EVENT

Huckerby provides keynote at OSCE conference on women and radicalization

On December 12, 2011, CHRGJ Research Director Jayne Huckerby (LL.M ’04) provided the introductory keynote address at a Joint OSCE Secretariat – OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) Expert Roundtable on Preventing Women Terrorist Radicalization in Vienna, Austria. Drawing on the Center’s report, A Decade Lost: Locating Gender in U.S. Counter-Terrorism (which Huckerby co-authored with Lama Fakih), Huckerby discussed the need to mainstream gender in counter-terrorism efforts and to develop human rights compliant measures for effectively countering violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism.

Publications

CHRGJ Informs Landmark U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security

In October 2010, on the 10th anniversary of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, Secretary of State Clinton announced that the U.S. government was developing its National Action Plan (NAP) to “accelerate the implementation of Resolution 1325 across our government and with our partners in civil society.” Based on its July 2011 report A Decade Lost: Locating Gender in U.S. Counter-Terrorism, CHRGJ has briefed the key agencies working on the NAP—USAID, Department of State, and Department of Defense—to ensure that the USG develops and implements its NAP in ways that promote rather than undermine gender equality. In particular, in its November 2011 written recommendations to the USG, the Center highlights A Decade Lost’s relevant findings and draws on a survey of other governments’ NAPs to make core recommendations to inform the NAP, as well as individual agencies’ implementation plans.

EVENT

Huckerby speaks at International Law Event, "Gender, National Security, and Counter-Terrorism."

November 3, 2011. Location: Woolworth Building, Room 217, 15 Barclay St, New York, NY 10279, 3:30 pm-5:00 pm

Jayne Huckerby will highlight findings of a groundbreaking report published by NYU's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, "A Decade Lost: Locating Gender in U.S. Counter-Terrorism. Throughout the United States' decade-long “War on Terror,” women and sexual minorities' experience with counter-terrorism measures has been largely invisible to policymakers and the human rights community alike. Drawing on her experience and participation in the creation of this report, Jayne Huckerby is uniquely qualified to illuminate how the U.S. government’s counter-terrorism efforts impact women and sexual minorities. The lecture will highlight the unique gender dimensions and impacts of U.S. counter-terrorism, including the impact of anti-terror cuts in humanitarian aid to Somalia on women and girls, the experience of Iraqi gay men in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion, and the effects of targeted killings on female family members in Pakistan. We anticipate a robust discussion during the Q&A, moderated by Lysistrata's International Law Concentration Leader, Sara Birjandian.

EVENT

Huckerby and Fakih participate in USAID/CMM Gender and Conflict Speaker Series

On October 27, 2011, Huckerby and Fakih presented to USAID on the gender dimensions and impacts of development assistance to counter violent extremism and insurgency.

EVENT

Huckerby speaks at U.N. Panel on trafficking and national security nexus

On October 25, 2011, CHRGJ's Jayne Huckerby will be one of several discussants at a panel discussion on the topic of ‘The right to an effective remedy for trafficked persons.’ This discussion is jointly organized by the OHCHR and the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in persons, especially women and children, Ms. Joy Ngozi Ezeilo and will focus on her recent report to the U.N., for which Huckerby was an expert consultant. The panel discussion will take place at the United Nations in Conference Room 7 (NLB) from 1:15 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.

Events

From Stockholm to New York to Abu Dhabi: CHRGJ Highlights Intersections of Gender & Counter-Terrorism on the 10th Anniversary of September 11

From L to R: Stockholm, September 1, 2011, Lena Ag, Jayne Huckerby, Hans Blix, Hanaa Edwar

From L to R: Abu Dhabi, September 19, 2011, Rahma Abdulkadir, Research Fellow in the Social Sciences, NYUAD, Jayne Huckerby, Lama Fakih, Sari Kouvo

On September 15, 2011, CHRGJ launched its 163-page report A Decade Lost: Locating Gender in U.S. Counter-Terrorism—the first global account of how the U.S. government’s counter-terrorism efforts profoundly implicate and impact women and sexual minorities and often squeeze them between terrorism and counter-terrorism. A Decade Lost co-authors CHRGJ Research Director Jayne Huckerby (LL.M ’04) and Gender, Human Rights, and Counter-Terrorism Fellow Lama Fakih (’08) were joined by Arun Kundnani and Christopher Rogers of the Open Society Institute, to discuss these impacts in the United States, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa—ranging from the impact of anti-terror cuts in humanitarian aid to Somalia on women and girls to the experience of Iraqi gay men in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion to the effects of targeted killings on female family members in Pakistan.

