Why mainstreaming gender in mine action?

Key points

 
►    General argument

• Differential impact and different needs: women, girls, boys and men are affected differently by landmines and hence need to be assisted in different ways. Gender influences the exposure to landmines and the risk of becoming a landmine victim, the ability to access medical and psychological services, long term reintegration, and mine risk education and awareness.

►    International framework

There are guidelines and UN documents and resolutions stressing the specific need to implement gender perspectives and considerations in landmine programmes:

• The UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on “Women, Peace and Security” specifically emphasises “the need for all parties to ensure that mine clearance and mine awareness programmes take into account the special needs of women and girls”.

• The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) published a revised version of the Gender Guidelines for Mine Action Programmes in March 2010;

• The UN Department of Disarmament Affairs (DDA) has called attention to the need to take gender perspectives into account in landmine programmes; and

• Both the Beijing Platform for Action in 1995 and the 1998 Commission on the Status of Women highlighted the special concerns of women in mine affected areas.

For more references: Gender in Mine Action - Key references

►    Equality and sustainability

• There is a need for a non-discriminatory mine action. Mine action does not happen in a vacuum. It takes place in a context where there are differences and inequalities between women and men in responsibilities assigned, activities undertaken, access to and control over resources, as well as decision-making opportunities. Consequently, mine action programmes and activities do not necessarily benefit women and men equally and should make sure that they neither sustain nor exacerbate existing inequalities between women and men.

• Equality leads to sustainability. Effective and sustainable mine action is highly dependent on non-discriminatory procedures and practice. A gender perspective should be integrated from the beginning of the planning process, in order to ensure that mine action policies, operations and programmes will benefit everyone. This relies on equal consultation and involvement of women and men amongst stakeholders and beneficiary populations, throughout the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of mine action programmes and activities. It also requires that data disaggregated by sex and age is collected throughout all phases.

• Gender balanced teams are vital for effectiveness and non-discrimination. Gender balanced mine action teams (demining, surveying, community liaison and risk reduction education) mean easier access to the different groups in affected communities. Affected women, girls, boys and men have distinct capabilities, priorities, needs and information. Interacting and consulting with all gender groups with gender balanced teams thus lead to more inclusive and effective mine action activities.

 
►    Different impacts

• In most ERW/landmine affected countries men are much more likely to be caught in a landmine accident (85-90% of landmine victims are boys and men) than women. Women, however, do face other types of vulnerabilities. For instance, due to inequalities in access to health facilities, women might receive less emergency care, which could result in higher fatality rates for females than for males.

• Female survivors might also face a higher risk of being stigmatised, marginalised and even abandoned by their spouses and families because of their disability.

• Women are also very often the indirect victims of a ERW/mine accident to a male relative and bear the consequences in terms of having to care for the injured or provide an income for the family if the victim was the breadwinner.

 
►    Development arguments

• Gender equality is a pre-condition for development. Using Action Aid’s words: “No campaign against poverty can be truly honest if it does not ensure that the rights, voices and choices of women are heard, promoted and protected.” [1]

• There has been a gradual shift in mine action from a focus on quantitative results of square meters cleared to more qualitative aspects, assessing how the clearance is prioritised, who is involved in the process, how cleared land is used, and who - women, girls, boys and men - have access to the cleared land.  This process is commonly referred to as "Linking Mine Action and Development" (LMAD). More information about this can be found on GICHD's website.

• Recognising that mine action does not take place in vacuum, and that it is an integral part of the wider development process, it is vital to approach it from a holistic point of view, where gender is made an integral part of all planning, prioritisation, implementation, and monitoring activities.

Why gender matters within the different sections of mine action

►    Surveying:

• Implementing gender considerations is vital for the accuracy of data collection and for obtaining a comprehensive picture of contamination and priorities for clearance. Females and males hold different information about mine affected areas, due to their ascribed gender roles. Accurate and comprehensive information can only be gathered if women, girls, boys and men are consulted by gender balanced survey teams. In cases where an inclusive approach has been adopted, the result has been a more accurate mapping, and hence more thorough clearing.

