Involving Men in Ending Violence against Women: Development, Gender and VAW in Times of Conflict 9781138553095, 9781315148427

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Involving Men in Ending Violence against Women

Involving men to stop violence against women is a global trend, with celebrity-­ endorsed campaigns such as HeforShe and White Ribbon being hailed as progress in changing male behaviour. But the question remains: has men’s involvement resulted in positive change, or has it reinforced the belief that women need to be rescued by men? Involving Men in Ending Violence against Women provides a feminist analysis of men’s motivations for joining violence against women’s movement. Through extensive fieldwork in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and East Timor, this innovative title explores the roles men play in violence against women programs. Indeed, while there are growing voices that question male advocacy and activism in the violence against women campaign, this is the first monograph which provides empirical and critical analysis of how men’s feminist involvement is translated into benevolent patriarchy. Seeking to subvert mainstream narratives which accept male activism without questions, this controversial yet enlightening title will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, including postdoctoral researchers, interested in fields such as Gender and Sexualities, Political Science, Feminist Studies, and South East Asian Studies. Joyce Wu is a Research Fellow at the Australian National University, Australia.

Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality Core editorial group: Dr. Kathy Davis (Institute for History and Culture, Utrecht, The Netherlands), Professor Jeff Hearn (managing editor; Örebro University, Sweden; Hanken School of Economics, Finland; University of Huddersfield, UK), Professor Anna G. Jónasdóttir (Örebro University, Sweden), Professor Nina Lykke (managing editor; Linköping University, Sweden), Professor Elżbieta H. Oleksy (University of Łódź, Poland), Dr. Andrea Petö (Central European University, Hungary), Professor Ann Phoenix (Institute of Education, University of London, UK), Professor Chandra Talpade Mohanty (Syracuse University, USA) Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality is committed to the development of new feminist and profeminist perspectives on changing gender relations, with special attention to: • • • • •

• •

Intersections between gender and power differentials based on age, class, dis/abilities, ethnicity, nationality, racialisation, sexuality, violence, and other social divisions. Intersections of societal dimensions and processes of continuity and change: culture, economy, generativity, polity, sexuality, science and technology; Embodiment: intersections of discourse and materiality, and of sex and gender. Transdisciplinarity: intersections of humanities, social sciences, medical, technical and natural sciences. Intersections of different branches of feminist theorizing, including: historical materialist feminisms, postcolonial and anti-­racist feminisms, radical feminisms, sexual difference feminisms, queerfeminisms, cyberfeminisms, posthuman feminisms, critical studies on men and masculinities. A critical analysis of the travelling of ideas, theories and concepts. A politics of location, reflexivity and transnational contextualising that reflects the basis of the Series framed within European diversity and transnational power relations.

For more information about this series please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge­Advances-in-­Feminist-Studies-­and-Intersectionality/book-­series/RAIFSAI

Involving Men in Ending Violence against Women Development, Gender and VAW in Times of Conflict Joyce Wu

First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Joyce Wu The right of Joyce Wu to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-55309-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-14842-7 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

Contents



List of illustrations Acknowledgements List of acronyms and abbreviations

1

Introduction

viii ix xi 1

How I got involved  2 What is ‘violence against women’?  5 How violence against women became a development issue  7 Feminist contributions to understanding and responding to men’s violence against women  10 Men’s role in ending violence against women  12 Men’s responsibility to end violence against women – the ethical argument  14 Men’s interests in ending violence against women – the incentive argument  15 Rationale for the focus on conflict and post-­conflict contexts  18 Business as usual: violence against women during conflict and post-­conflict situations  19 Book structure  20 2

Researching about involving men in anti-­violence against women initiatives in conflict settings Strategies for involving men: framing the recruitment message to increase men’s interests in violence against women programs  25 Going native: using local cultural or religious frameworks to encourage men’s participation in violence against women programs  27 Framing men’s anti-­violence against women initiatives within conflict and post-­conflict situations  28

25

vi   Contents Fieldwork preparation  30 Fieldwork locations and security matters  31 Partnering with host organisations and minimising security risks  33 The rationale for a qualitative research method and feminist perspective analysis  34 Critical self-­reflection as a researcher and outsider  35 Interviewing experiences  36 Conclusion  38 3

From cockfighting to martial arts: the Timor Leste story

39

Violence against women in Timor Leste: the forms and extent of the situation  39 Causes and contributing factors towards violence against women in Timor Leste since 2000  40 Stakeholders and organisations working on anti-­violence against women in Timor Leste  43 Activities and organisations that work with men and boys in violence against women initiatives  44 Reality check: a researcher caught in the troubled waters of aid politics and their own expectations  44 Re-­thinking the research focus  48 Tension between partners and stakeholders and aid politics  49 Impact of the Catholic Church upon gender programs  51 Cultural norms and practices which discriminate against women – observation from Oecussi  53 Violence and culture: case studies of martial art schools and manu futu  55 Case studies of individual men’s activism on gender equality  57 Conclusion  59 4

‘Please tell the world about us’: fieldwork findings from Pakistan Violence against women in Pakistan: extent and current legislation  62 Causes and contributing factors towards violence against women in Pakistan: cultural beliefs and practices  64 Stakeholders and organisations working on violence against women in Pakistan  67 Dilemmas for NGOs ‘doing gender’ in Pakistan and the contradiction of identity politics and values  67

62

Contents   vii Resistor of male dominance or gender-­sensitive patriarchy? A case study from the Humqadam project  71 Case study from Oxfam GB’s We Can campaign  74 Conclusion  88 5

A ‘good and suitable’ Muslim man: fieldwork in Afghanistan

91

Global debates about the women in Afghanistan  91 Violence against women: the context in Afghanistan  92 The challenges for Afghan NGOs and activists working on violence against women  94 Power politics of the aid partnership  98 ‘How to do gender’ in Afghanistan  99 ‘Happy Family, Healthy Community’ project  104 Potential impact on feminist space and gender norms  108 ‘Afghanistan is not ready for men to work on gender’: a case study of an Afghan man’s role as a gender program manager  111 Conclusion  112 6

Conclusion: not a man’s work

114

Which violence and why does it matter?  114 Three-­day workshops will not work: why longer term engagements are better  115 Men as heroes: falling back into the patriarchal narrative  116 Medicalising men’s behaviours and values and the disappearance of the ‘P’ words  118 The men who remain violent  119 ‘We already work with men’: lessons for donors and the international community  119

Annex: research methodology Bibliography Index

122 127 142

Illustrations

Figures 3.1 Poster for the Hapara Violensia Kontra Feto campaign 5.1 Text from the booklet, Understanding the Vital Role of Men in the Family: Good father, happy family, fortunate community 5.2 Illustration from the booklet, Understanding the Vital Role of Men in the Family: Good father, happy family, fortunate community

45 105 106

Maps 2.1 Map of Timor Leste indicating the study area 2.2 Map of Pakistan indicating the study area 2.3 Map of Afghanistan indicating the study area

31 32 33

Table A1.1  Type of interview participants in each country

125

Acknowledgements

No book is an island – the process of research, fieldwork, analysis, and the dreaded stage of writing and revision would not have been possible without the large number of family, friends, and colleagues. Professor Hilary Charlesworth, my PhD thesis supervisor who supported me well above and beyond her duty, and continues to serve as an inspiration of what a feminist academic should be like. Professor Joan Beaumont for her wisdom and tactical advice, especially in fieldwork preparation and analysis. Professor Bob Pease was another thesis adviser who inspired through pushing for a more critical thinking on men’s involvement in Violence against Women (VAW). A student could not have asked for a better thesis panel. My colleagues at the Australian National University (ANU) have been most supportive. I would like to thank the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet) in which I carried out the PhD research. Both Professors John  Braithwaite and Valerie Braithwaite had been most kind and provided helpful advice. I would also like to thank the Gender Institute for hosting some of the seminars and for the lively community of feminist and gender studies researchers. In Crawford School of Public Policy, I would like to thank Professors Kuntala Lahiri-­Dutt and Sharon Bessell for their valuable advice and support. Immense gratitude to the Australian Government Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation for their understanding and support when I needed to take time off and revise the book. In Timor Leste, my thanks to Oxfam Australia for being the host organisation, and for the tremendous support in interview referrals and advice. I would like to especially thank May Miller-­Dawkins for linking me with Oxfam Australia and Great Britain. In both Pakistan and Afghanistan, I am most grateful to Oxfam Great Britain (Oxfam GB) for looking after my security and safety, as well as the thoughtful research and referral advice. The fieldwork component in both countries would not have been possible without Oxfam GB. Special thanks to the We Can campaign in Pakistan for generously sharing their insights and of the worthwhile and challenging tasks of raising awareness and mobilising community to take a stand against violence against women.

x   Acknowledgements I wish to thank the Australian Government for having supported this research through the Endeavour Scholarship, which made the fieldwork possible. I wish to thank the various Non-­Governmental Organisations (NGOs), universities, institutes as well as individual women and men whom I met during the course of my research and writing. I met countless brave women and men who, every day, are helping to transform their society into a better place. Special thanks to Professor Jeff Hearn for his support in making this publication happen – first with his feedback during thesis examination, and then suggestion in publishing. Many thanks to Emily Briggs, Elena Chiu, and others at Routledge for their enthusiasm, sharp editorial eye, and guidance every step of the way. I wish to thank the anonymous reviewer for the thoughtful and pertinent feedback. Sincere thanks to Hannah Riley from Wearset for looking after the manuscript during production stage, and Claire Bradley for the thorough copy-­editing. This book has been critical about men and masculinities, but I have Dr Patrick Kilby to thank for being a loving, patient, and wonderfully supportive colleague and partner. Without his love and backing (including endless cups of tea), none of this would have been possible.

Acronyms and abbreviations

Aasha AAWU ACFID ADB AHRC AMKV

Alliance against Sexual Harassment All Afghan Women’s Union Australian Council for International Development Asian Development Bank Australian Human Rights Commission Asosiasaun Mane Kontra Violensia (Association of Men against Violence) ANU The Australian National University AusAID Australian Agency for International Development CAVR Comissão de Acolhimento, Verdade e Reconciliação de Timor Leste (Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation in Timor Leste) CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women DAWN Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era DFAT Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade DFID United Kingdom’s Department for International Development ECW Educational Training Center for Poor Women and Girls of Afghanistan FDTL Defence Forces of Timor Leste FIR First Incident Reporting FOKUPERS Forum Komunikasi Untuk Perempuan Loro Sae (Communication Forum for Women from the East) FTH Fundasaun Timor Hari’i (Build Timor Foundation) GIZ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (German Federal Enterprise for International Cooperation) HIV/AIDS Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome HRW Human Rights Watch ICG International Crisis Group INGO International Non-­Government Organisation IRC International Rescue Committee JSMP Judicial System Monitoring Programme

xii   Acronyms and abbreviations MORAH MOWA MOWD MSI MSM NATO NCSW NGO OECD OHCHR Oxfam GB PDI PNTL PRADET PRT PSHT RAWA SEPI SIDA SPO SSpS STI SUVAW UN UNAMA UNDAW UNDP UNESCAP UNFPA UNICEF UNIFEM UNiTE UNPOL UNPOPIN UNV USAID VAW VPU WCLRF WHO

Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Hajj Ministry of Women’s Affairs Ministry of Women’s Development Marie Stopes International Men who have sex with men North Atlantic Treaty Organization National Commission on the Status of Women Non-­Governmental Organisation Organisation for Economic Co-­operation and Development Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Oxfam Great Britain Participatory Development Initiatives Police National Timor Leste Psychosocial Recovery and Development in East Timor Provincial Reconstruction Team Persaudaraan Setia Hati Terate (Black Ants) Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan Secretary of State for the Promotion of Equality Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency Strengthening Participatory Organization Missionary Sisters, Servants of the Holy Spirit Sexually transmitted infection Stand Up to Violence against Women United Nations UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan UN Division for the Advancement of Women UN Development Programme United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific UN Population Fund UN Children’s Fund UN Development Fund for Women (now UN Women) UN Secretary-­General’s campaign to end violence against women UN Police UN Population Information Network United Nations Volunteers United States Agency for International Development Violence against Women Vulnerable Persons Unit Women and Children Legal Research Foundation World Health Organization

1 Introduction

A young girl was shot for her determination to study, she survived the injury and is now a Nobel Prize winner, author, and global advocate for girls’ education.1 A former child actor turned into a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador who campaigns persuasively for women’s rights, and for men to support gender equality.2 Another film star became an activist for ending sexual and gender-­based violence during war and conflict, while teaching gender and human rights at a prestigious UK university.3 These are not Hollywood film scripts, but actual people and events, which show how the issue of violence against women, particularly during times of conflict, have gained great relevance in the mainstream society. Indeed, the elimination of violence against women is a serious concern for the international community. The issue of violence against women has been recognised as a form of human rights violation since the adoption of the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women by the UN General Assembly in 1993. Within the international development context, aid programs that address violence against women have traditionally focused on prevention (including community education and awareness) and intervention (through the introduction of laws which criminalise violence against women, and attention to effective police responses) (Merry 2006). But as mentioned earlier, ending violence against women has now attracted global attention with diverse range of supporters joining the cause. In the field of international development, men’s role in preventing violence against women has come a long way. From violent, thuggish wife beaters or shadowy power holders who obstruct women’s rights progress, men are now recognised as potential ‘partners’ or ‘stakeholders’ to achieve change. Even men who have committed violence against women now have a chance to redeem themselves through perpetrator rehabilitation programs. Indeed, there is a keen interest to work with men, on the basis that, ‘[w]hile some men are part of the problem, all men are part of the solution’ (Flood 2008: 10). In addition to the traditional responses of establishing women’s shelters and criminalising domestic violence, ‘working with men’ is now on the lips, and is part of the  agenda of development practitioners, donors, and academics. This can be seen in the involvement of men in prevention of violence against women projects, whether in domestic violence offenders’ rehabilitation programs, or

2   Introduction peer-­educators who work informally to challenge other men’s attitudes and values. Men are beginning to be positioned as enlightened, gender-­sensitive leaders of the community who stand up for equality and the rights of women. Aid programs involving men and boys to stop violence against women have been growing since the late 1990s and are diverse in range (Flood 2004, Pease 2010). There are large-­scale, male role model campaigns such as UNiTE, which is spearheaded by the United Nations (UN) Secretary-­General, and calls for male leaders to take a public stance on the issue of violence against women; savvy media campaigns and awareness-­raising workshops with messages carefully researched and designed especially to reach young men; special evaluation tools to measure the successes of such programs (Pulerwitz and Barker 2008); and large-­scale research on men’s reasons for using violence (Fulu et al. 2013). The common goal of the diverse range of such campaigns and programs is to change men’s attitudes and behaviours, and to encourage them to take action about violence against women in their own community and beyond.

How I got involved The question at the heart of this book is what roles men play in violence against women programs in countries that are in post-­conflict situation, or that are still experiencing conflict and instability. The question was prompted by my work with UN Women.4 In 2008, I came across emerging UN South East Asia regional projects that sought to involve men and boys as advocates against violence against women and to form a network of civil society organisations interested in the same issue.5 Prior to working in the field of international development and aid, my professional background was in domestic violence services and women’s organisations, and my response to violence against women has focused on policy response and service provision. The idea of changing men’s attitudes and behaviours, from seeing violence against women as the norm, to actively rejecting the norm was an exciting prospect. As a feminist who believes that gender inequality is the root cause for violence against women, the call to challenge men’s attitudes and behaviours, as well as enlisting their support, seem to be a logical approach. At the same time, I was doubtful, not about the ideals behind the premise, but about how such programs would be designed and implemented. What groups of men would be targeted? What would be the message? How will men change? If men have changed and become committed activists, how sustainable would it be, especially when aid projects are notorious for their short lifespan, fickle donors, and a tendency to deploy easily simplified concepts such as ‘awareness-­ raising’, ‘empowerment’, and ‘community mobilisation’ (Cornwall, Harrison, and Whitehead 2007)? In particular, with countries that are going through political and social upheavals, and where war and violence are daily realities, how are such programs implemented amidst uncertainties? As I attended meetings and trawled through hefty policy frameworks and briefs outlining a regional UN and Non-­Governmental Organisation (NGO)

Introduction   3 partnership to sensitise men on gender equality, I wondered how far such initiatives might challenge the male beneficiaries. Would it go as far as the painful battles and soul-­searching which the feminist movement underwent (and still struggles with) regarding inequalities between women? Or would the engaging men initiatives assume that the more men signed up, the better the program would be and that the messaging should avoid scaring men off? The keywords I heard during meetings painted men as ‘partners’ and ‘advocates’, and terms such as ‘patriarchy’ or ‘sexism’ were avoided. I had to question (to myself, since uttering such doubts as a junior level bureaucrat would not be a career-­building move) where the ‘women’ were in all of this? Men as ‘partners’ and ‘advocates’ for whom? Most importantly, I questioned whether men’s roles in violence against women programs were as categorically positive as development agencies believed them to be? At the time, there was a limited amount of academic literature that critically assessed the effectiveness of aid programs which involved men in ending violence against women. Promundo, the South American NGO, was often used as an example, illustrating the success of working with young men on behavioural change and shifting from a patriarchal to an equitable understanding of gender relations and sexualities. However, aside from the literature written by its current and former staff, there were no independent appraisals of the program (Paluck et al. 2010, Pulerwitz and Barker 2008). During my efforts to develop a research question for this book, I turned to literature devoted to theories of masculinities, including the need for changing men’s and boys’ beliefs, but these works – while influential in paving the way for the rationale of involving men in violence against women initiatives – were not concerned with the contexts of aid programs and international development (Connell 1995, Greig 2011, Hearn 2004, Pease 1997). Anthologies have been compiled about masculinities and men’s attitudes and behaviours in relation to gender (Cornwall, Edström, and Greig 2011, Kimmel 2005, Ruspini et al. 2011), and these have been useful in showing commonalities and differences in how patriarchy is practised or resisted. But again, these anthologies often fail to address the issue of aid programs that involve men in violence against women campaigns or activism. Organisations such as the UN, Oxfam, The International Center for Research on Women, The Institute of Development Studies, and so on, have become prolific in producing reports, policy documents, and other publications that explore the need to work with men in violence against women programs, but these documents are often prepared for the benefit of donors, policy-­makers, NGOs, and the general public, and are not related to academic research.6 While NGOs themselves have been active in documenting programs, these reports are generally produced for the interest of the donors and the general public, as well as advocating for the NGOs’ own work. As such, they cannot be considered as impartial and independent research findings. There is a risk of generalising – or even mythologising – men’s role in violence against women in development work and publications. In their introduction to the book, Feminisms in Development, Cornwall, Harrison, and Whitehead

4   Introduction (2007: 4) discuss the ways in which development policies and practices have conflated women and gender into myths and assumptions, so that ‘[w]omen appear in these slogans, fables and myths both as abject victims, the passive subjects of development’s rescue, and as splendid heroines, whose unsung virtues and whose contributions to development need to be heeded’. Similarly, men and men’s behaviour concerning violence against women have been reduced into simplistic assumptions by development practices and theories: male behaviour can be changed through the ‘right’ approach; men-­only groups and workshops are the best way to work with men;7 men’s violence against women is a male call for help, because men also suffer from gender inequality (Dolan 2007); if women’s rights are seen as western imperialism, use other ‘entry points’ such as religious leaders or cultural practices to convince the men (UN Population Fund – UNFPA 2014). There are elements of truth in each of these assumptions, as well as exaggerations and misrepresentations. The problem is that in the current climate of international development, where ‘value for money’ is a key consideration (OECD 2012, ACFID 2014), or where aid is judged on a set of ‘performance benchmarks’ to deliver ‘effective and efficient outcomes’ (DFAT 2014), development thinkers and practitioners are tempted to seize on widely held assumptions and myths as they seek to find effective ways of involving men to stop violence against women. While the reliance on myths and assumptions in aid programs may serve as an entry point for community discussion or capturing donor interests (Cornwall, Harrison, and Whitehead 2007), I am unconvinced about its usefulness or sustainability for the longer term goals of gender equality and eliminating violence against women. There are also concerns about the universal applicability of large-­scale aid programs being replicated across different countries. In my own working experience as a domestic violence counsellor in Melbourne, Australia, which was limited to one state, counsellors were faced with complex realities brought about by each client’s cultural diversity and socio-­economic differences, as well as each woman’s unique history and experiences of violence, all of which meant that each case had to be handled differently. If working with individual women at the state level in Australia is complicated, how much more challenging would be violence against women programs which target changing men in different countries? Not to mention the fact that in some countries the government has a poor record of upholding human rights and gender equality, let alone providing social services and effective legal system to support victims and perpetrators of violence against women. While it is often argued that violence against women requires multiple approaches, ranging from the legal to the social, I was curious as to how programs which involve men, fit within the broader political and social framework of each country. Noting the shortage of academic research and publications, as well as the gendered myths surrounding men’s involvement in violence against women programs within the development context, this book is an attempt to understand the complexities of involving men in violence against women programs. The research question of the book is: ‘What are the assumptions in the aid context

Introduction   5 about appropriate roles for men in combatting violence against women?’8 In the following chapter, it will become clear that within the aid context, there are a series of assumptions supported by aid agencies as well as academics about suitable roles for men. Given that men have diverse identities and values in every society, there is a need to understand how these programs translate into practice, and to explore men’s roles in them. In particular, men’s roles and the ways in which men respond to ending violence against women is very different according to each of the interventions that they participate in, be it public awareness and education; men-­only workshops and focus groups; volunteer work; media campaigns; wider policy development; or men as development workers with portfolio on violence against women. Second, because men’s violence against women is context-­specific, how activists, donors, civil society organisations, communities, and academics interpret and respond to violence against women will be different. These factors play critical roles in how violence against women – as well as men’s role in ending it – occur in each country.

What is ‘violence against women’? Defining the term ‘violence against women’ can be a controversial and political act, because how ‘violence’ is defined (physical and/or non-­physical), what types of violence are included/excluded, as well as from whose perspectives (policymaker, or the survivor/victim, or activists working on ending violence against women activists) differs from area to area. A broad definition would seem to have advantage over one which seeks to narrow the scope and forms of violence against women, since it offers more opportunities in terms of research and analysis. However, a term which encompasses a wide range of definitions still requires constant review and update because the forms of violence can change overtime. For instance, with the popularity of social media and fast internet connection, ‘revenge porn’, where the perpetrator uploads onto the internet sexually explicit photos or videos of their ex-­partner, is now more common. Likewise, ‘stealthing’, in which men would secretly remove a condom during intercourse without the partner’s consent, is slowly being recognised as sexual assault.9 These new forms of violence are both a reflection of changes in technology, as well as a demonstration of how contemporary gender norms and inequalities give the perpetrator a sense of entitlement to exact revenge or to have unconsensual, unprotected sex. Therefore, for the term ‘violence against women’ to accurately capture the realities, it must be responsive to the changing contexts. Therefore, this book will adopt the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women’s definition of violence against women as any act of gender-­based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.

6   Introduction In other words, the definition encompasses both physical and non-­physical forms of violence, as well as recognising that such violence is gender-­based and takes place in the public space as well as in the home. The Declaration also includes a list of what are considered as forms of violence against women: a

b

c

Physical, sexual, and psychological violence occurring in the family, including battering, sexual abuse of female children in the household, dowry-­ related violence, marital rape, female genital mutilation, and other traditional practices harmful to women, non-­spousal violence, and violence related to exploitation; Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring within the general community, including rape, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and intimidation at work, in educational institutions and elsewhere, trafficking in women and forced prostitution; Physical, sexual, and psychological violence perpetrated or condoned by the state, wherever it occurs.

The Declaration acknowledges that this listing is not definitive, but it is a useful starting point to consider how violence against women also includes the sexual abuse of female children; practices which are justified in the name of culture or tradition; harassment in the workplace or educational system; and commercial sexual exploitation. There are limitations to the Declaration’s definition. For one, prostitution is regarded only as violence if ‘force’ can be demonstrated. This is problematic because it appears to put the onus on the survivor to provide evidence of ‘force’, when the issue of prostitution is much more complicated. It is also reminiscent of common perceptions about violence against women, in which physical force and brutality are equated with violence rather than the emotional or verbal forms. While it is not within the scope of this book to explore the debate about prostitution, from my experience of working in the gender and development field as well as from the domestic violence sector, the libertarian privileging of ‘individual choice’ combined with a capitalist approach to sexualities and practices (in which there is a market for everything so long as there is a demand) can obscure the complexities of women’s experiences in the sex industry, as well the role of procurers and buyers who are predominantly men. Another limitation is that the Declaration – written in 1993 – did not include forms of violence against women that take place during conflict and post-­ conflict. This is problematic, because feminist researchers and activists have demonstrated that violence against women that takes place during conflict or post-­conflict is specific to the context of conflict and war. For example, in Timor Leste during the Indonesian military occupation, women were held in sexual slavery by the Indonesian military. After the conflict, many women were stigmatised and abandoned by their family. In both Afghanistan and Pakistan, western aid projects and concepts around gender were seen as another form of invasion, thus local feminists were attacked, either through threats and/or physical

Introduction   7 violence. In addition, each country’s cultural, socio-­economic, and history of colonialism/invasion also influenced the forms of violence against women. In Pakistan, for example, acid violence was more prevalent in Punjab due to cotton farming and the ease of buying acid (used to process cotton). At the time of my fieldwork, in Afghanistan there was a push to include domestic violence in family law, and this debate was bitterly fought out through competing interpretations of Islam. In Timor Leste, due to the Catholic majority and strong influence of the religion, sexual abuse by the clergy was overlooked by the Church while the survivors were either ignored or ‘compensated’ in exchange for their silence. There was also a complex interaction between forms of violence which took place during conflict and post-­conflict in the form of militarisation of masculinities and the resulting normalisation of violence in the home. As one NGO worker observed in Dili, ‘The father beats the mother, the mother beats the children, and the children kick the dog.’ So how are these complexities interpreted at aid program or project level? How do NGOs, donors, activists, and communities make sense of men’s role either as champions or perpetrators? Most of the programs I came across tried to address the extent to which violence against women is context-­specific and prevalent in their location. However, there was also confusion about domestic violence, which was not seen as a specific form of violence against women, but was equated as violence against women itself. This conflation between terminologies, as well as how violence against women is interpreted, will be explored in this book.

How violence against women became a development issue Violence against women as a development issue did not gain the attention of donors and major aid agencies until the early 1990s, after many years of campaigning by feminists, academics, and civil society organisations. Joachim (2007) has described how Northern and Southern feminists overcame their political differences from the 1970s and worked together to lobby the UN on issues around violence against women.10 One example of global alliance and activism of women’s groups is the International Tribunal on Crimes against Women, held 4–8 March 1976, which was attended by 2,000 women from over 40 countries (Russell 1977: 1). The second wave feminist movement gathered international momentum and in 1975, the UN General Assembly declared 1975 as International Women’s Year. The first World Conference on Women was held in Mexico City in the same year. At the Second UN World Conference on Women in Copenhagen in 1980, among the Resolutions that were adopted, Resolution 5 was on ‘battered women and violence in the family’, making it the first time domestic violence was explicitly addressed at an official UN meeting (UN 1980: 67). In 1986, the UN Branches for the Advancement of Women and Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice of the Centre for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs organised an expert group meeting in Vienna on ‘Violence in the Family with Special Emphasis on Women’. The meeting focused on domestic violence statistics, especially in developing countries (Joachim 2007: 121).

8   Introduction According to the UN Division for the Advancement of Women (UNDAW) (2015), the meeting ‘adopted concrete recommendations with regard to legal reform, police, prosecutor and health sector training, social and resource support for victims’. Despite these global, landmark conferences and meetings, feminists were still struggling for the recognition that violence against women is a development and human rights concern. One of the key reason for this struggle is that while feminists have been documenting case studies of violence against women (Dobash and Dobash 1979, Morgan 1984, Russell 1977), obtaining accurate and reliable data which shows the extent and magnitude of violence against women at the global level was a challenge. First, violence against women is considered a sensitive topic in many countries, thus making researchers and policy-­makers alike reluctant to engage with it (Ellsberg and Heise 2005). Second, when statistics were collected, differences in survey methodology, scope, geographical coverage, and others make comparisons difficult (UN 2014). Third, within a context where violence against women is not criminal offence in many countries, and funding was scarce to conduct research, particularly large-­scale household surveys. Nevertheless, feminists persisted in research and data collection about the prevalence and severity of violence against women, and developed countries such as Australia, Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, and the US, began to conduct national surveys of violence against women in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Walby and Myhill 2001). In time, institutions such as the UN also compiled aggregated global and regional prevalence of violence against women.11 This gradual increase in data on the universality and frequency of violence against women contributed to its recognition as an obstacle to development and a serious human rights abuse. In the 1990s, there was much momentum in the international community to recognise violence against women as both a human rights and development issue. This was achieved through a series of events. In 1992, a General Recommendation of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women stated that ‘[g]ender-­based violence is a form of discrimination that seriously inhibits women’s ability to enjoy rights and freedoms on a basis of equality with men’. Furthermore, it made states responsible for taking action: ‘States parties should take appropriate and effective measures to overcome all forms of gender-­based violence, whether by public or private act’ (Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) General Recommendations Nos 19 and 20, adopted at the Eleventh Session, 1992 (contained in Document A/47/38)). On 20 December 1993, UN General Assembly Resolution 48/104 set out the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. The Resolution stated that violence against women is ‘an obstacle to the achievement of equality, development and peace’, and emphasised the need for ‘a commitment by the international community at large to the elimination of violence against women’. The following year, on 4 March 1994, the UN Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution for ‘integrating the rights of women into the human rights

Introduction   9 mechanisms of the UN and the elimination of violence against women’ and established a mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights – OHCHR 2013). Although the primary roles and responsibilities of the Special Rapporteur are data collection and analysis, as well as making recommendations to states, the work of the Rapporteur consistently brings the issue of violence against women to the attention of international community as well as providing useful information about the forms and extent of violence against women in each country (OHCHR 2009: 53–54). The connection between violence against women and development was made explicit in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. The Beijing Declaration stated: ‘Violence against women is an obstacle to the achievement of the objectives of equality, development and peace’ (UN 1995). It highlighted the need for women and men to be mobilised to ‘overcome violence in all its forms and that effective public measures can be taken to address both the causes and the consequences of violence’ and that ‘[m]en’s groups mobilising against gender violence are necessary allies for change’ (UN 1995). As well as making the connection between development and violence against women, and stating the necessity of involving men, Chapter Four of the Beijing Declaration provided detailed recommendation to the states, civil societies, donors, NGOs, and academics on how to approach violence against women in development policies and programs. While violence against women was being formally recognised as an issue for which the international community was responsible, in the international aid context, there were a growing number of donors, NGOs, and academics who began to articulate the connection between violence against women and development (Jude Howell, interview with author, 15 April 2012). In an editorial of the journal Gender & Development, the editor commented – with a sense of frustration – that ‘[v]iolence against women has only relatively recently been widely acknowledged to be a key issue for development and social policy’ (Sweetman 1998: 4). The editorial urged development organisations to see violence against women as ‘a barrier to development, and integrate this reality into their planning’ and for development practitioners to challenge their own perceptions about violence against women and ‘its legitimacy as an issue’ (Sweetman 1998: 6). On the other hand, Purna Sen (1998) cautioned against policies and practices which treat the issue solely as a barrier to development progress, but argued for support of local organisations with the capacity and means to provide services to women and children who experience violence. The acknowledgement of violence against women as a development issue and emerging interest from development sector in the late 1990s was the result of feminist activism and campaigns throughout the decades. However, feminist influence on the issue was not limited to activism, but also included responses of development academics and practitioners towards men’s violence against women. The following section will look at feminist theories about men’s violence against women and their influence on the development sector.

10   Introduction

Feminist contributions to understanding and responding to men’s violence against women There is a large body of explanations for men’s violence against women, including sociobiological, health, feminist, and anthropological analyses (Fluehr-­ Lobban 1995, Harway and O’Neil 1999, Heise 1998, Smuts 1992, Thornhill and Palmer 2000).12 While it is not the purpose of this book to review each discipline’s understanding of men’s violence against women, it is useful to examine the key theories that influence development policies and programs on the issue. I focus on feminist explanations of men’s violence against women and argue that a feminist understanding of men’s violence against women offers the most historically valid and socially sensitive analysis, and explores the issue from the individual level through to the broader institutional and structural layers. The violence against women movement takes many forms and occurs at different levels: local, national, and international. A general review of the history of feminist activism is useful, as the violence against women movement is part of a broader feminist movement which is now categorised in historic phases: first, second and third wave (Dobash and Dobash 1992). The first wave of feminism is dated back to the nineteenth and early twentieth century which was strongly influenced by theorists including John Stuart Mill and Mary Wollstonecraft. Its primary goal was achieving equality and rights for women (Mill 1989/1869, Wollstonecraft 1985/1792). Suffrage, access to education, employment and pay, as well as domestic violence were some of the key concerns for first wave feminists and their supporters at the time (Krolokke and Sorensen 2006). Second wave feminism (also called women’s liberation) took place during the 1970s. Whereas first wave feminism was criticised as being dominated by white, middle-­class women in Britain and Europe, second wave feminism took place in a wider geographical scale, as it was situated within the global context of human and civil rights movement (Morgan 1984, Russell 1977). The second wave feminist movement provided a space for women to discuss their experiences of gender inequality, as well as a basis for collective action on issues such as employment, health, education, paid and unpaid labour, sexualities, and violence against women (MacKinnon 1989). The current movement, third wave feminism, emerged in the late 1980s and called for feminists to be more critical of their own privileges and how those privileges affect the ways in which feminist theories and practices are constructed (Crenshaw 1989). It is also within the third wave context that the concept of intersectionality was introduced, which required feminists to situate an understanding of gender alongside other social inequalities such as racism, classism, homophobia (White 2000, Mohanty 2013). While all three waves of the feminist movement included violence against women as part of their focus, it was during the second wave that the topic became ‘a widespread, specifically targeted social movement’ in which radical feminists took the forefront of the battle (Dworkin 1988, Murray 2014: n.p.). First, noting the absence of support for victims and survivors, feminists were

Introduction   11 instrumental in demanding states to take action, as well as establishing services such as women’s shelters, crisis hotlines, counselling, self-­defence classes, and public demonstrations such as Reclaim the Night (Summers 1999). Second, the violence against women movement pushed for creation of new laws and legislative reform so that the various types of violence against women (such as sexual harassment, sexual violence, domestic violence, and incest) are criminalised (Copelon 1994, MacKinnon 1989). Lastly, the movement focused on public advocacy and education, gender-­sensitive media coverage, and more controversially, the connection between pornography and sexual violence (Brownmiller 1999). During this period, feminist activism on violence against women occurred in both developing and developed countries, although with context-­specific variations. For example, in Pakistan, Shirkat Gah was formed as a voluntary collective in 1975 to provide information and resources for women. In 1981 it launched the Women’s Action Collective in response to the Zina Ordinance, a harsh Islamic law introduced by the military dictator, Muhammad Zia-­ul-Haq. According to the Ordinance, women found guilty of adultery can be sentenced to death by stoning (Shirkat Gah 2013). The feminist network, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) was founded in 1984, with the focus on women’s living conditions, livelihoods, and violence in developing countries, although its analysis of violence included a broader anti-­imperial and anti-­racist critique of the global capitalist system of exploitation and oppression (Antrobus 2004 and 2015). In addition to making violence against women a social and political movement, another major contribution of feminist analysis and understanding of the issue is through the dimension of power relations, and in particular, gender inequality. Feminists argue that violence against women is about patriarchal power and control. It is both a manifestation of gender inequality as well as a tool to maintain women’s subordinate status in relation to men, and that men’s violence against women is often given legitimacy through social, cultural, and political means (Dobash and Dobash 1979, Edwards 1987, hooks 2000b, Pickup, Williams, and Sweetman 2001). Feminist analyses and theories about men’s violence against women politicise the issue by linking it to the unequal power relations between men and women. Rather than seeing men’s violence against women through one lens (e.g. medical, anthropological, or class/economics), feminists are interested in understanding the multifaceted aspects of violence against women, including gender inequality, and how it contributes to, as well as perpetuates, women’s subordinate status to men in every society (Pickup, Williams, and Sweetman 2001: 19). In addition, what make feminist analysis of violence against women more powerful than other theories and disciplines is that feminists are interested in uncovering and learning from women’s personal experiences, which are used as the basis for feminist theoretical understanding and analysis (MacKinnon 1987, Radford, Kelly, and Hester 1996). Radford, Kelly, and Hester (1996: 20–22) credited feminist theory and practice with creating or redefining words which ‘reflect and record women’s experiences’, as well as prioritising women’s accounts and perceptions of violence against women.