A few days later, on September 19, the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute hosted the Middle East launch of A Decade Lost, with Huckerby and Fakih being joined by Sari Kouvo Co-Director and Co-Founder, Afghanistan Analysts Network, to discuss the significance of A Decade Lost for the region. Both launches were each attended by approximately ninety people coming from a range of academic, policy, non-government, and U.N. backgrounds. The Middle East launch also coincided with a NYU Abu Dhabi workshop on September 19-20, convened by CHRGJ Faculty Director Margaret Satterthwaite and Huckerby to bring together scholars and policy analysts to discuss complex legal and social issues that are addressed in their forthcoming edited volume Gender, National Security, and Counter-Terrorism: Human Rights Perspectives.

Earlier in the month, Huckerby and Fakih also presented A Decade Lost’s findings and recommendations at a series of meetings in Stockholm, Sweden, culminating in a September 1, 2011 panel entitled Terror, Gender and Power—10 years post 9/11, featuring Lena Ag (Secretary General of Kvinna till Kvinna), Dr. Hans Blix (former Executive Chairman, UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission), Hanaa Edwar (Founder and Secretary-General, Iraqi Al-Amal Association, Iraq), and Huckerby. The report’s findings were also extensively covered in key Swedish print and radio media.

BLOGS

On September 13, 2001, Jayne Huckerby and Lama Fakih published a blog on Open Society entitled 9/11 at 10: Remembering the Invisible Victims

EVENT

Launch and panel discussion of CHRGJ's groundbreaking report, "A Decade Lost: Locating Gender in U.S. Counter-Terrorism"

(September 15, 2011)

6:30-8:30 PM/ Furman Hall, Room 216 (245 Sullivan street, NYU school of Law New York, New York)

Valid ID required for admission. The event will be followed by a brief reception. Please RSVP to Audrey Watne at watnea@exchange.law.nyu.edu.

Over the last decade of the United States’ “War on Terror,” the way women and sexual minorities experience counter-terrorism has been invisible to policymakers and the human rights community alike. Drawing on regional consultations, interviews with U.S government, and secondary research, A Decade Lost: Locating Gender in U.S. Counter-Terrorism provides the first global account of how the U.S. government’s counter-terrorism efforts profoundly implicate and impact women and sexual minorities and often squeeze them between terrorism and counter-terrorism. Panelists will highlight the unique gender dimensions and impacts of U.S. counter-terrorism in the United States, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa—ranging from the impact of anti-terror cuts in humanitarian aid to Somalia on women and girls to the experience of Iraqi gay men in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion to the effects of targeted killings on female family members in Pakistan. Panelists will also reflect on the impacts for women of the Obama Administration’s new August 2011 policy to counter violent extremism in the United States, drawing on a comparison with the U.K. government’s policy approach.

The panel discussion will feature the two primary authors of the report, CHRGJ's Jayne Huckerby and Lama Fakih, as well as Arun Kundnani, Fellow, Open Society Foundations and Christopher Rogers, Afghanistan-Pakistan Regional Policy Initiative, Open Society Institute.

PRESS RELEASE

CHRGJ Welcomes Release of U.S. Strategy on Preventing Violent Extremism
Regional Experts Meet to Uncover Gender Impacts of U.S. Counter-Terrorism in Africa

(New York, August 3, 2011)The Global Justice Clinic of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law welcomes the White House’s release of its strategy Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States, but expresses concern about the extent to which it co-opts a wide range of community engagement tools, including social services, to prevent violent extremism and its emphasis on Muslim communities. As demonstrated in the Center’s July 2011 163-page report A Decade Lost: Locating Gender in U.S. Counter-Terrorism, this approach of defining community integration as counter-terrorism—recently rejected in the United Kingdom after being in place since 2007—further securitizes engagement with Muslim communities and makes women in these communities unsafe..

