Description
Peacekeeper sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) is prevalent throughout peacekeeping operations (PKOs). Since the introduction of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda in 2000, the United Nations (UN) has continued to implement preventative initiatives and resolutions to curb the problem – all of which have not gone far enough, as is evident through the continued high rate of accusations.
This paper looks at why the SEA continues, looking to explore masculinities and racial hierarchies as potential explanations for how certain abusive behaviours are accepted, or at least, not challenged within PKOs. The project places these ‘conditions’ within the feminist continuum of violence, whereby sexual violence against women is understood to exist within the everyday lives of women in varying levels of severity (e.g., existing in sexist language in the workplace and on the other end of the spectrum, in physical violence). Using a feminist postcolonial lens, the paper builds on the continuum by analysing an under-researched phenomenon at the intersection of gender and race to understand how the UN can better protect women and girls from sexual violence.