12   Introduction As well as understanding men’s violence against women on an individual level, feminists have been instrumental in analysing the issue from a broader perspective, linking violence against women with other forms of discrimination and abuse experienced by women. This is illustrated by Bunch and Carrillo (1991: 8), who stated that ‘violence against women is not only personal or cultural, it is profoundly political’. Another example is Sylvia Walby’s (1990) theorisation of the six ‘structures of patriarchy’: the state, household, violence, paid labour, sexuality, and culture. Under this patriarchal structure, Walby maintained that violence against women – whether by individual men or the state (including failure to provide legal protection for the victim, or explicitly creating legislation which condones violence against women) – exists as a form of social and political control of women. In framing men’s violence against women within a broader system of patriarchy, Hunnicutt (2009: 555) cautioned against a simplistic approach, arguing instead for nuances of analysis: ‘There are labyrinths of power dynamics in patriarchal systems. Violence against women cannot be understood as a simple formula of “oppressor and oppressed” ’ Hunnicutt (2009: 563) explained that the concept of patriarchal systems is connected with: other systems of domination, and that it must be situated within fields of hierarchy where old dominate young, men dominate women, men dominate men, Whites dominate people of colour, developed nations dominate developing nations, and humans dominate nature. This approach is compatible with another feminist theory and analytical tool – intersectionality – which calls for the need to analyse gender issues from a wide spectrum of lenses, such as class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and so on (hooks 1981, Crenshaw 1989, McCall 2005, Yuval-­Davis 2006).13 Given that feminist understandings of men’s violence against women situate the issue within social and political frameworks, and the responsibility exists at all levels from the individual to the state, it has much to offer for development thinking and practice on violence against women.

Men’s role in ending violence against women Over the past 20 years, the study of men and masculinity has been gaining popularity among both academics and anti-­violence activists. The value of studying men’s role in violence against women includes the recognition that, while historically men have been predominantly the perpetrators of violence and oppression against women and girls, there are also men who are non-­violent and support gender equality. Therefore, it is strategic to recruit men into the feminist movement, and to encourage men to reject and challenge patriarchal values and norms that normalise gender-­based violence and discrimination (Connell 2003, Flood 2004, Greig, Kimmel, and Lang 2000, Hearn 1998, Pease 2008). This is reflected in the growing body of academic research and community projects on issues

Introduction   13 such as male behavioural change (Lang 2003b), domestic violence perpetrator programs (Dobash and Dobash 2000), and Human Immunodeficiency Virus/ Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) prevention (Mills et al. 2012, Dworkin 2012). In the field of development studies around the late 1990s to early 2000s, a literature about men and gender and development was being advanced, including such topics as advocacy for aid programs that focus on male behavioural change and gender equality (Cornwall, Edström, and Greig 2011, Pulerwitz and Barker 2008); analysis of the relationship between men’s violence and ongoing conflict violence in the state (Dolan 2010, Myrttinen 2005); microcredit and men’s violence against women in rural Bangladesh (Karim 2011, Schuler, Hashemi, and Badal 1998); and gender-­sensitisation training with male police in Pakistan (Rashid 2001). While men and masculinity studies and theories have been growing rapidly over the past two decades, there is no consensus on the role of men in the prevention or intervention of violence against women. Men’s involvement in the feminist movement has always been contested. This is because of the ongoing and complex debate of whether feminism is a movement of women or whether men can make a contribution towards it. Feminists such as hooks (2000a) argue that the fight for gender equality should not create further division between men and women, especially when men must also take responsibility to challenge patriarchy. On the other hand, Jeffreys (1990) argues that making feminism a women-­only movement, is a strategic move to support solidarity among women. This argument stems from the historical context of second wave feminism, in which feminists were fighting for resources and spaces for women as a political category (Frye 1983). Even men who are involved in the feminist movement are divided on this topic. For example, Kaufman (2001) and Pease (2010) support men using the pro-­feminist label, and argue that, although men should support feminist ideas and activism, men cannot be feminists as they cannot fully understand women’s experience of gender inequality. On the other hand, there is a trend for young men (and often celebrities) in the western context to call themselves feminists and publicly support gender equality. While feminists and pro-­feminists support these men’s enthusiasm, they also express concern about the men’s knowledge and depth of commitment towards feminism (Blay 2015, Cliffton 2015). In particular, Zeisler (2014: n.p.) argues that the media focus on men who call themselves feminist or pro-­feminist sends a strong conservative message, because ‘by celebrating pronouncements [by male celebrities] that, in most cases, are simply common sense, the media is also reifying the belief that an idea becomes legitimate only when it is voiced by a man’. Therefore, while feminists – particularly those involved in ending violence against women – have cautiously welcomed men’s involvement, debates and tension remain about the extent of men’s participation, as well as the implications for a movement which was formed in response to male dominance and the need for women’s solidarity.

14   Introduction

Men’s responsibility to end violence against women – the ethical argument In this section, I discuss the rationales used by academics and practitioners for why men should be involved in violence against women initiatives. The first rationale is that men have a responsibility to end violence against women, which is the ethical argument. The second rationale is that men have an interest in being involved, which is the incentive argument. The two approaches are not inseparable, and are often used jointly. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, which will also be discussed. For proponents of the ‘male responsibility’ argument, the rationale for men’s involvement in the prevention of violence against women is that, while the majority of men may not be violent, men live in a society where violence against women – as well as structural forms of gender discrimination – exists. By condoning, excusing, or overlooking these oppressions, men who do not use violence are complicit in the continuation of gender inequality, and men can still non-­physically enable and perpetuate violence against women through daily behaviours (Pease 2008). For instance, Flood (2011: 4) urges men to ‘start by “putting their own house in order”. Take responsibility for violent behaviour and attitudes and strive to build non-­violent and respectful relations with the women and girls (and other men and boys) in your life.’ Berkowitz (2004) argues that while violence against women has historically been seen as a women’s issue, such an approach only perpetuates the situation of men not taking responsibility. On the other hand, Pease (2010) proposes an ethical or human rights approach to men’s role in the prevention of violence against women, especially those men who occupy the higher echelons of social hierarchy, and who have a moral imperative to critically examine and give up their privileges. A common theme of the male responsibility argument is the focus on how men’s violence is socially constructed, and the recognition that men have the capacity to individually change these socially constructed behaviours and norms. For instance, at the International Conference on Eradicating Violence against Women and Girls in Berlin, Germany, Lang (2002) observed: ‘Men are taught to use violence, and at times are encouraged to use it. Violence is culturally and politically sanctioned, both implicitly and explicitly in different ways.’ Barker (2003) showed that through participation in Program H (a Brazilian HIV-­ prevention program) workshops in which young men are given activities and discussions about masculinities and gender relations, post-­workshop evaluation showed significant attitude change to gender from the participants. Pease (2008, 2010) called for a deeper analysis of men’s reasons for resisting or supporting behaviour changes which promote gender equality, as well as critically examining men’s structural privileges in societies. In a similar vein, Greig (2011: 223) warned that by ‘engaging men as the primary agents and sites of change’, there is risk of over-­focusing on the individual and failing to acknowledge institutional oppressions, and the need to concentrate on both individual and structural aspects of change.

Introduction   15 There is also a strategic element in framing men’s involvement as a ‘responsibility’, as seen in the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, in which the international community outlined men’s responsibilities towards various issues related to family planning, sexual health, and parenthood (UN Population Information Network – UNPOPIN 1994). Another example is the White Ribbon campaign, a global campaign which enlists men’s support for the elimination of violence against women. While each country has its own campaign operation, the key message is about individual men taking responsibility for their own actions, as well as being proactive in prevention and intervention measures, ranging from challenging sexist values to reporting perpetrators of violence against women (Flood 2011). Similarly, in a report prepared for a UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific workshop, Lang (2003b) argued that men’s roles in preventing violence against women range from changing their behaviour in intimate partner relationships to public involvement in anti-­violence against women activities; this was especially true for those men with a public leadership role. Another example of the rationale’s usage can be seen from UN Secretary-­General Ban Ki-­Moon’s (2009) statement on the UNiTE (a global campaign he is leading to stop violence against women) website: ‘Men have a crucial role to play as fathers, brothers, friends, decision-­makers, and community and opinion leaders, in speaking out against violence against women and girls and ensuring that priority attention is given to the issue.’ The approach of ‘appealing to men’s responsibility to act’ in the prevention of violence against women has also received criticism. For instance, in a paper that traced the history of the White Ribbon campaign in Canada, Spark (1994) argued that the campaign was originally a grassroots movement to commemorate the women killed in the Montreal massacre,14 but became co-­opted by white, elite men who turned the campaign into a publicity exercise with no concrete benefits to victims of violence against women. Another concern in involving men is the risk of ‘instrumentalising men in the interests of women’s rights’ (Morrell and Morrell 2011: 121), and that, for men to have meaningful participation, there is need to understand how the violence is context-­specific and can be ‘an expression of powerlessness and anger’ for marginalised men (Morrell and Morrell 2011: 123). While Spark has different concerns from Morrell and Morrell about men’s involvement in violence against women initiatives, they share a reservation about the motivation for recruiting men and its unintended consequences.

Men’s interests in ending violence against women – the incentive argument The second type of argument that appears in the literature is that engaging men in violence against women is in men’s interests and so acts as an incentive. One of the key challenges for obtaining men’s support is to overcome men’s resistance due to fear of losing their existing status and privileges (Schuler, Hashemi, and Badal 1998, Wyrod 2008, Ruxton 2004). In response to such resistance,

16   Introduction academics and advocates have framed the argument for men’s participation in ending violence against women as being within their interests to do so. For instance, Kimmel (cited in Pease 2002: 169) argued that men’s support for feminism is an issue of justice and equality, but he also contended that, by supporting feminism, men ‘will have better relationships with women and with men. They will feel better about themselves as men if they support the struggle.’ Aside from the benefit of ‘feeling better about themselves’, the male interest argument also highlights the costs of gender inequality and patriarchy to men. This is seen in a 2003 UN report on the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality. The report observed that ‘a majority of men and boys must be persuaded that the benefits under the current gender order … are less valuable than many now think – or that they come at too high a cost’ (UNDAW 2003: 11). Flood, who was a participant in the 2003 UN meeting, further elaborated the argument that men must realise that gender equality brings them both advantages and disadvantages: ‘Many men receive formal and informal benefits from gender inequalities, including material rewards and interpersonal power. At the same time, men also pay significant costs, particularly to their emotional and physical health’ (Flood 2004: 27–28). Similarly, Esplen (2006: 2) observed: ‘Making men more aware of the costs of conventional forms of masculinity, both for themselves and for women and children, is an important step towards challenging gender inequalities.’ However, statements about the costs of conventional masculinity can be overstated when one considers the gains men obtain through patriarchy and inequality. Nevertheless, identifying ways in which men are disadvantaged by patriarchy is a strategic approach, especially in countries where ‘gender’ is seen as a western product and is treated with suspicion. For example, in an Oxfam Great Britain (Oxfam GB) publication about involving men to end gender inequality, a case study of a gender workshop with men in India, a male participant commented on the emotional cost for men in maintaining male dominance (in response to another male participant who voiced his fear of women taking control): ‘ “Think … about how much energy men expend in maintaining power at home – and how much we lose from the damage we do to our personal relationships” ’ (Keating 2004: 54). While there are obvious benefits to the argument of using ‘men’s interests’ as a way to win male support, the key challenges for this approach are two-­fold: first, the assumption that men’s interests are aligned with feminism (Pease 2008); and second, by focusing on how men are marginalised by patriarchy, the discourse can easily shift to ‘men as victims’ (Dowd 2008). According to Pease (2008: 10), caution is required when appealing to men’s support based on their self-­interests, as assumptions should not be made that self-­interest will automatically lead men to participate in anti-­violence against women activism. Furthermore, ‘given men have different interests, it is unclear how these interests will play out’ according to each man’s experiences of privilege and marginalisation, as well as their relationships with women in their lives (Pease 2008: 10). There is also a need to distinguish between men’s patriarchal interests, which are

Introduction   17 ‘unearned privileges’ (Pease 2010), and men’s enlightened self-­interests,15 because the ‘relationship of men to gender equality is not necessarily straightforward or uncontested. When men say they are interested in gender equality, there may be key differences in what is actually meant’ (Hearn 2011: 174). In addition, calling for men’s support through the argument that men are also ‘marginalised’ by gender inequality risks siding with the anti-­feminist, men’s rights movement, which has long been vocal about men’s oppression. Well-­ known gender and development academic, Andrea Cornwall, wrote an online opinion piece in the Guardian on 21 March 2012 where she lamented: It’s not as if boys are having a particularly easy time. Male privilege can become a burden when boys and men are unable to live up to the expectations associated with it … Shifting labour markets leave boys and men shut out of employment opportunities. Boys are failing at school. They’re falling through the cracks. And boys and men whose gender expression or sexual orientation departs from dominant sexual or social norms are all too often subjected to violent abuse and exclusion. Likewise, Esplen (2006: 2) observed that: While men as a group do exercise power over women and other men, at the individual level many men feel powerless. The abundant ways in which men experience coercion in their sexual lives, irrespective of their sexual orientation or identity, suggests that men are not always the ‘winners’. Men may be orphans or refugees, they may be unemployed or homeless; they may be dying of AIDS. While Cornwall and Esplen highlighted men’s gendered vulnerabilities as an entry point to gain their support in gender equality initiatives, an intersectional approach which analyses men’s experiences from various social frameworks, such as class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality, would have a more nuanced analysis rather than representing men as a homogenous group of victims waiting to be rescued from displacement, poverty, or AIDS. Furthermore, analysis of men’s gendered disadvantages should not be considered solely in the context of gender relations with women. White (2000: 40) argues that a focus on men and masculinities from a social and cultural perspective needs to be supported by a critical analysis of men’s power, otherwise ‘the danger of a focus on ‘masculinity/ies’ is the way that its psychological or culturalist focus can mystify the practical nitty gritty of gender relations, and the powers that they express’. Likewise, Dowd (2008: 43) is concerned that if one studies men and marginalisation in isolation from patriarchy and women’s subordination, it can result in relativism: ‘[M]en have as pressing equality issues as women, everyone is oppressed, ignoring the material differences and harms between men and women as a group.’ Acknowledging men’s experiences of marginalisation or powerlessness should not be at the expense of depoliticising or dismissing women’s

18   Introduction experiences of gender-­based subordination (Bhasin 2001, Keating 2004). Just as white, middle-­class feminists from developed countries went through painful dialogue and self-­examination regarding their contribution to inequalities and the misrepresentation of women in developing countries as passive victims, it is crucial for men to take the same step in understanding how they contribute to the problem of gender inequality and men’s violence against women.

Rationale for the focus on conflict and post-­conflict contexts To answer my research question and explore how the diversity of political, cultural and social factors influence and shape men’s roles, I decided to conduct a comparative country analysis of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Timor Leste. These countries were chosen for their long histories of conflict and political instability; their strong patriarchal cultures, which in the case of Pakistan and Timor Leste had, in part, been influenced by colonialism; and their deeply abiding religious beliefs and the use of religion by various interest groups to promote their cause. In the cases of Afghanistan and Pakistan, with ongoing conflicts concerning the aftermath of September 11, there was a confluence of patriarchy, religion, and gender politics (couched within the understanding of culture). The three countries are also all recipients of significant foreign aid, with the presence of international and local NGOs and other civil society entities. At the time of my fieldwork in 2010, Afghanistan was the sixth largest global recipient of official humanitarian aid. In addition to receiving foreign aid vested in the Afghanistan conflict, Pakistan has seen many episodes of severe natural disasters and aid assistance. While Timor Leste was in a post-­conflict phase by 2010, foreign aid was still heavily present. Aid programs that focused on gender and development, including the reduction of violence against women and involvement of men, were present in all three countries, albeit in different stages of progress. Timor Leste had an active, local NGO working on male behavioural change in the capital city and other provinces. Pakistan was in the midst of a national violence against women program funded by Oxfam GB, called ‘We Can End Violence against Women’, which focused on community mobilisation and awareness-­raising. This program was of great interest to me, as there were a great number of men and boys participating voluntarily. In Afghanistan (as well as Pakistan), there were projects that used a gender-­sensitive interpretation of Islam to reach out to the male population about the issue of domestic violence. The methodology I used was a combination of literature review and qualitative research. The literature review was conducted in 2009, prior to six months of fieldwork in Timor Leste, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Two and a half months were spent in Timor Leste and Pakistan respectively, while Afghanistan had a shorter fieldwork time of one month, due to security concerns and the fact that my original plan of visiting rural areas was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. Feminist research methodology was chosen due to its adaptation of various research disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, and development studies. It involves understanding gender relations and inequalities while

Introduction   19 actively challenging the researcher’s own assumptions (Reid 2004: 3). Fieldwork focused on in-­depth interviews with different groups of people, ranging from local women and men who had participated in violence against women programs to local and international NGO workers, local activists and interest groups, and government officials. Every attempt was made to ensure that the different groups of participants were equally represented in each country, with the unfortunate exception of Afghanistan, due to security concerns of conducting fieldwork in local towns and villages. Where possible, interview findings were verified by reports, documents, and interviewing other parties involved in the same program or event. Oxfam Australia and Oxfam GB were the host organisations and were tremendously supportive throughout the fieldwork. Fieldwork funding came from the Australian National University (ANU) and the Australian Government’s Endeavour Awards.

Business as usual: violence against women during conflict and post-­conflict situations Given the fieldwork countries have either transitioned from post-­conflict, or are currently experiencing conflicts in parts of the country, it is important to consider violence against women which takes place during conflict/post-­conflict situations. For decades, feminist researchers and activists have made significant contribution towards our understanding of violence against women during war and post-­conflict. In particular, feminists have focused on military perpetrators of violence against women, partly to highlight women’s experiences and partly due to the historical oversight of gender-­based violations instigated by state and state-­like actors violence. For example, Cynthia Enloe’s ground breaking work on women’s experiences of militarisation focused on how rape and other forms of sexual violence were justified by military policies (Enloe 1983, 1990, 2000, 2007); Catharine MacKinnon, feminist lawyer and academic, made the argument that the mass rape carried out by the Serb military and paramilitary was a gendered weapon of war as well as a form of genocide. Feminist analysis of rape as a weapon of war is also used to highlight the situation of women and girls who experienced sexual violence during conflict in countries such as Bangladesh, the Darfur region of Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Timor Leste. Since the identification of men’s violence against women as a symptom of gender inequality as well as a tool to maintain women’s subordinate status, feminists have been making connections between the acts of violence which takes place during peacetime, and those which are perpetrated during conflict/post-­ conflict situations. First, it is argued that even during peacetime, so-­called ‘domestic violence’, which is assumed to take place in the privacy of family homes, can also take place ‘outside the home, in public places’ (Hearn 2015: 129), and that while there is a temptation to see men’s violence against women as an individual or even health problem, the issue runs deeper into the state and

20   Introduction society, and ‘to reduce and stop men’s violence means considering social context and changing social forms’ (Hearn 2015: 130). Likewise, Kelly (1988) argues that rather than focusing on the extreme cases of abuse, the issue of men’s violence against women need to be analysed as a context within which women and girls live their lives. As such, Kelly used the term ‘continuum’ as an analytical framework, and to encapsulate the forms of men’s violence; the contexts (home, workplace, war/conflict, refugee, state, and so on); and the range of social, political, economic, and individual impacts and consequences of violence against women.16 The concept of continuum was also used by Cynthia Cockburn (2004: 43) to support feminist analysis of how violence against women can take place ‘from the personal to the international, from the home and the back street to the manoeuvres of the tank column and the sortie of the stealth bomber’. Thus, feminist and pro-­feminist understanding of the form and context of men’s violence against women is about the connectivity between the two, as well as how they affect one another, so that an analysis of rape carried out under military order during war, is understood also within the context of women’s status and gender relations within the so-­called peacetime. The influence of these feminist analyses on the international development sector is evident through the sector’s strong interest in the plight of the survivors of sexual violence during conflict, women and children’s safety in refugee camps, and the recognition that men and boys can have experiences as perpetrators as well as victims of sexual and gender-­based violence. Increasingly, there is also a focus on men’s roles in preventing those types of violence. However, such focus on men is still centred around non-­domestic settings, such as in refugee camps, security/military sector reform, as well as gender-­sensitising humanitarian organisations so that their responses and projects take account of women and men’s gender-­specific needs and issues. There is scope, however, to explore violence against women in households and communities in conflict and post-­conflict settings and the role of men in prevention. In exploring this, there are two questions to consider: • •

How does conflict shape men’s attitudes and practices of violence against women in post-­conflict contexts? How do men and women, after having lived through long periods of conflict and violence, or who are still living in those circumstances, make sense of their experiences?

These questions will feed into my main research question about aid sector’s assumptions of men’s roles in combating violence against women.

Book structure This chapter provides an autobiographical background of how I became interested in studying men’s role in ending violence against women, and why the issue of violence against women has commanded global attention. It also offers

Introduction   21 a historical and theoretical background on why men were seen as allies in ending violence against women, and the complexities that conflict and post-­conflict settings pose to activism and program implementation. The following chapter first offers a discussion on key strategies used by the international development community to involve men in work on ending violence against women, as well as the benefits and disadvantages of each strategy. Within the context of conflict and post-­conflict settings, researchers have shown that men’s roles and experiences are more complex than the stereotypical assumptions that all men can be perpetrators of violence (especially sexual and gender-­based). The second half of the chapter shares insights into how fieldwork research in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Timor Leste were planned, as well as how my identity as a Taiwanese-­Australian woman generated different responses from male interview participants. Chapter 3, which is dedicated to the Timor Leste case study, shares firsthand insights into how efforts to engage men in ending violence against women was complicated by donor politics. The result was that despite good ideas and intentions, projects could not reach their maximum potential because of the lack of trust between donors and organisations, and the lack of coordination meant that efforts were scattered. The chapter then focuses on my interview experiences with local men, NGO and UN workers, and domestic violence workers, on their views of the problem of violence against women in the country, and how they view the role of men in bringing it to an end. Further, interviews with local men about masculine identities and how they are shaped by male-­dominated pastimes such as cockfighting and martial arts, and a harrowing account of a 16-year-­old girl escaping from her husband depict a difficult situation in the country in its fight to end violence against women. Chapter 4 focuses on a campaign called ‘We Can End Violence against Women’. ‘We Can’ was supported by the international community, and had a strong male participation in Pakistan. The chapter explores men and women’s motivations for joining the We Can campaign, and how their levels of participation and courses of action were at times constrained by socio-­economic backgrounds, gender, and ethnicity. Because the We Can campaign’s theoretical framework was about individual behavioural change, it was not able to go deeper in challenging the structural oppressions and barriers which perpetuate and result in violence against women and gender norms. Another case study, Humqadam, is a behavioural change program for young men in the working-­class suburb of Rawalpindi. Through group interview, I found that Humqadam was beginning to chip away at the normative masculine ideals and bias that the young men had, but that such behavioural change would require further time and intervention to achieve long-­term changes. In Chapter 5 which explores Afghanistan, carrying out gender and development activities is a sensitive matter, due to the prevailing sentiment (contributed in no small part by the US-­led military occupation in the early 2000s) that gender is a western import. As a result, donors and the international community alike attempt to localise gender equality through a religious framework. However, if done superficially and without strong understanding of the cultural and religious

22   Introduction contexts, such an approach only instrumentalises Islam without meaningful engagement. The case study ‘Happy Family, Healthy Community’ was an illustration of this. My research found that while dialogues among a diverse range of Islamic religious scholars and leaders are critical towards gender-­sensitive interpretation of Islam, it is not the panacea for gender equality. Such a narrow focus would only further marginalise existing women’s NGOs in the country, when their position is already tenuous within a context that is suspicious of women’s rights. The chapter also explores the tension between Afghan women and men who work on gender and development, and the need to view men as supporters rather than leaders in the women’s movement. The concluding chapter offers a series of reflections about the key themes and challenges when involving men to stop violence against women in conflict and post-­conflict settings. In contrast to the current vogue of ‘discovering’ men and their potential to be supporters of gender equality, the research has found that rather than being statically fixed into the roles of saviours or selfless volunteers, men have complex, and at times conflicting reasons to join violence against women initiatives. When working in politically and socially fragile contexts, international community need to challenge their own assumptions as ‘experts’ and engage with women’s NGOs and feminists on the best way to involve men. Earlier I raised the concern that, just as gender and women have their own set of development myths, the idea of involving men in violence against women programs also has its share of assumptions. The ultimate purpose of this book is not to expose myths, which would imply that there is an implicit truth about men’s roles in violence against women programs and how aid programs should ‘effectively’ involve men. Rather, the aim of this research is to provide a comparative analysis of the realities of men’s roles when they participate in violence against women programs, how the contextual factors of conflict and violence affect individual men and women’s decisions and lives, and to add to the growing body of existing literature. It is my hope that a wide audience will find this work useful, whether for theoretical or practical application. 

Notes   1 See Malala Yousafzai’s biographical entry: www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/ laureates/2014/yousafzai-­bio.html.   2 The actress, Emma Watson, who first came to fame for her role in the Harry Potter movie franchise, has been involved in gender equality campaigns since 2014 with the UN Women. See: www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2014/9/emma-­watson-gender-­ equality-is-­your-issue-­too.   3 Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie, who has been working on sexual and gender-­based violence as well as other humanitarian issues for a number of years, is now teaching at the London School of Economics. See www.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/ archives/2016/05/WPS-­Visiting-Professors-­in-Practice.aspx.   4 In 2011, the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) was merged into UN Women.   5 This is now the UN regional joint program, Partners for Prevention.

Introduction   23   6 See, for example, New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse report in 2013, ‘Effectively Involving Men in Preventing Violence against Women’; Institute of Development Studies’ annotated bibliography in 2006, ‘Engaging Men in Gender Equality: Positive strategies and approaches’; and Save the Children Sweden and UNIFEM joint report in 2005, ‘Strategies and Tools for Working with Men and Boys to End Violence against Girls, Boys, Women and Other Men’. These reports focused on ‘how to’ work with men, but provide little evidence of how effective these strategies are.   7 This perspective is not without opposition, as seen by the widespread criticism from both men and women when Iceland and Suriname told leaders at the UN General Assembly on 29 November 2014 they would convene the ‘barbershop’ conference in January, in which men would discuss with other men the issue of gender-­based violence (De Bode 2014).   8 The term ‘role’ is used with diverse meanings in this book, for example, men’s roles in setting up NGOs to address gender inequality and violence against women; men’s roles in violence against women programs as manager, workers, volunteers; men as role model; men’s overall role in ending violence against women; and men’s roles in the broader gender and development theories and practices. This may seem to over extend the meaning of ‘role’. Indeed, in an article which explores the lack of gender analysis of men’s activities, Holmberg and Hearn (2009) noted the need to examine men’s position in relation to gender, gender equality, and feminism. Another possible choice of word is ‘task’, which would imply the duties and responsibilities men have in ending men’s violence against women. However, I have decided to use ‘role’, or more specifically, ‘men’s role’, due to its frequent usage in feminist, pro-­feminist, and gender and development literature when discussing the issue of involving men in gender equality.   9 Noting that victims of revenge porn or stealthing are not limited to women, although based on current reportings it would seem that women are disproportionately affected by them. 10 The defining of feminists as coming from the ‘North’, ‘South’, ‘Third World’, and the ‘West’ has its origin in feminist dialogues about geopolitical power differences. In particular, feminists who identify themselves as ‘Third World’ or ‘Southern’ have critiqued feminists from the ‘North’ or ‘Western’ countries for assuming a global sisterhood without a critical reflection of their own privileges (Mohanty 1993). 11 For example, see the World Health Organization’s (WHO) (2005) ‘Multi-­country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence against Women, and the Violence against Women Prevalence Data: Surveys by Country’ compiled by UN Women since 2011. 12 For example, anthropologists have sought to understand forms of violence against women within the framework of cultural practices (Abu-­Lughold 2002, Fluehr-­ Lobban 1995); a health or medical approach often uses a feminist understanding of the causes of men’s violence against women, but focuses mainly on the issue from a public health policy perspective, which is prevention and intervention (Heise 1998, Fisher 2011); perhaps the most controversial, a sociobiological analysis of men’s violence against women draws on comparative studies between the similarities of human and animal behaviours, and argues that men are violent due to biological factors (Thornhill and Palmer 2000). 13 Intersectionality has been described as both a theory (Ni Aolain and Rooney 2007, McCall 2005) and an analytical tool (MacKinnon 2013, Nash 2008). This is due to the theoretical and applied nature of intersectionality – both as a theory to understand people’s experiences of social categories such as race, class, gender, and sexuality, as well as a practical tool to analyse particular situations of marginalisation (Crenshaw 1989, Mohanty 2013).

24   Introduction 14 The Montreal Massacre (also known as the École Polytechnique Massacre) was the murder of 14 women by Marc Lepine on 6 December 1989. Lepine wrote in his suicide note that the killing was aimed at feminists. In 1991, a group of men in London launched the White Ribbon campaign. The campaign subsequently became a global annual event with broader messages about violence against women and men’s involvement in the prevention of violence against women. 15 A comparison of men’s different interests can be made with what Molyneux (2001) defined as women’s practical interests and women’s strategic interests. Practical interests are those which women are socially conditioned to perceive as their ‘natural’ domain, such as community work, and roles as mothers and carers. The strategic interests are transformative and challenge women’s existing roles and behaviours. Feminists are concerned about the confusion between women’s practical and strategic interests, as the focus on the latter has a tendency to entrench women further within existing social norms and expectations (Molyneux 2001, Moser 1989). 16 Kelly cautioned against viewing the continuum framework as an opportunity to place hierarchies of importance or severity, but rather, to see the continuum as a way of viewing the different experiences and forms of violence as complex and inter-­related.

2 Researching about involving men in anti-­violence against women initiatives in conflict settings

Strategies for involving men: framing the recruitment message to increase men’s interests in violence against women programs In efforts to engage men’s interest and participation in programs about gender equality and violence against women, supporters have called for the use of positive terms when engaging with men, avoiding critical language in order to minimise incidences of men feeling attacked. Kaufman (2003: 11), for instance, warned: ‘Language that leaves males feeling blamed for things they haven’t done, or for things they were taught to do, or guilty for the sins of other men, simply will alienate most boys and men.’ While it would not be wise to start a men’s workshop on violence against women by castigating men and treating them with hostility, Kaufman’s advice depoliticises the purpose of involving men in ending violence against women: to provide men with an opportunity to  critically examine their own roles in contributing to gender inequality and gender-­based violence in order to change their attitudes and behaviours. Kaufman argued that if men and boys feel challenged, it would make them fearful about feminism and that there was a risk of men and boys behaving irrationally as a result: ‘Fear among those to whom society has given disproportionate power and a license to exercise that power is a dangerous thing’ (Kaufman 2003: 11). What is troubling about this statement is that Kaufman seems to imply that by challenging patriarchal privileges, feminists create ‘fear’ among men and boys, who then retaliate against women, which is reminiscent of the ‘she asked for it’ victim-­blaming mentality. Lang (2003a: 16), on the other hand, observed that not all men use violence, nor do all men receive the same privileges as result of gender inequality, and that programs which seek to engage with men should avoid ‘categorically blaming and shaming men, or using normative language not connected to men’s experience of both power and vulnerability’. Esplen (2006: 12) shared Kaufman and Lang’s argument, maintaining that ‘rather than blaming men, we need to engage them with positive messages’. While Lang, Esplen, and Kaufman may regard their arguments as practical advice on how to work with men, nevertheless their messages all avoid holding men responsible for their own actions, as well as reinforcing misogynistic

26   Involving men in anti-violence against women misrepresentations of feminists as shrill harpies who hate and blame men for everything. The ‘positive messages’ used to engage men in violence against women programs can be divided into two categories: appealing to men’s ability and power to create change; and highlighting the benefits gained by men through participation (Pease 2002: 166). Kaufman (2003: 11) endorses the strategy of appealing to men’s ability and power to create change, and to use forms of language which ‘promote a positive responsibility for change among men’. Kaufman (2003: 11) also argues that the aim is to entreat to ‘men’s notion that they are powerful, but we are here subverting the notion of power, from one of domination to the power to care and nurture’. Similarly, Flood (2010: 10) maintains that men ‘with influence and privilege can be powerful advocates for the prevention of violence against women, mobilising resources and garnering institutional support’. Instead of directly challenging men’s power or status in society, Kaufman and Flood argue that it is strategic to harness those powers and privileges for the goal of ending violence against women. As Flood observed (2010: 11): ‘men’s institutional privilege also mean that men involved in anti-­violence work at times have been able to attract levels of support and funding rarely granted to women’.1 However, Flood (2010, Flood et al. 2007) was careful to point out that involving men in violence against women work does not mean there should be an end to women-­only initiatives and programs. The incentive argument is often combined with the recognition that men have an ethical obligation towards gender justice, and that a moral framework should be the basis for involving men, as well as the inclusion of feminist analysis and framework (Flood 2010: 4, Pease 2002: 167, Pease 2008: 15). The second theme in the literature about how to attract men’s interest in violence against women programs focuses on highlighting the benefits gained by men through participation. This is related to the strategy of engaging men in violence against women activism through the incentive-­based argument. If men are more active in participating in violence against women initiatives, it means that everyone will benefit, not just women (Esplen 2006, Ferguson et al. 2004). For instance, Kimmel (cited in Pease 2002: 169) argues that men’s support for feminism is an issue of justice and equality, but he also argues that by supporting feminism, men ‘will have better relationships with women and with men. They will feel better about themselves as men if they support the struggle.’ In addition, Ferguson et al. (2004: 51) argued that by reducing violence against women, it will also free up resources to work on other social issues and ‘assist men to lead fuller lives with their partners and children’. As discussed earlier in this section, the strategy of framing men’s involvement in violence against women programs in positive terms involves minimising men’s feeling of being attacked or threatened by feminism. The incentive-­based argument was also made that men will benefit – formally or informally – from works that challenge gender inequality and violence against women (although the literature examined did not provide evidence of men who have gained such benefits). The next section examines literature which seeks to recruit men through local cultural or religious frameworks.

