Women and Militarisation

The region of Indian Occupied Kashmir has been embroiled in an enduring conflict, marked by violence, unrest, and human rights exploitations. However, in recent years, there has been growing international concern over what many experts and observers describe as a genocide unfolding in the region. Genocide is considerd an international crime under international law. The genocide crime against Kashmiri Muslims was started in 1947 when more than 2 lakh Muslims were murdered by cruel army (Hindus and Sikhs) of Maharaja Hari Singh. Numrous international human rights reports stipulate that Indian security forces are violating human rights for decades. Extrajudicial assassinations, arrests, night raids, enforced displacements, burning of houses, sexual violence, rapes, looting and other global crimes of war are commited by Indian military in the disguise of war on terror. After abrogation of Article 370 and 35 A, Kashmir has been placed under siege by over eight lakh Indian security personnel. Political workers, protesters, leaders, human rights supporters, and media persons are stressed and many of such persons have been detained. In fact, Indian government has headed strategy of ethnic cleansing, and demographic change against the Muslim population of occupied Kashmir. Pakistan demands a free plebiscite in Kashmir to decide future of Kashmiri people according to UN resolutions. The majority of the Muslim and non Muslim countries support Pakistan`s stand on Kahmir to resolve the issue according to UN resolutions.UN has approved 18 resolutions over Kashmir dispute but India does not care for any international law. UN has failed to implement approved in Kashmir. India is committing international crime of genocide in occupied Kashmir whereas world seems powerless to prevent it. The research study aims to uncover the grim realism of the ongoing genocide in Indian Occupied Kashmir.

This article examines the relationship between Urdu press and policy issues in Pakistan, where, apart from vibrant electronic media, the press has a lot of importance in shaping public opinions about foreign policy related issues. Analyzing the diversified approaches of press towards [foreign] policy issues, this study is theoretically conducted in the context of elites’ debate over policy issues as thoroughly explained in literature on Indexing theory (Bennett,1990). Coupled with the cover assumptions of Pier Robinson’s Policy-media interaction model (2000), the study evaluates the nature of reporting of the two violent issues including Kashmir conflict (2016), after killing of digitally connected freedom fighter Burhan Wani, and the Yemen conflict (2015) in selected newspapers i.e. Nawa-i Waqt and Express. The findings, mainly, suggest that oppositional or critical coverage was triggered at the time when government was lacking a clear policy line or it [government] failed to domin...

Kashmir, a beautiful valley in northern Pakistan, has been a source of contention between India and Pakistan for many decades. The Kashmiri freedom fighters' unwavering commitment to the right to self-determination has fuelled the two countries' efforts (Pakistan and IOJK) to seek long-term peace in the region through the liberation of the Kashmiris from Indian aggression. This paper focuses on the Kashmiris' never-ending freedom struggle, particularly in light of the murder of Burhan Wani and its ramifications for Pakistan-India relations, which are already strained. The Indian government imposed Article 370 in order to consult credible secondary data, books, journals, research articles, and renowned magazines. Pakistan has long sought an empirically peaceful solution to the region's nuclear threat. It is high time for both neighbouring countries to maintain the Composite Dialogue Process and engage in diplomatic efforts to bring this conflict to a lasting and peaceful conclusion.

Based on original fieldwork in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as research material from other conflict zones, Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War? aims to challenge the recent prominence given to sexual violence, bravely highlighting various problems with isolating sexual violence from other violence in war. The authors invite us to examine our own participation in Western aid efforts which have cast women solely as victims of rape, finds Katherine Williams. Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War? Perceptions, Prescriptions, Problems in the Congo and Beyond. Maria Eriksson Baaz and Maria Stern. Zed Books. May 2013. Find this book: If you're interested-academically or otherwise-in conflict-driven sexual violence then make Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War? a priority read. In conflict situations, 'rape as a weapon of war' is often used as a blanket term to analyse rape. Maria Eriksson Baaz and Maria Stern, of The Nordic Africa Institute, argue that this is something of a misnomer, and attempt to challenge dominant understandings of sexual violence in conflict settings primarily by deconstructing notions of gender, colonial lexicons and militarisation. Eriksson Baaz and Stern claim that the dominant framework surrounding rape in conflict settings has become too universalising. They proceed to unpack this initially by exploring notions of the sexed/gendered body. Is it simply enough to equate all women in conflict settings as victims and all men as perpetrators of sexual violence? The Sexed story, which the authors seek to dispel, extorts the notion that rape is seen as integral to war, as war is enacted and fought by men and men are helpless subjects of their biologically-driven needs (and therefore cannot be held responsible for their actions). According to the Sexed story, war suspends constraints that previously hindered men from being the 'natural' sexual beings there are, or can be (under the right conditions). Therefore, rape in conflict settings appears to be legitimised, and ultimately deemed inevitable. This analysis is nothing new, of course, but it is a pervasive myth that is often lazily backed up by Hobbes's adage that man's state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". However, focusing on rape as a gendered crime, means focusing on how masculinities and femininities act on, impact, influence and provide roles for the Sexed body and how gender works to underwrite, or even produce the act of war rape. With these sex/gender analyses in mind, the authors apply their theoretical understanding to their specific case study of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the apparent 'rape capital of the world'.

