable groups subjected to multiple forms of discrimination. Representation of more women in traditionally male-dominated institutions such as the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Internal Affairs and State Security Service of Georgia is crucial for incorporating the human-based understanding of security into the everyday practice of the security sector. Diversity and inclusion in policymaking are vital for responsible political leadership and essential for capturing insecurities outside the patriarchal lens. Furthermore, the women, especially ethnic minority women, could play a tremendous role in contributing to sustainable peace in the turbulent region of the South Caucasus through their involvement in formal peace talks and promoting people-to-people dialogue. Therefore, the incorporation of a gender perspective into the security sector and gender mainstreaming of security policy is beneficial not only to the women but for us all.

Author: Eva Modebadze, researcher at WeResearch, visiting fellow at the University of Copenhagen and a doctoral fellow at the Jagiellonian University.

[i] Kofi Annan. ‘Secretary-General Salutes International Workshop on Human Security in Mongolia.’ Two-Day Session in Ulaanbaatar, May 8-10, 2000. Press Release SG/SM/7382. <http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2000/20000508.sgsm7382.doc.html> 08/27/01 [ii] Kofi Annan was a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006 [iii] CEDAW/C/GEO/4-5 Concluding observations on the combined fourth and fifth periodic reports of Georgia, 2014, Par. 16 [iv] Public Defender of Georgia. Review of Georgiaʼs Gender Mainstreaming Obligations and Their Fulfilment Status. Available at: https://www.ombudsman.ge/res/docs/2021031012092124287.pdf [v] Public Defender of Georgia, Femicide Monitoring Report 2019. Available at: https://ombudsman.ge/res/docs/2021061415064797521.pdf [vi]Public Defender of Georgia, Report on Femicide Monitoring. Available at: https://ombudsman.ge/res/docs/2020070314085774956.pdf 2014-2018 [vii] Hudson, V. M., Caprioli, M., Ballif-Spanvill B., McDermott, R. and Emmett, F. C. (2008/2009). The Heart of the Matter: The Security of Women and the Security of States. International Security, 33(3), pp. 7–45. [viii] Hudson, Valerie M. and den Boer A. M. (2012). A Feminist Evolutionary Analysis of the Relationship Between Violence Against and Inequitable Treatment of Women, and Conflict Within and Between Human Collectives, including Nation and States, in Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Violence, Homicide, and War, edited by Todd K., Schackelford, Viviana A. and Weekes-Schackelford. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [ix] Bjarnegård, E., Brounéus, K., and Melander, E. (2017). Honor and political violence: Micro-level findings from a survey in Thailand. Journal of Peace Research, 54(6), 748–761. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343317711241