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Note from the Editor - The Different Angles of Gender Analysis
Rachel Schmidt
Gender is a word being tossed around a lot these days. Gender and Development, gender-based violence, gender studies, gender advisors… the list goes on. Yet, while people in international development circles are well-versed in gender lingo, those outside this small circle have many misconceptions on what the term means or why it is important. In academia, for example, gender analysis is often relegated to “women’s studies.” Even in the rare instance that another department offers a gender course, the students who register are almost entirely women. Likewise, gender-based violence has become nearly synonymous with violence against women, even though many men and boys are also violently targeted solely because of their sex. Groups applying for funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) must include a gender component in their applications — but how many of them actually understand what this means, rather than simply inserting a vague promise to “incorporate gender awareness”?
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Striking the Right Balance: The Recruitment of Female Migrant Workers to Canada
Monica Boyd and Joanne Nowak
For much of the twentieth century, researchers and policy analysts assumed that women migrated almost exclusively for marriage or family reunion. This gender stereotypical approach is disappearing as western governments turn their attention toward the prospective labour contributions of women from regions such as the Americas and the Caribbean, in order to fill key labour shortages in their economies. This recruitment likely will increase in the future.
No Girls Allowed? Recruitment and Gender in Colombian Armed Groups
Rachel Schmidt
The role of gender ideologies in the recruitment practices of non-state armed groups has received little, if any, research attention. Yet, the overwhelming machismo in many conflict zones and the links between guns and masculinity both play large roles in encouraging boys and men to join armed groups. These factors also affect girls and women, but in distinctly different ways. In Colombia, for example, the existing patriarchal structures exaggerate the gender-based violence perpetrated by armed actors.
Women’s Struggle for Truth, Justice and Reparation: Psycho-Social Approaches to Trauma in Guatemala
Colleen Duggan
According to Guatemala’s Truth Commission, sexual and reproductive violence (SRV) against women was used as a military and strategic tactic of warfare during the Guatemalan conflict between 1962 and 1995. The majority of victims of SRV were poor, illiterate indigenous Mayan women, and women’s gender roles played a central part in their victimization. The armed actors used the threat of violence against women in their roles as activists, mothers, caregivers and wives to achieve various purposes: humiliate, pressure others to provide information, intimidate, punish for any real or perceived support to the enemy, and instill terror.
Trafficking Women: Moving Beyond National Security
Barb Maclaren
Cross-border human trafficking is accelerating at an alarming rate across the globe. According to the U.S. State Department, approximately 80 per cent of the 800,000 trafficked persons worldwide are women or girls. Most of them are forced into the commercial sex trade, sex-related work or domestic labour.
The Americas region has not escaped this problematic situation: approximately 100,000 women are trafficked out of Latin America each year. Interpol estimates that in Colombia alone, 35,000 women per year are trafficked to regions as far off as Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East.
Weavers of Life, Wisdom and Peace: Colombia’s Indigenous Women
Gloria Amparo Rodriguez
Colombian indigenous women play an important and vibrant role within their cultures, economies and community structure. They are life-givers, knowledge-bearers and peace-builders for their people. These women, who also contribute to the economy of their communities with their handicrafts, bear the brunt of the suffering when their territories are violated, their husbands murdered, or when they are forced to leave their farms and orchards as a result of the armed conflict in Colombia.
Tejedoras de Vida, de Sabres y de Paz: Las Mujeres Indígenas de Colombia
Gloria Amparo Rodriguez
Las mujeres indígenas colombianas juegan un papel importante y dinamizador dentro de sus culturas, economías y organización comunitaria. De ellas brota la vida para constituirse en promotoras de los saberes de sus pueblos y constructoras de paz. Son esas mujeres las que además contribuyen con sus artesanías a la economía de sus comunidades pero a la vez, son las que sufren cuando sus territorios son violentados, sus esposos son asesinados o cuando deben abandonar sus tambos y sus huertos (chagras), como consecuencia del conflicto armado que afronta Colombia.
News Briefs
-Colombian Hostages: Proof of Life
-Rift between Colombia and Venezuela
-Brazil’s Eight Billion Barrels of New Oil
-Ecuador: Congress v. Constituent Assembly
-Chavez Loses Reform Vote
Facts and Figures
-Rural to Urban Migration in Latin America
-Indigent and Non-Indigent Poor Population in Latin America
-Prevalence of Poverty in the Americas