Involving men in anti-violence against women   27

Going native: using local cultural or religious frameworks to encourage men’s participation in violence against women programs For some NGOs, violence against women programs which seek men’s involvement work with local men to help them to understand the issue of violence against women through local frameworks. In her work on how women’s NGOs around the world campaign for and work on the issue of violence against women, Merry (2006: 1) argues that, in order for human rights framework and discourse to be effective, ‘they need to be translated into local terms and situated within local contexts of power and meaning’. A case study which illustrates Merry’s argument is an Oxfam GB-­funded program that found local men showed resistance to the concepts of ‘gender’ and ‘equality’ because they are perceived as being western constructs that are in opposition to Islam (Elsanousi 2004: 165). To change the men’s attitude, Oxfam GB held a workshop with partner organisations to identify local men’s social identities and values. Among the range of men’s beliefs which were inimical to gender equality, there were also commonalities, such as the notion that ‘[s]ociety dishonours men who mistreat or insult their wives and daughters in public. It is a great shame for a man to batter his wife’ (Elsanousi 2004: 165). With this knowledge, Oxfam GB worked with local and national women’s organisations with messages focused on the idea that ‘women have problems that cannot be resolved without men’s support’. It was found that Yemeni men responded well to the messaging when they realised that women’s issues concerned them as well, and that there was a common goal for both genders to end violence against women (Elsanousi 2004: 171). Strategic compromises were made to use different terminology, and a reliance on religious authority and ideals to increase cooperation. A male human rights activist who was involved in the program described his approach in working with Yemen police on the rights of women and men in detention: Because Yemen is a conservative and religious society my starting point has been to use Islamic codes, then move to national law, and thereafter make links with international Human Rights Conventions. I don’t use the term ‘gender’, which is not accepted in Yemen. It is about absolute equality between women and men, which is not possible in Yemen. We may need to ‘Yemenise’ the gender concept. (Elsanousi 2004: 171) Similarly, in her research on Bangladeshi men’s attitudes about gender issues, Ahmed (2008: 542) identified three categories of Muslim masculinities: ‘high-­ minded (udaar)’, ‘mixed’, and ‘abusive (beshi mare)’. Ahmed (2008: 555–556) goes on to argue that ‘high-­minded’ men are less likely to engage in male-­ dominant behaviours and do not subscribe to a patriarchal interpretation of Islam, while a man with a ‘mixed’ view about gender ‘exists in uneasy compromise with patriarchal Islam’. Based on this analysis, Ahmed (2008: 558–559) suggested that to address gender inequality and domestic violence in Bangladesh,

28   Involving men in anti-violence against women greater understanding was needed about the different types of Muslim masculinities and how they are affected by contextual factors, such as rural versus urban settings, Islam as state religion and as a personal belief, and local perspectives about gender relations and norms. In a discussion about the promotion of women’s human rights and violence against women, Balchin (2010) highlighted the need to work with moderate religious leaders and a gender-­sensitive re-­ interpretation of religious texts. Program H, a Brazilian community education program implemented by Promundo to promote gender equitable behaviours among young men, began by researching local culture and young men’s attitudes and behaviours, and then designed their programs, manuals, and evaluation in relation to the local context (Pulerwitz and Barker 2008). While these examples show the effectiveness of working with local communities from their perspectives and in their languages, Merry (2006: 180) also explained the need for human rights discourse in relation to violence against women, because it provides ‘a radically different frame for thinking about the relations of power and inequality in society’. While it is useful to package human rights into terms that are familiar to the local communities, Merry (2006: 222) cautioned activists and NGOs not to allow human rights to lose its critical and transformative aspects if their goal is to ‘challenge existing assumptions about power relationships’. Although Merry’s work focused on women NGOs and activists, her findings have much relevance for violence against women programs that recruit men through a gender-­sensitive interpretation of local culture or religion. Such programs must strive for a balance between adapting to local context, without avoiding difficult conversations with male participants about power and inequality. While positioning notions about gender equality and violence against women in a local framework may attract more men to be involved, such programs must maintain the feminist goal of challenging patriarchal norms and practices by first challenging men’s own attitudes and behaviours.

Framing men’s anti-­violence against women initiatives within conflict and post-­conflict situations It is clear from this chapter that much of the literature about involving men, or men’s role in ending violence against women, are derived from peacetime contexts. However, what this book argues is that there is a clear continuum between what takes place at home and what happens at the public space. As discussed in Chapter 1, much of the current literature on violence against women, and the broader theme of sexual and gender-­based violence during conflict and post-­ conflict are focused on military or military-­like settings and actors. However, understanding violence against women in the homes, neighbourhoods, or other contexts which are perpetrated by men other than military or military-­like actors are less discussed. This is a concern, because domestic violence does take place regardless of war or peace, and if the international community wishes to involve men in ending it, in both conflict and post-­conflict settings, we must learn more about them.

Involving men in anti-violence against women   29 There have been calls from feminist and gender studies for analysis of men’s violence against women in conflict and post-­conflict settings which seek to identify linkages between men’s behaviour before and after war and conflict. For example, Connell (2003) argued for the need to analyse and make connections between forms of masculinity during war, how gender roles and norms are shaped within institutions that legitimise violence, and the implications that they have for peace-­keeping. Lwambo (2013) examined the challenges of men, who were previously empowered by the hyper-­masculinities of conflict and their role as combatants, and who lash out against gender equality programs in post-­ conflict contexts as they struggle to assert their male authority. Erez et al. (2015) examined the attitudes of Arab men and women on domestic violence intervention from the Israeli police, and how the broader Israel–Palestine conflict affect domestic violence victims’ help seeking behaviour in Arab communities within Israel. On the other hand, using the case study of HIV/AIDS prevention in post-­ conflict Africa, Porter (2013) argues that the roles of men and young men in war are diverse – not just combatants and perpetrators of sexual violence, but also as refugees, civilians, and survivors of sexual violence themselves. Disturbingly, some men use this new space of understanding men and masculinities as an opportunity to attack feminism and women’s rights. In discussing the need for inclusivity in humanitarian response towards sexual and gender-­based violence, Dolan (2014: 500–501) claims that the prioritisation of female victims is a form of discrimination against men, and what is needed is to ‘shift from the pursuit of male–female gender equality to the realisation of gender inclusivity’. Attacks against feminism are nothing new, suffice to say that Dolan can profit from some research on the feminist theory of intersectionality (which is all about inclusiveness), as well as critical reflection about his own position as a privileged white man, and how this call for the end of gender equality sounds to half of the world’s population. The growth of academic interest and literature about men and masculinities challenges the ways that men are viewed within the context of violence against women: men should be seen not only as perpetrators or enablers, but also as allies for change. The combination of violence against women turning into a development issue, and the recognition of men as useful partners in prevention or intervention work contributes to the current trend of involving men in development projects which address violence against women. Both academic and NGO sectors have tried to develop ways to foster men’s interest in gender issues and increase their participation. However, in examining feminist understandings of men’s violence against women and their influence on development thinking and practice, it becomes clear that there is a tendency in development theories and practice to de-­ radicalise the critical voice of feminism. While feminists recognise the need to examine men’s violence against women from the complex analytical lenses of structural, individual, and intersectionality, development agencies and theorists are more reluctant to engage in critical analysis of men’s role in benefiting from and reproducing patriarchal structures. Instead, the focus is on recruiting men,

30   Involving men in anti-violence against women whether by romanticising men’s participation as acts of heroism, or by arguing that activism in violence against women can bring advantages to men. Case studies from development programs also show a trend of NGO staff who are reluctant to challenge men’s patriarchal views or the backlash against feminism. Instead, the focus is on adapting – and in some cases diluting – feminist and pro-­ feminist rationales of working with men – through cultural and social frameworks. This has particular implications within conflict or post-­conflict situations, where typically gender inequality is exacerbated due to the breakdown of infrastructures as well as social cohesion. As such, this book is a feminist exploration of how individual and collective experiences of conflict and post-­conflict affect gender relations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Timor Leste, and in turn, how this shapes the ways in which men understand violence against women.

Fieldwork preparation There is a significant body of feminist writings about conducting fieldwork within developing countries, ranging from instruction manual type of literature (Ellsberg and Heise 2005, WHO 2007), to autobiographical reflections (Eyben 2014, McNevin 2009, Wolf 1996), and accounts of fieldwork experiences which are incorporated as part of research findings (Brondo 2013, Karim 2011). During my pre-­fieldwork preparation and post-­fieldwork reflections, I found this literature to be very helpful in thinking through and making sense of my own experiences. For example, both Eyben (2014) and Karim (2011) wrote at length of their experiences of witnessing gender-­based violence, and their feelings of helplessness to act due to their outsider status; their confusion over the situation and trying to make sense of how to respond; and the dilemma of how their competing roles as feminist, outsider, and impartial researcher contradict, and in Eyben’s case, prohibit action to assist the women. Although I did not happen upon instances of violence against women that took place during my fieldwork, I did encounter cases of sexism encountered by female NGO workers from male colleagues, harassment (made against me), and hearing patriarchal values being expounded during my interviews with one or two participants (of either gender). When these events occurred, I did my best to assist the women, defended myself against harassment, and gently challenged my interview participants, all with varying degrees of success and failure, because I never felt certain what I could and should do. At times I felt that I should be more responsive and challenge the offenders of sexual harassment more. Other times I wondered what would happen if I did, and the offenders escalated their behaviour and nobody came to my assistance. Other fieldwork preparations included meeting with academics, students, and NGO workers who had worked or lived in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Timor Leste. They provided valuable advice on accommodation, travel options in-­ country, regional information for each country, insurance for Afghanistan fieldwork (not covered by the university), as well as referral to potential interview participants and organisations.

Involving men in anti-violence against women   31

Fieldwork locations and security matters Fieldwork was conducted from November 2009 to April 2010, in Timor Leste, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Cities and towns were chosen based on relevant interview subjects, as well as safety advice from Oxfam GB for the latter two countries. In Timor Leste, research was conducted in the capital city, Dili, as well as Pante Macassar, capital city of the western district of Oecussi. In Pakistan, research was initially in the Islamabad Capital Territory, in both the capital city of Islamabad and its adjoining city Rawalpindi, followed by fieldwork in the province of Punjab cities of Lahore, Multan, and Bahawalpur. The province of Sindh was also part of the research, with cities including Karachi and Hyderabad, as well as the district of Shadadkot. Due to security risks and flooding in a district I had planned to visit, my fieldwork in Afghanistan was limited to the capital city of Kabul. Maps of the three countries are below (Maps 3.1–3.3). In his article, ‘Poverty Unperceived: Traps, biases and agenda’, Chambers (2006: 3) warned that development practitioners and researchers are increasingly sequestered in headquarters and capital cities due to financial and security reasons. This means that there is an imbalance of research findings between the urban and the rural areas. I experienced a similar ‘trap’ during my fieldwork planning, where there were heavy restrictions placed upon me by various bureaucracies, including the issue of insurance policies (resolved by taking out a separate insurance from the university). Once on location, being an East Asian female also meant dealing with gendered and racial assumptions about what is ‘acceptable’ for a ‘lady’ during fieldwork. For instance, I was strongly advised by a male Pakistani NGO worker not to visit a suburb in Rawalpindi, the chief reason being that, ‘it is a slum area, very dirty with uneducated people and nothing nice for you to see’. I was also discouraged from visiting rural areas in Pakistan by government officials. On one occasion, I disembarked from the

Map 2.1  Map of Timor Leste indicating the study area.

32   Involving men in anti-violence against women

Map 2.2  Map of Pakistan indicating the study area.

Sukkur airport (on route to Shadadkot district) and was greeted by three men from the Pakistani Inter-­Intelligence Services, who inquired about my lodging, purpose, and length of stay, then politely but firmly informed me that I was welcome for a short visit in the region. In part, this was due to the Pakistani Government’s fear of foreigners being abducted for political purposes at the time, the risk of which is heightened in remote areas. These concerns and barriers – actual or perceived – factored greatly in my research time allocated to ‘non-­capital cities’ areas. When in doubt, I always consulted with local female NGO workers who have travelled extensively in their own country. Their response provided an interesting gender dimension to perceived risks, as most women laughed at the security advice I was given, and proceeded to give a detailed description of the area I wanted to visit, including their view of the security risks I would face as a foreign woman. As one female NGO staff said in exasperation: ‘What these men would like the most is for us to sit at home and do nothing! Just use your common sense and you’ll be fine.’

Involving men in anti-violence against women   33

Map 2.3  Map of Afghanistan indicating the study area.

Partnering with host organisations and minimising security risks Bureaucracies and social biases aside, there are serious security concerns for conducting fieldwork in countries experiencing conflict or post-­conflict situations. For this reason, as well as the intention of sharing research findings with NGOs whose work include violence against women, Oxfam Australia and Oxfam GB were approached to be the host organisations in the three countries. The host organisation arrangement meant that I shared research findings via written report and oral feedback with each country’s field office. In return, Oxfam Australia and Oxfam GB provided me with desk space where available, as well as security advice and transport if needed. In Timor Leste and Pakistan, I tried to minimise using the agencies’ resources by using private transport such as taxi and hiring drivers (based on their recommendation). In Afghanistan, due to concerns about abductions, I relied on Oxfam GB’s transport. There were incidents, such as a suicide bombing in Lahore that occurred a few blocks from where I was conducting an interview. Another involved an attempt to attach plastic explosives on an Oxfam GB vehicle in Afghanistan. Other incidents included sexual harassments from two men – an Australian

34   Involving men in anti-violence against women diplomat and an expatriate aid worker – both were reported to their organisations. But those were risks that can occur in any country. The fact that my fieldwork was conducted without any actual danger or mishap is due to the diligent and timely security advice and support from Oxfam Australia and Oxfam GB.

The rationale for a qualitative research method and feminist perspective analysis I chose qualitative methodology for both individual and group interviews, a qualitative research methodology allows interview participants to reflect and provide examples within an open-­ended interview and observation (Reinharz 1992, Wellington and Szczerbinski 2007, Harding 1991). Because the process of qualitative research is not a structured set of questions, it also allows the researcher greater flexibility to review and change the research direction during fieldwork and analysis (Gadbois et al. 1999: 1). The limitation of qualitative interviews with individuals or groups is that the participants’ recall of events or viewpoints may be selective or inaccurate (Wellington and Szczerbinski 2007: 91). Where possible, I sought to check the information given during the interview or contact the participant the next day (in person, through telephone, or via email) and ask them to look over the interview transcript. This was not always feasible, as on a number of occasions (especially in Pakistan and Afghanistan) I had a short timeframe to stay in a particular town or suburb, therefore the checking of interview materials through telephone often resulted in a participant’s affirmation of the content supplied or expression of confusion about the phone call,2 and not everyone had an internet connection, particularly in rural and remote areas. Furthermore, conducting research in cross-­cultural environments raises concerns over the power relationship between the researcher and the interview participant (Goetz 2001: 100, Win 2004). The participants came from different social and cultural backgrounds from myself, a relatively privileged foreigner, and my interview participants included men and women who had been marginalised due to their gender, ethnicity, class, caste, and age. Related to this problem is that the action of asking questions sets up a power relationship between the researcher and the interview participant, which can lead to problems with the quality of the data being collected (Reid and Vianna 2001: 343). To some extent, having an open-­ended, qualitative research method helped to minimise the bias, but I also took additional measures during the interview/group discussions, and at the data analysis stage. These measures included paying attention to the structural characteristics of the interview. For example, how the seating was organised, attentive listening, and minimal encouragement. If a translator was present, we both sat at the same level as the interview participant. In a group interview context, the participants were invited to sit in a circle around me (and the translator). Sometimes where questions were of a sensitive nature about experiences of sexual and gender-­based violence, they were framed in the third person to avoid

Involving men in anti-violence against women   35 the interview participant/s feeling the need to share personal experiences, especially in a group setting. The more sensitive questions were asked later in the interview. In a number of instances, sensitive questions were not asked because of concerns regarding the translator’s familiarity with the area and people. In group settings, women and men were interviewed separately due to the sensitivity of the topic and cultural considerations.3 At the same time, interview data are analysed from a feminist perspective, which is a broad definition. For the purpose of this research, feminist perspective has been interpreted as follows: • • • •

preoccupation with power relations that exist in all levels of society – the household, the community, the institutional, and the global – and how they affect gender hierarchies and practices (Kabeer 1994); examination of the impact of gender inequality upon women’s daily lives and how it shapes gender relations, norms, and values (Beetham and Demetriades 2007); analysis of the existence of power relations and inequality within intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, (dis)ability, religion, caste, age, and other forms of social categories (Crenshaw 1989); and critical self-­reflexivity of the researcher, where she/he continually question their position and location as both researcher and feminist (Lather 1988, Mohanty 1993).

These themes are integrated into my own research methodology and methods, which is in part informed by my own personal biography. As mentioned previously, I had a work background that was centred on women’s and gender issues. My interest in feminism began during my undergraduate courses on women and gender studies, which led me to work as a counsellor in domestic violence in Australia. I subsequently pursued a career in the Australian public sector, in departments such as the Office for Women and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), before working for UN Women country office in China, and then the South East Asia Regional Office in Bangkok. It is my work background, overseas work experience in developing countries, and personal commitment to combating violence against women which led me to this research.

Critical self-­reflection as a researcher and outsider In an article discussing the application and meaning of feminist research, Angela McRobbie (1982: 52) warned: feminism shouldn’t be taken as a password misleading us into a false notion of ‘oneness’ with all women purely on the grounds of gender … And is it desirable that research should be predicated on the often shaky notion of ‘shared femininity’?

36   Involving men in anti-violence against women As a First World feminist having worked in developing countries prior to academia, I was aware of the limitations of identity politics, having witnessed feminists who claimed solidarity on the grounds of gender, as well as those who rejected solidarity due to differences. I see the limitation of both approaches, which is to treat the issue as a ‘zero sum’ game: solidarity or difference, each side vying to be the ‘truest’ form of feminism. At the same time, Mohanty (2013: 986) has criticised the problem of focusing too much on difference, as it can be used by those with a neoliberal agenda to individualise experiences and thus limit opportunity for feminist solidarity and collective action.

Interviewing experiences Every attempt was made for the six different groups of participants to be equally represented in each country. This was the exception in Afghanistan, where due to security concerns regarding rural fieldwork and the flooding of an Oxfam GB project site in the Kundz province, my fieldwork was limited to Kabul. Due to the sensitivity of talking about gender issues, especially local and international NGOs’ efforts to mobilise local communities for action, my interview subjects in Afghanistan were limited to local and international NGOs, consultants, Afghan government officials and UN agencies. In other words, my interview informants were predominantly educated, middle-­class elites of either Afghan or international extraction. The irony of interviewing only the elites was not lost on me, and efforts were made to travel outside of Kabul. However, due to security assessments and logistical issues, I had to restrict to the capital city. In Timor Leste, the situation presented another challenge. I was informed by various sources prior to undertaking fieldwork that there were a number of organisations working with men on gender issues such as domestic violence. Once at ground level, this was another story. There was one local NGO, Stand Up to Violence against Women (SUVAW) reputed to have good results in working with men and boys in Dili, but, once again, there were complications. The international NGO who referred me to them was a donor to SUVAW, and both were in the midst of a dispute about financial reporting. Needless to say, SUVAW was not very happy to see me and the interview was not successful. Attempts were made to find other programs that work with men, but yielded little success, with one prominent local women’s NGO claiming they have no awareness about SUVAW or its work. I also tried to interview UN staff about the joint UN and Timor Leste Government’s media campaign, Hapara Violensia Kontra Feto (Stop Violence against Women), but the interview results were not successful. There was a case study about an informal network of local and international NGO workers who attempted to stop the trafficking of women into Timor Leste, but the informant subsequently withdrew her statement due to fear of repercussions. With these obstacles, I had to re-­frame the research question in order to look at the challenges faced by relevant organisations when addressing violence against women

Involving men in anti-violence against women   37 in Timor Leste, as well as random examples of men and boys who are active in promoting gender equality. More details will be discussed in the following Chapter 3 on Timor Leste. It was Pakistan that yielded the most representative voices, largely because Oxfam GB’s ‘We Can End Violence against Women’ was very active, especially in the Punjab and Sindh provinces, and I was able – through the assistance of Oxfam and partner organisations – to talk with nearly 50 women and men engaged in the campaign in various areas. Focus group discussions were attempted in Pakistan where I experienced a number of large group interview situations, ranging from 15 to 25 participants.4 However, I found focus group discussions to be difficult to manage in the large setting, particularly ensuring that everyone was given an opportunity to speak, especially women and those in the lower socio-­economic strata who were less confident about talking in public. I was also time-­poor in some instances. My host organisation, Oxfam GB, was very concerned about my safety in rural parts of Pakistan, and on a number of occasions would telephone me in the middle of an interview and advise me to leave the area as soon as possible. To manage these situations, I organised smaller group interviews (though extra people always show up out of curiosity, and I did not want to turn them away) and the structure of the interview consisted of asking fewer and more structured questions, but allowing each person a turn to speak, as well as providing participants enough time at the conclusion to ask me any questions they might have, whether it was about the purpose of the research or more personal questions about myself and my home country. Another issue that I came across during fieldwork, is how interview dynamics and processes can be affected by intersectionality. As a woman interviewing men on the sensitive topic of men’s violence against women, at times I was aware that my identity as a Chinese-­Australian woman in her early thirties influenced how some male interview participants reacted. The literature on cross-­ gender interviewing is relatively small but growing, with some exploring how information can be withheld due to the gender dynamics (Gatrell 2006); others reflect on how gender inequality is replicated during the interview process (Flood 2013, Koivunen 2010); while Grenz (2005) and Lee (1997) discuss the gendered vulnerabilities women researchers experience when interviewing men, especially when qualitative research methods necessitate the researcher to establish rapport with the interview participants. On the other hand, Grønnerød (2004) uses humour as a tool to overcome tension in interviewing heterosexual men. In sum, the literature finds that elements of gender inequality prevail in woman-­toman interviewing, especially if the interview topic is related to gender. For my own experience, the majority of the men I interviewed were helpful and courteous, and any harassment I came across was from expatriates. However, some of the issues identified in the literature occurred during my interviews as well. One or two men reacted in a paternalistic manner, and expressed doubts about my safety as a woman conducting solo research. Some men felt the need to impress with heroic examples of activism. For example, an NGO director used the interview to recount his ‘rescue’ of young women at risk of so-­called honour killing

38   Involving men in anti-violence against women (discussed in Chapter 4), while another university student in Timor Leste proudly talked of his toughness from martial arts training. At the same time, some men seemed relieved to have the opportunity to discuss their experiences of domestic violence, which motivated them to become activists. During the writing stage, I was unsure how to present these interviewer/interviewee relationship dynamics. In the end, I decided to balance between answering the research question, while questioning some of the interview dynamics and responses.

Conclusion Conducting fieldwork in three countries presents multitudes of challenges. I wish I could depict a flawless picture of my fieldwork and findings, but being a feminist researcher means to be critically engaged and transparent at all stages of research (Ristock and Pennell 1997). Living and working in countries with high to medium security risks meant that access to interview participants required longer planning time, as well as having contingency plans. The next chapter continues with the exploration of the complexities of my research in this area.

Notes 1 While recruiting men in leadership positions or those with significant social, economic, and political resources as champions for gender equality is critical in mobilising men, the challenge is for these men to recognise their contribution to gender inequality and men’s violence against women, and not see their activism as charity dissociated from their personal beliefs and actions. 2 One person took offence to this process and thought I was doubting their story. The situation was not helped by a poor telephone connection. I managed to defuse the situation by explaining that I was following up with more questions. 3 Mixed group interviews were conducted in Pakistan with men and women volunteers of Oxfam GB’s ‘We Can End Violence against Women’ campaign because the men and women were discussing stories of their activism, and they were used to working and meeting in mixed settings due to involvement in the campaign. 4 The decision to interview in individual or group was often dictated by security concerns, time limits, cultural sensitivity, and interview participants’ wishes. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, it was easier to obtain individual interviews with women NGO staff, whereas male participants often requested to have another female present or to have the interview in a group context. This is mostly due to the cultural sensitivity of a man and woman being alone in the same room. In the two countries, I had the least available time to interview one person at a time, as security protocol required me to have 40-minute sessions on average, which placed tremendous constraint when in rural areas. My preference would have been to interview people individually, but this was simply not possible due to logistics and compliance with security protocols.

3 From cockfighting to martial arts The Timor Leste story

Timor Leste was my first fieldwork location for this research. Although I have worked in developing countries before, this is the first time that I have worked as a solo researcher, after years of being away from an academic context. My ‘greenness’ as a researcher initially frustrated me: from my lack of confidence in challenging interview participants to my assumptions of how interviews should proceed (and then I would become frustrated that ‘interviews are not working as planned’). However, it was through trial and error, as well as a good amount of self-­reflection that made me re-­think the research methodology as well as re-­ framing my analytical lens. This chapter is both a case study of Timor Leste, as well as my journey of learning.

Violence against women in Timor Leste: the forms and extent of the situation Timor Leste was colonised by Portugal for 400 years, with independence declared in 1975, swiftly followed by the Indonesian invasion and occupation for the next 24 years. The abuses women faced during the period of occupation included violations of reproductive rights (including forced sterilisation), rape, sexual harassment, enforced slavery, and sexual slavery by Indonesian military troops (Comissão de Acolhimento, Verdade e Reconciliação de Timor Leste (Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation in Timor Leste – CAVR) 2005, Charlesworth and Wood 2002, Harris-­Rimmer 2010, Wandita, Campbell-­ Nelson, and Pereira 2006). Women were at special risk of state-­sanctioned sexual abuse if they or their partners were thought to have a relationship with the Falintil (pro-­independence armed forces) (Harris-­Rimmer 2010, UNFPA 2005). Family members were also affected, whether through being forced to witness the violence perpetrated, or being unable to respond and assist women. The country gained independence from Indonesia in 2002, following a referendum in 1999, which was followed by a sacking of the country by Indonesian military, during which women and girls were once again the targets of sexual violence (Alves et al. 2009, UNFPA 2005). Post-­crisis, there have been a number of studies conducted by local and international organisations to identify the extent and prevalence of sexual and gender-­based violence. However, it is

40   The Timor Leste story difficult to establish an average prevalence rate of violence against women in post-­crisis period from these studies, as each differed in their scope. For instance, one research focused on women between the ages of 18 and 49 in two districts (Hynes et al. 2004), while the 2005 Timor-­Leste CAVR focused on human rights violations (including sexual violence) during the occupation period of 1975–1999. The police case files for 2001, 2005, and 2006 were destroyed during the political crisis of 2006, and reported police cases (including violence against women) during those three years are unknown (Alves et al. 2009: 8). Local organisations such as Psychosocial Recovery and Development in East Timor (PRADET), Alola Foundation, Judicial System Monitoring Programme (JSMP), and women’s shelters who kept records of women who accessed their services, have helped fill the knowledge gaps, though these data are only about women who sought services and do not include women who did not seek help. Nevertheless, the various reports’ findings since 2002 have consistently shown that violence against women during non-­conflict or non-­crisis periods continues to be a serious issue in the country and has profound negative impact on the women and girls as well as the overall community (AusAID 2009, Alves et al. 2009, JSMP 2004, Hynes et al. 2004). The most common type of violence experienced by women comes from their partner, with IRC research of 288 women finding that 46.9 per cent reported partner violence before and after the crisis (Alves et al. 2009, Hynes et al. 2004: 23). The community in general are aware of violence against women incidents that took place, but their response is either indifference or denial, as shown in the baseline study of violence against women in Bobonaro and Covalima districts (Alves et al. 2009: x).1

Causes and contributing factors towards violence against women in Timor Leste since 2000 Based on literature review, there are four main contributing factors towards violence against women: patriarchal traditional practices and values (which also have influences from the era of Portuguese colonisation and Catholicism) which discriminate against women; the strong influence of the Catholic Church in communities and the rigid interpretation of biblical texts to reinforce traditional gender norms and roles; the lack of effective and gender-­sensitive response from formal and traditional justice systems; and the community’s lack of awareness of their rights. These four factors will be discussed in more detail below, as they all have strong influence on the fieldwork findings. Cultural beliefs and practices The majority of western-­led research literature on violence against women in Timor Leste cites cultural practices and patriarchy as the key social source for the justification of violence against women, which is locally regarded as a way to ‘educate’ or ‘discipline’ women (Alves et al. 2009, AusAID 2009, Hynes et  al. 2004, UNFPA 2005). For example, in a study on traditional justice and

The Timor Leste story   41 violence against women, Swaine finds that, ‘[i]n speaking with both women and male community leaders/holders of justice, it was evident that violence within the home is excused as a means of “educating a woman” ’, and suggests that it is unclear whether this belief arose from women’s comparative lack of access to formal education, or as a result of the perception of women’s inferior status (Swaine 2003: 61). Similarly, the practice of bride price, barlaque, which was traditionally a symbolic practice showing the union of two families, has now been interpreted as a transaction which places women in ‘absolute property and possession of the man’ (Alves et al. 2009: 17, AusAID 2009). The traditional dispute process has also been criticised for its emphasis of resolving disharmony between families rather than focusing on individual grievances (Alves et al. 2009: 27–29). While criticisms of cultural practices that perpetuate violence against women and gender inequality are valid, culture is not the sole factor behind the pervasive violence against women in Timor Leste. For instance, interview participants who came from local women’s organisations expressed frustration at the lack of accessible and efficient judicial response. Examples of this sentiment can be heard from two women NGOs workers in Oecussi: Because the court system is ineffective, cases are backlogged for up to six months. In remote districts like ours, we have no judges, they come from Dili. So that causes further delay. (Liza, interview with author, 15 December 2009) Most organisations can’t provide legal advice to victims, because the information is scarce. There are trainings but they are always in Dili, which is too far and we can’t take time off to attend. (Marie, interview with author, 16 December 2009) At the time of research, the domestic violence law was still being processed and has had a long struggle to get legislated. The legislation, Law No. 07/2010 Against Domestic Violence, was finally passed on 3 May 2010, making domestic violence a punishable crime for the first time. While there are other law enforcement and legal measures, such as the Vulnerable Persons Unit (VPU) section within the Police National Timor Leste (PNTL) which deals specifically with violence against women, children, and the elderly, the lack of a specific violence against women legislation weakened the formal justice system’s response (JSMP staff, interview with author, 18 January 2010). While the National Action Plan on Gender-­based Violence was adopted by the Timor Leste Government in May 2012,2 there are still challenges. In its review of the justice system in 2011, the local leading justice monitoring NGO, JSMP, found that all sectors have yet to properly implement the domestic violence law (JSMP 2011: 22–23).

42   The Timor Leste story The role of the Catholic Church in women’s status and gender relations Since its entry into Timor Leste during Portuguese colonisation, the Catholic Church has had a complex role and influence in the country. On the one hand, the Church has made significant contribution to humanitarian and conflict prevention work (Charlesworth and Wood 2002: 334, Franks 1996: 163, Wigglesworth, Dureau, and da Costa Magno 2008: 9). On the other, there have also been criticisms of the Church’s conservative values regarding gender and its negative effect on women’s status and treatment in society (Wigglesworth, Dureau, and da Costa Magno 2008: 10). For instance, in an Alola Foundation report on maternal mortality and unsafe abortion, it was found that the Catholic Church’s influence was such that some clinicians said that they would refuse to provide elective abortion even if it was legalised (Belton, Whittaker, and Barclay 2009: 41). In another case, a nun who worked as a clinician and provided family planning counselling would only offer advice on natural family planning methods, despite being well informed about medical ones. Her reason for doing so was: ‘The Pope says “no” so we must follow what he says’ (Belton, Whittaker, and Barclay 2009: 43). With regards to the Catholic Church’s position on violence against women, while local nuns are actively working on prevention and intervention initiatives, such as the Catholic nuns of Canossian Congregation and the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters who provide shelters for women and children, some Church leaders choose to reinforce discriminatory attitudes about women, with teachings such as: ‘Eve was the temptress and Magdalena the sinner’ (Alves et al. 2009: 23). In a UNFPA report on sexual and gender-­based violence,3 it was noted that the Catholic Church tended to focus on family units instead of individuals and their rights within the family, and that Church representatives ‘may tell women suffering from gender-­based violence that it is their responsibility to ensure that the family remains together somehow’ (UNFPA 2005: 33). The Catholic Church played another conflicting role during the years of conflict in Timor Leste, where it made a significant contribution to protecting and sheltering civilians, including rape victims. However, the CAVR (2005: 101–102) also noted that women who were subject to sexual slavery by the Indonesian military were regarded by some Church officials as having voluntary extramarital relations. In one instance, a woman who had children as result of sexual slavery was publicly shamed and banished from church activities for more than 16 years. Another issue seldom discussed in the Timor Leste literature, which I came across during fieldwork, is sexual abuse perpetrated by Catholic priests in the community. If the abuse or misconduct was discovered, the offending priest rarely faced disciplinary measures, and often it was the woman or girl who was stigmatised. I spoke with a Timorese gender officer who had been active in highlighting this issue and the Catholic Church’s responsibility. She described to me a recent case she was aware of in the Maliana district: a priest was found having sexual relations with a teenage girl, she became pregnant and the priest was sent

The Timor Leste story   43 overseas for ‘further training’. The girl and her family received neither compensation nor apology from the local church (Selinah, interview with author, 30 November 2009). Given that 90 per cent of the Timor Leste population is Catholic, the values that the Catholic Church imparts have tremendous influence on the communities. While the Catholic Church on the whole has provided positive spiritual and physical support to the Timor Leste communities, especially during the period of conflict and violence, its inconsistent, and at times patriarchal approach towards women, has contributed towards behaviours and values which are discriminatory or abusive. More of these influences from the Catholic Church upon aid programs which seek to improve women’s rights and gender equality will be discussed in detail later in the chapter.

Stakeholders and organisations working on anti-­violence against women in Timor Leste As mentioned earlier, domestic violence is the most common form of violence against women in Timor Leste. There are three categories of groups who are active in responding to this: ending domestic violence: the Timor Leste Government, civil society (including local and International Non-­Government Organisations (INGOs), activists, volunteers, communities, and academics), and donors (bilateral and multilateral such as the UN). Each group has different approaches to addressing violence against women. At the time of fieldwork, the Timor Leste Government was drafting the National Action Plan on Violence against Women, a policy document that establishes the duties of each government agency and department, as well as the coordination process. The government was also looking into making domestic violence more specific as a crime than as currently stated in the Penal Code (which resulted in the Law No. 07/2010 Against Domestic Violence in 2010). The VPU of the PNTL force had already been established and had taken on responsibility for responding to sexual and gender-­ based violence cases. For the civil society sector, the range of responses include policy and advocacy programs, shelter, counselling services, and research. For legal NGOs such as JSMP, the focus is on victim support and legal assistance, including accompanying women to the court on domestic violence cases, as well as providing training to the VPU on how to conduct interviews with victims of sexual violence. Women’s NGOs, such as the Alola Foundation, hold annual events such as the 16 Days of Activism Against Violence and International Women’s Day, which is held in the Alola Foundation’s Women’s Resource Centre. Both local and international NGOs alike participate in research work. Local women’s shelters operate in some districts, such as Dili and Oecussi. There is also collaboration between agencies, such as the research for the baseline report on  violence against women in the districts of Bobonaro and Covalima, conducted by Asia Pacific Support Collective – Timor Leste, with other agencies such as Caritas Australia, Forum Komunikasi Untuk Perempuan Loro Sae

44   The Timor Leste story (Communication Forum for Women from the East – FOKUPERS), PRADET, and Rede Feto also being involved in the development of the report. At the donor and multilateral level, the focus is on funding support of government and NGO initiatives, capacity-­building of civil society through training and workshops, and policy. During my fieldwork in 2009–2010, the UN was working with local NGOs and the Timor Leste Government in running a series of public awareness campaigns about domestic violence called Hapara Violensia Kontra Feto which will be discussed later in this chapter. Individual UN organisations such as the UN Development Programme (UNDP), UNFPA, and UN Women funded research projects to understand issues such as the extent of violence against women, and women’s sexual and reproductive health.

Activities and organisations that work with men and boys in violence against women initiatives During my literature review and pre-­fieldwork preparation for Timor Leste, I developed a list of organisations and individuals to speak with, based on existing aid projects which focus on men’s involvement in anti-­violence against women initiatives. While there were few projects or organisations which specifically engaged with men, I did come across two examples. The first was Stand Up to Violence against Women (SUVAW),4 a local NGO who runs a community-­ based education program primarily in Dili and targets men’s and boys’ behavioural change, with emphasis on ‘guerrilla tactics’, such as engaging in casual conversations with young men on the bus or in sports events, as well as holding workshops and events. The second example was the joint UN campaign, Hapara Violensia Kontra Feto. Launched in November 2007, the campaign was led by UN Women with support from UN Integrated Mission in Timor-­Leste (UNMIT), the Secretary of State for the Promotion of Equality (SEPI), and SUVAW. Primarily a media campaign, it featured male leaders with anti-­violence against women messages through a series of printed posters, and radio and television public service announcements, which are designed to reach all 13 districts in the country. One of the most striking products from the campaign was the posters, which feature Timor Leste political leaders such as Jose Ramos Horta and Xanana Gusmao with the simple message, Hapara Violensia Kontra Feto, as shown in Figure 3.1.

