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The challenges of research on violence in post-conflict Bougainville

2014; Elsevier BV; Volume: 383; Issue: 9934 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0140-6736(14)60969-7

1474-547X

Rachel Jewkes, Yandisa Sikweyiya, Nwabisa Shai,

Island Studies and Pacific Affairs

The Destiny guest house, with its plywood and pine-panelled walls, overlooks the channel between two islands. Past the flimsy gate and across the road is the shabby blue UN building, which is separated from the road by a stockade-style wooden fence. This was our residence and office base in 2011–12 when we did research in post-conflict Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, on men's sexual and other violence against women and experiences in conflict. In a country where most men and many women carry bush knives, substance misuse is severe, and disarmament post-conflict has been incomplete, our safety and that of our research colleagues was a pressing concern. As South Africans, we felt exposed without our familiar electric fences and security companies, yet in Bougainville it was not the physical security of structures that would give protection, but a laborious process, which long preceded our presence, of establishing trust and good will. Bougainville had been chosen as the place of research in Papua New Guinea for the UN Multi-country Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific precisely because it had experienced many years of devastating civil war. Our presence on the island was not unlinked to the development impact of the war, as Partners for Prevention, the pan UN programme driving the research, had not been able to find a local institution to provide a technical lead for the research. As outsiders, having local partners and staff was vital to help us interpret and respond to difficult situations. Its value was evident during the pilot testing of our questionnaire when we encountered an impromptu road block on a public road with a demand for 80 Kina to be paid. The drivers willingly paid the sum, and told us, when we asked, that there were undoubtedly guns hidden in the bushes. The existence of the road block seemed symptomatic of the fragile state of governance in Bougainville. The conflict systematically destroyed what had previously existed, and even some years later with the establishment of the Autonomous Bougainville Government, state institutions remain weak. Such fragility is common in conflict and post-conflict settings, and provides potential for local violent action and responses. There were some similarities between post-conflict Bougainville and our experiences of post-independence South Africa, but the differences were also pronounced. Both countries were very violent, even if South Africa is nowadays much safer than it was during the immediate post-apartheid era, and this in some ways helped us to recognise that the Bougainville conflict had left in its wake patterns of violence that are so manifold and deeply rooted that developing questionnaires to do justice to them was complex. Men's sexual violence against women in conflict doesn't occur in isolation from other forms of violence, and doesn't only target women. Our experience in South Africa had taught us the importance of considering sexual violence through a notion of layers of violence experienced by women mostly, but also by men: intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, and child sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. We had even heard discussion of sorcery-related violence, should we include that in the questionnaire? We asked our research assistants. One of the four piped up—"oh yes, two brothers were killed in my village a week ago accused of sorcery". It could be argued that sorcery-related violence was several steps removed from sexual violence in conflict, but anthropological literature suggests that it can be resurgent at a time of perceived threat, insecurity, and lower community trust as is found during conflict and post-conflict periods. Understanding sexual violence in conflict and its aftermath is incomplete if other forms of violence are excluded. Two other things were apparent when we developed the questionnaires for Bougainville. One was the need to capture the multiple roles that many people assume during conflict. Thus, a man could be an aggressor, victim, assistant to combatants, combatant, refugee, or detainee. Similarly, women could occupy multiple roles. To understand sexual violence it is, therefore, necessary to be specific about a person's role and ask many questions, while also ensuring that the questionnaire does not become unmanageable. The other thing we had to consider was the severity of violence and adjust our calibration even from that used in South Africa. Bougainville was the first time we have ever used a questionnaire to ask interviewees if they have ever killed someone. Other challenges of doing research in post-conflict Bougainville became apparent when we started to train and deploy local staff. Education on the island was severely affected by years of conflict and this meant that the training process had to be extended and done more slowly. Additionally, post-traumatic stress disorder affected some staff and their ability to keep to a training timetable and work. A female fieldworker dropped out because employment exacerbated problems with her husband, who had tried to kill her on more than one occasion. There was also an incident one evening when a machete-carrying fieldworker came late to the UN building to proposition one of our colleagues. This act caused fear, but a good relationship with local partners enabled a swift response, although ending his employment left a lingering potential of threat. Population-based research was possible across the island because the civil war was over. However, years of conflict resulted in deterioration and lack of investment in infrastructure with the result that many sampled villages were very hard to reach, which escalated fieldwork costs. The island had many rivers and few bridges, and on more than one occasion our vehicles were nearly swept away. Some villages were so deeply embedded in the hills and forests that we could not reach them. Excluding them was a dilemma because it might entail bias, yet most were very small with fewer than 30 households. A pragmatic response was to only sample villages located within 4 hours' walk of a road, unless accessible by boat. This compromise reduced the physical strain on staff and avoided some of the possible dangers of being exposed in bush for a long time, especially since teams carried much of value, including the touchscreen MP3 devices used for