Taking stock of action on the illicit small arms trade: Gender-responsive small arms control

Small Arms Survey Online Forum Inventory 7

By: Boris Colinas and Emilia Dungel

The increasing recognition to the role of gender perspectives in arms control; has produced implicit and explicit requirements to incorporate gender into arms control architecture, instruments, policies, and programmes. Much work has been done — especially since the official dawn of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda in 2000 — yet much remains when it comes to translating principles to action. The seventh panel of the Small Arms Survey 2020 online forum ‘Taking stock of action on the illicit small arms trade’ explored how these principles can be operationalized to create the impact they were intended to have.

This blog post provides a short overview of four of the topics covered.

1. On the role of women civil society organizations (CSOs) in the small arms control arena:

Small arms control continues being a male-dominate sphere that at times overlooks the importance of women’s participation as well as their legitimacy as stakeholders. In addition, women are often excluded from the table in ever-increasingly technical-oriented fora due to being perceived as lacking expertise, on-point mechanical jargon, and specialized knowledge. When, then, invitations for decision-making processes are extended to women organizations, it often seems to be as tokens rather than full-fledged stakeholders. Effective arms control benefits from being informed by participation, views, and knowledge from the ground up.

Ways forward:

• Taking a two-tiered approach to fostering change in institutional cultures within the security sector — including revisiting the heavy focus on the technical-oriented conception of security, all the while strengthening the technical knowledge of women CSOs.
• Creating a bottom-up approach informed by women groups is vital, as are spaces for ensuring meaningful rather than tokenistic participation of women.
• Advancing the conversation beyond the men/women binary to create inclusive spaces for all gender identities and expressions.

2. On the ‘numbers game’ around women’s participation in security institutions and positions

Making changes to the security sector is a complicated endeavor, which is why it requires long-term engagement with women at the forefront. Women’s participation in security institutions and positions such as export licensing officers and weapons and ammunition managers is still lacking. While working to promote the increase of such women’s participation, WPS structures and programming that are not substantial enough can at times contribute to a form of ‘gender washing’ — encouraging improved numbers without addressing the root causes of violence and gender inequality and therefore not removing the barriers to participation. In this vein, feminist foreign policies established at the national level could inspire more attention towards local-level initiatives involving varied groups in, for example, weapons collection programmes.

Ways forward:

• Conducting a review of the root causes of armed violence that includes a questioning of institutional cultures and hyper-masculinized and militarized attitudes towards peace and security.
• Ensuring a comprehensive approach to education, encompassing curricula for security operators and agents that include training and awareness-raising on gender and diversity. This can also work to encourage security institutions to foster meaningful and effective participation of women.
• Boosting focus on actions and work on and from the local level.

3. On toxic masculinities

Discussions on women’s participation in security institutions and processes are crucial but the topic of masculinity is sometimes overlooked. One example of this is when emphasis is placed on biological differences instead of social constructs, which greatly reduces the conversation on gender dynamics.

Ways forward:

• Increasing focus on masculinities and questioning different attitudes towards weapons ownership and its relation to status and dominance would be meritorious. Such discussions — especially at the local and national levels — can help the global understanding of the gendered impacts of small arms on power distribution and violence.
• Establishing a counter-narrative on hyper-masculinized representations within the security sector through training and awareness-raising activities.

4. On Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) Article 7(4), on gender-based violence and violence against women and children

The ATT is the first international arms control instrument that links the arms trade to gender-based violence (GBV) — in Article 7(4). However, at times, international guidance and frameworks miss to incorporate feedback around the experiences of those implementing provisions to tackle this issue. This lack of two-way information flow can hinder progress on gender-responsive arms control and in turn reduce it to a box-ticking exercise. In addition, a gap remains between the diplomatic and technical communities.

Ways forward:

• Building on the momentum from the focus on Article7(4) at the Fifth Conference of States Parties (CSP5) in August 2019; using it to generate more spaces for countries to share their experiences in terms of practical tools, data sources, and indicators from implementing this Article.
• Impelling transparency and the sharing of concrete experiences in national reports, which could enable more tailored support.
• Promoting further dialogue between different Article 7(4) stakeholders to break any existing silos.

The speakers for this panel were:

• Chair: Daniel de Torres, Small Arms Survey
• Katja Boettcher, UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA)
• Julia De Xiang Yuan, Germany
• Amrita Kapur, DCAF — Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance
• Lisa Müller-Dormann , Germany
• Renata Hessman Dalaqua, UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR)
• Allison Pytlak, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)

To learn more, see:

• Gender and Security Toolkit (DCAF, OSCE/ODIHIR, UN Women Toolkit)
• Gender-based Violence and the Arms Trade Treaty (WILPF Briefing Paper)
• Gender Perspectives in Arms Control and Disarmament: Views from Africa (UNIDIR publication)
• Gender-responsive Small Arms Control: A Practical Guide (Small Arms Survey Handbook)
• ‘Gender perspectives’ (UNODA website)
• Still Behind the Curve: Gender Balance in Arms Control, Non-proliferation and Disarmament Diplomacy (UNIDIR publication)
• The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Security Sector and Gender Equality (DCAF Policy Brief)
• Where are the Words? The Disappearance of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in the Language of
• Country-Specific UN Security Council Resolutions (Joint WILPF-LSE publication)
• Where are the Words? The Disappearance of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in the Language of
• Country-Specific UN Security Council Resolutions — A Guide for Civil Society Organisations (WILPF publication)