Reality check: a researcher caught in the troubled waters of aid politics and their own expectations My first interview in Timor Leste was with SUVAW, which was organised by an international NGO who supported the local organisation. The international NGO kindly provided a room for the interview. The meeting. One of the SUVAW senior members, Joseph, was accompanied by two other SUVAW staff. From the beginning, I had the impression that Joseph and his colleagues were reluctant to attend this meeting: Joseph did not shake my proffered hand,

The Timor Leste story   45

Figure 3.1  Poster for the Hapara Violensia Kontra Feto campaign.

sat down heavily, and started to talk about what SUVAW does, in a concise manner with only generic information given. Having finished the short speech, Joseph then proceeded to text on his mobile phone. All of this was accompanied by the nervous laughs of the translator while the other two SUVAW staff stood by and looked out the window. By this point, I apologised to Joseph for taking up his time and observed that if this was an inconvenient time and he was expected elsewhere, I would be happy to meet him where SUVAW is located. In response, Joseph shook his head and said ‘Ask your questions’. I persevered with my questions about SUVAW activities, and Joseph repeated more or less  what he had said during the interview, and got up at one point to make a phone call. Even the most persistent interviewer would realise by now that the meeting had ended, so I thanked Joseph and his colleagues, and suggested that I contact them again in the future, visiting them at a location and time of their choice. Joseph nodded, called for his colleagues (who were by now sitting outside the office) and left. The whole interview lasted approximately 15 minutes. Needless to say, I was disturbed by the interview, by the non-­responsiveness of the SUVAW members in the way they left the office. This struck me as unusual, given that the international NGO who facilitated the meeting was a donor and there was a working relationship between the two organisations. I later voiced my concern to their staff about the interview experience, but was reassured that SUVAW were probably just busy and there was nothing personal involved, and that I should get in touch with them about their workshops. At least three

46   The Timor Leste story attempts were made to contact SUVAW, including a telephone call made by the international NGO, but I never heard from SUVAW during the two months I was in Timor Leste. It was six months later, when I was back in Australia and recounted the experience to someone who was involved in the international NGO, that I learned a possible cause for SUVAW’s non-­responsiveness. My informant could not describe the incident in detail, but he suggested that I had arrived at an unfortunate moment when the two NGOs were in the midst of a dispute about SUVAW reporting. This would have explained SUVAW non-­responsiveness and reluctance to speak with me during the interview. My background as an Australian researcher probably did not help, as SUVAW reportedly also had a negative experience with AusAID, as was recounted to me by a local NGO: SUVAW, I reckon they’re a fantastic group … There’s a lot of lovely men who have been involved. They had funding in 2002, did you know that, from AusAID? They happen to sign a letter about the oil and they were axed, the funding was taken from them.5 Isn’t this interesting, that what comes out of that AusAID research looking at Melanesia, looking at East Timor and Vanuatu – you read that? That was all talk about how we must involve the men. Well, SUVAW was involving the men and [AusAID] pulled the plug in 2004. (Sally, interview with author, 9 December 2009) At the time, I was discouraged by the interview with SUVAW, and was having doubts about my own capacity as a researcher. I resolved to focus on the second case study, UN’s Hapara Violensia Kontra Feto. Its posters were shown prominently around Dili in late 2009, adorning roadside billboards or stapled to various telephone poles and the few notice boards there were about the city. I contacted UN Women, who referred me to a UN staff member who was seconded to the Ministry of Education to support its production of domestic violence education materials, which are part of the UN-­funded campaign. Once again, my interview with the UN staff at the Ministry of Education was a lesson in managing expectations.6 I had prepared a set of questions, focusing on how the campaign came about, whether any evaluation had been done since its inception in 2007, as well as their thoughts on the effectiveness of public education materials, with some further interviews conducted with the Ministry staff. On 9 December 2009, I had a mid-­morning appointment with Clare, and was greeted by a friendly young woman who told me she was a UN consultant hired for this role.7 We duly went over the latest posters that Clare was working on with the Ministry, which showed the back of a man with his hands being handcuffed. Apparently there were some discussions about whether there should be a wedding ring on his finger, and the latest production featured a gold ring in one handcuffed hand. The gold ring glowed brightly in the picture and seemed odd within the context of the poster. I asked Clare about the purpose of adding the wedding ring, since domestic violence in Timor Leste presumably occurs

The Timor Leste story   47 between unmarried couples as well. Clare replied that that was what the committee wanted. However, what struck me were not the poster designs but the general atmosphere of the office. It was a large room with around 20 to 25 desks, of which only about three were occupied. One member of staff was typing an email, the other two seemed to be playing some sort of video game, with a few more staff standing around, watching the game’s progress. Clare saw my observation and commented: You see those people over there? They are playing computer games. This is the biggest challenge I have working here. There are no terms of reference for most of the public servants, so they don’t have any specific responsibilities. Some show up at 10, some after lunchtime. I was surprised by her outspokenness and asked if she had problems getting support for her work, to which she replied: ‘This is not teamwork.’ By now, we had spent about an hour talking, and Clare had to leave for a meeting at the UN compound. I left the Ministry feeling disappointed with my two case studies: SUVAW was non-­responsive, and the UN person in charge of public education materials had more to say about her secondment experience with the Timor Leste Government. In short, the answers I expected were not being given. Later that night, as I typed up my meeting notes made during the day, it struck me that my frustration was partly due to my expectations about the interview process and outcome: a question is asked, and the ‘right’ answer is given which immediately connects with the research theme. In short, I had fallen into what Mitchell and Slim (1991: 20) described as ‘the structural bias of the interview’: There are two main structural biases in the informal interview – both of which seem to come from western ideas about ‘answerability’ and brevity. First, the interview tends to assume that answers to questions do usually exist and can be given – the idea that most questions are ‘answerable’. Secondly, if answers are offered, the fundamental momentum of an interview is often towards a ‘summing up’ of issues rather than towards a ‘talking through’ of issues. Thus, interviews often have a tendency to try and put things in a ‘nutshell’. My impression of what constitutes an ideal interview was very much influenced by my cultural and academic bias regarding what research interviews should be like: informative, coherent, and linear. The interview subject should be dispassionate about the subject discussed, and give illuminating personal or professional opinions into the topic, aided by insightful questions asked by the interviewer. Of course, this bias was given a reality check when I conducted the interviews: interview subjects behave with indifference about the research topic (after all, why should they be as interested in the topic as I am?), there are no

48   The Timor Leste story simple or straightforward answers to a question, and sometimes there are unforeseen circumstances which influence the interview outcome, including how the interviewer is perceived. The next day I was shopping at the fruit and vegetable market next to Fatima Park. The market and park area is a popular hangout for local people, especially young men. I thought it would be a good opportunity to do some informal interviews with some of the young men about the UN posters. On a Saturday afternoon, with the help of a male translator, I walked around the seaside area and asked a few young men their opinions on the Hapara Violensia Kontra Feto posters. The following comments were representative from the ten young men I asked: I think it is a good thing, to have leaders talk about violence against women. They’re politicians and they do this to get foreigners’ money. Posters don’t stop husbands beating up their wives. Hapara Violensia Kontra Feto? How? What am I supposed to do? It’s so common and it’s not just women [being beaten]. I agree. Violence is so common here. I don’t think about these things, they don’t worry me. It’s a big problem [violence against women]. But we have no jobs, and there is nothing to do. So people fight, have conflict. The posters … they don’t deal with these problems. You see [the posters] every day, you get used to it. (Young men, conversation with author, 12 December 2009) When I met with Clare again at a function, I mentioned the informal survey I did and the feedback, to which she responded: I agree with you that local ownership and input is needed for campaigns like this. But it was decided having male leaders endorsing the issue would make a bigger statement. I tried to get feedback from the ministry staff, but almost no one was interested. As to local input? Well, this is the UN. (Interview with author, 18 December 2009)

Re-­thinking the research focus Since the two case studies of SUVAW and Hapara Violensia Kontra Feto did not turn out as expected, and there were no obvious leads to follow-­up on organisations or initiatives that work with men on ending violence against women, I decided to re-­frame my research focus in Timor Leste to look at two issues. First, the challenges which prevent more organisations and initiatives engaging with men on anti-­violence against women or gender equality. Second, to explore

The Timor Leste story   49 the factors that shape urban masculinities in Dili and, where possible, interview men who are active in roles which contribute towards gender equality. As I conducted further interviews, it became clear that there were many challenges faced by those who have an interest in promoting gender equality and stopping violence against women. The challenges differ for each stakeholders, be they local NGOs, government departments and services, local leaders, or international organisations. These challenges will be discussed by each theme, with the perspectives of each stakeholders given.

Tension between partners, stakeholders and aid politics A recurring theme among the different groups I interviewed is the challenge of power relations between donors, partner NGOs, and government. From local NGOs’ perspective, the power imbalance is due to the donor/partner relationship in aid, which results in NGOs being vulnerable to the dictates of donors. This was illustrated in an interview with an Australian from an NGO that provides counselling services, as well as support for victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse. Meredith is one of the original founders of Support and had actively pushed for the localisation of the organisation.8 At the time of the interview, she was no longer a staff member, but was still serving as a mentor for the organisation. In the following, Meredith (interview with author, 9 December 2009) described her frustrations with the way AusAID had cut Support’s funding in 2001: Maybe it was political, maybe it was the fact that Timorese were showing independence and being clear with what they wanted, which came out in the evaluation. Maybe it was the fat controller who didn’t like our response to what we perceived was the way to go. Or maybe it has to do with oil, because AusAID did cut a number of its programs to the country, particularly those who signed petition about the oil9 … So we were left with four hundred patients with serious mental illness, over four hundred mental health patients, in a blink of an eyelid. It was unbelievably disgraceful. That’s why I am so cranky sometimes, and ashamed of being an Australian … In 2002, [the NGO] opened its doors with one – we had enough money to pay one national staff member, the rest of us were volunteers. And we’ve built it up since then. With very little help from anybody really. Certainly not from Australia. [In 2002] we got funding from Germany, funding for five years. None of this one-­year business. That’s the other thing you should put in the PhD is funding. Annual funding is a very controlling thing for the donors. So we got funding to do the psychosocial service. But that stage we were still doing medication. AusAID found out we were doing medications, so they threatened the [Timor Leste] government they would withdraw, and it was taken off us.10 There was an amazing amount of real violence from AusAID towards this program.

50   The Timor Leste story When I asked Meredith her opinion about why there were so many differences between donors and partner NGOs, she replied: [B]ecause we are a service provider, we are down and dirty, and we have a million stories. And from those stories, you can draw pictures and parallels of a bigger picture. And from that you can draw ideas for policies. And I’ve always believed – and I have been a practitioner all my life – I’ve always believed good policies come from the ground up, with a headstone of basic principles like human rights. Unfortunately that is not what happens in most cases, and unfortunately that’s not the way it happens in this country. Another issue local NGOs and stakeholders have with donors is that resources and support are unevenly distributed between urban and rural areas, which presents a challenge for NGOs operating in rural and remote areas. For example, a staff member from a women’s service in Oecussi that provides legal advice and support to domestic violence victims explained that service staff do not have up to date legal knowledge due to poor communications technology (internet access is very limited in the area) as well as the fact that workshops run by the Timorese Government or the UN tend to be held in Dili. Staff would need to undertake a three-­day return trip from Oecussi by sea to attend a workshop. They are reluctant to make the week long journey because most are married women, and cannot leave their family unattended for a long duration (Selinah, personal conversation with author, 16 December 2009). Marcos, an Oecussi liurai (local chief ), explained his unhappiness with the power relations inherent in the government consultation process on domestic violence: I am concerned about this issue, but we live in the mountains, in villages. The consultation should be held here, not in the city or where we have to spend long time to travel. If they want our opinion, they should come to us. I want you to tell the government this.11 (Marcos, interview with author, 16 December 2009) For one UN staff member, the problem was with the ways in which gender issues were advocated by UN agencies: Problem with gender advocacy? The ‘gender police’ who uses jargon, top-­ down approach which alienates potential ally. By instructing people what should be done rather than understanding the rationale for why things are, people end up being articulate with gender terminologies, but this is lip service. Senior management in UN are 95% men, getting their support for gender equality requires a different approach than what’s been used currently. (Adam, interview with author, 30 November 2009) A senior police officer from the UN Police (UNPOL) expressed his frustrations in working with the Timor Leste Government:

The Timor Leste story   51 The government has an arrogant attitude. It doesn’t take advice from the UN. This is not just a capacity issue. An example: in 2009, the government shut down primary schools for three or four months, sent the kids home, and the teachers underwent Portuguese language training.12 They are expected to teach in fluent Portuguese. Is it possible to speak fluently after a short language training? Can you tell me [if] that is a capacity issue of the teachers, or the government’s arrogance? (Michael, interview with author, 18 January 2010) The accounts given by these informants are, of course, only one aspect of the complete picture, and they are not meant to depict AusAID, UN agencies, or the Timor Leste Government in a particular light. My purpose for highlighting people’s experiences and feelings – whether actual or perceived – is to illustrate the tenuous working relationship between stakeholders in Timor Leste, and the power relations that operate in aid. These stories serve as the larger contextual background to how gender issues are articulated, and actions are taken (or not taken) to address violence against women and men’s role in the country.

Impact of the Catholic Church upon gender programs Aside from donor politics, conservative attitudes from the Catholic Church hierarchy about gender roles and family planning are often cited by Timor Leste and international informants as one of the biggest challenges when working on gender equality (Alves et al. 2009: 2, Belton, Whittaker, and Barclay 2009: 14, 20–21, Richards 2014). Commonly referred to as ‘the Church’, it is a very powerful and influential sector in Timor Leste at both policy and community level. As noted earlier in the chapter, while the Church has a positive role and influence, its patriarchal attitudes about gender and women’s status have been problematic. For instance, while health organisations have reported success in negotiating with the Church on HIV prevention, with the clergy prepared to tell people about using condoms to prevent HIV transmission (Snell et al. 2005: 101), the story is more complex regarding Marie Stopes International (MSI). At the time of interview, MSI had been expanding its service delivery to the districts of Timor Leste (previously it was primarily providing services in Dili). Part of the district service includes public education about family planning and sexual health information sessions. In addition, MSI had one-­year funding from the Global Fund to work on sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention in 2009. MSI trained peer-­educators and provided services to PNTL and FDTL and their families (i.e. wives and girlfriends). At the MSI clinic in Dili, female clients mainly seek contraception advice and services, as well as STI treatment (typically the treatment was for unusual vaginal discharge or gonorrhoea). The Dili clinic also receives patients who have already been to the local hospital for multiple treatments which did not work, whether due to the prescription of wrong antibiotics or incorrect diagnosis.

52   The Timor Leste story As a service provider and an advocate for family planning and sexual health, MSI is closely involved in the Timor Leste Government’s family planning and reproductive health policies, and it is from this advocacy involvement that MSI encountered the most obstacles from conservative, senior sectors of the Church: In December 2009, the government held the Annual Family Planning Meeting. A few of us went to this meeting. Members of the Diocese also attended. However, the Church’s representative got confused between contraception and abortion, and claimed that contraception is wrong. The Bishop of Dili is very conservative, and has said to the Ministry of Health that tubal ligation is against women’s human rights. Ministry of Health had prioritised voluntary female sterilisation as one of its 2010 priorities, but after that conversation, the Ministry told us it’s rethinking its priorities and also advised we shouldn’t perform voluntary sterilisation. Of course, sterilisation is a sensitive topic here. During the Indonesian occupation it was compulsory – for example, government workers can only have two children – therefore people are still fearful of sterilisation and family planning. But we are talking about voluntary sterilisation here. (MSI staff, interview with author, 8 January 2010) MSI were quick to point out that, while the Church hierarchy may be patriarchal in its policies and practice, the churches and Church organisations at the district level are more tolerant: Community leaders and some churches in the district are open minded to family planning, as they recognised the hardships endured by families with ten or more children. It is those at the central level of power who lack the empathy from daily interactions with rural poor, and who retain a hard-­line position. (MSI staff, interview)13 At the same time, while those in the UNPOL praised the Church’s role in maintaining people’s morale during the occupation, as well as its involvement in the reconciliation process, there was also disappointment that the Church has not extended its influence towards community peace and safety: There is much reluctance of the Catholic Church to be more outspoken about SGBV. I think it has to do with their fear of undermining the constituency, especially the influential men. (Lee Raiser, interview with author, 20 January 2010) The Church needs to be active about issues of maintaining peace and stability in the community. (Michael, interview with author, 18 January 2010)

The Timor Leste story   53 I attempted to set up an interview with senior Catholic Church officials to hear their perspective. Oxfam Australia assisted in the interview request by allowing me to use an official Oxfam letterhead. The interview request was denied on the grounds that no one was available to be interviewed during January 2009. It is unfortunate that the Church’s view is not represented in this section. However, the information gathered here confirms the existing literature review regarding the conservatism of the Church hierarchy towards gender issues in Timor Leste, as well as the active role in anti-­violence against women taken by community churches, religious institutions, and NGOs (Alves et al. 2009, Belton, Whittaker, and Barclay 2009, CAVR 2005, Snell et al. 2005).

Cultural norms and practices which discriminate against women – observation from Oecussi Cultural norms and practices do not exist in a vacuum. As a country which experienced a long period of Portuguese colonisation, as well as a violent history of conflict through an Indonesian military occupation, factors such as the Catholic Church’s strong religious influence on daily life, and traditional practices such as barlaque (bride price) and polygamy, have a strong influence on contemporary Timor Leste’s gender roles and relations. While it is not within the scope of this work to provide an anthropological and historical review of Timor Leste cultural norms and practices which discriminate against women, I want to describe a domestic violence case that I witnessed during fieldwork in the Oecussi district, which illustrates the detrimental impact of barlaque and polygamy upon women and the community: During fieldwork in Oecussi, I visited a local women’s shelter and interviewed a 16-year-­old resident, Tina. Tina was from Bobonaro district, and was married to her husband after her parents received USD300 as barlaque. Tina moved to Oecussi to live with her husband and his two wives on a mountain near Oecussi. After one year of marriage, Tina became pregnant. The pregnancy was badly received by the husband, who accused Tina of adultery and began beating her on a regular basis, especially on her stomach. Tina began planning her exit, as she did not wish to lose the child through the beatings. One night, she deliberately slept on the edge of the bed and around midnight, when everyone was sound asleep, she quietly got up, removed some money from her husband’s trousers, and walked from the mountain to Oecussi, which took her around five hours in the dark. Tina managed to locate the Oecussi PNTL station, who took her to the women’s shelter. Tina was very thin and visibly pregnant (around five to six months) when I spoke with her in December 2009. The shelter had provided Tina with medical care, counselling, as well as transport to Dili where further arrangements would be made for her to be reunited with her family in Bobonaro. However, Tina’s husband managed to track down her location (the women’s

54   The Timor Leste story shelter location was known locally because of the small population) and attempted to break into the shelter on the same day of my interview. I was interviewing the PNTL when I saw the police bringing Tina’s husband to the Oecussi police station. The husband was intoxicated and incoherent (he had assaulted the shelter’s security guard who tried to prevent him from getting inside the building), screaming that his wife was ‘stolen’ from him. The Oxfam Australia staff (who accompanied me during the interviews) and I agreed we should return to the shelter the next day and check if everything was alright. When we were there, the shelter’s manager was understandably upset about the incident, even more so because overnight, Tina had decided to go back to the husband out of fear of further violence and the stigma of leaving the marriage. Another example was given by Meredith from Support, who recounted the challenge of remote communities’ lack of knowledge about sexual violence and collusion with community leaders when they commit an offence: Some staff came back from a very remote place and woke me up in the middle of the night. When they had arrived at the place, the chief was standing beside a three-­year-old girl and he was stroking her genitals like stroking a cat or dog. [The staff] were just beside themselves, wondering what to do. What was it that allowed that man to behave in that way? One, it was remote. Two, no one else has been there much. We decided to deal with that situation by going back and offer them training and definition and clarification of these crimes. And to enable some people in that village to be able to take a stand eventually. If we gone there with the police in that remote area, it wouldn’t have worked, because the community [would] collude with him. (Meredith, interview with author, 9 December 2009) Although the above example was about child sex abuse, it mirrors the challenges of addressing domestic violence in Oecussi and the case of 16-year-­old Tina. People are afraid of upsetting the status quo, which in Tina’s case, it was her fear of being seen as breaking up her own marriage. In the case of the chief, community ties and loyalty were stronger than formal laws. This is complicated by the remoteness of the locations, which meant any intervention has to be carefully thought out and involve local stakeholders’ and communities’ support. Cultural and religious norms also prevail within the urban context. Through referrals from an international consultant, I met William, an Australian Christian who was doing volunteer work at a halfway house in Dili. What surprised William was that Church leaders (from non-­Catholic denominations) were condoning domestic violence: The thing that surprises me, since I’ve been here … it’s not uncommon that the pastor occasionally bashes his wife. So there’s plenty of space in the church to say hang on, what you preach on Sunday is against that. But it’s a

The Timor Leste story   55 cultural thing where the women are still treated as a seed bed or just in the kitchen and the man is the hunter. But having a good hard look at what the Bible actually says, it actually defies that. So there’s a lot of opportunities to say to the pastor, you realise what you are doing is wrong. (William, interview with author, 3 December 2009) However, for Josh Trindade, a Timor Leste scholar who studies his country’s traditional legends and beliefs, there is much appeal in honouring beliefs such as feto maromak: ‘What is feto maromak? It is the sacred feminine, part of the lulik [what is considered holy or sacred]. It celebrates women’s reproductive capacity, the life-­giving ability’ (Josh Trindade, interview with author, 8 December 2009). At the time, I questioned whether an uncritical acceptance of tradition could lead to conservative views about women and girls, and Trindade argued that if a woman wore revealing clothes in public, it was her brother’s role to discipline her. At a conference presentation in 2011, Trindade conceded that there are limitations to the concept of feto maromak and the worshipping of women’s fertility, which suggests a revision of his thinking about using traditional legends and beliefs as guidance for contemporary gender roles and relations (Trindade 2011).

Violence and culture: case studies of martial art schools and manu futu Aside from examining the role of traditional cultural norms and practices on women and gender relations, I was also curious about the influence of contemporary conflict and violence on Timor Leste’s culture, in particular how it shaped men and masculinity in an urban setting. This section presents two major influences as case studies: martial arts and manu futu (cockfight). The practice of martial arts, introduced by the Indonesian military during the occupation period of 1975–1999, is very popular in Timor Leste. The Indonesian military had intended the introduction of martial arts groups to be one of its colonising strategies, as well as assisting to localise the integration process, though some groups did become part of the resistance against the occupation. By 2006, there were approximately 15 to 20 martial arts groups with 20,000 registered members, nearly all men (Scambary 2006: 1–2). The fact that nearly all martial arts practitioners are men can be put down to a gendered effect of the militarisation of civilian lives from the decades of Indonesian occupation and local resistance. This is illustrated in my meeting with Eddy, a university student in his early twenties, majoring in engineering at the time of interview, who was also a member of the Persaudaraan Setia Hati Terate (Black Ants – PSHT).14 Eddy had  been with the organisation for eight years, and described a highly militarised  approach to training, including the physical beating of the stomach of members who fail to attend training. When asked about his response to corporal punishment, Eddy explained that he thought it was beneficial for personal development:

56   The Timor Leste story Persaudaraan Setia Hati Terate’s principle is about supporting members, or the ‘Brotherhood’, which refers to the strong emotional relationship between members and cannot be separated by anyone. The brotherhood bond is very strong. The organisation has a military approach towards training, such as military exercise routine warm-­up (push-­ups, roll on the floor, etc.). The training principle is: if you can meet the challenge, then you will succeed or else face physical punishment for poor performance. Those who miss their training, or did not follow instructions properly are punished by being punched and/or kicked in the stomach 16 times. The person who is being punished will take a deep breath, and be kicked and/or punched by the trainer. The reason for physical punishment is that it’s carried over from when the Indonesian military first introduced Persaudaraan Setia Hati Terate into East Timor. Interviewer: 

It sounds like you enjoy being part of PSHT. What do you think are the benefits as a member? Eddy:  PSHT is about discipline, defending yourself and those who are weak, as well as building your relationship with God. I try to incorporate these things into my daily life. (Eddy, interview with author, 14 January 2010) This is an interesting fusion of male bonding, Christianity, and the militarisation of personal life. While Eddy acknowledges that there are also female martial arts members, he was somewhat dismissive of them, claiming that women cannot ‘take physical training and punishment as well as men’. However, he did concede that the few female trainers are ‘just as tough as men during sparring sessions’. Similarly, manu futu is popular with Timorese men as a form of gambling, with women rarely participating in the event. Manu futu can be a source of domestic violence, as couples dispute money lost from gambling, and men take out their frustrations on their family after unsuccessful bets. I interviewed John, a middle-­ aged Timor Leste business man about his weekly participation in manu futu: I go every Sunday. It is a big thing here for the men. I usually bet 50 dollars each time, though people have lost 100 or even 500 in a game. It can be a source of dispute among couples, say a husband lost all the money for gambling and there is no food for the children. Or maybe he takes out the anger on them. Women don’t gamble – they don’t have the money and they don’t like seeing all the blood. (John, interview with author, 14 January 2010) When asked about alternative pastimes for men that do not revolve around gambling or animals fighting, John shrugged and replied: ‘You must understand there isn’t much to do in Dili – no movie theatres or big shopping departments like Indonesia or Australia. Drinking, going to manu futu – these are the main entertainment.’

The Timor Leste story   57

Case studies of individual men’s activism on gender equality Organisations that focus on safer sex education and HIV/AIDS with at-­risk groups are one of the few means to reach out to gay men and sex workers. Fundasaun Timor Hari’i (Build Timor Foundation – FTH) is a local NGO that originally provided trauma support to victims of Indonesian militia, but after independence moved its focus to HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention. It has two main target groups, sex workers and men who have sex with men (MSM), with the majority of outreach workers being volunteers. For the MSM group, there is a balance of gay and straight male volunteers. From the gay male volunteers’ perspective, the act of volunteering is an empowering process for both the community and for themselves (MSM volunteers, group interview with author, 12 January 2010). While FTH does not explicitly address gender issues in its outreach, volunteers from the MSM group do talk about healthy relationships and respecting one’s partner with the MSM communities they work with (MSM volunteers, group interview with author, 12 January 2010). Similarly, while the sex workers’ outreach group mainly consists of female volunteers, there are also male volunteers in the group which provide information and support. In a country which is predominantly Catholic – most NGOs interviewed concede that patriarchal practices and heterosexuality are normative – FTH and other NGOs that provide support to vulnerable groups such as MSM and sex workers have an important role in reducing their marginalisation in the community, as well as providing a safe space for information and support. For William, an Australian volunteer, the reasons for volunteering were spiritual, and believing that the young residents in the shelter needed a positive father figure: I came here on a couple of working missions/holidays, and I got to know somebody who runs this place, and I just became very interested in poverty projects, rather than this particular project. I’m Christian, so my motivation is … is my sense of calling. As far as proselytising goes, I never want to cross the line of free choice … I’m guessing with the percentages [girls’ reasons for shelter], but I think it’d be 70% family violence, but 30% would be just – it’s just not working at home. Mum and dad are separated, and the father won’t let the girls be with mum, and the girls don’t want to be with the father. My perspective then, which is what I thought here, was that that sort of help really need men. First to let people know not every bloke is a bad bloke, just to put a balance in. In fact I’m surprised that [the girls] really like me, not just myself but men who are like their father, which is kind of nice, which means it’s not too late. My experience in Australia was that those centres can really become man haters. A lot of that is because the women are a lot older, and just had ongoing, very bad experiences so it’s … it’s reasonable. So from that perspective, even though my wife and daughters

58   The Timor Leste story have taken this on, I just think my experience here has been very significant. I do enjoy being involved, just in the running round for the school, taking them out, that sort of thing … I do have an interest increasing work with the boys for almost a year that I have employed. But that’s just a sideline … Talking to men who have been violent to their kids and see if there are ways to discipline without the beating. (William, interview with author, 3 December 2009) From the conversation, it is clear that William was aware of his own attitudes and was seeking motivation for activism from a ‘purer’ source. At the same time, William chose to work in Timor Leste with young women who experienced violence because he was excluded from such work in Australia by feminists (whom he referred to as ‘man haters’ in the interview). Furthermore, his work goes beyond offering practical and emotional support, but a political agenda of spreading the message that ‘not every bloke is a bad bloke, just to put a balance in’.15 I recall leaving the interview feeling disturbed, because William’s rationale for doing volunteer work out of spirituality was uncomfortably close to the stereotypical image of a ‘white saviour’ as criticised by development theorists and commentators (Stirrat 2008). In addition, his negative views about feminism demonstrate the dangers of using positive messages to involve men, and the subversion of men’s power for dominance to one of nurture and care (Kaufman 2003: 11). Appealing too much to men’s power without challenging their privileges (seen as ‘man hating’) not only means recruiting men who are not on board with notions of equality and feminism, it also places such men in the context of working with vulnerable groups, as the William case illustrates all too well. On the other hand, PRADET staff, Susan Kendall reflected on how NGOs engage with men on sensitive topics such as parenting and the use of violence as discipline: I think most men don’t want to be violent. There’s a good story in Oecussi, the Chefe du Suco [village chief] was saying how he has to beat his daughter because she keeps going into the forest with the boys. Paul [NGO staff] asked him, ‘Do you want to beat her?’ He said, ‘No, I don’t want to beat my daughter, but I have to show – I have to earn the respect of the community.’ How do you manage to maintain that toughness in the community? So teaching people new skills is terribly important. So I think most men don’t want to be violent. If they have another way out, they’d choose it. (Susan Kendall, interview with author, 10 December 2009) When asked how to increase men’s interest in volunteer work on domestic violence or child abuse issues, William replied: To involve men, it’d have to be for activity-­oriented, so they can see concrete outcomes, raised funds to build things … I suppose the other area is

The Timor Leste story   59 counselling, but you know a bloke can’t really work in a [safe] house as women do. I think just … being involved in a lot simpler task would make sense to men: ‘Oh that’s what I can do.’ That he enjoys it and knows he is doing something. And then that relationship building happens whereas they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. (William, interview with author, 3 December 2009)

Conclusion My research methodology and focuses in Timor Leste went through changes due to two anticipated cases studies of SUVAW and the Hapara Violensia Kontra Feto campaign failing to generate the expected data. The research focus for Timor Leste shifted to a broader analysis of the challenges involved in implementing gender, and violence against women programs, as well as factors that shape masculinities in Dili. As this chapter has shown, although the main form of violence against women is domestic violence, there are wide ranging and at times disjointed efforts to address it – there are slick ad campaigns with the obvious message of stop violence against women, but the picture of wedding band on perpetrator’s cuffed hands suggest domestic violence. Expatriate workers and volunteers such as Clare and William come to Timor Leste with good intentions, but can get caught up in the context or their own reasons for being involved. Above all, efforts to stop either domestic violence or broader forms of violence against women do not identify such challenges as donor/NGO partnerships, the politics of foreign policy and aid, and the capacity of partner organisations to contribute to how violence against women’s programs are designed and implemented at the local level, affecting men’s roles in such initiatives. There is also the issue of relationship management with donors and donor politics, where funding is used as a leverage against partner NGOs in order to dictate how they implement aid programs, as experienced by Support when dealing with the Australian Government. There were also tensions between stakeholders. In Oecussi, NGOs were frustrated at the lack of training opportunities due to most workshops being based in Dili, while a liurai (local chief ) felt the government did not respect the community leaders in its consultation processes. These examples show that donor and partner relations, as well as aid politics, has an important impact upon violence against women programs that involve men. Furthermore, while the international development community has been supporting initiatives and NGOs to involve men in ending violence against women, in my research findings there has been neither a unified approach nor a clear understanding of which forms of violence against women they should target. For example, the UN public awareness campaign used male public figures to promote anti-­violence messages, but it is not clearly linked to other UN-­funded/ supported projects which have the same purposes. Local NGOs work on male behavioural change but each have its own focus: SUVAW on peer education, Support on community awareness. A western man was doing voluntary work

60   The Timor Leste story based on his own interpretation of gender relations and appropriate course of action. The local men are simultaneously treated as perpetrators or helpers to end violence against women by the international community. Amidst the hue and cry of ‘engaging with men’, local women’s NGOs and shelters continue their support of domestic violence survivors, likely with the knowledge that regardless of the donor trends of aid topics, there will always be women and children in need of safe accommodation, counselling, and legal aid. At the same time, a theme of saviour mentality was beginning to emerge from the Timor Leste fieldwork: from the male leaders staunchly denouncing violence against women in the Hapara Violensia Kontra Feto campaign, to William who admitted to deriving satisfaction from helping the young women. At a glance, their involvement appears to be evidence of positive action and support for women’s rights. However, these men’s privileged position in society adds a class (and in William’s case, race) dimension to their involvement. William had very strong views about feminists, whom he felt were dominating the violence against women’s work in Australia. In Timor Leste, he found the opportunity to work on the issue without being questioned or challenged. This theme of men as heroes will be explored further in Chapter 6. While I experienced obstacles during fieldwork in Timor Leste, and the anticipated case studies did not work out, the research highlighted the key barriers to addressing violence against women and ways to engage with men, as well as factors which contribute to men’s violence, and local examples of activism by men to counter this. 

Notes   1 The research done by Alves et al. (2009: 14) show that violence against women were regarded by local communities as regular, almost daily occurrences; that women were blamed for the causes and results of sexual violence; and that these issues are related to the overall lower status of women and girls in the communities.   2 According to the Timor Leste Government’s press release of 30 May 2012, the National Action Plan (NAP) is a multi-­sectoral approach towards violence against women, and has a set of short and long goals over three years. The NAP involves government and civil society working ‘together in the education, social services, justice, security and health sectors, to reach these goals’ (Timor Leste Government 2012).   3 While I have chosen the phrase ‘violence against women’ or ‘men’s violence against women’, there are many aid agencies such as the UNFPA who use the phrase ‘gender­based violence’ or ‘sexual and gender-­based violence’. However, often the aid agencies only focus on gender-­based violence or sexual and gender-­based violence experienced by women and girls rather than the original intent of the meaning, which is to explore how sexual and gender-­based violence are experienced differently by men and women, boys and girls. I have made the decision to retain agencies’ original phrasing where reference is made about their programs or work.   4 Pseudonyms are used for this organisation as well as its staff. Identifying details have been altered.   5 This is a reference to the Timor Sea Agreement between Australia and Timor Leste, and the International Utilization Agreement between Australia and Indonesia in the

The Timor Leste story   61 period of 2003–2004. There were strong concerns at the time that the terms of agreements were unjust towards Timor Leste. At the time, there were a number of petitions circulating, which had been signed by individuals and organisations to protest against Australian Government foreign policy.   6 Due to the nature of our conversation, the informant has requested confidentiality and some identifying information has accordingly been altered.   7 From my own personal experience of working for UN Women, small UN agencies often hire international and local staff on consultant/casual contracts, especially in field offices. This is mainly a budgetary measure, as official UN employee salaries are too costly for smaller agencies. But this also create a power divide between ‘UN staff ’ and ‘consultants’, the latter receiving lesser pay and often having no employment benefits unless specifically negotiated in the contract.   8 Names and details have been changed.   9 Timor Leste NGOs who were critical of Australia’s role in oil and gas negotiations had their funding cut by the Australian Government during the early 2000s (see Anderson 2006). 10 She is not sure why AusAID opposed organisation’s inclusion of medication in its service delivery. I have attempted to interview the AusAID post in Dili, but the request was declined by AusAID. 11 Oxfam Australia’s field office was made aware of Marcos’ concern. At the time of the interview, Marcos’ contact details were taken by Oxfam, who promised to follow-­up on his complaint with the relevant government department. 12 Timor Leste has two official languages: Portuguese and Tetum. While the decision to include Portuguese reflects the history of Portugal’s colonisation of the country from 1500s to 1975, in reality it is only the elite and the older generations who are proficient with the language. As result of the Indonesian occupation and Indonesia’s close proximity (which means that Indonesian music, films, and other popular culture materials are widely available in Timor Leste) the younger generation are more familiar with Bahasa and Tetum. On the issue of teachers delivering lessons in Portuguese – among other challenges – see Quinn 2005. 13 MSI staff ’s observation matches the experience of the SSPS Congregation in the town Salele (Covalima district). The nuns had set up a shelter house for victims of sexual and gender-­based violence, and were met with opposition from both the church hierarchy as well as the local community. The Church did not want the congregation to provide support services to victims of sexual and gender-­based violence, while the community accused the nuns of supporting immoral women through the shelter (Alves et al. 2009: 54). 14 Indonesian for Brotherhood of Pentjak Silat, self-­defence; also known as Nehek Metan, ‘Black Ants’. 15 Interviewing William was a difficult experience. He was not used to being interviewed or to talking about his volunteer work. Often, William would pause for a long duration and struggle to find the right words and expressions. Therefore, although I found his description of Australian feminists as ‘man haters’ to be disturbing, I did not explore further on this with him, because it was already a challenge to sustain the conversation and build rapport.

