WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY RESOURCES: LANDMINES
Civil Society and NGO Reports, Papers and Statements | UN Documents | Government Statements and Reports | Books, Journals and Articles

UNIFEM WOMEN,WAR AND PEACE WEB PORTAL: LANDMINES

Civil Society and NGO Reports, Papers and Statements

Women and War
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), May 2008
War and violence today spare no one, but they affect men, women, boys and girls in different ways. Women and girls in war-torn countries are faced with unimaginable risks, threats and challenges. War can mean violence, fear, loss of loved ones, deprivation of livelihood, sexual violence, abandonment, increased responsibility for family members, detention, displacement, physical injury, and sometimes death. It forces women and girls into unfamiliar roles and requires them to strengthen existing coping skills and develop new ones.

Despite all the hardship women endure in armed conflicts, the image of women as helpless victims of war is flawed. Women are playing an increasingly active role in hostilities – whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Many also play a proactive role post-conflict in peacebuilding and social reconstruction.

To read the full report on the major risks and challenges that women and girls face during war, and some of the ICRC's responses, please click HERE

WILPF: Women and Cluster Munitions
Cluster bombs are weapons that consist of one carrier container filled with separate bomblets. A cluster bomb can contain anywhere from 9 to several hundred bomblets. When dropped, the bomb is designed to open mid-air and distribute the bomblets so that they, on impact, will explode and affect an area that can be as wide as several football fields.

Cluster bombs are neither accurate nor reliable. Bomblets often malfunction, and fail to explode on impact. Instead, they lay in wait - like a landmine, but even more volatile - until some unsuspecting person, frequently, a child, disturbs it.

Unexploded cluster munitions continue to kill for decades after conflicts are over. 98 percent of their victims are civilians.

Women and Cluster Munitions. Despite the recognition of the importance of gender in experiences with landmines, little attention has been given to gender in the process to ban cluster munitions.

In order to create a lasting peace and sustainable redevelopment of affected communities, the unique perspectives and needs of all individuals - of women, men, girls and boys - must be recognized and accounted for.

To read the full publication, please click HERE

Gender and Landmines: From Concept to Practice
Swiss Campaign to Ban Landmines, May 2008
Women, men, girls and boys are affected differently by the threat posed by the presence of landmines in their communities. Gender impacts the likelihood of becoming a victim of landmines, accessing medical care, reintegrating into society after being injured, and accessing mine risk education.

This publication will show that when a gender perspective is applied on mine action, all actors generally benefit. It will emphasise how little it takes to gender mainstream, and how gender is doable by small means.

For more information, please click HERE

Launch of the Gender & Mine Action Web-Portal
Swiss Campaign to Ban Landmines
The Swiss Campaign to Ban Landmines is delighted to announce the launch of an Internet portal, dedicated to encouraging and supporting gender mainstreaming in mine action. The portal is both a source of information, and an interactive space for mine action actors and stakeholders to exchange questions, perspectives and experiences.

For more information, please click HERE

The Hidden Impact of Landmines: Why Gender Mainstreaming Matters in Mine Action
Swiss Campaign to Ban Landmines, April 2007
It is true that based on the sheer numbers of those injured or killed, men and boys are the greatest number of mine or explosive remnants of war (ERW) victims. However, whether they themselves or a family member are injured or killed by a mine, or whether their land in or around the community is mined, it is women, and by extension their dependents, who ultimately bear the brunt of the global landmine scourge. This can in turn work against development processes in mine affected territories, and can contribute to the feminisation of poverty.

This article looks at the ways in which gender can determine the impact of mines and ERW as well as the outcomes and successes of operations to combat the mine/ERW scourge. It also considers concrete ways in which women can contribute to mine action. Lastly, the article presents some recent activities within the mine action sector designed to promote gender mainstreaming.

The Effects of Landmines on Women in the Middle East
Mary Ruberry, Mine Action Information Center (MAIC), June 2004
Years of conflict have left the Middle East riddled with landmines and UXO. As a result, national economies have suffered, leaving social and medical infrastructure battered and scarred. As the nurturers and child rearers, women must keep their families going under difficult conditions. Female landmine/UXO casualties make up a markedly lower percentage of victims as compared with males because in most Middle East countries women’s mobility is strictly limited by Muslim law. Yet women bear the burden of mine accidents as they take up support of the family and care for disabled children.

UN Documents

Gender Perspectives on Landmines
Briefing Note 5, Gender Perspectives on Disarmament, UN Department for Disarmament Affairs and the Office of the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues, United Nations Mine Action Documents, March 2001
To date, the international community has paid very little attention to the gender dimensions of landmines. There are numerous rhetorical statements about women and children as innocent victims of landmines, but little documentation, research or analysis. This note provides initial thought on how a gender perspective could be beneficial in looking at landmines.

For the pdf version of the document click here.

Government Statements and Reports

 

Books, Journals and Articles

Cambodian Women Clear Mines
Reuters Foundation, AlertNet, Dec 2003
Sean Sutton of British-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG) visited Cambodia's first all-women mine-clearance team, took these photographs and wrote about the people he met.

Tamil Rebels Training Women in Sri Lanka to Remove Landmines
Landmine Action, July 2003
Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels are now training women to help remove landmines following the 20-year conflict. The Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation, a non-governmental outfit working for the resettlement of displaced Tamils in the Wanni region, has set up 15 teams of de-miners under the Humanitarian Demining Unit. But these are not sufficient to clear the vast area, which is out of bounds to those living there. To overcome the shortage of manpower, the LTTE's demining unit has recruited women to join its ranks.

"Banned" Landmines Still Wreck Lives in Angola
Reuters Foundation, AlertNet, Jan 2001
Officially landmines are a thing of the past. In 1999 an international convention came into force to signal their demise as weapons of war. This article describing how women are affected by landmines in Angola tells a different story.