collecting data. The terrain and risk were not just barriers for us. There is much debate about the responsibility of researchers to provide referral to services for research participants. The WHO ethics and safety guidelines for research on domestic violence recommend this, but in South Africa we have shown that after disclosure of violence to a researcher, available services are rarely used. In Bougainville, we gave interviewees an information sheet with sources of help for drug and alcohol and trauma counselling provided by three agencies in the main town of Buka. Although given by the Community Advisory Board, with hindsight this was a meaningless gesture. How could we expect our participants to benefit from such counselling if we struggled to even access our participants? In many countries, services that offer counselling and support are very limited. How much more so in places that have been ripped apart by conflict? When we had completed the research and released the results, our findings became highly politicised for a while. There was initial backlash from certain quarters, which was something we had encountered previously in South Africa. It wasn't that the findings were unexpected, but traumatic experiences of conflict can impact on community psyche. Externalising blame against those who report research findings of violence can be much easier than reflecting internally on the consequences. Having reported the findings, there is now the possibility to develop interventions across the island. Timing is important here: had the research been done during or immediately after the conflict this might have been more difficult. Our findings point to the need to change social norms in communities around the use of violence and gender relations, and to provide healing for women and men most affected by trauma. It doesn't make sense to provide only interventions that aim to prevent sexual violence in populations that have been exposed to layers of violence and where there are such evident common roots for different forms of violence. For the preventive interventions, most of the island cannot be reached by radio, and so there is no alternative to face-to-face engagement. When the conflict ended, a reconciliation process was rolled out village by village that involved the UN and non-governmental organisations. This process happened over some years. The roll out of the intervention to change social norms will have to follow a similar pattern as the reconciliation process and would not have been possible until that process had ended. Efforts to start earlier would have been viewed as competing with peace-building efforts and inevitably ranked as less important. Indeed, gender transformative interventions that seek to make men more respectful and peaceable are most needed but least accepted immediately after conflict when ideals of tough masculinities of fighting or defending men are promoted. Furthermore, conflict-affected settings are not unique with respect to barriers to developing and delivering interventions after research is completed—in fact, sometimes there might be more opportunities from donor resources in immediate post-conflict settings. All conflicts are different, and widespread sexual violence is not a feature of them all. The terrain and specific difficulties encountered vary, but the human aspects have certain commonalities. Despite the challenges, our findings have enabled sexual and other violence in Bougainville to be given prominence and the case to be made for violence prevention interventions. We are closer to seeing resources identified and deployed for meaningful interventions. Research in conflict and post-conflict settings has many challenges, but it is important that it is done. It is equally important that such research is timed correctly, properly resourced, and that expectations of outcomes are managed. When seeking change in these settings there are no quick fixes. The UN Multi-country Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific was funded by Partners for Prevention, a UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women and UNV regional joint programme for gender-based violence prevention in Asia and the Pacific. Funding for the Papua New Guinea research came from UNDP. The UN Multi-country Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific was funded by Partners for Prevention, a UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women and UNV regional joint programme for gender-based violence prevention in Asia and the Pacific. Funding for the Papua New Guinea research came from UNDP. /cms/asset/8404ba7b-5c0e-4c0c-8272-7706ea409411/mmc1.mp3Loading ... Download .mp3 (13.79 MB) Help with .mp3 files Supplementary audioRachel Jewkes discusses priorities for the prevention of sexual violence Ending sexual violence in conflict and beyondToday's Lancet has a special focus on sexual violence in conflict to coincide with the first Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict in London, June 10–14. War zone sexual violence and other forms of gender-based violence inflict extreme suffering and represent serious violations of human rights. These crimes leave physical, psychological, social, and economic scars on individuals, families, and communities. And shamefully, most of the perpetrators are never brought to justice. Full-Text PDF Preventing violence against women and girls in conflictAs the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict takes place in London, UK, on June 10–13, 2014, the international community faces a propitious moment to address the horrors of sexual violence in conflict and other forms of gender-based violence. Sexual violence in conflict has occurred throughout modern history, including the targeted mass rapes and murders of women in Bangladesh's Liberation War of 1971, the systematic rape of women in the Balkans and during the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s, and current sexual abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Syria. Full-Text PDF Responding to sexual violence in conflictConflict-related sexual violence is a public health and human rights concern, as well as a matter of peace and security, and is the focus of the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict in London, UK, on June 10–13, 2014. Sexual violence is not an inevitable consequence of conflict.1 More can be done to prevent it and to hold individuals accountable for it. Full-Text PDF Responding to sexual violence in armed conflictThe global community has called for an end to rape in wartime, but the crime is less understood than typically acknowledged, and addressing it will demand local interventions. Ted Alcorn reports. Full-Text PDF