4 ‘Please tell the world about us’ Fieldwork findings from Pakistan

In this chapter, I first provide an overview of the extent and forms of violence against women in Pakistan, the contributing factors to violence against women in the country, and the stakeholders and organisations who are working on the issues as well and challenges that they face. This is followed by a range of case studies, including a major case study on Oxfam GB’s program in Pakistan, ‘We Can End Violence against Women’ (commonly referred to as ‘We Can’), the progress of which I followed in the Punjab and Sindh provinces. The We Can campaign was chosen for study due to the involvement of a large number of male activists, exceeding women’s participation in the program. Another case study chosen was the NGO Rozan’s project, Humqadam (Urdu for ‘companion’), a gender-­sensitisation project for young men. The challenges faced by these programs will be discussed in the last section of this chapter.

Violence against women in Pakistan: extent and current legislation National statistical data collection on the occurrences and types of violence against women across Pakistan remains a challenge. Sajid, Khan, and Farid (2010) examined the constraints of data collection on violence against women in Pakistan, using data from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police in 2009, but conceded that, due to the low level of police reporting, this data presents a picture of much lower incidences of violence against women than is actually the case. Pakistan police’s Gender Crime Cell (established in 2006) was meant to be a form of central data collection on cases of violence against women, but according to the 2013 NGO shadow report to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, only 2 out of the 25 Gender Crime Cell posts were filled as of March 2012 (Shirkat Gah 2013). The Aurat Foundation, a local women’s NGO in Pakistan that I was referred to during fieldwork, has been compiling violence against women reports since 2008 (based on printed and electronic media reporting). In its 2011 press release, it claimed that there were 8,539 victims of violence against women, an increase of 6.74 per cent from the previous year (Aurat Foundation 2011: 1). Abduction and kidnapping was the most frequent form of reported violence against women, followed by

Fieldwork findings from Pakistan   63 murder, and rape/gang rape (Aurat Foundation 2011: 2). The Aurat Foundation observed: The figure was 8000 in 2010; in 2009, the incidents of violence against women 8548 and; in 2008, these incidents were 7571. This shows that by and large the incidents of violence against women in the last four years were in the same range with some increase and decrease and; the society has not witnessed any radical departure in its trends in the unfortunate commission of crimes against women. This reflects a kind of a status quo, also indicating that neither State is doing to eliminate this violence nor society is responding to curb uncivilized behavior. (Aurat Foundation 2011: 1) In recent times, there have been a number of laws enacted or policies set in place by the Pakistani Government to protect women from violence: in 2012, the Pakistani Senate approved the National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) Bill 2012 (which replaces the NCSW Ordinance from 2000, with the new Commission having financial and administrative autonomy); in 2011, the Pakistani Parliament passed the Acid Control and Acid Prevention Act (2011) and the Prevention of Anti-­Women Practices (Criminal Laws Amendment) Act (2011); and in 2010, Section 509 of the Penal Code (amended in February 2010) included definition of sexual harassment in both public and private context, while the Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act (2010) set up a complaints procedure for sexual harassment in the workplace. While these pieces of legislation have been welcomed by feminists and civil society organisations, critics have observed that they do not address the key challenges for legislation. First, Pakistan has a parallel justice system in which formal law operates alongside Musalihat Anjuman (mediation forums), which were introduced to address lack of community access to formal justice (Shirkat Gah 2013: 9). However, women’s NGOs have reported that women ‘confronted significant barriers in approaching the forums and in adequately representing their own interests’, as well as the tendency for such forums to be male-­ dominated (Braithwaite and Gohar 2014, Shirkat Gah 2013: 9). Second, Pakistan has a strong tradition and practice of the tribal Jirga or Panchayat system (which the Musalihat Anjuman is seeking to replace), which are particularly influential in rural and remote areas (Shah and Tariq 2013: 202–203). These tribal systems vary according to region, but the majority possess conservative views about women, perhaps best exemplified in cases of honour killing (Jafri 2008, Warraich 2005). The third challenge is state capacity to implement and monitor legislation which seeks to promote women’s rights and the elimination of violence against women. In 2010, the Pakistan Government adopted a series of policy changes to allow for decentralisation in order for provinces to have greater access to resources and responsibilities. However, this also meant the devolution of the Ministry of Women’s Development (MOWD) in 2011, and there is no longer a Women’s Ministry at the federal level (although each province has its

64   Fieldwork findings from Pakistan own Ministry). The NCSW is a statutory and autonomous body mandated to examine the policies and programs for women development and gender equality, with Commissions also operating at the provincial level. The Commissions have an important role in tracking the country’s progress on women’s status at both federal and provincial level. It is important that they are supported through appropriate funding and smooth coordination with other government agencies.

Causes and contributing factors towards violence against women in Pakistan: cultural beliefs and practices Article 25(1) of the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan guarantees that: ‘All citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of law’. However, Pakistani feminists and human rights activists would be quick to point out the discrepancies between rhetoric and reality. Pakistan came to independence in 1947 as an Islamic Republic, and the state itself was created through the division of British colonial India into the nation states of India and Pakistan (Jaffrelot 2004: 9–10). In part as a result of the notion of the precepts of the Islamic state, the social and cultural context of Pakistani society is predominantly patriarchal, with men and women conceptually divided into two separate worlds (Jafar 2007: 261–264). Home is defined as a woman’s legitimate space, while a man dominates the world outside the home (Jalal 1991: 78–79). The gender segregation of public and private, inside and outside worlds is maintained through the notion of honour and purdah, the institutionalised seclusion of women to the domestic sphere (Jalal 1991: 78–79). Since the notion of male honour and izzat (honour) is linked with women’s sexual behaviour, women’s sexuality is considered a potential threat to the honour of the family (Asian Development Bank (ADB) 2000, Welchman and Hossain 2005). As Shaheed (2010: 851) observes, a ‘cultural agenda prescribing everyday norms is a hallmark of all politico-­religious projects, in which gender-­normative regulations are most visible as dress codes, women’s seclusion and restricted activities’. Due to the diverse cultures and ethnicities in Pakistan, the types of violence against women also vary according to the provinces. For instance, honour killing (locally referred to as karo kari, meaning ‘black male’ and ‘black female’) is the most common form of violence against women in Sindh province because it is bound to the local feudal customs (Azhar 2012: xv, Participatory Development Initiatives – PDI 2005: 15–16). Punjab province is heavily involved in cotton production and industrial grade acid is commonly used to strip fibre from cotton seeds, so acid is readily available for purchase by farmers, and also by perpetrators of acid violence, typically men whose marriage proposal was rejected by a woman or her family (Valerie Khan Yusufzai, interview with author, 14 February 2010). Conservative perceptions about women’s autonomy also factor into the definition of a crime. For instance, while abduction and kidnapping were cited by the Aurat Foundation report as the highest form of violence against women, the Aurat Foundation (2011: 7) also noted that ‘when women leave their homes voluntarily, usually to marry men of their choice, families generally report abduction’.

Fieldwork findings from Pakistan   65 While practices such as honour killing illustrate culturally-­specific forms of violence against women, ‘culture’ is a dynamic entity, and Pakistan is seeing permutations of violence against women which are influenced by economic and political forces. In the case of honour killing, it has increasingly become a way for murderers to extort money, as illustrated by a ‘typical’ case recounted by a male NGO worker from a tribal area in Balochistan: It is not unusual for the husband or father who killed the woman suspected of adultery, to demand monetary compensation from the accused man or his family, because the husband or father would argue that he had suffered a loss. I will tell you a case, a young man in our district killed his friend during a dispute. He went home to find his sister, killed her, and laid the two bodies together. He said he found the two committing adultery, and he had no choice but to kill them. Then he demanded the dead man’s family for compensation over the death and dishonour of his sister. We found out because others in the village heard him boast [how he got away with the crime]. (Ayaz, interview with author, 23 February 2010) Despite the man’s admission of the two murders, no legal action was taken, and the NGO I interviewed was reluctant to pursue the case, due to lack of support from the community. The matter was considered settled, and the villagers did not want to report the young man’s admission of two murders: ‘There is very little policing [of honour killing] … we wanted to do something, but because the compensation was paid, people didn’t care’ (Ayaz, interview with author, 23 February 2010). Justifications for honour killing – traditionally as a sentence pronounced by local leaders to punish adulterous men and women – have also been extended to include instances when a woman or young girl has tried to exercise personal autonomy, such as following a desire for further education, refusal to enter into an arranged marriage, or being outside of the home without permission. Therefore, while it is useful to understand and analyse cases of violence against women which have been labelled ‘honour killing’ within their social and cultural contexts, it is also important not to reinforce cultural essentialism. As Gill (2014) argues, the concept of ‘honour’ is difficult to define, and any analysis must take care not to reinforce the stereotypical assumption that honour killing is ‘something that happens to “othered” women from “othered” communities’ (2014: 4). The following case that I came across during fieldwork in the Punjab province illustrates Gill’s argument: a 12-year-­old girl in the Punjab province attended a relative’s wedding without her father’s permission. The father regarded his daughter’s action as compromising the family’s honour, and he beat her to death, in the presence of his wife and their children. The woman reported the murder to the local police, who arrested her husband. But his absence meant the end of the family income. Unable to find alternative means to support the family and confronted by an unsupportive community who viewed her decision to seek justice

66   Fieldwork findings from Pakistan in a negative light, the woman was forced to withdraw the case, and the man returned home. Had the case been tried in court, the outcome would likely have been in the defendant’s favour, as the Pakistani High Court has a history of reducing offender’s sentences on the grounds of grave and sudden provocation if the offender claims to be from an area in which the ‘loose conduct’ of women is not tolerated (Jehangir and Ahmed 2005: 73). In this instance, the father had attributed the violence and murder to family honour, yet the child’s only crime was attending to her cousin’s wedding without his permission. The man had manipulated cultural understandings about ‘honour’ to justify his actions. Since violence against women is seen as a form of disciplinary measure so that women conform to patriarchal notions of honour, cases of violence are often perceived by the community and family members as normal or even necessary. Valerie Khan Yusufzai (interview with author, 14 February 2010), chairperson of the Acid Survivors Foundation of Pakistan, illustrated the challenges when working on community awareness about acid violence: ‘The community blames women. They say, “oh she must’ve done something to deserve that, or else it wouldn’t happen”  ’. This attitude is extended to victim’s need for medical treatment after acid violence, and women who have suffered acid violence are prevented from accessing free medical treatment by their family. While some acid violence survivors received compensation from the perpetrator, there were also cases in which the crime was settled by the victim marrying the man who had disfigured her (Valerie Khan Yusufzai, interview with author, 14 February 2010). Despite societal and structural levels of violation of women’s rights, from the use (or threat) of violence, such as honour killing, and forced marriage to control women at the domestic level, to barriers against access to justice, Pakistan has an active history of women who have fought for equal rights since its formation as a state.1 A notable case of feminist activism took place during General Zia ul-­ Haq’s military dictatorship of 1977–1988, when Zia sought to radically Islamise Pakistan through measures such as the Hudood Ordinance. The Ordinance included punishment of adultery by stoning, blurring the distinction between rape and consensual sex (which saw a number of rape victims charged with adultery), reducing women’s ability to give witness in court, and other restrictions on women in public space. This was met with the large-­scale mobilisation of feminists, students, and human rights activists, and the proliferation of civil society organisations dedicated to women’s issues, including the Women’s Action Forum, which was founded in 1981. Samina Rahman (interview with author, 12 March 2010), one of the original members of the Women’s Action Forum, recalled the protests led by feminist activists against Zia’s regime, and the bravery of the women: ‘We strongly felt that action was needed. When we were there at the demonstration and witnessed the brutality, we simply charged at the barriers. It was life and death for us.’

Fieldwork findings from Pakistan   67

Stakeholders and organisations working on violence against women in Pakistan Within the context of ending violence against women in Pakistan, there are three key types of stakeholders: the Pakistani Government (federal, provincial, and local), civil society (including local and INGOs, activists, volunteers, and academics), and donors (bilateral and multilateral, such as the UN or the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (German Federal Enterprise for International Cooperation – GIZ). Each type of stakeholder has a different approach to addressing violence against women. At the federal level, MOWD ceased to exist after a series of devolution policies in 2010, and the federal Ministry of Human Rights now has responsibility for reporting and coordinating women’s rights, though women’s NGOs have queried whether the Ministry of Human Rights has the capacity or gender-­sensitivity to carry out this task (Shirkat Gah 2013: 8). In terms of law enforcement’s role regarding violence against women, at the provincial level, women police stations (staffed by female police officers) are meant to be safe places for women to report complaints or file charges. However, to date there are no women police stations in Baluchistan, and female police officers’ roles in handling violence against women cases are limited. According to Tanveer (2006): ‘Women police stations often lack basic facilities such as telephones and means of transport … [I]n conservative areas such as Peshawar, the policewomen are not allowed to leave the police station without the permission of senior male police officers.’ The conservatism, resource constraints, and lack of political will to improve the situation meant that women often chose to join the police force only if no other jobs were available (International Crisis Group (ICG) 2008: 21). The ranges of responses towards violence against women from the civil society sector include advocacy, community outreach, documentation, research, and service delivery (such as women’s legal centres or domestic violence shelters). There is a vast range of women’s NGOs in Pakistan, such that they cannot all be listed in this section.2 It is common for NGOs and other civil society organisations in Pakistan to take up advocacy, service delivery, and community outreach roles, especially in rural areas where there are little or no government services.

Dilemmas for NGOs ‘doing gender’ in Pakistan and the contradiction of identity politics and values There are a number of challenges faced by NGOs and activists who work on ending violence against women in Pakistan. This section will discuss the three most prevailing challenges: weak law enforcement and judicial system; the misperception of gender equality and women’s rights as ‘western’ concepts in a context of increased conservatism and religious fundamentalism; and the social construction of rigid gender roles and norms.

68   Fieldwork findings from Pakistan Weak response from law enforcement There are many challenges in relation to policing in Pakistan and the issue of violence against women. The first, most significant challenge is poor police response to violence against women cases, and the mistreatment or abuse of women by male police.3 On its website, Germany’s official aid agency, GIZ (2015), noted: ‘The police in Pakistan exhibit a lack of sensitivity on gender issues and inadequate police response to crimes against women discourages women to seek justice.’ Because the Pakistani Penal Code only lists physical forms of violence against women as a crime, First Incident Reportings (FIRs) do not document emotional or financial forms of violence against women (Shirkat Gah 2013: 13). Gender training is not usually offered to lower level police whose job it is to record cases. So these lower level police have no idea how to document violence against women cases, how to handle victims appropriately or ask them the relevant questions (Shirkat Gah 2013: 13). As one female police officer – a rarity in Pakistan – explained, there are no blueprints or procedural guidelines for the police on dealing with domestic or sexual violence cases, and ‘women who go into police station alone are almost certain to be harassed or assaulted’ (name withheld, interview with author, 20 February 2010).4 The fear of sexual violence from police is not unfounded. Women’s groups and human rights NGOs in Pakistan frequently report police rape of women and girls. The most recent and internationally publicised case occurred in 2013, when two young women were raped for three days during police custody at the Khambarha police station in Sindh province (AHRC 2013). According to the female police officer I interviewed, change can only come if the Pakistani Government recruits large numbers of women into the police force so that female police officers can collectively take a stand against the sexist and abusive male culture. Parallel legal systems and their impact upon women There are currently two main, parallel, official legal systems in Pakistan. One is formal law, which is guided by Statute and (enacted) Sharia laws. Statute law is implemented through law courts (civil, criminal, lower, superior courts) and Sharia law is implemented by the Federal Shariat Court.5 The formal law system is enforced by police departments. The second system is less formal and is guided by custom and tribal laws, is implemented through Jirga (tribal council) or Panchayat6 (local government) and is enforced by agents of tribal leaders and feudal lords (Iqbal 2007: 108). Pakistani feminists and women’s NGOs have criticised this parallel legal systems for severely undermining women’s human rights, because the informal law systems make decisions that are ‘not based on any codified, transparent system of legal principles or precedence’ and women are typically excluded from decision-­making or even appearing as a complainant before the Jirga/Panchayat (Shirkat Gah 2013: 9, PDI 2005: 28). In an online article by Le Temps on 31 July 2012, Rehman Rashid, representative for the

Fieldwork findings from Pakistan   69 Pakistani Human Rights Commission in Multan, explained that the provincial governments are also to blame for the continuation of the two legal systems: ‘By giving their support to the panchayats, or participating in them, the members of parliament are showing that they don’t believe in State justice; they’re denying legal justice’ (Bletry 2012). There have been attempts by the UN to ‘reform’ elements of the informal law system, such as UNDP’s gender-­sensitisation project of the Musalihat Anjuman (mediation forums), intended to make the informal law system more accessible to women and aware of women’s legal rights. However, to date there has been no evaluation done to assess the project’s effectiveness. During my interview with the Pakistan Government counterpart of the project in 2010, I learned that, while domestic violence cases have been brought before Musalihat Anjuman, reconciliation is the most common solution and it can take up to six months before a case is resolved (Hamidi, interview with author, 5 March 2010). This was supported by the Shirkat Gah CEDAW shadow report, which noted the bias of the Musalihat Anjuman committee members, the lack of women representatives on the committee, the committee members’ ignorance of women’s rights – despite gender training – and cases in which domestic violence victims were sent back their abusers (Shirkat Gah 2013: 9). Hostility towards gender equality and women’s rights Due to the ongoing conflict and insecurity in the country, as well as the devastation of natural disasters, women and human rights activists find it increasingly difficult for violence against women to be recognised as a priority (Jafar 2011). There are many factors contributing to this, one of which is the backlash against the current military campaigns in Pakistan. With its neighbour, Afghanistan, being invaded by the US military on justifications including terrorism and the liberation of Afghan women in 2001, it is understandable that there is scepticism about the international community and aid organisations’ attempts to promote gender equality in the country. But at times these doubts have escalated into violence and harassment of NGO staff and the community (US Department of State 2008). Conservative sectors of Pakistani society have also capitalised on this sentiment to attack NGOs that work on women’s issues (Jafar 2007: 256–257). A large national NGO that provides support to rural NGOs in the country, including gender-­awareness training, described the hostility confronted by gender trainers even as they attempted to present training with a culturally sensitive approach: It can feel like a battle because people shout at you and say you have a western agenda. If we try to talk about gender from an Islamic perspective, then they say religion is a private issue, why are you talking about it in public? But if we talk about gender [without Islam], then they say you don’t know anything about Islam. (Parveen, interview with author, 10 February 2010)

70   Fieldwork findings from Pakistan Another women’s NGO received death threats: They would call [on the telephone], accuse us of being immoral, and that we tell women to divorce their husbands [in actual fact, the NGO works with local women on small livelihood projects]. They threatened to bomb the office and kill our families if we don’t stop. (Amira, interview with author, 12 February 2010) Similarly, other informants I spoke with recounted stories of being harassed by those in the community who claim to be Taliban sympathisers, who would advise the community not to cooperate with the NGOs, as well as police and local leaders, who either sanctioned the threats by taking no action, or overtly supported them. Because of these security risks, NGOs have found it difficult to recruit female employees, especially if the work requires them to travel to rural and remote areas (Fatima, interview with author, 23 February 2010, Saleem, interview with author, 16 February 2010). This is partly due to greater movement restrictions imposed by the families of female NGO workers, who sometimes insist that a male chaperone from the family be sent to accompany the female NGO worker on fieldwork. Concern about security is the dominant reason for limiting female staff mobility, as women are seen as a more likely target for attacks, due to their higher visibility in Pakistan’s male-­dominated public sphere. However, this also means that female staff miss out on field missions (a role typically allotted to male staff ) and providing gender-­specific outreach support to women in local communities. In addition, travel restrictions of female staff may also be imposed by NGOs themselves. NGO restrictions upon staff mobility – particularly from international NGOs – are due to complex factors such as fear of jeopardising programs and donor/stakeholder relations, and also include expatriates, who are also restricted at the same, if not to a greater extent. For Samina, co-­founder of the Women’s Action Forum and the Lahore Grammar School, the shrinking space for women’s activism is not only due to security concerns, but also reflects growing conservatism, as people from both middle and working classes seek to align themselves with the ‘safe’ political spectrum, which seeks a reaffirmation of patriarchal gender roles and norms (Samina, interview with author, 12 March 2010). Samina cited an example in which the elite private school, Lahore Grammar, had changed the language of its curriculum to accommodate an increasingly conservative cohort of parents, who disapprove, for example, of girls being taught music and dance. The school navigates this by changing the names of music and dance classes to ‘cultural lessons’, as they fear parents will take girls out of the schools. There are also security considerations, as girls’ schools have been targeted for attacks. Balancing between women’s issues and involving men Lack of resources is also cited as a key reason for not engaging with men. Although agencies such as women’s legal services and domestic violence

Fieldwork findings from Pakistan   71 shelters actively engage with and lobby male-­dominated professions such as law enforcement and government agencies, focusing on individual men’s behavioural change and activism have not been considered as a priority due to budget constraints and high workload. As a staff member from Dastak, the women’s shelter in Lahore, explains: We barely have enough funding and staff to run this shelter, which leaves very little for other activities. When women come here [usually with their children], they don’t stay for a few days or weeks. They stay for three, four or six months, or even longer because there is nowhere else to go. There is a male doctor on this street who is kind, and gives free consultations to the women, and we’d like more people like this doctor to be involved, but we just don’t have the time. (Dana, interview with author, 13 March 2010) Another challenge for women’s NGOs working with men, is how the issue is approached by donor and international NGOs. A person who was involved closely with We Can campaign (discussed later in this chapter) informed me that the program experienced a setback in Pakistan when it was presented at a women’s NGOs meeting. The women’s NGOs – especially the major ones with national coverage – were angered by what they perceived as Oxfam GB’s lack of consultation during the program design stage. This resulted in a number of large women’s NGOs not participating in the We Can campaign (name withheld, interview with author, 15 March 2010).

Resistor of male dominance or gender-­sensitive patriarchy? A case study from the Humqadam project Humqadam was a project that provided gender-­sensitisation training for young men between the ages of 15 and 30 in the suburb of Rehmatabad, in the city of Rawalpindi. The suburb is predominantly made up of working-­class Muslims. At the time of the interview, Humqadam had around 100 participants, though Saffi Ullah, the program manager responsible for running some of the training workshops, explained that some young men dropped in and out of the sessions. The trainings were conducted on Friday afternoons, and sometimes on Saturday, at which time the young men would often play cricket together. My meeting was with 15 young men, who impressed me with their thoughtful and reflective replies during the interview. Many told me that the initial attraction for participating in the Humqadam program was boredom, as there were not many things to do on Friday afternoons, especially for those who were unemployed. They were also curious about the program, as gender and masculinities were ‘something new’ for them, though one or two young men reported being ridiculed by other men for being part of Humqadam and being involved in ‘women’s’ issues. When I asked the young men’s opinion about what it means to be a Muslim man in their community, the dominant responses were:

72   Fieldwork findings from Pakistan Traditionally, it means you have to be strong, generous, and adhere to Islam. You have to be tough and protect your family. You have to be conservative. A jack of all trades – knows everything and helps out. Being strong and not let your emotions show. From this workshop, I learn that as a man, I have to take a stand about domestic violence, including interfering when a man is beating a woman. (Humqadam group interview with author, 5 March 2010) I raised the question: ‘If you now support equality between men and women, does it mean you’d be happy to give up some of your rights as a man?’ The young men engaged in a heated, but respectful discussion, and two views emerged on the question. One group of young men began by responding that they supported women’s rights, such as work opportunities, but argued that women should ‘dress modestly, not show their body shapes or wear make-­up, because that’s asking for harassment’. The second group interrupted, saying: ‘But I know you like women to be attractive and fashionable!’ They began to argue among themselves about the definition of ‘fashion’, whether it means a western style of dress, such as jeans and short sleeves for women, or if fashion means to look attractive. In the end, the participants conceded that ‘we can’t agree on what is fashion, but we admit we’d like our girlfriend or wife to look nice’. When I again raised the question of relinquishing male rights and powers, this was the reply: Sometimes, gender is not the issue. If I apply for a job and a girl who is more qualified gets it, sure why not? But it is not all about gender – if you have the right connection, came from the right family, went to the right universities – that’s what matters in our society. (Humqadam group interview with author, 5 March 2010) A number of observations can be made about the young men’s discussion. First, the young men’s views show a conflict between the framework of Islamic masculinity which they established at the beginning of the interview, and the diversion from talking about giving up men’s rights to a discussion of how women should dress and behave in public. Second, the young men were aware of how social inequalities, such as class division and nepotism intersect in gender issues, and that ‘it is not all about gender’. Despite the workshop training about gender, the young men are still struggling with dominant gender norms, as is seen in some of the young men’s perception that that women ‘ask for’ sexual harassment if they dress immodestly and wear cosmetics. It was fascinating to observe the young men debating, because it highlighted the two male norms within which the young men had been conditioned: the disapproval of women who wore make-­up and looked attractive, and, at the same time, judgement of

Fieldwork findings from Pakistan   73 women’s attractiveness based on physical appearance. Both values have their concerns, and the young men’s debates highlighted these contradictions, serving as a reminder of the complexities of gender norms and tradition. At the end, I asked Safi, the trainer, his thoughts about the young men’s discussions, to which Safi shook his head and replied that sexual harassment had already been discussed in previous workshops, and that the young men still had a long way to go in processing the new, gender equitable ideas. In 2012, Rozan released an evaluation report of the Humqadam project, based on interviews with a group of young men who were involved in the program, as well as a control group. Both groups were asked questions about socialisation, sexuality, gender relations, and violence (Rozan 2012: 17). The results were compared with responses from in-­depth interviews of eight young men who attended Humqadam, who were randomly selected (Rozan 2012: 5). Although it had been a number of years since my meeting with the young men, I had good memories of that interview and was gratified to find that there was significant attitude change about violence against women – the young men were able to identify forms of violence against women and why women are vulnerable to change (Rozan 2012: 42). They also showed more flexibility in thinking about gender roles, such as women’s right to work (Rozan 2012: 42), a topic which had caused a huge debate among the young men I interviewed in 2010. But what has not changed (and what I came across when I asked the young men about a man’s role during the group interview), was their ‘perceptions of what a man should be … the bread winner’ (Rozan 2012: 42). There was also no significant change to the belief that men should defend their honour, including that of women, as illustrated in this revealing comment by a respondent: ‘If we saw someone from outside e.g. young boy in our locality … we talk to him once and then we don’t spare him … how can someone come to our locality for girls … protecting their honour is our duty…’ (Rozan 2012: 38) While the young men’s exposure to Humqadam enhanced their knowledge and awareness of women’s rights and gave them new ways of thinking about gender, the entrenched, patriarchal masculine values – of being a provider and defender of their families, especially women – still prevailed. At the same time, behavioural change programs require long-­term, sustained efforts in order to work. Individual women and men may be well informed about gender equality and human rights during workshops, but once outside of the classroom, they confront powerful institutions, such as the family and religion, as well as the influences of media and peer pressure. It could be argued that Humqadam has ameliorated the worst forms of patriarchal values and actions in the young men, but the question remains: is it enough? I do not have the answer. I remember saying goodbye to the young men after the group interview, and one of them spoke up: ‘Please tell the world about us. Tell them not all Muslim men are terrorists.’

74   Fieldwork findings from Pakistan

Case study from Oxfam GB’s We Can campaign The following section looks at a program which belongs to a wider, South Asia regional campaign, called ‘We Can’, which was developed by Oxfam GB, and operated in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka between 2004 and 2011. We Can is different from the projects that work only with men and boys, as it seeks to change the attitudes of both men and women while encouraging their participation in taking up activities to prevent violence against women at the family, community, and institutional levels (Oxfam GB 2007: 3). The men and women who participate in the campaign’s activism are called ‘Change Makers’, who, in addition to signing a pledge to the campaign’s objectives, are tasked to reach ten people through peer education and to recruit them to also become Change Makers. By the end of the program, it was estimated that We Can has recruited just under 4 million Change Makers in the South Asia region, with 427,300 total Change Makers in Pakistan, out of which 299,488 were men and 127,842 were women (Raab 2011: 18). For a country in which feminism and the promotion of anti-­violence against women have become increasingly high-­ risk activities, We Can’s significant number of male volunteers is a remarkable achievement. I came across the We Can campaign through Oxfam GB, my host organisation, who suggested that I may find it useful to interview We Can campaign staff who were seconded to the implementing NGO in Islamabad. After meeting Hajera Pasha, the National Coordinator who works full time for the campaign, in March 2010, I decided to visit some of the areas in which We Can was being implemented. There were several reasons for choosing the We Can program. First, the Pakistan program had the largest number of male participants of any country where it was implemented. Second, the campaign has 750 participating NGOs and civil society organisations with a wide coverage of districts in the country. I was interested to learn about the challenges faced by both partner NGOs and participants of We Can, especially in areas where there has been strong tribal or feudal control of women. Third, because it is an Oxfam GB program, I was able to access more remote areas in Pakistan where their partner NGOs were working. The principles, theories, and how We Can operates as a program will be analysed, followed by fieldwork findings of how it operated at the ground level. I will then discuss the key issues faced by the We Can program, such as the social divisions among the campaign participants; the role of partner NGOs; inconsistent follow-­up of campaign progress and documentation; and the balancing act of challenging institutional violence against women while working with local authorities and power brokers who contribute to the institutional issues. Funding and ownership of We Can Funding for the We Can campaign came primarily from Oxfam GB and other Oxfam affiliates, such as Oxfam Hong Kong and Oxfam Novib. Additional funding sources include the Dutch Government (under the Millennium

Fieldwork findings from Pakistan   75 Development Goal 3 fund), and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID). The We Can campaign has an average annual budget of £1 million, which is distributed to the six implementing countries, and spending varies according to the scale of operation in each country (Aldred and Williams 2009: 106–107). Average spending in Pakistan is approximately £150,000 for the entire country campaign. In terms of ownership, Oxfam GB took the initial role of being active and visible in launching We Can, the campaign was then gradually ‘owned’ by a broader steering group including partner civil society organisations. For instance, in Pakistan, the current implementing and managing organisation of We Can is the Strengthening Participatory Organization (SPO), a Pakistan NGO which principally conducts research and training for community-­based organisations. Oxfam GB seconded two staff to SPO to support the program implementation and database management (as all the Change Makers’ details are inputted into a computer database to track program growth), but otherwise has minimal implementation role. As part of the core group, SPO is supported by National Secretariats (typically a large, respected NGO in each province), who serve as a contact point for the alliance members within the province, and coordinate meetings, large-­scale activities in the region, and implement decisions made by SPO. There were 750 ‘alliance members’ who consist of a diverse group of stakeholders, including NGOs (both women and mainstream); government departments; educational institutions; influential individuals in communities such as Jirga members, lawyers, or clerics; media; celebrities; and university student unions. They are given training and advocacy materials about violence against women, which were produced by Oxfam GB as part of the campaign, and they are supported by the National Secretariats. The program has a wide reach, covering 35 districts in 5 provinces, approximately one-­third of Pakistan (Raab 2011: 10). One of the biggest contributions to the We Can campaign is the in-­kind contribution given by the alliance members, whose decision to join the campaign is voluntary. The campaign only receives a small sum of money to run a few campaign activities, such as International Women’s Day. Most commonly, the members integrate the We Can campaign into their existing work, such as disseminating campaign information in an agricultural program, or including the theme of domestic violence as part of a political forum by the student union. Individuals who became aware of and interested in We Can then have the option to sign on as Change Makers, pledging themselves to the campaign and activities, such as introducing the campaign materials to ten more people. The alliance member regularly reports the number of activities conducted either by themselves or by the individual Change Makers, which is then recorded by SPO. The premise of We Can The concept of We Can emerged during internal discussions within Oxfam GB about the need for a violence against women campaign in the early 2000s, with

76   Fieldwork findings from Pakistan the focus on working with men as part of its strategy. A strategy paper was developed in 2004, which highlighted the campaign’s long-­term objects, which are: to change community and institutional attitudes and beliefs that accept and perpetuate violence against women; to challenge gender stereotypes which are reinforced by patriarchal traditions and culture; and increased accountability of institutions towards the issue. Oxfam GB explicitly states that the campaign is based on feminist principles, such as addressing both the personal (family and community) and the political (institutional and structural) dimensions of violence against women. However, the campaign’s community mobilisation strategy is informed by Stages of Change theory, more commonly known as transtheoretical model (Aldred and Williams 2009: 17), a model developed in the 1970s to work on changing health behaviours and addictions such as smoking (Prochaska and DiClemente 1986). The theory argued that change is a process involving progress through a series of stages, in which individuals shift from being not ready to change a behaviour, to accepting the necessary changes, followed by actions to change and maintaining the new norm. The transtheoretical model has also been used by North American social workers and academics who work on intervention programs with men convicted of domestic violence. Its supporters argue that the model’s strength lies in its positive focus on the individual’s ability for change, as well as focusing on the process during which behavioural changes take place (Lehmann and Simmons 2009: 23–24). Subsequently, the model was adapted by development NGOs – including the Ugandan NGO, Raising Voices – for use in community mobilisation projects that address violence against women in the local community. Oxfam GB’s transtheoretical model – the basis of the We Can campaign – is borrowed from the Raising Voices’ framework, which adapted the model to tailor its work on community mobilisation, but in principle the model still focuses on behavioural change of the individuals (Aldred and Williams 2009: 17). While the transtheoretical model (also known as the ‘Stages of Change’ model) has been developed and used since the late 1970s for a range of purposes, its application towards violence against women has some serious implications, which will be discussed in the following section. From smoking addiction to violence against women: the transtheoretical model, its applications, and its limitations The transtheoretical model was developed in 1977 by James O. Prochaska, a Professor of Psychology (Prochaska and DiClemente 1982). Ostensibly, the transtheoretical model was used for the purpose of examining ‘smoking cessation studies’ and focused on individual test subjects’ behavioural change over a period of observation (DiClemente et al. 1991: 295–296). The creators of the model argue that based on the findings of their tests, individuals who go through the process of quitting smoking experience ‘stages of change’ which include ‘precontemplation, contemplation, action, and maintenance’ (DiClemente et al. 1991: 295).7

Fieldwork findings from Pakistan   77 The transtheoretical model has been utilised by academics who work on violence against women programs – from working with domestic violence survivors (Brown 1997, Burke et al. 2004), to improving protection orders within the North American context (Stoever 2011) – as well as NGOs, including the Ugandan-­based Raising Voices, who adapted the model for ‘intimate partner violence’ prevention in Uganda (Michau 2012, Wagman et al. 2012). Oxfam GB’s We Can campaign adopted the modified version of transtheoretical framework from Raising Voices, and justified their rationale for the approach: At the heart of the Campaign’s ideas about change is that every change, however big or small … is of equal worth … Demystifying the idea of change and making it accessible has enabled the Campaign to reach out to everyone. It has opened it out to the active engagement of men and boys, where it tries to offer alternative ways of being male, rather than blame men for all violence. (Aldred and Williams 2009: 18) There are two main issues with using the transtheoretical framework to prevent violence against women and involving men. First, the transtheoretical model is a health model which was developed to curb smoking addiction, and as acknowledged by Prochaska, DiClemente, and Norcross (1991), the model focuses on an individual’s attitudes and behaviours towards smoking and therefore is not concerned with broader, institutional, cultural, and political structural factors. As mentioned in Chapter 2, feminists such as Walby (1990) focus on both individual and structural causes of violence against women, because individual perpetrators and victims cannot be separated from the context in which they live. Adaptation of the transtheoretical model into a framework to address violence against women and involving men must therefore consider how the framework is designed so that structural issues – such as patriarchal values, poor law enforcement and response to victims and perpetrators, public and private institutions who perpetuate the issue through gender-­blind policies, and so on – are dealt with. The We Can campaign chose the transtheoretical model for its compatibility with the key campaign goal of changing people’s ideas about gender relations and getting them to take action to eliminate violence against women. However, none of the campaign’s program phases directly seek to challenge and change structural forms of violence against women. Each phase focuses on raising people’s awareness, building networks, supporting the Change Makers, and sustaining individual Change Makers’ activism (Aldred and Williams 2009: 25). Interviews with NGOs involved in We Can did point out that efforts are made for institutional changes, such as raising awareness of policy-­makers and service providers, as well as lobbying for increased services and access for women. Second, feminists and pro-­feminists have criticised the application of a health model or framework when addressing violence against women. Fisher (2011: 4) argues that using a health model to work with men is deeply problematic, as it reinforces the stereotypical assumption that men use violence against women

78   Fieldwork findings from Pakistan because they have a mental or physical illness which can then be ‘fixed’, hence depoliticising the issue of violence against women and treating perpetrators as medical patients. Fisher (2011: 4) explains the risk of such approach being that ‘violent male perpetrators become equal clients of the government’s service system as their female victims’, which results in diminishing the criminal nature of violence against women and the impact it has upon the victim/survivor. Similarly, in her ethnographic research of the NGO, Médecins Sans Frontières, Ticktin (2011: 251) argues that the medicalisation of sexual violence ‘has had the strange effect of erasing gender – that is, the power relations that produce and inform gender – leaving in its place suffering bodies, without perpetrators or causes, each of which can be treated by the universal “humanitarian kit” ’.8 With these concerns in mind, I will now discuss the findings based on individual and group interviews with the Change Makers and NGOs who have been involved in the We Can campaign. Recruitment strategies used by We Can partner organisations Due to the diversity of the campaign’s partner organisations, which range from student unions and NGOs to the private sector, each partner has its own approach of integrating We Can’s message into its daily work. For instance, the Women’s Rights Association in Multan (a medium sized agricultural city in the Punjab province) regularly conducts discussions about women’s rights with students at the local university. It was this that drew Ali, a 21-year-­old student who was studying drama and literature, into the We Can campaign: I overheard Shiasta [director of the Women’s Rights Association] talking about domestic violence and how it is a big problem in Pakistan. I got very angry, because I thought she was lying. I went up and begin to argue with the campaigners. Shiasta told me she’s happy to discuss this further, and invited me to go to their office one day, so I went. We talked for a long time, and she showed me some of the statistics in the country. I realised I was wrong, and decided to become a Change Maker … It has been a good experience – I get together with friends, and we make up plays about stuff like forced marriage and violence against women, and we perform them to the local neighbourhoods. Sometimes we have to perform the same play twice to separate male and female audiences [because of purdah], but generally they liked it. (Ali, interview with author, 21 March 2010) I was also shown one of the dances they would perform at the local villages, which Ali explained: This dance is about a woman feeling that darkness and hopeless[ness] is around her. The woman is represented in white gown, and the two other figures are black, and try to cover her with a black shroud which she tries to

Fieldwork findings from Pakistan   79 escape from. Then she emerges from the black shroud and breaks free. The figures in black then cover her with a white shroud. This is our message to the local women who feel oppressed: we bring you a message of hope. The white shroud is [a] symbol of freedom. (Ali, interview with author, 21 March 2010) Recruiting individuals to become Change Makers can be a time-­consuming process for partner organisations, especially those in remote areas that have more conservative values. For instance, it took Aziz four months of attending activities run by the local NGO in a district of the former North-­West Frontier Province (renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in March 2010) before he committed to the campaign: ‘In my community, to put your name down and making a pledge is a very serious decision … it means you are a Change Maker for life. I had to make sure this is what I wanted’ (Rahat, interview with author, 21 March 2010). For another young woman, the decision to join We Can was a difficult process due to potential negative responses from her family: ‘I wanted to be a Change Maker, but I didn’t know what my family will say. I went to the meetings and public events with my friends for about six months before taking the pledge’ (Maria, interview with author, 21 March 2010). This young woman wants to become a teacher, and faced many challenges in persuading her family to let her finish her education. The local We Can partner organisation also helped her in advocating with her parents regarding the merit of higher education. At the time of interview, she was in a training college, after successfully persuading her family to delay an arranged marriage. The young woman was also given permission to travel outside of Mansehra district (in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province) for We Can campaign activities, which is uncommon for young unmarried women in her community, who usually have restricted mobility. The campaign also attracted the private sector, who did not recruit Change Makers, but provided support in other ways. At the Habib Bank in Bahawalpur (a small town neighbouring Multan), a women-­only section for female customers was set up, with clear signage, and the desk was staffed by an elderly man (there were no female staff ). The women-­only section was developed as result of local women’s concern for modesty and not wishing to queue with men. The bank holds a ledger of female customers, and has a strict policy of not releasing account information to relatives of female customers. Another example of private sector support is a beauty parlour owner in Peshawar, who became inspired by the campaign message to mobilise her clients and friends for a street march on International Women’s Day, to which she proudly noted that over 100 people came. But typically, the majority of partner alliances were made up of non-­government and community-­based organisations who had already been working on gender-­based violence issues in their area. Integrating the campaign message has thus been a smooth process. While smaller community groups appreciate the advocacy materials such as colour posters, pamphlets, and promotional products such as baseball hats and pens, they lack the resources to produce these items.

