Following the highly covered gang-rape of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi in 2012 (BBC, 29 December 2012), the issues of rape and violence against women (VAW) have increasingly come into the social and political spotlight in India. In recent years, social activists have staged a sustained number of riots and protests…
Over the course of the last week, the levels of political violence and protest remained high in several South Asian countries while they remained low in Southeast Asian countries. With data on political violence in India, as well as in the Jammu & Kashmir region, both now available for download, trends in India as well…
A number of recent studies explore the relationship between gender inequality and conflict and generally find that higher gender inequality, or lower rates of inclusion, is associated with higher rates of conflict and violence. However, efforts to increase inclusion ought to be accompanied by institutional and normative changes too if negative violent consequences are to…
While many studies of political gender-based violence (GBV) have focused on the practices of groups during wars, the practices of gendered repression in unstable—but not warring—developing states is under-acknowledged and ought to be scrutinized equally closely. There has been significant research on GBV within developing states, and investigations typically concern the pervasiveness and embeddedness of…
A new update of the recent unrest in Burundi, covering events from 26 April 2015 to 7 August 2016 has been released by ACLED. This update can be found here. ACLED has covered the Burundi crisis with regular data updates and blog posts since June 2015, relying on a combination of news sources and local crowd-sourced…
A new update of the recent unrest in Burundi, covering events from 26 April 2015 to 19 June 2016 has been released by ACLED. This update can be found here. ACLED has covered the Burundi crisis with regular data updates and blog posts since June 2015, relying on a combination of news sources and local…
The Central African Republic (CAR) has faced increased insecurity and violence since Séléka rebels marched on the capital, Bangui, and ousted then-President Bozizé in 2012 (Townsend, 27 July 2013). Since the height of violence in late 2013 / early 2014, the conflict has remained persistent and widespread (see Figure 1). To contribute to the insecurity…
A new update of the recent unrest in Burundi, covering events from 26 April 2015 to 16 January 2016 has been released by ACLED. This update can be found here. These real-time data draw primarily on crowd-sourced information available from 2015Burundi and a local Burundi monitoring network, as well as from ACLED’s weekly real-time conflict data release. In the…
While many celebrate the US Supreme Court ruling late last week to legalize same-sex marriage across the US as a victory for the gay-rights movement and equality (NYTimes, 26, June 2015), gay and lesbian people across many countries in Africa continue to experience discrimination and attacks as a result of their sexual orientation, a trend…
Sexual violence as a weapon of political conflict is a conscious strategy employed by armed groups to torture and humiliate opponents; terrify individuals and destroy societies, especially to incite flight from a territory; and to reaffirm aggression and brutality, specifically through an expression of domination (Bastick et al., 2007; UN, 2015). While the primary instances…