This paper explores the nature of conflict-related sexual violence committed by the State Armed Forces (FARDC) in the Democratic Republic of Congo, through the application of the general strain theory. Findings show that sexual violence committed by the FARDC is commonly used as a form of personal catharsis and emotional release from perceived strains, as opposed to resulting from sexual desires or external institutional pressures. Further, the most influential contextual elements present in the local context of the FARDC, and which particularly encourage the propagation of sexual violence, include female FARDC soldiers receiving desired military positions, the centrality of strains to personal notions of masculinity and aspirations, the dismantling of social cohesion through patronage networks, and a lack of behavioural coping options. In turn, these factors reduce the efficiency of non-criminal coping strategies. Hence, interventions aimed at reducing the propagation of conflict-r...

The 73 years old conflict in Kashmir is defined in various ways by India, Pakistan and international authors yet none of the definition is accepted as concrete and final. Pakistan sees Kashmir in terms of an indigenous struggle of Kashmiris for their right of self-determination. It also expresses concern over constant human rights violation in Kashmir. India views Kashmir as an internal conflict and defines the freedom movement of Kashmiris as an insurgency. Kashmiris, the main conflict actor, define their struggle as a freedommovement to gain freedom from Indian governmenttoenjoy socio-political rights and consolidate their distinct identity of 'Kashmiriyat'. For the past 10 years, the violence in Kashmir has taken its most brutal form where the victims are as young as a 3 month old infant and as old as 80 + years. This study attempts to define Kashmir conflict through its technical interpretation under legal framework whether it is a struggle for the right of self-determination, or an insurgency as described by Indian government, if not then wouldthe massive scale of human killings be termed as a genocide.

Apartheid society became deeply militarised between 1972 and 1989. One way for the minority regime to remain in power was to make use of mass-conscription of the young male population. In doing so military power could be projected into southern Africa, maintain control over an illegally occupied Namibia and to bolster police forces during the widespread township unrest from 1985 onward. This article explores this era through an auto-ethnographic lenses.

This paper explores the necessity of understanding contemporary Kashmiri contestations of hegemonic Indian state, media and social media discourses through a media ecology framework. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of Kashmiri usage of social media. Analysis of this usage offers an insight into the ways in which Kashmiris and their allies have been able to offer counter-narratives to Indian state and media narratives which have historically underreported, even silenced, dissenting Kashmiri perspectives. A media ecology framework also conveys a sense of the affective publics as Papacharissi notes, involved in deeply polarized debates regarding the relationship between the Indian nation-state and the region of Kashmir (5). Building on an earlier cultural representation framework, this paper argues for a media ecology framework as a way of understanding evolving polarised discourses in the context of Kashmir as an occupied zone.

Стаття присвячена проблемі домашнього насильства у мілітарних партнерствах, зокрема тих, де обидвоє подругів є військовими і перебувають у зоні воєнного конфлікту. Підкреслено "невидимість", замовчуваність цієї проблеми у суспільному дискурсі наслідків війни.

This study delves upon the case of a local daily newspaper, Kashmir Reader which was banned during the unrest of 2016 for three months by the government without providing any concrete reason. The study looked upon the aspect of the content published by the newspaper before the ban seeking to analyse whether it was appropriate to ban the newspaper or not. A case-study method with a single retrospective case design was adopted. The research technique administered to study the case was content analysis. The aim of this study was to look deeper into the issue and dig out the facts which remained hidden.

During the onslaught of the Islamic caliphate on Kobanî, Syria, media outlets across the globe broadcast pictures of brave and often unveiled Kurdish women fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), a quintessentially male force of destruction. The images of women fighting Islamist male aggressors aroused outrage, admiration, and pity among observers. But had all Kurdish fighters been male or had women fought for ISIS, viewers might have reacted differently. To examine some of the most widely disseminated gendered pictures and videos of the Syrian uprising in the media, this article draws on Mohja Kahf’s three categories, which typify how Muslim women, Arab women, or both are perceived by the Anglophone reading and viewing public: the first is victims; the second, escapees; and the third, pawns of patriarchy and male power. While this typology helps in examining gendered images of the Syrian uprising, it also obscures the socioeconomic realities on the ground.