80   Fieldwork findings from Pakistan The gender dimension of Change Makers’ activism Despite the challenges of changing the general population’s perception of gender and women’s rights discussed earlier, 70 per cent of the Change Makers in Pakistan are men. When asked about this phenomenon, the We Can campaign’s National Coordinator speculated that it might be explained by men’s greater mobility in the public sphere, giving them more freedom to be involved in activities (Pasha, interview with author, 15 March 2010). When interviewed, some of the prevailing motives men gave for joining We Can were childhood experiences of witnessing violence committed against their mothers and other female relatives, and/or being a victim of family violence themselves. As one man from Hyderbad, Sindh Province, describes his childhood: My father had two wives, and my mother is the first. He was very violent and abandoned us early. We were raised by our uncle, who also beat us. He threatened to kill my mother if she refused to re-­marry. So my mother took me and my three sisters – we walked 18 km to Hyderbad and stayed there with other relatives. I became a professional actor and now with We Can’s information kit, I use drama to highlight violence against women and what it does to people. (Muhammad, interview with author, 23 February 2010) This account is from an NGO manager from the Punjab province: My earliest memory … was my father sitting on top of my mother, beating her with a wooden stick … He thought violence was the way, and would beat the children too. When I was 17, I told him, if you hit my mother again, I will kill you. When I was at the university, I had a feminist professor who left a deep influence on me about the importance of equality. Before heading this organisation, I worked with an international NGO. Seeing men and women work equally was something new, and I learned a lot. (Name withheld, interview with author, 23 February 2010) These two men’s stories are very similar to what other male Change Makers have related. Instead of adopting the forms of men’s violence they witnessed as their own behaviour, these men were inspired by a desire to change. On the other hand, a man whose life was characterised by normalised violence became a We Can supporter through an extraordinary chain of events: I came from a tribal area. My father was proud of his sons being able to carry and use weapons … The men in our family associated violence with manhood, and when I begin hanging out with robbers and criminals … Six years ago there was a land dispute. I didn’t own the land, so I killed him. Then I was jailed. The victim’s family said, if you give us money and your

Fieldwork findings from Pakistan   81 daughter, we will settle the [blood feud].9 But I resisted giving them my daughter … and we settled with a larger [financial settlement]. The We Can people in our village heard this and asked me why. I said, the fault was mine, my daughter should not pay. Over time I got to know the We Can campaign, and became interested because it is a different world. I gathered men in our village and told them it is violence to use daughters to settle disputes … people said, ‘What’s happened to you?’ … Recently, there was a rape and I took the case to the feudal lords.10 [The rapist] went to jail. (Raheem, interview with author, 23 February 2010) It should be noted that this man would have already had significant influence in his community, as he is able to express his opinions and take up activism openly without fear of reprisal. Indeed, when analysing the types of activism taken up by male and female Change Makers, it becomes clear that gender roles and inequalities affect the level of possible action. For women, activism usually occurs at the personal level, whether by resistance to early marriage or seeking education opportunities for themselves and their sisters. This is not to diminish women’s activism or moral courage. In fact, because women face greater barriers and restrictions than men, their efforts encounter a greater degree of objection and censure. Female Change Makers therefore often take longer to initiate changes at a more personal level. For their part, partner NGOs of We Can have demonstrated respect for each Change Maker’s different capacity as well as their choice of activism. A beautician who wanted her daughter to have better education and employment prospects than herself gives an account of the fight for her daughter’s education: I wanted my daughters to have an education. But my mother-­in-law disagrees, and made marriage arrangements for my eldest. I wanted to speak out, but was afraid, because I didn’t know how to, and I didn’t have my husband’s support. I spoke with the NGO [a partner organisation of We Can], who also spoke to my husband. He accepted this view, and we persuaded my mother-­in-law. She [the oldest daughter] is now planning for university. (Samina, interview with author, 22 March 2010) For another group of young women in the Sindh province who are in their late teens and early twenties, regular access to the campaign activities and material about women’s rights have helped them to gain greater freedom and mobility in the public sphere: ‘Before, we cannot leave the house, but now our parents allow us to go out to the public garden as a group without male escort.’ A common theme expressed by men and women throughout the interviews is frustration at lacking the ability to articulate and speak out against violence against women and other forms of gender discrimination. An elderly man who belongs to the local mosque committee in the Punjab town of Multan was able to combine both religion and We Can information to dissuade men from wife-­beating: ‘Before, I used to quote the Koran to stop men from beating their wives. But now

82   Fieldwork findings from Pakistan I can also say violence against women is a crime. This gives [my argument] legal and religious authority’ (Faisal, interview with author, 15 March 2010). Perhaps one of the key challenges for men who speak out against violence against women is the strict observation of purdah in many parts of Pakistan, which minimises opportunities for male and female Change Makers to take joint initiatives. Male Change Makers have indicated that it is easier for them to display advocacy posters in the street, or to conduct activism through their daily jobs if they are professionals. But at the inter-­personal level, men are reluctant to intervene against domestic violence in their neighbourhood for fear of being ridiculed or even accused of having an ulterior motive in helping women. Partly, this is for pragmatic reasons, especially in regions where honour killing is prevalent and law enforcement is poor.11 The individual stories of Change Makers have all been inspirational, but the question is how to scale up activism beyond the individual level, especially for female Change Makers. It should be noted that through the campaign, many younger women I spoke to have improved access to education, better job opportunities, and self-­confidence. These stories of women’s empowerment are remarkable, and should be more documented. In a context where there is greater interest in engaging male activists, the challenge is not to over-­focus on male Change Makers’ achievements at the expense of their female counterparts. Instead, the program should look at ways to increase joint initiatives between male and female Change Makers so that they can have opportunities to work together as equal partners, as well as addressing social barriers such as class, ethnicity, and religion – the Change Makers come from a diverse range of backgrounds, many of whom are not accustomed to socialise or relate to people from different social categories. In the next section, I will discuss the key issues identified during fieldwork observation of We Can’s program implementation. We Can campaign’s challenges and issues As a program to raise community awareness and action against violence against women, We Can is a strong example of good coordination between organisations at the provincial and district level, as well as a strong level of commitment from supporting NGOs at the district level acting as non-­funding partners (We Can receive a minimal sum for events and distribution materials). Furthermore, the campaign embodies participatory development by engaging people through an alliance with NGOs at the grass root level, and utilising local knowledge to support the campaign. However, there were some key issues encountered during research (a number of which have already been identified by a previous external evaluation of the campaign),12 including: a lack of focus on structural inequalities and norms which perpetuate gender-­based violence; male privileges and patriarchal attitudes of participants not being challenged; Change Makers’ reluctance to work together due to social divisions of gender, ethnicity, class, and religious beliefs; questions regarding partner organisations’ capacity to implement activities such

Fieldwork findings from Pakistan   83 as follow-­ups on progress; and opportunism from a minority of partner organisations and Change Makers, who participated in the campaign in order to access resources. Social divisions among Change Makers There is a significant non-­Muslim population in Pakistan. Religious minorities face immense discrimination and attacks. For example, the Ahmadiyya community (which is a Muslim sect but not considered as Muslim by the Pakistani government) has long been persecuted under section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, commonly known as the ‘Blasphemy Law’. During flooding in southern Punjab and Sindh in 2010, there were reports from community and human rights groups that local mullahs ordered civil administration not to assist non-­Muslims, with refugees such as the Ahmadis being turned away from food and medical aid (Malik 2013). Hindus have been targeted for kidnap and ransom in the Balochistan province, where the security situation has been deteriorating as the result of insurgency (Baloch 2011). The discrimination and structural inequality faced by non-­Muslims is summed up by the Secretary-­ General of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, I. A. Rehman (interview with author, 30 March 2010): This is how the human rights hierarchy operates in Pakistan: you have the Muslim rich men at the top, followed by Muslim rich women. Next you have non-­Muslim rich men, then non-­Muslim rich women. After that you have non-­Muslim poor men. Non-­Muslim poor women are at the very bottom. Although Mr Rehman did not include poor Muslim men and women in his description of the social hierarchy, it was clear that Mr Rehman wanted to highlight how wealth and dominant religion play important roles in an unequal society in Pakistan. During my interviews, I came across a Hindu man in the small town of Qamber Shadadkot in Sindh province. As a low-­caste Hindu, Ashoke’s livelihood opportunities were limited to manual labour, and he earned a living as a farm worker for a local landlord. Ashoke’s interest in joining the We Can campaign arose from witnessing women in the Hindu community discriminated against as a result of their caste and religion, as well as the lack of assistance for victims of domestic violence, as feudal landlords discourage police reporting, which they see as undermining the feudal system. The traditional resolution system also lets women down, and Ashoke was very critical of the local leaders presiding over the Panchayat (the local decision-­making and dispute resolution body at the small town or village level) who are feudal landlords: The panchayat takes a percentage from settlements of domestic violence or honour killing. They are threatened by campaigns such as We Can, because

84   Fieldwork findings from Pakistan it undermines their power. The landlords have been warning farm labourers not to get involved. A few months ago, I was visited by some people, who told me to stop talking about We Can, or something will happen. (Ashoke, interview with author, 22 March 2010) When I asked the partner organisation how it responded to Ashoke and his community’s dilemma, the organisation explained that they have been building up their network of influential supporters, such as judges, sympathetic landlords, senior police officers, religious leaders, and journalists. Where necessary, direct actions such as street demonstrations, sit-­ins, and hunger strikes are deployed to attract media attention and community outrage. However, winning the support of local power brokers is a slow process, dependent on factors such as the ‘connections’ of the NGO director, as confirmed by the number of NGO directors I interviewed who either came from a prominent family in the region, or had family ties with the upper echelons of local society. Some Change Makers (especially men) are in a privileged position, which gives them power to take action, as exemplified by the man who mobilised the community to stop the exchange of women as dispute resolution. Most NGOs in rural areas do not wish to undermine the influential sector of the community (whose support at times ensures the continuance of these NGOs’ operation), and often they are not supported by the district or provincial government. The NGOs would therefore not risk direct action unless they were certain of a successful outcome. Engaging with power brokers and leaders offers stability and safety for We Can, but as the campaign aims to promote gender equality and reduce violence against women, it is necessary to tackle the structural inequalities and ‘unearned privileges’ of some people, including its supporters. As the campaign is committed to behavioural change, as reflected in its adoption of the transtheoretical model used by other NGOs who also address gender-­based violence, the campaign has a duty to adhere to its program principles and objectives, which is to change the attitudes, in both men and women, that allow for the continuation of violence against women. A dilemma is thus presented for campaigns such as We Can: on the one hand, it asks its influential supporters to use their power to stop inequality and violence, at the same time the campaign has to challenge its supporters’ privileges and social status, which contributes to overall inequality. Without the latter action, any efforts from the We Can campaign would risk being short-­term and superficial. This can be illustrated by the story of a female Change Maker who works as a bus hostess for the private bus company, Daewoo, who took up the initiative of broadcasting anti-­sexual harassment messages on the bus, using the We Can education materials to assist with her public announcements: There used to be a lot of sexual harassments – male passengers think they can touch you or make comments because you are a single woman who works. So I started to announce at the beginning of the bus trip, that there is no tolerance for sexual harassment on the bus, and I would talk about my

Fieldwork findings from Pakistan   85 involvement with the We Can campaign. Some female passengers actually thanked me for doing this. (Fatima, interview with author, 14 March 2010) At the time of the research, the alliance member (a local NGO) to which the Daewoo bus employee has been going to for We Can activities had not approached the bus company to question its policy on sexual harassment of female staff. While the woman acted bravely, and had put her employment at some degree of risk by taking a stand against harassment, the onus was on the bus company to protect its female employees and passengers. Since the premise of We Can is to challenge both personal and institutional levels of violence against women, partner organisations of the campaign also have a role to play in advocating with the company, and should have used the opportunity to provide information to the bus company on sexual harassment, especially in light of the sexual harassment legislation introduced to the country in 2010. Inequality among the Change Makers While the We Can campaign challenges gender inequality and violence, Change Makers also bring their own ‘baggage’ of social divisions with them, which is played out in their interactions with one another, and has a strong influence on group dynamics and campaign activism. For instance, in one group discussion, the ‘elite’ Change Makers – lawyers, journalists, teachers, and university students – sat together near the partner NGO director (who had arranged the meeting), while working-­class Change Makers sat at the opposite corner near the door and were the last to speak. When asked about the interaction between Change Makers, the NGO director admits to the barriers of social hierarchy: It has been a challenge to get the Change Makers to work together as a group … Aside from meetings like this, they don’t really talk to one another, or plan joint activism without our involvement. Class is just as strong as gender – men don’t talk to women, and the professionals … would never work alongside someone who is illiterate. (Malik, interview with author, 14 March 2010) At the same time, there were some positive collaborations occurring. In Mansehra, a Change Maker was allegedly killed by the Taliban because he openly supported a female relative to stand for local election. In response, the Change Makers in the area (both women and men) decided to form a Peace Jirga, in which they took active intervention against cases of violence against women. As a result of their activism, the traditional Jirga in the district now refers violence against women cases to the police, rather than settling incidents themselves (B, interview with author, 24 March 2010).13 The Change Makers’ action is remarkable, considering the district’s history of militant violence against civil society

86   Fieldwork findings from Pakistan organisations, including the attack on Plan International in 2008, and the bombing of the World Vision office in 2010. The project’s failure to address inequality among Change Makers can also be attributed to the transtheoretical model upon which the We Can campaign is based. As discussed earlier, the transtheoretical model was initially developed for smoking cessation, and focused on the stages of behavioural change within an individual. As discussed in Chapter 2, without a feminist analysis of the structural and political underpinnings of violence against women, as shown by feminists such as hooks (1981), Hunnicutt (2009), and Walby (1990), any aid projects whose theoretical basis focuses only on individual behavioural change will fail to understand and challenge the broader structural inequalities that contribute to violence against women. Oxfam GB’s evaluation of the We Can campaign in Pakistan In 2011, Oxfam GB released its evaluation of the We Can campaign in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. In April 2011, I met with a consultant, Marie,14 who had input into the We Can campaign during its design and implementation stage. This section will be based on my interview with Marie, as well as the Pakistan section of the evaluation report. As the person who provided initial feedback on the draft evaluation report, Marie (interview with author, 18 April 2011) expressed concern over the evaluation method chosen by the research team. In particular, she explained that evaluation meetings with the Change Makers were not randomly selected, but were chosen by the partner NGOs in the areas. Marie argued that the Change Makers selected were more likely to be those who have been active and well regarded by the partner NGOs, rather than a random selection in order to ensure impartiality. Interestingly, her concern about normative responses was echoed in the evaluation report itself, but the research team did not appear to make effects to mitigate the risk during their research: Several factors may have caused positive bias: many interviews were administered by local ‘change makers’ [in other words, Change Makers interviewed one another]; respondents received compensation for travel and interview time; questions related to the respondent’s own conduct were likely to trigger socially desirable responses. (Raab 2011: 19) Limits to confidentiality and representativeness in field research: The presence of Oxfam staff in several group discussions in India (MH) and Nepal, and of leading national or state alliance staff in district-­level discussions, may have kept some participants from openly voicing criticism. Our interlocutors at district levels were generally selected by leading allies, who tended to choose individuals they found relatively active and articulate. The evaluator’s choice of states and districts to be visited was limited by travel

Fieldwork findings from Pakistan   87 time constraints and criteria set by Oxfam. In India, we visited two states where ‘We Can’ alliances have been led by national ‘We Can’ core group members. (Raab 2011: 50) Despite this concern, the interviews with male and female Change Makers produced both conflicting and disturbing data. While 86 per cent of interviewees in Pakistan agree that all forms of violence against women are unacceptable, 47 per cent also agree that an ‘occasional slap by husband is not domestic violence’. The India findings in the report was similar, with 77 per cent agreeing that violence against women is unacceptable, yet with 33 per cent agreeing that an ‘occasional slap’ is not violence (Raab 2011: 18).15 The Change Makers’ acceptance that husbands have the right to the ‘occasional slap’ resonates with some of my findings. In particular, I had an interview with a Christian community in Bahawalpur, during which the local NGOs told me they counsel young married women to be obedient to their in-­laws’ wishes, lest they risk domestic disharmony. In one case they cited a husband beat up his wife for talking back to his parents. This raises the question of how Change Makers were initially trained, and how they were accredited. The drawings and posters produced by the We Can campaign focused on families in harmony as a result of women having more rights and freedom from violence and abuse, rather than the more realistic scenarios of women being sanctioned for asserting their rights (such as the right to work, or the right to marry a chosen partner). The evaluation report was critical of the We Can campaign education materials for similar reasons, but speculated that it may have been a ‘deliberate choice’ due to the lack of options and support system in South Asia for women to leave domestic violence situations: ‘the emphasis on violence-­free, harmonious families may discourage women and girls from taking legal or other confrontational action against [domestic violence] perpetrators’ (Raab 2011: 22). Another issue with the overall We Can campaign was its lack of systematic collection and documentation of alliance NGOs and Change Makers’ experiences of participating in the campaign, as well as stories of their activism on violence against women. According to Raab (2011: 28), Change Maker stories were ‘published in a range of media (website, campaign reports, PII assessments, comic booklets, and campaign newsletters). But no centralised archives of stories appear to exist’. Each country secretariat of the We Can campaign had responsibility for maintaining a database of Change Makers. However, the evaluators found the database difficult to access, and most of the Change Makers contact details were out of date (Raab 2011: 28). Externally, aside from my own chapter in an edited book about the Pakistan We Can campaign in 2011, there were no academic studies done about the campaign or what the Change Makers did, presumably because, unless the researcher undertook fieldwork as I did, accessing the We Can materials and getting information about what the Change Makers did was much harder and deterred further research. The lack of rigorous documentation by Oxfam GB and its partners was a great loss, not just for the sake of

88   Fieldwork findings from Pakistan project monitoring and evaluation, but also because of the loss of evidence of Change Makers’ activism, and the opportunity to learn and be inspired by individual men’s and women’s experiences of taking action against violence against women.

Conclusion In countries where men and women are accustomed to gender segregation, it is useful to have violence against women initiatives at the community-­based level so that men and women can have the opportunity to work together. At the same time, social divisions such as class, religion, and ethnicity need to be acknowledged. The We Can campaign clearly has a positive impact on individual lives, but the We Can supporters – from partners to volunteers – are constrained with what they can do to challenge institutional and structural inequalities barriers. In part, this is because participants of We Can bring their existing values and norms to the campaign, which in turn affects how activism is conducted and the extent to which they are supported by the partner organisations. However, the We Can campaign relies on a medical model which focuses on individual behavioural changes rather than how inequalities are interconnected at the individual and structural level. Had the campaign combined its focus on changing individual men and women with a feminist analysis of how violence against women exists and framing it within a broader political analysis, it would have done much more in tackling the issue. In addition, because the We Can campaign took the assumption that individuals will change once they are exposed to new knowledge and ideas, it did not consider how social divisions such as gender, class, ethnicity, and religious beliefs affect each Change Maker’s level and type of activism, as well as their experiences in participating in the campaign. As a result, middle-­class, Muslim, and educated male Change Makers achieved greater recognition for their activism due to their existing privileges and connections with the public sphere, while non-­Muslim, working-­class male and female Change Makers received less attention for their work, as well as being more susceptible to threats of violence from community backlash. Furthermore, there is little evidence that Change Makers broke through the barriers of social, cultural, gender, and class difference to work together. Instead, under the noble banner of ending violence against women, each Change Maker remained steadfast to the status quo dictated by society. The privileged male Change Makers’ experiences also echo the findings in Timor Leste, in which men were either presented as heroic figures on posters or individual men who work in shelters and derive satisfaction from helping the young girls. The findings from Pakistan are unique, in the sense that the two case studies focus more on behavioural change: Humqadam was about educating young men on gender equality and critical thinking about masculine norms and behaviours; We Can was about mobilising the community to take action. Therefore, while the end goal for both programs is focused on reducing violence against women,

Fieldwork findings from Pakistan   89 the journey/process of attitudinal change of the individual women and men took central stage in my research because people reflected more about the impact of the programs upon their own lives. However, to change a community or an individual’s behaviour, you need to understand not just the behaviours and the actions that need to be changed, but what causes a community or an individual to think, act, and cherish certain things and beliefs. Both programmes have sought to achieve this understanding, and as the case studies have shown, more can be done.

Notes   1 For a feminist account of the formation of Pakistan state and women’s rights, see Farida Shaheed and Khawar Mumtaz’s (1987) work, Women of Pakistan: Two steps forward, one step back.   2 Some of the more well-­known examples include the Aurat Foundation, one of the most established women’s NGO in Pakistan, which compiles annual reporting of violence against women based on printed and electronic media; the Shirkat Gah Women’s Resource Centre, which focuses on advocacy and research, including the preparation of the CEDAW shadow report in 2013; Simorgh Women’s Resource and Publication Centre research, which publishes a variety of books dedicated to women’s issues, as well as children’s textbooks; Aasha (Alliance against Sexual Harassment) is dedicated to workplace sexual harassment and legal reform; Bedari is based in Islamabad, and offers community awareness workshops about sex discrimination and violence against women; Women’s Rights Association works with other donors to provide programs and service delivery; Dastak, a women’s shelter based in Lahore, which I visited during fieldwork, provides women and children fleeing from domestic violence safe accommodation (some have stayed for three or five years); and Rozan provides a telephone counselling service for young people, as well as delivering gender-­sensitisation training for the Pakistani police.   3 The police sexual abuse of female detainees in Pakistan was first reported by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) in 1992 (Thomas and Grossman 1992).   4 During my fieldwork in Pakistan, I was repeatedly warned by the local people, including a senior bureaucrat in the Sindh Government, to never go inside a police station unaccompanied. The person I interviewed stated that they did not want a pseudonym, as they did not want any identifying details, including their gender, to be disclosed.   5 The Shariat Court is a legacy of the military dictator, General Zia ul-­Haq, who established the Court with the purpose of repealing laws which go against a conservative reading of Islam. The Shariat Court has jurisdiction over the Hudood Law, which includes the Zina Ordinance (which criminalise extramarital and premarital sex, and has been used to punish rape victims) (Imran 2012).   6 The Jirga/Panchayat system was created during the British colonial era, and gave feudal and tribal leaders great power to preside over all manner of dispute, crime, and conflict in their communities, including honour killing cases (PDI 2005: 17, Iqbal 2007: 106–107).   7 The stages refer to the mindset of individuals who undergo smoking cessation programs. Precontemplation ‘is the stage at which there is no intention to change behaviour in the foreseeable future’; contemplation ‘is the stage in which people are  aware that a problem exists and are seriously thinking about overcoming it but have not yet made a commitment to take action’; preparation ‘is a stage that combines intention and behavioural criteria. Individuals in this stage are intending to take action … As a group, individuals who are prepared for action report some small behavioural changes’; action is the stage in which ‘individuals modify their behaviour,

90   Fieldwork findings from Pakistan experiences, or environment in order to overcome their problems’; and, lastly, maintenance is the stage in which ‘people work to prevent relapse and consolidate the  gains attained during action’ (Prochaska, DiClemente, and Norcross 1991: 1103–1104).   8 This is not to say that doctors, nurses and medical institutions do not have a role in responding to and preventing violence against women. There has been a significant body of feminist literature which examines the roles played by medical institutions and personnel in identifying domestic violence cases and supporting women (Abott et al. 1995, Mezey and Bewley 1997, Ramsay et al. 2002).   9 This is common in rural parts of Pakistan, where blood feuds are resolved through monetary compensation as well as the aggrieved family receiving a daughter from the offending family. The girl would be more or less a domestic servant, though nominally she would be married to a male member of the aggrieved family. 10 Pakistan has a strong feudal system, especially in Sindh province. Feudal landlords have a very strong influence in local communities, and they often determine the local law and order, which is based on customary law. 11 One man whom I interviewed had intervened in a domestic violence incident. He was accused by the male perpetrator and his family of taking a ‘sexual interest’ in the victim, even though he was 75 years of age. 12 See Bronstein’s and Bishop’s (2006) report, ‘Evaluation of “We Can” Campaign to End Violence against Women in South Asia: Light touch review of Year 1’, a general assessment of the campaign which does not include Pakistan-­specific assessment, but in which some of the challenges identified in other countries were echoed. See also Aldred and Williams (2009). 13 Name withheld on interview participant’s request. Participant also declined pseudonym. 14 A pseudonym has been used for this interview. 15 Another issue is that those figures were not gender disaggregated, which was surprising, since it would have been helpful for Oxfam GB to understand whether there are gender differences in these value statements.

5 A ‘good and suitable’ Muslim man Fieldwork in Afghanistan

Global debates about the women in Afghanistan My fieldwork in Afghanistan was limited to the capital city, Kabul. This was due to the volatile security context in the country. As a result, I did not travel as extensively as I did in Pakistan or Timor Leste. The findings and analyses in this chapter is not indicative of the entire country, since I was confined to the urban context and Kabul was often described as ‘not like any parts of Afghanistan’ due to its large influx of expatriates, western donor, and INGO presence. Not surprisingly, aid politics had a strong influence in how gender programs and projects – including those dedicated to stop violence against women – are designed and implemented. Therefore, this chapter is more of an observation of aid, the international community’s attempt to understand gender relations in Afghanistan, and the use of religion to change male behaviour. The latter is important, because it reveals the international community’s perceptions about Islam and gender, and in turn, it affects the ways in which men’s involvement in violence against women initiatives are framed. While feminists such as Kandiyoti (2011) and Zia (2011) have referred to this trend of instrumentalising religion within the aid context in countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan as donor-­driven, my own fieldwork findings suggest that the situation may not be as clear-­cut. Interviews from local Afghans who work in the NGO sector indicate that the push to instrumentalise Islam comes from both external and local pressures (Informant A30, interview with author, 30 March 2010, Informant A25b, interview with author, 25 April 2010). This chapter will reflect on ‘the politics of gender, namely processes of appropriation, contestation and re-­interpretation of positions on gender relations and women’s rights by state, non-­state, and global actors’ (Kandiyoti 2011: 13), and how it is played out in the context of ‘reconstructing’ Afghan men through Islam. In Afghanistan, like many other developing countries which have become ideological battlegrounds, there have been many debates about whether the imposition of norms and principles about gender equality is synonymous with western imperialism and US hegemony. However, as Kandiyoti (2009) observed, such debates often exist at the academic level, while leaving discussions about ‘the way forward’ firmly on the ground. For instance, discussion about how

92   Fieldwork in Afghanistan stakeholders such as NGOs should address violence against women from both development and human rights perspectives has been sidelined as western academics – especially those from North America – attempt to make sense of the complex instrumentalisation of Afghan women by hegemonic powers such as the US, through its and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military forces. After September 2001 and the US-­led invasion, the plight of Afghan women and their treatment by the Taliban regime was widely publicised by politicians, celebrities, and some western women’s organisations.1 For those who were suspicious of the Bush Administration’s co-­option of human rights and feminist rhetoric, the exploitation of Afghan women’s situation as the reason for the military campaign was politically disingenuous at best (Kandiyoti 2011). Unfortunately, these debates and critiques are often limited to analyses of how Muslim women are represented within discourses of Orientalism and western imperialism, and call for respect of Afghan culture, particularly on the subject of veiling (Russo 2006, Stabile and Kumar 2005). While it is important to examine how the western media constructs identities and images which seek to serve a neocolonial agenda, at the same time it is crucial that discussions about the ‘othering’ of Afghan women do not remain as a conversation piece which western academics use simply to critique US foreign policy. What is needed is substantive analysis of both the realities of violence against women, and the ways in which activists, civil society organisations, and other players in international development perceive and articulate the issue. Further, care should be taken to avoid reconstructing an essentialist dichotomy of feminism vs. Islam, as seen in the debates from feminist academics such as Mohanty (1993) who criticised western feminists for portraying women from developing countries as passive and victimised Third World women. Such caution is useful, but a balanced critique should also avoid conflating ‘western feminists’ as a homogenous identity, when they are composed of diverse identities and backgrounds including lesbian, indigenous, working/middle/upper class, multicultural, conservative, radical, migrant, and so on. It is interesting to note that such criticism has not extended to some masculinities theorists, who, in an attempt to highlight the gender-­specific issues and challenges faced by men in developing countries, heavily invest in the rhetoric of victimhood (see Jones 2006), or seek to explain violence against women on the grounds of men’s marginalisation and powerlessness (see Dolan 2003).

Violence against women: the context in Afghanistan The liberation of women was one of the many rationales used to justify the US-­led military invasion against Afghanistan. Before and during the military campaign, western media was saturated with images of Afghan women in blue burqas, widows begging on the streets, and video footage of women being flogged or stoned by the Taliban. Political leaders such as George W. Bush and Tony Blair (supported by their wives) co-­opted feminist rhetoric, endorsed by celebrity figures and certain advocacy groups.2 However, despite this liberation

Fieldwork in Afghanistan   93 front, the status and situation of these women and girls remain dire. In a survey with women in 4,700 households in 16 provinces across Afghanistan, Global Rights found that: 87.2% [of women] experienced at least one form of physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage, and most, 62.0%, experienced multiple forms of violence. Overall, 17.2% of women reported sexual violence, with 11.2% experiencing rape. Furthermore, 52.4% of women reported physical violence, with 39.3% saying they had been hit by their husband in the last year. Women who experienced psychological abuse [totalled] 73.9%, while 58.8% of women were in forced marriages, as distinct from arranged marriages. (Nijhowne and Oates 2008: 1) The UN Violence against Women Special Rapporteur mission report on Afghanistan in 2005 made an assessment of women’s status in the country which was still relevant for my 2010 fieldwork: The cause of the extraordinary level of violence is embedded in a traditional system of male domination in which girls and women have no status as independent persons. They are workforce, assets to be used to the greatest financial or strategic benefit on the marriage market, and a potential source of dishonour for the patriarchal family. Moreover, the limits the traditional normative framework placed on the exercise of male power over women, reigning in mere arbitrariness, have to a large extent been washed away by 23 years of boundless war, which has disintegrated the social fabric of the society. When the rule of power, be it in the hands of State or non-­State actors, replaces the rule of law, the highest price is paid by those with the least power, particularly women and children. In this context, many actors deform Islam and culture from a source of justice and fairness into a justification for their tyrannical acts against women. (Erturk 2005: 18) The illiteracy rate is high in the Afghan police force, which makes accurate and detailed reporting and documentation difficult. Even if a domestic violence report is successfully lodged with the police, there is the question of where the victim can go to if her family home is unsafe. There are a few women’s shelters in larger cities such as Kabul and Herat, but they are almost unheard of in rural areas (Informant A3, interview with author, 3 May 2010, Informant A4, interview with author, 4 May 2010, Nojumi, Mazurana, and Stites 2009: 95–96). The few that exist have not been immune to politics. Afghanistan has approximately 11 independent shelters, which are funded by international donors and administratively managed by local women’s NGOs. In February 2011, there was a proposal by the Afghan Government for the shelters to be administrated by the government, including a review panel to assess women’s ‘eligibility’. Due to the

94   Fieldwork in Afghanistan response of the international community, the Afghan Government backed down from the original proposal, instead calling for greater regulation and monitoring of shelters. As to the cause of the original plan to take over the women’s shelters, it was speculated by Afghan women’s NGOs that, in part, the government was bowing to pressures from tribes and clans who were unhappy that the government was giving refuge to abused women with foreign assistance (Afghan Women’s Network 2011). According to Kandiyoti (2007), there have been various attempts in Afghan history to modernise society, including reforms to promote the status and greater participation of women, which generally originated from urban-­based, westernised elites. Due to the politicisation of women’s status in Afghanistan, the state is often paralysed or deliberately denies women’s rights for the sake of political convenience. An example is President Harmid Karzai’s signing of the Shia Personal Status Law in 2009, which imposed greater restrictions upon women’s legal rights around marital abuse, child marriage, and polygamy (Oates 2009). The Shia Personal Status Law contradicts the Afghan Government’s obligation to CEDAW, which it acceded to in 2003 without reservation, meaning Afghanistan is legally bound to the terms of the Convention. While the law is now undergoing a reform process to make it more equitable for women, there is no guarantee whether the reforms will be actively adopted and enforced, as NGO working groups have reported strong resistance from parliamentarians (Informant A5a, interview with author, 5 May 2010).3 Afghan women now face a precarious situation in which neither the government nor informal support networks (such as family) are supportive of their rights – a situation not dissimilar to the Taliban regime prior the US-­led military campaign.

