The extent of sexual and gender based violence against women which occurs in a war situation cannot be under-estimated, and northern Uganda has proved no exception. On top of widespread patterns of rape, abduction and sexual slavery, violence has also occasioned a number of shifts in people’s gender roles, particularly as traditional livelihoods become impossible, households are split up, and women are more likely to take on overall responsibility for the household.

What is less documented is the way in which contexts of violence and militarization also result in sexual and gender based violence against men. Equally, the impact of living in violent contexts on people’s gender identities - their sense of self in terms of being a man or woman - is dangerously under-explored. It is dangerous in that the threat to gender identities, which to a certain extent is politically manipulated, can ultimately become a further factor sustaining a context of violence.

For example, when men find themselves unable to progress through key markers of the passage from youth to adult, such as marriage, they may resort to armed violence rather than remaining in a socially and politically vulnerable position for years. Those men who seek to promote non-violent approaches to conflict resolution may find themselves ridiculed as being less than real men.

This element of the Beyond Juba project will explore a number of very concrete scenarios where long-standing patterns of violence are believed to impact people’s gender identities. Questions to be addressed include: How does the experience of living in a protected village in northern Uganda change men’s sense of their position in society? What steps are they able to take to cushion these changes? Do these involve violence? Equally, how does disarmament in Karamoja impact masculinities? To what extent does militarization reinforce some notions of gender identity and undermine others? How do women deal with emasculated men?

The research will also seek to make recommendations on how these issues can be better acknowledged and addressed in the field of transitional justice.