Arts & Culture
Gendered Dynamics of Transitional Justice Mechanisms
Quick fact
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was the first war crimes tribunal to prosecute sexual violence as a form of torture (1998), yet the majority of such crimes remain unprosecuted due to challenges of evidence and survivor reluctance.
Why this is interesting
Why do truth commissions often capture the full complexity of war for men but only stories of victimhood for women? And why, despite years of international trials, do women's experiences of conflict remain largely invisible?
Read the full explanation
Understanding Gendered Dynamics of Transitional Justice Mechanisms
Transitional justice (TJ) refers to the approaches societies use to address large-scale human rights abuses. Common mechanisms include criminal trials, truth commissions, reparations, and institutional reforms. The 'gendered dynamics' of these mechanisms means that they are not gender-neutral. They operate within societies where men and women have different roles, experiences, and access to power. For example, during conflict, men are often combatants, but women are not just passive victims; they are also combatants, community leaders, and caretakers. Yet women's experiences of sexual violence are often underreported, and their roles in conflict are often overlooked. In TJ processes, this leads to a narrow focus on civil liberties (like freedom of speech) over socio-economic harms, and on the public sphere over the private sphere, where many harms against women occur. If TJ fails to see how gender shapes both the conflict and the goals of justice, it can inadvertently reinforce inequalities.
A deeper explanation
The mechanism behind gendered dynamics is the intersection of power, conflict, and social roles. In conflict, existing gender hierarchies are often exaggerated: men are the primary actors in combat, while women are responsible for maintaining households and communities. However, these realities are not captured in the narratives that TJ mechanisms typically rely on. What counts as a 'gross violation of human rights' is itself a gendered concept. The male-dominated understanding of war crimes focuses on killings, torture, and repression, while the crimes disproportionately affecting women—such as sexual violence, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, and forced displacement—are often seen as private or collateral. When TJ is designed without a gender lens, it fails to recognize these harms. For example, early truth commissions (like in Argentina) did not even have a mandate to investigate sexual violence. Even when mechanisms like the ICTY broke ground by prosecuting sexual violence as torture and enslavement, the definition of harm still centered on physical violence. The 'how things work' is that TJ mechanisms distill complex social conflicts into legally cognizable claims, and in doing so, they privilege certain narratives over others. By not including gender-specific provisions, these mechanisms not only exclude women's experiences but also erode their trust in the process. On the other hand, when TJ integrates a gender perspective—as in the truth commissions of Peru and South Africa that recognized sexual violence as a form of torture and apartheid—it is better able to acknowledge harms, hold perpetrators accountable, and design reparations that address women's specific needs. This demonstrates that TJ is not a fixed entity; it is a living practice that can evolve to be more just, but only if it challenges its own gendered assumptions.