Women and Violence in Conflict Zones: Some Reflections from Kashmir

Abstract

 The violence against women in its myriad forms has increasingly been recognized all over the world. It has been found that over the entire conflict period, interstate and civil wars on average affect women more adversely than men. I posit that in the current armed insurgency and counterinsurgency in the Kashmir region of Jammu and Kashmir, inadequate attention has been paid to the gender dimension of the armed conflict, which stymies the socio-economic reconstruction, political liberty, and emergence of peace in the region. Since more than three decades of armed conflict between Security and paramilitary forces on the one hand and a number of militant outfits on the other, Kashmiri women have been exposed to multifarious forms of violence. In this backdrop, this paper unfolds two important things. First, to examine and explore the impact of armed conflict on women and children in Kashmir and second to formulate strategies and tools to address these issues through a comprehensive gender based approach.