The challenges for Afghan NGOs and activists working on violence against women At the community level, one of the key challenges for civil society organisations is denial that sexual and gender-­based violence exists, and/or that challenging such violence is based on a western agenda. As one gender program officer from a national NGO explained: It’s not easy to talk about violence [against women] because people say there is no wife beating in Afghanistan. If you go to the community and talk about it then they get angry because [they say] it doesn’t exist or you have a western agenda. (Informant A23, interview with author, 23 April 2010) I witnessed this response during a one-­day workshop in Kabul organised by an Afghan women’s NGO. The purpose of the workshop was to inform community members, shuras (community leaders), mullahs, and the civil society sector on the progress of the Family Law Reform, which is led by various NGOs and the more liberal4 religious scholars, to provide further protection for women and

Fieldwork in Afghanistan   95 children, especially on issues around inheritance, early marriage, domestic violence, and polygamy. The panel discussion included a female human rights lawyer who gave a presentation. After her speech, a heated debate ensued as the audience (the majority of whom were men) argued about the loss of Afghan culture, stating that the Family Law Reform process was led by a western feminist agenda to break up Afghan families. At the conference conclusion, I asked an Afghan woman who sat next to me on whether such debates are common. She replied: ‘This happens every time when we try to talk about women’s issues. It is their way to stop the discussion’ (Informant A21, interview with author, 21 April 2010).5 One explanation for the male audience’s strong opposition is the way in which custom and tradition have defined gender roles and values. In their nationwide research of rural Afghans’ experience of livelihood and security, Nojumi, Mazurana, and Stites (2009: 93) conclude: ‘Female chastity and female behaviour are some of the primary sources of family’s honour or potential disgrace.’ At the centre of this honour code lies the socially defined notion of masculinity, where Afghan men ‘see women as the repository of their honour’ (Rubin 2002: 24). Potential breaches by women have expanded from adultery, to attempts to exercise self-­autonomy, such as the right to choose marriage partners, or divorce an abusive husband. Coming from this perspective, attempts to reform the Family Law Act to provide women with greater protection and rights on issues such as inheritance, marriage, and divorce, as well as domestic violence, can be seen as threats to undermine the male hegemony, which resides in controlling women. In addition, staff within civil society organisations also internalise the attitude that violence against women is too ‘sensitive’ a topic to work on in Afghan communities: ‘In Afghanistan, everything that is about women is too sensitive’ (Informant A27, interview with author, 27 April 2010). This can be illustrated by a story related by a member of an international NGO that worked in Afghanistan for a number of years on humanitarian and agricultural support. Although the organisation has no direct programs or projects that address gender-­based violence, it operates a series of women’s empowerment projects, which focus on income generation activities, capacity-­building, and empowerment, with the project providing women with the opportunity to gather and discuss the daily issues that affect them. In the first quarter of 2010, female beneficiaries asked the NGO staff to address domestic violence, as well as urging for the involvement of men from their community, in order for them to be part of the solution. The organisation became caught in an internal debate on how to follow up the community’s request, as staff were divided on the best approach. Some staff expressed reluctance, arguing that any projects that focused on gender-­based violence could have a negative impact on other program areas. Another cause for the reluctance was due to previous experiences where small gender-­sensitive initiatives, such as hygiene kits (which contain soap, a sewing kit, and other basic cleaning items) were rejected by the community. As the interview participant (Informant A27, interview with author, 27 April 2010) from the organisation explained, ‘the rationale from the staff was, if such a minor issue already

96   Fieldwork in Afghanistan presented an obstacle, what would happen if something about [domestic] violence is done?’ It would be easy to criticise the NGO for not meeting a request for help from women in a community they work with. However, both international and local NGOs – particularly local female staff – face enormous security challenges in Afghanistan. In a 2009 report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and OHCHR, it was noted that there was an increasing number of attacks against women in the public sphere, that women activists who work on human rights or women’s rights were often labelled as being ‘involved in an anti-­Islamic conspiracy’, and were being attacked, sometimes by their own community (UNAMA and OHCHR 2009: 12). Another example is my discussion with members of a women’s NGO that provides support to women experiencing domestic violence. The NGO explained that, as part of client support, the organisation used to conduct follow-­up visits to women’s homes, but that recently a female staff member had been physically attacked by local criminals as ‘punishment’ for her work. Since then, the NGO ceased follow-­up visits to clients (Informant A4b, interview with author, 4 May 2010). Security risks pose a particular concern for local NGOs, who do not have the same level of resources for providing security measures as international NGOs. At the same time, Afghan employees in the international NGOs agencies face greater risks than their expatriate counterparts, as many work in rural areas, or are involved in outreach. It is a common practice for women activists to change mobile phone numbers regularly to avoid being tracked, or for them to ‘disappear’ for days or weeks, taking refuge in their own home or with relatives and friends, until it is safer to appear in public again (Informant A3, interview with author, 3 May 2010). With the withdrawal of the US and foreign military presence over the next few years, as well as the attempt to establish amnesty and reintegration of the anti-­government forces, there is grave concern that the rights and safety of Afghan women will continue to deteriorate (HRW 2010). Women and human rights activists have long criticised the Afghan Government’s lack of commitment to women’s rights, as well as the ‘very traditional and often misogynistic male leadership that dominates Afghan politics’ (HRW 2010: 6). A recent example was the Peace Jirga (Pashto for ‘council’) held in Kabul 2–4 June 2010. The Jirga was meant to be a three-­day consultative forum on possible ways to end the conflict with the Taliban and anti-­government groups, as well as envisaging a peace plan with a wide range of stakeholders. However, during the Peace Jirga, Afghan women’s rights activist Wazhma Frogh (2010) noted that out of the 28 committees, only one committee was headed by a prominent female MP. There was also an absence of women leaders making speeches, or talks about how women’s rights and concerns would be incorporated in the reconciliation process. Towards the end of the Jirga, the Jirga Chief recommended that women should be sent to the mothers and wives of Taliban for nanawati, a traditional Pashto reconciliation process, which was taken up by President Karzai.

Fieldwork in Afghanistan   97 However, as nanawati is a traditional tribal practice in which mercy and forgiveness is asked of the enemy for grievances such as murder, debt, disgrace (such as adultery or defamation), and theft, it is doubtful whether the process would work in a context where both parties have grievances to address. It is also telling that the male leaders involved in the Peace Jirga only mentioned women’s role in peace-­building within such a limited and gendered scope. As Goetz (2006: 8–7) observed in the African context, men have both traditional and modern legal identity and rights, which enable them to ‘forum-­shop’ between the different justice systems for the best outcome. For Afghan women, especially those in rural areas, whose identities are often ascribed by tribal codes and customs, neither the so-­called modern or traditional justice systems are possible avenues to address injustice and seek protection, because their citizen identities and rights are yet to be recognised. During fieldwork, I was told of a case in which a woman tried to save her life, while her husband was trying to kill her on suspicion of adultery. The woman was in her home when her husband came in and began to attack her with an axe. In desperation, the woman initiated a form of nanawati: she grabbed the family copy of the Koran, held it before her and begged for mercy. Rather than respecting the ritual for mercy and reconciliation, the man axed his wife to death, and received no punishment for murder, as it was considered an honour killing. This is not to say that local traditions and practices cannot be reformed or changed to be aligned with human rights norms. However, this is a complicated process and success lies in regular monitoring and ensuring that stakeholders are accountable. I recall sitting in on a UN meeting which was attended by various UN and international NGOs who had been providing earthquake relief in northern Pakistan. The organisations had negotiated with local leaders to grant women (those who had been widowed as result of the earthquake and were now heads of their households, and those who could not afford burqa – the blue or white head to toe veiling which are observed in the region) the right to go into public space to claim food rations, provided that burqas were given to the women. However, for various reasons, including resource and staff shortages, there was no follow­up with the local leaders on whether they had kept their words (e.g. making the announcement public, checking with female-­headed households to ensure they had been accessing rations, making sure local men and boys did not harass the women during food collection), and it was found out later that some women were still afraid of breaching their purdah despite exemptions granted by local leaders. These examples illustrate some of the challenges (external factors as well as internalised attitudes and norms) in working on violence against women in Afghanistan. This is not to say that these experiences are shared by every organisation. Rather, when asked about the challenges of working with local communities on violence against women intervention and prevention, informants from civil society organisations invariably cite issues of cultural sensitivity, fear of westernisation, and security reasons as key barriers to their daily work.

98   Fieldwork in Afghanistan

Power politics of the aid partnership While there are many good practices of gender projects and partnership recorded in donor reports, the relationship between donor and partner NGOs is often fraught due to the power differentials between developed and developing country agencies. In the Afghanistan context, this is further intensified by the large number of foreign donors who have competing interests and priorities, which may not always be aligned with local needs. As one manager (Informant A25b, interview with author, 25 April 2010) from a women’s organisation explained: ‘Sometimes we take on projects which are not our focus … because I have to pay the staff, and because the projects are decided by [the donors]’. Other challenges include lack of consultation with local partner organisations, poor coordination among international agencies, and the absence of a unified strategy on gender (Informant A3, interview with author, 3 May 2010, Kandiyoti 2009). When the Taliban regime was overthrown, there was great hope among Afghan women. One professional Afghan woman recounted: In the early 2000 … yes, there was great optimism. Remember, we had to give up our jobs and education … when the Taliban was here. So when [the international community] came … we thought women would quickly gain our rights and freedom. But there was no coordination between donors and international and the optimism gave way. (Informant A21, interview with author, 21 April 2010) A local women’s NGO (Informant A6a, interview with author, 6 May 2010) told me that after being funded to operate a community youth centre for the last five years, they were recently told by their donor that funding would cease, as the agency’s priorities had shifted. There was no phasing strategy to ease the NGO’s financial burden in the process of searching for another donor, and the NGO was now running the community centre from its core funding. For another women’s NGO, the challenge was to find long-­term funding for a male behavioural change project which had been funded on a ‘pilot’ basis for the past three years, despite the project having been given much praise from the donors (Informant A7a, interview with author, 7 May 2010). The main issue cited by local organisations who are ‘partners’ with donor agencies is the short timeframe for project activities, which makes it difficult for local organisations to implement activities which involve awareness-­raising and behavioural change, both of which require a significant investment of time with local communities, so that trust and rapport can be established. As one NGO explained: They [international donors] want us to do gender training in three days. Do they think it’s a game, that we just get some men and women together and give them tea? To change people, you need time. Donors don’t treat us seriously. (Informant A5b, interview with author, 5 May 2010)

Fieldwork in Afghanistan   99 The informant’s frustration is supported by feminists critical of the gender and development field, in which the more radical concepts and processes are co-­ opted by the mainstream, so that ideas such as ‘empowerment’ have been reduced from ‘a complex process of self-­realization, self-­actualization and mobilization to demand change’ to a simple act of knowledge or resource transfer (Cornwall, Harrison, and Whitehead 2007: 7). It may be easy to attribute the blame to donor agencies. However, they face government pressure to implement or prioritise certain agendas which do not take account of local contexts or circumstances. This can be best illustrated from a conversation with a gender adviser from a bilateral agency: Informant: 

This is a case where we just went ahead with the implementation. Interviewer:  So there’s no consultation with the [Afghan Ministry] on what they saw as priorities for [gender] mainstreaming? Informant:  Well, there were initial meetings. The Ministry wanted mainstreaming in the policy area, but our focus was to sensitise the administration section [of the Ministry]. This is a common story … donors going ahead with their gender projects. Look, we have certainly learned from our mistakes – I remember one case [a donor government] wanted to do some workshop on women’s empowerment in the [name of province] – that was when there’s a severe food shortage in the area! But sometimes there are political pressures from your own government. (Informant A7b, interview with author, 7 May 2010) Nevertheless, taken as a whole, these experiences with donors have made many Afghan NGOs wary of the international community, which was succinctly summed up by one activist (Informant A7a, interview): ‘In Kabul we have a phrase for the international community: “they come through the door and leave by the window”.’ With this tension and scepticism between local NGOs and the international community in mind, I now explore how donors and civil society organisations attempt to overcome these barriers within a context of global contestation about ‘how to do gender’ in Afghanistan.

‘How to do gender’ in Afghanistan In my fieldwork I found that there is a general agreement among interview informants that Islam and women’s rights are not inimical to one another. Within this context, there is opportunity for both academics and civil society organisations to review advocacy strategies around gender and women’s rights so that their messages can reach a broader spectrum of aid recipients. At the same time, there is also a consensus among interview participants that violence against women is a ‘private’ issue, as well as an inadvertent reinforcement of ‘benevolent patriarchy’ when advocating for male behavioural change. For instance, the majority of civil society organisations I spoke with – including international

100   Fieldwork in Afghanistan NGOs and community-­based organisations – found community resistance to discussing domestic violence. A popular strategy is to use social norm marketing to deliver messages about men’s role in the family within a construct of Islamic masculinity. The term ‘social norms marketing’ refers to ‘traditional marketing techniques, including mass media and face to face campaigns that are designed to alter individuals’ perceptions about which attitudes and behaviors are typical or desirable in their community’ (Paluck et al. 2010: 1). There is an emerging trend which Kandiyoti (2010) and Sholkamy (2010) have identified as the ‘instrumentalisation of Islam’, which is the simplistic re-­packaging of the religion by international aid agencies and academics, who Sholkamy (2010: 12) argues, ‘think they have found the key to hearts and minds in the region, and that this key is ensconced in a religious box’. This approach has also been adopted by larger aid agencies in Afghanistan to address the issues of gender equality and violence against women. In the case of engaging with men, the preferred approach is to reform male identities and practices through the authority of the Koran. While the support of the religious sector in a country with a 99 per cent Muslim majority may be seen as strategic and pragmatic, the arbitrary distinction between a secular framework of gender and development (interpreted as atheist, western, white, feminist, and hostile to indigeneity) versus a religious one (perceived as culturally sensitive and universally endorsed) is not only false (Kandiyoti 2011), as the feminist space prioritises plurality of discourse, but it also promotes the ‘notion that choices have to be religiously recommended and sanctioned’ (Sholkamy 2011: 3). The instrumentalisation of Islam, and its impact on aid projects in Afghanistan, must be seen in the context of widespread dissatisfaction with the US and coalition government’s military campaigns following September 2001. Surveys conducted by polling firms and NGOs indicated that respondents – especially in Muslim majority countries – had an overwhelmingly negative view of the US (Blaydes and Linzer 2009: 2). The US media and some academics attributed this as proof of Huntington’s ‘clash of civilisations’ theory, which posited that post-­ Cold War conflicts would arise from cultural rifts and tensions between western liberal states and others (Blaydes and Linzer 2009, Crockatt 2005: 121–122, Huntington 1997). At the same time, the strategy of ‘winning hearts and minds’ was a favoured approach in the Middle East. This strategy was first used during the Malayan Emergency in the mid-­1950s, when British troops would give local Malayans and indigenous tribes food and aid, and keep them separate from the (largely) Chinese insurgents (Howell and Lind 2009). It was also used during the Vietnam War to win both local and American support for the military campaign. In Afghanistan, the most well-­known example is the military-­led Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), which was introduced by the US Government, and has been operating since 2002. The relationship between NGOs and the coalition forces in Afghanistan has always been fraught, as international NGOs regard association with the coalition as a risk to staff safety. In a joint paper by 11 international NGOs, it was argued that: ‘Humanitarian agencies rely on local acceptance to ensure their security,

Fieldwork in Afghanistan   101 for which their perceived identity as independent and impartial is critical’ (Waldman 2009: 17). The paper criticised the PRT for its diversion of funding from the Afghan civilian development process and for the creation of geographical disparities in aid distribution due its selection of project areas (based on counter-­insurgency rather than a unified, country-­wide development approach). The paper concluded: PRTs’ hearts and minds approach to assistance, drawn from a counter-­ insurgency doctrine, is not only at odds with accepted principles of development, but, given that it is so often ineffective and unsustainable, it is highly unlikely to achieve its intended security objectives. (Waldman 2009: 5) While international NGOs seek to maintain ‘a clear distinction between the role and function of humanitarian actors from that of the military’ (Wagner 2005), they have established, nevertheless, non-­binding ‘Guidelines for the Interaction of Civilian and Military Actors in Afghanistan’ in 2008 with the intention of supporting the development of a relationship between military and humanitarian actors, but also defining the different roles of the two groups. Although international aid agencies maintain a strong policy position to distinguish and distance themselves from military-­led aid programs, the distinction is harder to define when both parties attempt to localise their projects within Afghanistan’s cultural and social framework. Both concur on the use of an Islamic framework, such as the use of Muslim troops from the United Arab Emirates to deliver aid in rural communities (BBC 2008), and NGO’s women’s programs, such as the Asia Foundation’s ‘Women’s Rights Within an Islamic Framework’, and other case studies to be discussed in this chapter. This is not to suggest there is a direct policy consensus between the coalition military and the international NGOs to instrumentalise Islam, but rather, to reflect on the contradictions in place, where international aid communities distance themselves from military operations, and yet there are similarities in strategies for program advocacy and implementation. In Kandiyoti’s (2009) critique of how Afghanistan has been the ‘target of a sustained – if ill-­coordinated – campaign to institutionalize mechanisms and benchmarks for gender equality’, a comparison can also be made on how the international community has been seeking to use religion as an entry point to work with the local communities on domestic violence and gender issues. For an Islamic Republic state with a 99 per cent majority Muslim population (of which approximately 80 per cent are Sunni and 19 per cent Shi’a), it makes sense that any gender programs would take religion into consideration, from identifying various religious actors and groups during stakeholder mapping, to engaging with religious scholars and leaders on dialogues, to promoting the equality and protection of women’s rights. Some of the good practices currently being implemented include a project designed and implemented by the Educational Training Center for Poor Women and Girls of Afghanistan (ECW) to build local shura

102   Fieldwork in Afghanistan (community) leaders’ capacity for conflict resolution. To ensure the project had local acceptance and ownership, ECW consulted with local shuras on what areas of expertise they wished to receive training on, and the shuras identified conflict resolution – particularly in relation to domestic violence – as an area in which they lack the language and skills (Informant A25, interview with author, 25 April 2010). During the training manual design process, ECW had engaged with the shuras and religious scholars on how to incorporate Islam as well as gender considerations into the document. The project was also cited by other Afghan and international NGOs as an example of good practice aimed at reducing violence against women that was both culturally and gender-­sensitive (Informant A3, interview with author, 3 May 2010, Informant A7b, interview with author, 7 May 2010). Another example of good practice, with the process involving a wide range of stakeholders, was the USAID-­funded Rule of Law project.6 One of the project aims was to develop a dialogue between conservative and progressive Islamic scholars, and to identify rules and principles used in the informal justice sector which are inconsistent with a gender-­sensitive interpretation of the Koran (Informant A2, interview with author, 2 May 2010).7 As part of the process, a 45 person consultation group was set up, consisting of academics, judges, a Sharia law expert, Afghan women activists, and mullahs. This was followed by scholars’ meetings between progressive and conservative Islamic scholars. The purpose of these meetings was to focus on building the relationship between conservative scholars with other interest groups that have a different interpretation of the Koran and/or apply a feminist approach (Informant A2, interview). Both of these projects – the ECW shura leader training and the religious scholars dialogue by the Rule of Law project – are examples of how a pluralistic space can be created within gender equality initiatives, in which stakeholders with different values and beliefs can be accommodated and discussed. However, there are concerns that development agencies regard Islam as an easy way to implement gender projects. Palwasha Hassan (interview with author, 29 April 2010), former Country Director of Rights and Democracy Afghanistan, pointed out that, while engaging with the local communities through Islam, or building a dialogue between progressive and conservative Islamic scholars are important, these strategies must take into consideration the causes and complexities of women’s issues in Afghanistan. For instance, according to the CIA World Factbook, the national average literacy rate stands at 28.1 per cent, with women at 12.6 per cent (based on estimates from the year 2000) compared to men at 43 per cent, which means that people’s understanding of the Koran and other religious texts (such as the Hadiths) is limited and that learning occurs mainly through Arabic rote. Further, there is no regulation on the training and assessment of mullahs in Afghanistan, and the process in which men are considered to qualify as mullahs varies in each district or village. In an interview with the Academy of Scientific Research (a government institution that produces advocacy and information materials on Islam), informants identified the need for greater regulation in the training, assessment, and qualifications of mullahs, none

Fieldwork in Afghanistan   103 of which is being carried out by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Hajj (MORAH) (of which the Academy is not a part) due to its limited capacity (group interview with author, 10 May 2010).8 At the same time, some institutes have argued for the potential of recruiting mullahs as part of the counter-­ insurgency campaign, due to their influence in the local community. An example is given in the commentary in Huffington Post from Christine Coleman, a senior fellow of the Brookings Institute, and Musada Sultan, an adviser to the Afghan Government: There are approximately 150,000 mosques across Afghanistan, but less than three percent of them are even registered with the government, primarily because of a lack of funding and reach … Putting mullahs on the government’s payroll will not change loyalties overnight. But as part of a counterinsurgency ‘clear, hold and build’ strategy, paying mullahs a steady salary of up to $200 per month (roughly what the Taliban pays its fighters) in villages that have been ‘cleared’ can be a cost-­effective way to help ‘hold’ … could ultimately reduce the need for very expensive military operations, saving lives as well as money. (Coleman and Sultan 2009: n.p.) Given the complexity of the Afghan conflict, as well as the diversity of Islam, ‘putting mullahs on the government’s payroll’ may be a somewhat simplistic solution to achieving gender equality or fighting the Taliban. While there is scope for the Afghan Government to provide training and regulation of mullahs (including religious schools that fall outside of the public school system), to compete with the Taliban by paying clerics in return for their support is not only a one-­dimensional interpretation of Islam, it can also put them at risk of attack by local jihadist groups. As one informant observed: ‘the people follow the mullah, and the mullah follows the people’ (Informant A4a, interview with author, 4 May 2010). What religious leaders can or cannot do within their community is also limited by local context. While it is undeniable that Islam has a significant role in defining the cultural, political, and legal landscape of the country, factors such as tribal factions, customary systems of justice, and change of hierarchy in villages from a feudal landlord system to a division between the rich (jihadist groups and powerful warlords) and the poor, also shape contemporary gender norms and practices, especially in rural areas (Nojumi, Mazurana, and Stites 2009: 259). From a gender perspective, focusing purely on an Islamic framework also detracts from institutional problems and state-­perpetrated discriminations against women. As Ayub, Kouvo, and Sooka (2009: 12) argue: Less comfortable for observers to acknowledge, perhaps, is that the Taliban’s vision for social order was not entirely alien to large segments of Afghan society. Many of the government’s laws, particularly with respect to women, were an extension of the complex tribal codes and social customs already in effect in the Pashtun south.

104   Fieldwork in Afghanistan It should be noted here that Ayub, Kouvo, and Sooka did not seek to represent culture as an obstacle to human and women’s rights in Afghanistan, but rather, it was an indirect critique of President Hamid Karzai, who is an ethnic Pashtun from southern Afghanistan. Karzai’s policies on women – from the Shia Personal Status Law in 2009 which restricts women’s rights in a marital context, to the proposed regulation of women’s shelters in 2011 which included a review panel to ‘assess’ women’s eligibility for shelter – have not been known to respect CEDAW, to which Afghanistan is a party. In the next section, I will use a joint UN, bilateral agency and Afghan Government project as a case study on the limitations of an instrumentalist approach of Islam in changing male behaviour and promoting gender equality.

‘Happy Family, Healthy Community’ project The ‘Happy Family, Healthy Community’ project is a joint initiative between UNFPA, GIZ, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA), and MORAH. The project has been in operation since 2007, and is now in the second phase, operating in 16 districts near Kabul. The project is implemented by government agencies, with UNFPA and other partners (including the Supreme Court and donors) providing funding and technical support. Its purpose is to raise community awareness and support women’s rights and access to health care through training mullahs, shura scholars, and other religious leaders as community educators. While not directly addressing violence against women, the religious leaders talk about ‘healthy family relationships … including domestic violence … from an Islamic perspective’, thus subsuming domestic violence within the wider agenda of family relationships (Informant A27, interview with author, 27 April 2010). The project’s aim is to use trained religious leaders to reach out to Afghan men, on the assumption that men will pay greater attention to religious teachings. Maulawi Amanudin, a Ministry of Religious Affairs official who took part in the discussion, explains the approach on the UNFPA website: ‘When Afghan people are given instruction based on their religious values, they will listen and accept’ (Ryan 2008).9 The UNFPA definition of ‘healthy marriage’ is given by a Supreme Court official: ‘Having a healthy mother and a healthy family is what it means to have a healthy marriage in Islam’ (Ryan 2008: n.p.). Religious leaders’ views are further reinforced through a series of media and knowledge products such as radio spots, public events, posters, and pamphlets. While this approach gains entry point through religious authority, what is left out of the discussion are the country’s legal provisions on domestic violence and international obligations towards women’s human rights. As part of the project, educational booklets were developed (see Figures 5.1 and 5.2). The rhetoric and approach used by the project’s promotional booklet closely follows the social norm marketing strategy, which has been much used by organisations to advocate for the elimination of violence against women around the world. In essence, social norm marketing:

Fieldwork in Afghanistan   105

Figure 5.1 Text from the booklet, Understanding the Vital Role of Men in the Family: Good Father, Happy Family, Fortunate Community (UNFPA et al. n.d.).

conveys messages aimed at convincing its audience that certain attitudes and behaviours will be received as ‘normal’ (typical or desirable) by relevant community members. Messages carrying information about social norms (e.g., ‘men in this community believe in treating women with respect!’) can thus be distinguished from marketing aimed at improving individual attitudes (e.g., ‘women are worthy of respect!’) or at changing individual beliefs (e.g., ‘beating a woman does not prove your authority over her!’). (Paluck et al. 2010: 2) In the context of the ‘Happy Family, Healthy Community’ project, the social norm is the presumed Islamic norms and values which communities uphold. The booklet has many citations (interpreted from a gender-­sensitive perspective) from the Koran and the Hadith to lend it religious authority. For instance, on men’s responsibilities towards their children, the booklet explains: ‘The Prophet (PBUH) says “the one who tries for the comfort of his family is equal to a Mujahid who is doing Jihad”. Mizan Alhekma Page 20’ (UNFPA et al. n.d.: 5).

106   Fieldwork in Afghanistan

Figure 5.2 Illustration from the booklet, Understanding the Vital Role of Men in the Family: Good Father, Happy Family, Fortunate Community (UNFPA et al. n.d.).

Jihad in this context is defined as ‘the father who works for the comfort of his family, and will be blessed as a Mujahid who fights for the sake of God’ (UNFPA et al. n.d.: 5). As Pease (2014: 551) observes, there is a tendency for theories and projects that focus on male behavioural change to conflate and simplify gender equality, so that it is ‘conceptualised in terms of attitudes, as if the real issue is in men’s minds. So if only we can construct a good enough argument, most men will change their minds.’ In the case of ‘Happy Family, Healthy Community’, the attempt to change men’s minds through a ‘good enough argument’ is pinned on the assumption that Muslim men will follow what their Mullah preaches, irrespective of the structural, political and cultural context within which gender roles and norms are shaped in Afghanistan. At times, development organisations use local cultural frameworks to encourage men’s support or participation in violence against women projects, and this type of strategy is described by Merry (2006: 219) as re-­making the concepts around human rights and violence against women ‘into the vernacular’, in which community acceptance about gender is gained through religious understanding and authority. However, Merry (2006: 220) also cautions that vernacularisation should not at the expense of depoliticising ideas that challenge patriarchy. Projects such as ‘Happy Family, Healthy Community’ have good intentions and can be useful, but in its effort to instruct the local communities on the ‘role of men in

Fieldwork in Afghanistan   107 the family in the broader context of Islam and the Hadith’ (UNFPA et al. n.d.: 1), opportunities to engage with men to explore the complexities of gender norms and values have been missed. Instead of a meaningful and strategic opportunity to broaden understandings about gender equality and Islam, the project simply used religion as a way to win Muslim men’s hearts and minds. The booklet is also conflicted in how to align its western and Afghan views. For example, the booklet instructs a man to ‘try to make his wife happy, as she is also his best friend’, but the concept of marital partners being each other’s best friends is very much a western concept, since it assumes marriage is based on individual’s choice and courtship, as opposed to arranged marriage based on various factors such as socio-­economic advantages, tribal alliances, or as the outcome of dispute resolution. If a compromise or an attempt to fuse the two views – such as that even within arranged marriage where often the husband and wife do not know each other until the ceremony, a friendship is still possible – were made, then the booklet should explain the concept of ‘best friend’ more, explain why it is desirable for married couples to have a friendship, and contain suggestions that would help the husband and wife to foster a friendship within the marriage. An example of an NGO engaging with communities to challenge gender bias can be seen in Pakistan women’s NGO, Bedari, which works with rural districts near Islamabad, and runs workshops in local communities about discrimination against girl children. One of the awareness-­raising exercises used by Bedari is to divide the workshop participants into two groups. In one group, participants write down what people say to a family who just had a baby girl, while the other group have to write responses given when a child with disability was born. The workshop facilitator then asks each group to read out what was written, and they discuss why people’s perception about girls and disability are the same (Salim Malik, interview with author, 2 March 2010). The group is able to work through the participants’ perceptions about gender and the values that go with them, despite using a non-­religious approach. Another example is the All Afghan Women’s Union (AAWU), which works with rural districts on the outskirts of Kabul to increase women’s income generation opportunities by encouraging husbands and wives to work together in a cash crop project, that has been endorsed by the local shura and religious leaders, who donated a small plot of land for the purpose (Suraya Parlika, interview with author, 1 May 2010). In a similar vein, rather than just giving men instructions on how to be good Muslim husbands and fathers, the religious leaders/educators in the Afghan project could ask men to reflect on what they know of the tasks done by their wife during the day, the difficulties of childbirth without access to medical support, awareness of maternity deaths in their own village, or even a self-­examination of what it means to be a man, in terms of their roles and expectations in life. ‘Happy Family, Healthy Community’ is the only example of an aid project which seeks to promote good family and spousal relations through Islam. To understand how local Afghans and in particular, how religious scholars make sense of these narratives, I made an appointment to meet Islamic scholars from a

108   Fieldwork in Afghanistan government religious institute.10 As translation was required, I enlisted the help of a female interpreter who has had experience working in the international aid community. Initially, the interview with the scholar went smoothly – I introduced myself, the interpreter, as well as the purpose of the visit. The scholar helpfully provided interpretations of various Hadiths which I have been hearing recently. Then, the discussion turned to my research topic, and on the issue of violence against women in Afghanistan. The scholar shook his head at the thought of violence, and explained that such acts are forbidden according to Islam, and that, ‘If necessary, a husband may only strike his wife in light chastisement, and with a stick no longer than a pencil, or with a flower.’ This reply was so surprising to me, that I asked, ‘Which part of the Koran said this?’ The scholar did not reply to this, but instead, he started to speak with the interpreter in Pashto. After a while, the interpreter begin to translate. ‘He was telling me how amazed he was that I am so familiar with various passages of the Koran, and that it was impressive for someone my age.’ The scholar interrupted in English. ‘In Islam, we do not hit women. She [pointing to the interpreter] is precious like a flower. I would only admire, and never hit her.’ There were more discussions in Pashto between the two, and at one point, the interpreter covered her mouth and laughed. Turning to me, she explained. ‘He is praising me so much, it embarrasses me!’ To this day, I still could not make sense of what happened at that interview. I recall asking the interpreter, when we were back in our transportation, if she felt alright. The interpreter assured me that she was fine and had found the discussion enlightening. She was also flattered by the praises bestowed from someone so learned. For my part, I could not help but feel uncomfortable from the exchange. There was nothing wrong with praising someone for their intellect and knowledge, but it was verging on hyperbolic to describe a woman whom one has met for the first time as ‘a flower’ and worthy of admiration. Growing up in East Asian culture, I was not unfamiliar with praises and idioms – they were indicators of good manners and appreciation for one’s company. But my discomfort had persisted. Perhaps it was also disappointment for the conversation – I was hoping for further insights into Islam but instead, a diversion was created.

Potential impact on feminist space and gender norms One of the key concerns for feminists when confronted with the instrumentalisation of religion is the narrowing of scope for strategies and voices that fall outside of the religious paradigm (Kandiyoti 2011, Tadros 2011). Favouring one approach above others in such a way can also marginalise NGOs and activists who are non-­religious-based. For instance, during a conversation with a gender adviser who works for a bilateral agency in Kabul, I raised the question of donor support towards women NGOs’ safety, citing the case where a female NGO outreach worker was abducted and assaulted. The response from the gender adviser was: ‘[Name of women’s NGO]? I know this sounds awful, but if they’re so

Fieldwork in Afghanistan   109 radical, what can you expect to happen?’ (Informant A3c, interview with author, 3 May 2010). Similarly, the director of an international NGO maintained: ‘Engaging with religious leaders is a must to build trust, if there is to be any trust in Afghanistan’ (Informant A3b, interview with author, 3 May 2010). It is undeniable that Islam is bound deeply with people’s daily lives and spiritual beliefs. However, presenting aid effectiveness as a matter of observing local cultural protocols not only simplifies the complexities of gender issue and violence against women in Afghanistan, it forces local NGOs to take up a religious front which can diminish their feminist politics (Kandiyoti 2011). As one women’s NGO program manager explained, in order to show conformity to tradition, their feminist politics were compromised: Informant: 

To appease the community and donors, we’ve had to pretend the [domestic violence] program is something to help women to become better housewives and mothers … Interviewer:  Why do you have to say that? Informant:  We have to maintain feminist politics in our service delivery, but donors don’t understand that … It’s hard enough to monitor staff, and make sure they don’t impose their own values upon women, like asking them what they have done to deserve the beating. (Informant A2b, interview with author, 2 May 2010) For projects such as ‘Happy Family, Healthy Community’, which is based on a social norm marketing strategy, there is also the challenge of monitoring and evaluating participants’ behavioural change. While the project has a good accountability mechanism for workshop facilitators (including local doctors, clerics, and government representatives, who are required to perform separate reporting after each information workshop at the local community), there are few assessment tools to monitor male participants’ behavioural changes or the improvement of gender relations in the family. In addition, as the project comes from the angle that ‘the only things that can solve the problems of family and community are the orders and commands of Islam’ (UNFPA et al. n.d.: 1), it would be difficult for project participants (or their wives and families where private, triangulate interviews were conducted) to discuss resistance to behavioural change, as this would suggest being ‘un-­Islamic’ despite weeks, or months of workshops on Islam and gender. Without an adequate understanding of the concept of gender equality, human rights, legal knowledge, and the use of religion as advocacy/entry point, there is a risk that NGOs – both local and international – perpetuate bias and discrimination which is justified by religion. For instance, under Islam, under article 86 of the Civil Law of Afghanistan, polygamy is permitted if a man can fulfil three conditions: to treat all his wives equally; to have the financial capacity to support them; and where the first wife is infertile or suffers from untreatable illness.11 However, discussions with a number of local NGO staff reveal limited understanding of the application of the Civil Law, as well as being unaware of the

110   Fieldwork in Afghanistan three conditions which need to be met before committing polygamy. An interview exchange which was typical is seen below: Interviewer:  What is the status of polygamy in Afghanistan? Informant:  The Koran allows for it. A man can take up to four wives. Interviewer:  Are there any conditions or rules about polygamy? Informant:  Well, he has to be fair to all of [his wives], and equal in

the distribution of finance, clothing, housing. Interviewer:  But how do you regulate fairness? What is the mechanism to monitor if a man is fair or not? Are there any laws or do the Family Courts or mullahs in the village that oversee this? Informant:  No, no, multiple marriage is covered under the Sharia. Being fair is a matter between a man and the God. (Informant A1, interview with author, 1 May 2011) In reality, due to women’s unequal status and the frequency of arranged marriage, most women are not aware of their prospective husband’s current marital status until their wedding day. If women become aware and do object to the arrangement, they usually concede, due to family pressure. In a survey conducted by an Afghan women’s NGO, the Women and Children Legal Research Foundation, 72 per cent of female respondents did not consent to their husband’s second marriage, however, 99 per cent of the women did not seek legal intervention, chiefly because they were not aware of their basic rights, and also because they doubted that the legal system would be sympathetic to them (WCLRF 2006: gg–hh). While the Civil Law had stated all conditions must be met (fairness to all wives, financial capacity, and wife’s infertility or untreatable illness), research done by the local Afghan women’s and human rights NGOs indicate that polygamy occurs as result of tribal law and the absence of rule of law, and that there is no monitoring by the legal system to ensure people are compliant with the Civil Law (Nemat 2006: 24–25, WCLRF 2006: ff ). The NGO staff that I spoke with are aware that polygamy is sanctioned under Islam, but there was little legal awareness or the recognition of women’s vulnerability when their husband’s fairness is ‘regulated’ by the divine. A comparative example can be seen in Pakistan, in which I interviewed a group of men and women from the local Christian community in Bahawalpur (a medium sized town in Punjab province). While they are being supported by local NGOs with information about domestic violence and women’s rights, the group I interviewed proudly told me that as result of their awareness-­raising about gender-­based violence, they had solved a dispute between a newly married couple by telling the husband that wife beating is a crime, but also advised the wife that she should follow the scriptures and obey the wishes of her in-­laws to avoid being chastised and beaten. When I questioned whether they had also counselled the in-­laws to not incite their son to wife beating, I was told that as parents, their rights precede those of their children. In both cases, gender equality was subsumed under patriarchal interpretations of religious norms and customary practices.

