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Gendered Security Harms: State Policy and the Counterinsurgency Against Boko Haram

Elizabeth Pearson Orcid Logo, Nagarajan

African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review, Volume: 10, Issue: 2, Pages: 108 - 140

Swansea University Author: Elizabeth Pearson Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.2979/africonfpeacrevi.10.2.06

Abstract

Scholars have critiqued the incorporation of gender into counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism: programmes have instrumentalised the Women Peace and Security (WPS) agenda towards state-centric goals and essentialised the women (and men) they encounter. Furthermore, as Huckerby outlines,...

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Published in: African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review
ISSN: 2156-695X
Published: Indiana University Press Indiana University Press 2020
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa55111
Abstract: Scholars have critiqued the incorporation of gender into counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism: programmes have instrumentalised the Women Peace and Security (WPS) agenda towards state-centric goals and essentialised the women (and men) they encounter. Furthermore, as Huckerby outlines, the explicit inclusion of gender in security policy can produce specific gendered security harms: coercive and non-coercive practices; securitization of women’s rights; and lack of attention to the gendered effects of seemingly gender-neutral policy. This article engages Huckerby’s typology to explore the gendered security harms produced in Nigeria’s counter-insurgency against ‘Boko Haram’. It suggests first that a simplistic approach to women, not gendered power relations, leaves Nigeria unable to respond to the complex gendered dynamics of jihadist actors in the northeast. Second, a neglect of human rights and the role of state actors in abuses actively enable gendered security harms. The article concludes that Nigeria is therefore still failing to protect women.
College: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Issue: 2
Start Page: 108
End Page: 140

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