 ►    Clearance:

• Clearance is an income-generating employment opportunity that allows women and men to provide a financial security for their families. Preventing women from accessing demining employment opportunities affects the well-being of families and consequently, entire communities.

• Female deminers not only actively take part in improving their communities’ daily living, but also become role models, inspiring other women in the mine affected communities to take up paid positions or engage in local politics, social work or other activities.

 ►    Prioritisation of the land:

• When only males are consulted in the prioritisation process, areas specifically used by females, such as routes to collect water and firewood, risk being left out from the prioritisation process. Women, girls, boys and men therefore need to be consulted to promote inclusiveness, while gaining a holistic and accurate picture of the land use situation.

 ►    Hand-over of the land:

• In contexts where women face discrimination in land ownership, a non-gender sensitive hand-over that doesn’t take into account who has access to the cleared land might put women at risk of losing the right to use the land.

 ►    Access to Mine Risk Education (MRE):

• A fundamental principle underpinning MRE is affected people's rights to receive accurate and timely information about landmine and ERW risks in their environment. To ensure that MRE is non-discriminatory, it's important to make sure that it is accessible to women, girls, boys and men. 
  

 ►    Content of MRE material:

• Women, girls, boys and men have different at-risk behaviour and exposures in relation to landmines. In that respect, MRE material should be tailored according to their vulnerabilities, which relies on a proper gender analysis of their distinct exposure to landmines. 

 ►    Landmine survivors, landmine victims:

• The majority – some 85-90% – of the direct victims (injured or deceased) of landmines are men. Important to remember is that a majority of these injured men live with, or are connected to a woman (wife, sister, daughter, mother, other female family member, friends or neighbours) who will provide care to these direct victims. This situation may have tremendous consequences for women, putting them in an even more vulnerable position.[2]

• The definition of a landmine “victim” includes those – mainly women – living with, depending on and providing care to survivors (mainly men).

 ►    Victim assistance and reintegration:

• Women are less likely to receive medical care and prostheses in societies where resources are limited and controlled by men. The cost of investing time and money in extensive rehabilitation programmes for women or girls may appear to outweigh the perceived benefits.[3]

• In some cultural contexts women face difficulties in receiving adequate health care and rehabilitation as they can only, according to traditions and perceptions, be treated by a same sex medical staff. In areas where there are only few or maybe even no female doctors, women do not receive the health care they need.

• Women and men tend to react differently to rehabilitation, hence the medical response needs to be adjusted according to who is treated. For example, some studies show that men require longer time for rehabilitation after an injury and that they face greater difficulties than women to adjust to the fact that they are living with a disability.

• In terms of social consequences, injured women and men are differently treated after an injury. Whilst injured men are generally supported by their family (including female members) married women are confronted with greater risks of being abandoned, and single women risk being deemed unmarriageable. Abandonment, stigmatisation, isolation and economic deprivation of injured women often lead to extreme poverty[4].

• Women are discriminated against when it comes to income generating activities because they are usually not perceived as being the main economic provider of the family. However, the loss of a male relative or husband has severe economic consequences for women in affected countries. A woman might find herself suddenly becoming the sole provider for her household in a society where some or all forms of employment are forbidden to her, or where she does not have access to safe or fairly paid work. Hence the need to give women priority to reintegration programmes so that they can economically sustain their family.

[1] Action Aid “Women’s rights facts sheet”: www.actionaid.org/assets/pdf/womensrightsfactsheet_a_w.pdf

[2] Examples: Women and girls who have to take care of an injured family member may be hindered from having access to education or undertaking paid employment In traditional patriarchal societies, changes of roles might trigger stigmatisation, isolation, destitution of women. Relying on their wives for a living, men might move from depression to aggression, leading to domestic violence against women. The loss of the husband’s salary in societies where women encounter difficulties to work might lead to extreme poverty and/or prostitution.

[3] ICRC, Landmines and explosive remnants of  war, in Women and War, Feb. 2008, p.16

[4] Unemployment rate for disabled women in developing countries is virtually 100% (WILPF, Women and Cluster Munition)