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‘Afghanistan is not ready for men to work on gender’: a case study of an Afghan man’s role as a gender program manager During the course of my research in Kabul, I met ‘Hamid’, an Afghan man who had a senior gender position in an international NGO. Being accustomed to seeing women occupy the roles of gender advisers, managers, and project officers, I was fascinated by how Hamid came to assume this job, as well as how others perceive him. I was able to talk with Hamid on a number of occasions, and learned that he was trained as a medical doctor, and had experience working on reproductive health. A young man in his mid-­thirties, Hamid was enthusiastic about his role, and proudly talked about his successful lobbying for his own organisation to provide paid maternity leave for female staff, although he was frustrated about the high turnover rate of female staff ‘as soon they are married, because of pregnancies’. I left these interviews with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was good to find examples of men working in gender and development and Hamid appeared to be committed to his work. On the other hand, I was uncomfortable with his complaints about female staff. Surely as a senior manager with extensive work experience around women’s reproductive health and rights, Hamid should realise that female staff resigning due to marriage and pregnancy is another sign of Afghan women’s lack of negotiation power over family planning and career after marriage? A week after meeting Hamid, I was interviewing a local women’s NGO about their violence against women projects. The NGO director was an older woman, accompanied by a younger female member of staff who acted as her translator. At one point in the conversation, Hamid’s name came up and the NGO director became very unhappy and started to talk in a rapid, emotional manner. The younger female also became visibly upset, and told me the reason why: the NGO has a difficult relationship with Hamid, who they perceive as lacking in legal knowledge about domestic violence, especially his preference for Sharia law. The NGO director also expressed dissatisfaction over Hamid’s qualification as a medical doctor, arguing that ‘he needs comprehensive knowledge about gender, not just about maternal health’. It was an uncomfortable experience for me as I listened to the NGO director and her staff. I sensed that they had somehow mistaken my role and thought I belonged to the international NGO that Hamid worked for. Although I tried to explain the situation, the NGO director continued with her complaints, and insisted that I raise the matter with the international NGO. She concluded that, ‘Afghanistan is not ready for men to work on gender.’ At that point, I thanked her for the interview and explained once again that I was not affiliated with the international NGO that Hamid belongs to, but that I would convey her concern to the international NGO director, which I did the following day. I wrestled over the decision to include this incident. In the end, I realised that the issue at hand is not the dispute between Hamid and the woman NGO director, but the fragile partnership between men and women when working on gender, such as how social divisions like gender, class, ethnicity, and religion

112   Fieldwork in Afghanistan prevailed, as seen in the Oxfam GB project, ‘We Can End Violence against Women in Pakistan’ (discussed in Chapter 5). In reflecting on the role of men in the feminist movement, Michel Kimmel (2010: 219) argued that men have a role to play as the ‘Gentleman’s Auxiliary to Feminism’, in the sense that men should not take a leadership or central role in promoting gender equality, but as feminist movement’s ‘allies, its cheerleaders, its foot soldiers’. Afghan men’s roles in gender issues – no matter how well-­intended and informed about male dominance – are fraught and at times are implicated in the overall climate of immense gender inequality that exists in the country.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have discussed the complexity and challenges faced by civil society organisations working to end violence against women in Afghanistan, and how it cannot be solved by instrumentalising religion to change men’s behaviour. An environment which allows for an examination of the pre-­ conditions which allow gender equality measures and ideas to thrive – such as government accountability, structural equality, adherence to international conventions, effective and fair justice system, higher level of education and literacy, and so on – needs to exist for social movements such as gender equality to thrive. Without these pre-­conditions, particularly when combined with the tendency for donors to set aid projects as short-­term responses (two to three years long, as opposed to long-­term investment of five to ten years), religion alone cannot resolve the development issues in Afghanistan, related to gender or otherwise. As a social practice, religion can be as much of a uniting force as it divides, and international aid agencies and academics should not overlook the implications of instrumentalising faith-­based movements in the name of gender equality. The dialogue between conservative and progressive religious quarters in Afghanistan is highly relevant, and the need to engage with religious leaders and scholars for their expertise and support is indisputable. However, these processes are situated within a larger framework of donor politics which at times constrain and frustrate local partners’ efforts, a political environment at the national and local level which has been historically unfriendly to women, a changing political economy which in turn affects local cultures and traditions, and a fragile peace-­ building process with a diminishing space for women to articulate their rights and concerns. As one informant wryly observed: ‘The people follow the mullah, and the mullah follows the people’ (Informant A4a, interview with author, 4 May 2010). In other words, how religion is interpreted, implemented, and practised is contingent upon cultural and political paradigms (Anwar 2006, Moghissi 1999). Though possessing religious authority, mullahs are also under pressure from their constituents, especially those with economic and political influence. When involving the religious sector in anti-­violence against women initiatives, their limitations, as well as competing local interests, should be taken into consideration.

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Notes   1 In February 2001, during a charity fundraising event in New York, talk show celebrity Oprah Winfrey ‘unveiled’ Zoya, a young representative of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) (McAlister 2005, RAWA 2001).   2 This is not to say there were no campaigns led by women’s NGOs prior to September 2001 which highlighted the Taliban oppression of women, or of the mujahid, or Soviet Union’s human rights violations. Indeed, within Afghanistan there has been a lively history of women’s activism, such as the AAWU which has been operating since the Taliban regime and provided education training for women and girls.   3 A lawyer told me that during the working group’s consultation with a number of parliamentarians, one politician commented that polygamy should be legal in the country, as it is inconvenient for the husband to postpone sexual intercourse during their wife’s menstruation. Attempts were made to interview the male politician who made this comment, but were rebuffed.   4 ‘Liberal’ is the term used by Afghan NGO workers and religious scholars themselves when describing an understanding of Islam and gender issues which seek to promote equality and protection of women’s human rights.   5 This experience is shared by other women’s NGOs in Afghanistan, see Counterpart International’s report, Outreach Guide to Afghan Women (Azarbaijani-­Moghaddam 2007) for in-­depth discussions on the issue.   6 To avoid sensitivity, the USAID logo and association were not mentioned in the project.   7 ‘Correct’ in this sense means the interpretations are also consistent with the current Afghan legislations.   8 While the Academy of Scientific Research identifies itself as ‘liberal’, as it comprises of religious scholars who promote a contemporary interpretation of the Koran, including support for women’s legal rights in marriage, divorce, and inheritance matters, the Academy director did not extend this allowance towards sexuality, and condemned marriages between ‘two men or two women’ as ‘the product of human rights activists and influence from the west’ (group interview with author, 10 May 2010).   9 This view of acceptance of religious instructions was supported by the UNFPA staff during interview. 10 Due to the outcome of the interview, names and identifying details have been omitted. 11 The Elimination of Violence Against Women Law was passed by Presidential Decree in 2009, and had provisions which protect women from forced marriages, under-­age marriages, and polygamous relationships. However, the Law has not yet been approved in parliament.

6 Conclusion Not a man’s work

Working with men to prevent violence against women in conflict or post-­conflict countries poses very different challenges to those men’s programs that are situated in non-­conflict settings. Just like women, men are affected by experiences of conflict, violence, and instability. My fieldwork in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Timor Leste has found a range of roles that men undertake to stop violence against women, some of them are positive, others less so. As such, it is difficult to form a coherent narrative to explain everything. Rather, I liken this chapter to a series of reflections on what is happening, the disjuncture between theory and practice, as well as what might be done to address them.

Which violence and why does it matter? As an umbrella term, violence against women encompasses different acts of violence which can occur in the different scales from home to community, and from state to global; during non-­conflict as well as war and post-­conflict periods. In this book, I have used violence against women to describe my research for two reasons: first, because the majority of the programs and initiatives that I came across have used this terminology; second, because the research covers different acts of violence against women. However, in each of the countries, specific forms of violence against women were addressed by the various programs or organisations that I interviewed, with domestic violence being the most prevalent. In some ways, this was expected, as many of the programs/organisations I met were engaging with men to stop violence against women, and violence in the home was probably the most relevant and strategic entry point. However, in focusing mainly on domestic violence, there is a risk of equating violence against women (which is an umbrella term) with a specific form of violence. We need to be specific when discussing different forms of violence against women, but we also have to understand that violence against women exists on a continuum. Different forms of violence requires different response, but if we are to change men and encourage them to take action we need to help them to understand the continuum, and that different forms of violence against women do not exist in isolation from each other. To do otherwise would be to create cases of exemption where domestic violence is bad, but let’s not talk about marital rape.

Conclusion   115 Or, we need men to take action against sexual harassment and assault, but look away when men use commercial sexual exploitation against women.

Three-­day workshops will not work: why longer term engagements are better In relation to the international development community’s assumption that educating men equates to developing gender equality warriors, there is a tendency to run such initiatives in short workshops with little follow-­up of progress. Time and again, I came across one-­day training in which men are taught some anti-­ violence against women slogans, a smattering of male behavioural change rhetoric, ample photographs taken during the training (for donor reporting), and at the end of the day, men are deemed as champions of equality. Not only is this disrespectful towards the actual men and women who are working on ending violence against women, it is also irresponsible. The Pakistani feminist, Ferida Sher, delivered this warning against a wholesale approach to training men: ‘It is far worse to have patriarchal men who know how to talk like feminists … It is important that NGOs should be careful with whom they send to these training, and to do follow-­up with trainees’ (Sher, interview with author, 12 March 2010). As discussed already in the Timor Leste and Pakistan chapters (Chapters 3 and 4), men interpret the rationale for activism differently. Some do so based on their own experiences of family violence, others do so due out of a sense of ethical obligation for the community, and some are attracted to the opportunities of learning new ideas and exposure to different contexts. Then there are others who have a saviour mentality, and use their patriarchal privileges to help powerless women and girls, and in turn gain undeserved praise and recognition. There are also men who capitalise on donor-­driven initiatives, and derive funding and resources, while their actual efforts are questionable. These things happen because the international community discourages a strong feminist critical lens on involving men. Faced with the pressure of donor reporting, as well as lack of good indicators of project success, NGOs equate ‘more men’ with ‘success’. As such, good people are drawn into the initiatives, but also opportunists and self-­ titled heroes. Ironically, almost 20 years ago, Sarah White (2000, 35) cautioned against this wholesale induction of men in gender and development: [T]here is a real danger that straying from the standard feminist focus to turn attention to men results in apologetics […]. The ‘new discovery’ of men can thus merely rehabilitate the old ideologies: that men are, after all, the strong ones, the ‘protectors and providers’, and manhood a form. White does not suggest that we ‘give up’ on men, abandoning them on the figurative curb side. Rather, she argues for the need to retain a feminist analysis, which includes a political lens of looking and understanding masculinities and the men that are involved.

116   Conclusion Another imperative is to see the engagement with men from a longer term perspective. Rather than a three-­day, or even three-­week workshop, the approach should be longitudinal. In all three countries, conflict is either present or a recent past (though Timor Leste is emerging from its post-­conflict status). Men and women are faced with daily challenges of social and political insecurities, and where survival is a reality for many. For men to have meaningful role in stopping violence against women, donors and NGOs alike must see this role within a complex situation of uncertainties, and this requires long-­term planning and investment.

Men as heroes: falling back into the patriarchal narrative In relation to the previous section, a recurring issue during my interviews with NGOs and volunteers in Pakistan is the belief that men have a duty to protect women. This belief is based on gender norms about how men should behave, as well as on religious grounds. An example of this belief can be seen from my interview a Pakistan NGO based in Islamabad that has been working on HIV prevention and advocacy. At the time of the interview, the organisation was branching out its work to include working with men on the issue of violence against women. When I queried the NGO’s deputy director on how the programs engage with men on issues of male privilege and gender norms, the deputy director answered: Nighat: 

We don’t want to take powers away from men. Why should we do that, when men can use their power to help women? I have no problems if we manipulate men into supporting gender. Men’s power in society is not the issue. Interviewer:  But one of the challenges is for men to accept that for women to be empowered, and for there to be gender equality, surely [men] have to give up some of their rights? (Nighat and Sharif, interview with author, 18 February 2010) At this point, the program coordinator who also attended the meeting had this to say: I think women and men are equally oppressed by patriarchy. For example, in our culture, men cannot cry in public. I was oppressed because I was denied from expressing myself. (Nighat and Sharif, interview) Nighat concurred with this statement, and went on to relate a long story about a regional women’s NGO meeting she attended in Bangkok. During the meeting, she said that women’s NGOs are no longer relevant for gender and development programs, and that ‘feminism was useful twenty years ago but not anymore’, and that she herself is not a feminist, yet works on gender. According to Nighat, the

Conclusion   117 women’s NGOs ‘attacked’ her, and told her she was wrong. Nighat paused and asked what I think about those women. As a feminist myself, I had to struggle with the urge to agree with those women, and instead asked if she was expecting a different reaction at the meeting in Bangkok. To which Nighat replied, ‘Oh, I just don’t know anymore! I don’t know anything about gender.’ I found this attitude about gender and men’s role in violence against women programs to be disturbing. While the organisation regard its rationale and method of engaging with men and appealing to their power to be strategic, to produce an immediate effect with men responding to ‘help women’. However, this approach runs the risk of reproducing gender stereotypes, with men once again acting as protectors over women, with the extension of this argument being that men have the right to discipline women, including the use of violence. I was also weary of men who seek to place equal weight on the different forms of gender inequalities that men and women experience, including Australia (Pease 2008, Wyrod 2008). Sharif ’s experience of being socially pressured to be stoic may be a poignant comment about the strict code of masculinity in Pakistan, but Pakistani men (especially middle-­class, well-­educated Muslim men) are assuredly not ‘equally oppressed’ as their female counterparts. My meeting with Nighat and Sharif was an example of how ideas and ethics of working with men can become compromised by misunderstanding and convenience, so that the rhetoric of appealing to men’s sense of ethics to work on violence against women can become an appeal to men’s sense of power and further control over women. Meanwhile, feminism and the more critical lens that challenge men’s power, are forgotten or abandoned out of convenience. Another example which highlights the problems of appealing to men’s sense of power to stop violence against women is a diary entry from late March 2010, which describes an encounter I had with a Pakistan NGO director who was supportive of the We Can campaign: I visited a local community-­based organisation in Pakistan, which provides income generation and support for women and girls. The organisation’s director, a Muslim man in his forties, proudly showed me the sewing room, the computer room and library of his centre. Three young women sat dutifully by hand-­powered sewing machines and made handicrafts. Near the end of my visit, I was presented with Fatima, a young woman in  her early twenties who the manager claimed to have rescued from a marriage arrangement she did not want – she was 16, the prospective husband was in his fifties. ‘She came to me for help’, the organisation director explained, gesturing at the girl with an expansive wave of the arm. ‘So I took up the cause, held hunger strikes, demonstrated at the local police station. It even made headlines!’ Here I was presented with a photocopy of the news article from the local paper in Urdu. ‘Now she works for me.’ He explained. I looked at Fatima. She was very beautiful and remained quiet during my conversation with the NGO director, although I noticed that rather than the

118   Conclusion customary downward gaze I encounter from women in rural Sindh area, she had greeted me with a direct look in the face. ‘She married a year ago, with a young man of her choice.’ The director added. ‘How is your life now?’ I asked, wishing I could talk with this young woman without her benefactor and learn more about her life story. ‘My husband understands me’, Fatima replied. And the director observed, ‘As you can see, this is a story with happy ending because of my action.’ This experience illustrates that for some men, exposure to violence against women programs turn them into self-­appointed saviours of the cause. The NGO director’s efforts to help Fatima were courageous, but it is unlikely that he acted alone, and had worked with a network of likeminded NGOs, lawyers, and influential people in the community. However, during my conversation with him, the success of Fatima’s ‘rescue’ was attributed to him alone, and I was not allowed to interview the young woman myself. Perhaps he was proud of his work, which was reasonable, or perhaps it was flattering to have a foreign audience. Regardless of the reasons, meeting the director and watching him showing off the resources and the women attending the centre was an unsettling experience for me, and further illustrates the easy decline from a program that is meant to end violence against women, to a program that is helping privileged men.

Medicalising men’s behaviours and values and the disappearance of the ‘P’ words The push for violence against women as a public health issue has been long unchallenged. While there are many benefits of mainstreaming the issue into the health sector, the unacknowledged danger is that medicalising men’s behaviour can result in depoliticisation of how we see and treat the issue of violence against women. As Chapter 2 argued, violence against women is complex, and many disciplines have sought to understand it from their own lens. This multifaceted approach is a strength, as feminism is interdisciplinary and draws from several different methods and perspectives to gain richer insights into why and how men’s violence against women occur, and look for solutions. A monopoly approach, where violence against women is ‘owned’ by certain discipline and their cohorts, will only be counterproductive. As seen in Oxfam GB’s We Can campaign, the premise and theoretical framework for the program was derived from a medical model, the transtheoretical framework which was developed to stop smoking addiction. When violence against women is seen as an illness, or some form of addiction that men have to stop doing, the political analysis of why violence against women exists, and of how men use violence as a way to maintain their patriarchal power, disappear from the horizon. To be fair, the We Can campaign sought to include feminist and gender analysis in its campaign approach. But because of the medical model’s focus on the individual, much of the program work was on men and

Conclusion   119 women rather than the systems of caste, religion, gender, class, and ethnicity which underpin men’s violence against women. In a way, I can understand why some donors and the NGO communities prefer a medical model – in countries where gender is associated with ‘the West’, and where pursuing gender equality bring security risks, a medical model which doesn’t engage with power analysis, or is too much about gender, is a much safer option. For both the organisation and the community that it works with. However, the questions that the organisation should ask itself is, ‘What is our goal, and are the things we are doing helping us to realise it?’

The men who remain violent While the programs I looked at all focus on men’s role in preventing violence, what became clear to me is that these programs also do not give much consideration to men who are violent and remain so. Quite simply, whether in war or peacetime, there are some men who will choose to be violent, and will resist any changes, even as they are involved in initiatives that tell them to do so. Although this was not my research focus, it is imperative that the development sector consider strategies to deal with such men. Continuing to try to change them or hoping that they will change, is an uncomfortable mirroring of some domestic violence survivors who stay with the abuser on the slim hope that they will change one day. Whereas there are many factors for domestic violence survivors to think like this (such as love for the person, having children together, financial limitations, or dependence due to power and control), theorists and practitioners have a duty to protect survivors, including children. The response may be legal: the criminalisation and punishment of perpetrators, and the protection of, and service support for victims. While it would be tempting for some to replicate perpetrator programs which are more prevalent in developed countries, the fact is that in countries which experience war and conflict, social support services are bare bone, and so any funding must be prioritised towards the protection and support of survivors. Men who are violent and choose to remain so are an uncomfortable truth, but it is a reality that is faced by many women, men, and children.

‘We already work with men’: lessons for donors and the international community In an interview with the Lahore women’s shelter, Dastak, the conversation inevitably turned to the current development focus on working with men. The staff explained that as a domestic violence shelter, their priority is with women, and with the limited funding, there are very few resources available for additional work. ‘Besides’, the staff said. ‘We already work with men.’ The shelter lobbies the state government for legislative changes to provide long-­term support for domestic violence survivors, it works with the police and other non-­women’s NGOs and organisations, it also has a male doctor who practices nearby, and

120   Conclusion offers free service for the women. Another example where women’s NGOs work with men is the AAWU’s negotiation with the local shura and religious leaders in the outskirt of Kabul districts to donate land for a strawberry farm project in which husbands and wives work together. It is a recurring theme during this research, where I encounter donors and international civil society organisations alike, to call for the need to ‘work with men’ and that we must move away from the women-­only focus. Yet when I posed this question to women’s NGOs, the answer is simple: they already do. Dastak and the AAWU’s examples may not fit into the development narrative of educating and training men to become activists, but it is clear that they already engage with men who work in various sectors, and have good work relationships. So why do donors and international organisations exhort the need to work with men, when there are clear examples that this is happening already? There are a number of possible answers to this question, and the first one is arrogance: donor and international community have a pre-­conceived bias that women’s NGOs are unsophisticated in their gender analysis, and are in need of help in identifying all the right stakeholders (i.e. men). In part, this is fuelled by some of the gender and development literature which criticise the women-­only focus for excluding men, and that a better, more sophisticated analysis is all about gender and gender relations. But translated into practice, this means a crude strategy of men, men, and only men. In reality, women’s NGOs assess, based on the security situation, of what can be done. They have a clear understanding that their primary focus should be about supporting women, and that this cannot be achieved without a wide collaboration with relevant partners. This nuanced and strategic approach to negotiation and collaboration has yet to be understood or appreciated by the international community, both donors and NGOs. The second reason for the international community’s push to include men is the assumption that once men are educated on the values of gender equality, they will abandon their patriarchal behaviours and become champions of women’s rights. This is seen in the joint UNFPA and Afghan Government’s ‘Happy Family, Healthy Community’ project, which used a gender-­sensitive interpretation of Islam to teach men about ‘good, suitable behaviours’ as husbands and fathers. In Timor Leste, the joint UN and Timor Leste Government’s Hapara Violensia Kontra Feto public awareness campaign portrayed prominent male politicians and leaders as supporters of eliminating violence against women. At a glance, these projects’ design and implementation seem appropriate. However, their key assumption – that once men are exposed to gender-­sensitive messages or positive male role models, men will modify their attitudes and behaviours accordingly – has a simplified understanding of how gender relations and gender inequality operate within society. There is an assumption that men are simply waiting for ‘a good enough argument’ to see the errors of their ways and stop beating women, abandon their male privileges, and become activists. Indeed, some men will change, but the changes can occur unevenly, as shown in the men who participated in the We Can campaign and Humqadam. Men may also (unintentionally or otherwise) consolidate their power and resources through

Conclusion   121 participating in violence against women projects, whether through getting funding where they previously did not have the access, or through public recognition and accolades for their activism, especially those already in higher social and economic backgrounds. The need to understand local gender relations, power dynamics and to respect women’s NGOs and feminists’ knowledge and practices is not just a lesson for donors and the international community, but also for countries and regions such as Australia, Europe, New Zealand, North America, and the UK. Involving – or ‘embracing’ men – is now an accepted norm for those working on ending men’s violence against women in developed countries. However, ‘embracing’ does not mean an uncritical, wholesale approach where men’s involvement is romanticised and celebrated over. What we need, is to understand men’s motivations for joining feminist-­led initiatives, ways for men to meaningfully participate, as well as how their involvement is affected by contextual factors such as conflict and instability. Instead of presenting ourselves as experts, we should be humble and learn from those whose work and experiences are making a difference in their communities. Conclusions are difficult whether in fiction or academic tomes – the latter requires the author to restate the research topic and the ways in which research ‘evidence’ has contributed towards new knowledge. Researchers are meant to be dispassionate, and to conveniently objectify their research topic and participants in the name of academic objectivity. It is difficult to tie things neatly, when my fieldwork – the memories of women and men who risked their lives every day to make a difference – remind me daily how far we still have to go. Violence against women is not just a research topic. Everyday, women and men wake up and make difficult decisions that have impact not only in their lives but also in their community. It is my sincere hope that this book will make you, the reader, regardless of your gender, ethnicity, age, class and other backgrounds, care about the issue of violence against women and why we all need to take action.

Annex Research methodology

Data collection Interviews were conducted with six different groups: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Local women and men who participated in anti-­violence against women programs or comparable activities (such as HIV prevention). Local and international NGO staff, including gender advisers and organisation directors who either oversee initiatives or have programs in their organisation. Government officials, bilateral and multilateral organisation staff whose portfolio includes gender issues. Human rights and women’s organisations. Local feminists and human rights activists not affiliated with organisations. Expatriate consultants involved in program design or evaluation of anti-­ violence against women initiatives which involved men.

Notes were taken during interviews. Initially, I used a small digital recorder (with the consent of the interview participants) in the first few meetings in Timor Leste. However, while all the interview participants agreed to have the recording device used, its presence inhibited the flow of conversation. At the same time, my note-­taking skills improved along with the interview sessions, so the recorder was not used in subsequent meetings. The notes were expanded upon after the interview meeting and typed. Translators were used for some meetings. One of the key challenge of working with translators is to ensure they are translating the interview participants accurately and not conducting the interview themselves. These issues were discussed in detail with each translator before recruitment, and I would seek clarifications with the translator during the interview if I felt the translation needed further explanation. At all times, I did my best to maintain a respectful working relationship with the translator, and we would discuss any concerns about the interview questions (from translation of English into Tetum or Urdu, for example), as well as the interpreter’s own insights and views about the research topic and people we met.

Annex   123

Interview questions As I was interviewing very different groups of informants in each country, the questions I asked reflected this difference. In addition, in both individual and group interviews, I prefer to have non-­structured interview, and would often follow the lead and directions from the participants. Below is a list of questions/ topics for each group: 1

Local women who participated in anti-­violence against women activities: • • • • •

2

Local men who participated in anti-­violence against women activities: • • • • •

3

background information (age, ethnicity, religious beliefs, employment, marital status); how they became aware of the anti-­violence against women campaign; reason for joining the campaign; examples of activism; men’s views (own and opinion of other men) on gender equality and supporting initiatives such as violence against women campaigns.

Local and international NGO staff, including gender advisers and organisation directors who oversees initiatives or have such programs in their organisation: • • • • •

4

background information (age, ethnicity, religious beliefs, employment, marital status); how they became aware of the anti-­violence against women campaign; reason for joining the campaign; examples of activism; any challenges encountered during their involvement in the campaign.

background information; role in the organisation; activities by the organisation on gender equality and ending violence against women, including men’s role in gender projects; challenges and successes of working in the country on the issue; relationship with the community, partner organisations, government, and donors when working on gender issues.

Government officials, bilateral and multilateral organisation staff whose portfolio include gender issues: • • • • •

background information; role in the organisation; activities by the organisation on gender equality and ending violence against women, including men’s role in gender projects; challenges and successes of working in the country on the issue; relationship with the community, partner organisations, government, and donors when working on gender issues.

124   Annex 5

Human rights and women’s organisations; • • • • •

6

Local feminists and human rights activists not affiliated with organisations; • • • • • •

7

background information; role in the organisation; activities by the organisation on gender equality and ending violence against women, including men’s role in gender projects; relationship with the community, partner organisations, donors, and government when working on women’s/human rights issues; challenges and successes of working in the country on the issue from a feminist/human rights angle. background information; how they became feminists/human rights activists; perception of aid programs which address violence against women; perception of men’s role in ending violence against women and promotion of gender equality; what donors/NGOs/government could do better on this issue; view on the challenges of working on gender issues in a context where gender is often seen as a ‘foreign import’.

Expatriate consultants who were involved in the program design or evaluation of anti-­violence against women initiatives which involved men: • • • • • •

background; current project and its progress; perception of aid programs which address violence against women; perception of men’s role in ending violence against women and promotion of gender equality; what donors/NGOs/government could do better on this issue; view on the challenges of working on gender issues in a context where gender is often seen as a ‘foreign import’.

These questions were not always asked in the same order, and not all the interview questions were raised in exactly the same manner. I preferred a less hierarchical interview structure where the flow of the meeting is more conversational than a question and answer session and which allows the informant to ask me questions or add comments (Limerick, Burgess-­Limerick, and Grace 1996, Sanger 2003). The samples in each country by role (broken down by nationality, sex, and by each individual’s status) are presented in Table A1.1. There was no attempt made to achieve gender parity with each group for practical reasons: women tend to be over-­represented in the gender and development field, with male staff being a minority especially in Afghanistan (due to strict cultural norms which meant that female staff have greater access to women in the community). Pakistan has the distinction of having more men being interviewed at the community level, mainly due to the fact that the Oxfam GB’s

Annex   125 Table A1.1  Type of interview participants in each country

Community Local NGO INGO and multilaterals Government Donors and bilaterals Activists Consultants

Timor Leste

Pakistan

Afghanistan

Women

Men

Women

Men

Women

Men

4 10 7 1 2 7 2

15 3 4 0 0 8 1

20 15 5 1 0 4 1

32 6 0 1 0 0 0

0 14 8 3 1 0 1

0 4 2 2 0 0 0

We Can campaign had a higher number of male participants than any other country in which the campaign was operating. In Afghanistan, no community members were interviewed due to the security reasons outlined in the previous section.

Analysis of the data Detailed notes taken from the interviews were analysed based on research themes: • • • • • •

What roles do men play in violence against women programs? What kind of messages do violence against women programs use to involve men’s participation? How does the involvement of men affect gender relations in violence against women programs? Does the intersectionality of race, class, gender, caste, and ethnicity have an influence on men’s participation in violence against women programs? How did the country’s experience of war and conflict shape gender norms and relations? What challenges exist for involving men in violence against women programs within conflict and post-­conflict contexts?

During the course of analysing the collected data, common themes were identified in all three countries, including the inadvertent reinforcement of men’s traditional role as protector of women and family; adaption of programs into local context and culture; practical challenges which influence the roles played by men in violence against women programs; and the impact of broader aid politics and relationships between donor and partner organisations upon men’s involvement. Country and context-­specific issues and themes were also identified. The analysis process was conducted through several methods: close readings of the interview transcripts with the first reading focused on content; the second reading as a reflexive exercise of how my own perceptions shape

126   Annex the  interpretation; and finally, constructing interpretations from the transcripts (Crabtree and Miller 1999). The analysis was also supplemented by other sources such as follow-­up interviews or with new informants, verifying information through secondary materials such as NGO reports, newspapers, legislations, academic journal articles, and so forth.

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Index

advocacy 3, 11, 13, 43, 50, 52, 67, 75, 79, 82, 89, 92, 99, 101, 102, 109, 116 Afghanistan: culture see Islam; norms see gender norms; religion see Islam AusAID (now Australian Aid/DFAT) 35, 46, 49, 51, 61n10 awareness-raising 2, 18, 98, 107, 110 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action 9 bride price 41, 53 Catholic Church (Timor Leste): family planning 52, 53, 54–55; sexual abuse 42–43 Change Makers see We Can campaign child marriage 53–54 class: differences in VAW activism 88; inequality of 83, 84, 85 community 12, 22, 35, 40–42, 44, 51–54, 57–59, 61n13, 65–67, 70, 71, 74, 75, 76, 79, 81, 87–89, 94–96, 102–105, 114, 115, 118 community leaders 41, 52, 54, 59, 94, 102 community mobilisation 2, 18, 76 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 6, 69, 89n2 culture 6, 12, 18, 28, 41, 55, 61n12, 64, 65, 68, 76, 92–95, 104, 108, 112, 116, 125 development studies 3, 13, 18, 23n6 domestic violence 53–53, 69, 70–71, 77, 78, 87, 90n8, 93, 94–96, 101–102, 104, 109, 110, 114 donor: aid politics 91, 101, 115; approach to VAW 50, 99, 102; NGO perception of 49–50, 98

empowerment 2, 82, 95, 99 ethics 14, 26, 115, 117 feminism 2, 3, 13, 16, 23n8, 25, 29–30, 35–36, 92, 112, 116–118; activism and VAW 7–9, 10–11; theories of VAW 12; men and feminism 26, 29, 57; western agenda 69, 94–95 gender norms: Afghanistan 95, 96–97; Pakistan 72; Timor Leste 40–41, 56 gender-sensitisation 13, 62, 69, 71, 89n2 HIV/AIDS 13, 29, 57 household 6, 8, 12, 20, 35, 93, 97 human rights 8–9, 27–28, 40, 50, 52, 66–69, 95–97, 104, 106, 110 inequalities 3–4, 10–11, 13–14, 16–19, 23n8, 25–30, 35, 37–38, 41, 83–85, 112, 120 international development 1–4, 20–21, 35, 59, 75, 92, 45 intersectionality 10, 12, 23n13, 29, 37, 84, 88 Islam: use of in VAW activism 104–108, 112; interpretation of 110 masculinities 3, 7, 14, 17, 27, 29, 40, 55–56, 59, 72–73, 92, 115 medicalisation of VAW 118–119 men: activism in VAW 80–81; attitudes and behaviours 2, 3, 4, 27, 28, 29, 71, 112, 118; backlash against activism 83; as “heroes” 57, 116, 117–118; sexualities 57; reluctance for activism 82; view on gender equality 72, 111–112; violence against men 56, 80–81; young men 28, 48, 71–73, 90n11

Index   143 microcredit 13 military 55–56 Pakistan: culture 64, 67; dangers of activism police 67, 68; religion 81–82; VAW activism 66, 70 patriarchy 3, 12, 13, 16, 18, 40, 71, 99 peer educators 1, 51, 59, 74 perpetrators 1, 4, 5, 7, 12, 13, 15, 19–21, 29, 59, 60, 64, 66, 77, 78, 90n11, 119 police 1, 8, 13, 27, 29, 40–41, 50, 54, 62, 65, 67–68, 83–85, 89, 93, 117, 119 polygamy 80, 110 research methods 122–126 safety as researcher 31–32, 33–34 sexual harassment 33–34, 39, 63, 72, 84–85, 89n2 social norm marketing 100, 104–105, 109 UNDP 44, 69 UNFPA 42, 104–107 UN women 2, 22n2, 22n4, 23n11, 44, 61n7 violence against women: acid violence 7, 64, 66; continuum of 20, 24n16, 28, 114; criminal offense 1, 8, 11, 63, 78, 119; definition of 5–7; education of 5,

11, 44, 46–48, 60n2, 74, 87, 101–102, 104–107; ‘honour’ killing 64–66, 89n6; laws and legislations of 62–63, 68–69; replicability of programs 4, 119; as weapon of war 39 We Can campaign: challenges 85, 87; evaluation of 86–88; funding and structure 75–76; gender difference in Change Makers 80–82; premise of 76–78; recruitment 79; transtheoretical model 76–77 western imperialism4, 91, 92, 100–101 White Ribbon Campaign 1, 15, 24n14 women: education of 41, 65, 79, 81, 82, 98, 113n2; rights of 1, 4, 15, 22, 24, 43, 60, 63, 66–67, 69, 72–73, 78, 80–81, 91, 94, 96, 99, 101, 104, 110, 120; status of 104; VAW activism 84–85 women-only 13, 26, 79, 120 women’s NGOs: opinion on men’s involvement 111–112; security risks 70, 96, 108–109; work on violence against women 10–11, 98, 95, 108–109; working with men 71, 119–120 women’s shelters 1, 11, 40, 43, 53–54, 93–94, 104 working with men: assumptions 4–5, 16, 19–22, 28, 31, 39