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CHRGJ REPORT

CHRGJ: Women and Sexual Minorities are Invisible Victims of U.S. Counter-Terrorism

July 18, 2011—The U.S. government must take steps to stop women and sexual minorities around the world from becoming invisible victims of its counter-terrorism policies, said the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law today, as it released a groundbreaking report on the issue. The 163 page report—A Decade Lost: Locating Gender in U.S. Counter-Terrorism—is the first account of how U.S. counter-terrorism efforts have undermined the rights of women and sexual minorities. These policies have also failed to protect women and sexual minorities from terrorism, despite the Obama Administration’s position that women’s inequality threatens national security. Read more...

PRESS RELEASE

Are U.S. Counter-Terrorism Measures Undermining Women’s Rights?
Regional Experts Meet to Uncover Gender Impacts of U.S. Counter-Terrorism in Africa

(New York, August 25, 2010)—As the Obama administration puts women’s rights at the center of its policies to combat extremism and terrorism, a meeting to uncover the gender impacts of U.S. counter-terrorism measures will be held in Nairobi, Kenya on August 26-27, 2010 announced the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law today. The consultation–being held with the Open Society Initiative for East Africa—will be the first in Africa to determine whether U.S. diplomatic, military and development assistance to counter terrorism helps or hurts gender equality in the region.

From AFRICOM’s training of local militaries and “hearts and minds” campaigns, to U.S. rendition and detention, this meeting will examine U.S. policies and also generate recommendations for how the U.S. can ensure that its counter-terrorism presence in Africa advances—rather than undermines—gender equality.

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COLLABORATIONS AND CONSULTATIONS

Regional Workshops: 2010

In 2010, the Center will partner with local organizations to host regional workshops focused on identifying and reversing the gender discriminatory impacts of U.S. counter-terrorism initiatives. The workshops bring together a range of stakeholders from human rights, gender rights, and women’s rights organizations—as well as counter-terrorism experts—and provide a space for fact-finding, policy dialogue, and capacity-building. Some of the topics to be addressed in the workshops include:

• What have been the gendered impacts of U.S. counter-terrorism measures on asylum, immigration, and immigrant and minority communities?
• What have been the gendered impacts of U.S. material support, listing procedures, and other terrorist financing laws?
• What is, and what should be, the role of gender in U.S. measures aimed at combating conditions (e.g. poverty) that lead to radicalization and terrorism?
• What have been the gendered effects of U.S. counter-terrorism foreign partnerships and presence, from Iraq and Afghanistan to bilateral relationships (such as Pakistan, for example)?
• What are the short-term and long-term gender implications of U.S. detention, rendition and interrogation practices from 2001 onwards?

The workshop schedule, partners, and key documents are:

• New York (April 27, 2010): Agenda and Concept Note
• Nairobi (August 26-27, 2010) in partnership with the Open Society Initiative for East Africa: Concept Note and PowerPoint presentation
• Bangkok (September 13-14, 2010): Concept Note and PowerPoint presentation
• Istanbul (October 15-16, 2010) in partnership with the Bilgi University Human Rights Research Center: Concept Note and PowerPoint presentation

PUBLICATIONS

CHRGJ and GAATW Release New Report on Trafficking, Globalization, and Security

Beyond Borders: Exploring Links between Trafficking, Globalisation, and Security: identifies the ways in which globalization (through structural adjustment, global competition and trade liberalization) and security discourse impact the human rights of migrants and trafficked persons and offers recommendations on how anti-trafficking strategies can engage in these areas to maximize the human rights of trafficked persons. The paper, co-authored by Jayne Huckerby and April Gu at the International Human Rights Clinic/CHRGJ, is part of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) Working Paper Series which explores links between trafficking and migration; trafficking and labor; trafficking and gender; and trafficking, globalization, and security.

COLLABORATIONS AND CONSULTATIONS

U.N. Expert Consultation: 2008

In 2008, the Center partnered with Professor Martin Scheinin, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism to advance research on gender and counter-terrorism. In concert with the Special Rapporteur, the Center played a key role in assisting with researching and drafting a report on gender and counter-terrorism. The Center also hosted an Expert Consultation in March 2009, which helped to inform this report. The Center marked the presentation of the Special Rapporteur’s report to the U.N. General Assembly by hosting a public discussion with a distinguished group of panelists working on issues of gender and counter-terrorism.

EVENTS

CHRGJ co-hosts: "The United States and Gender, National Security, and Counter-Terrorism Middle East Workshop" (October 15-16, 2010)

CHRGJ in partnership with the Bilgi University Human Rights Research Center will co-host a workshop to discuss the gender and human rights impacts of U.S. counter-terrorism measures in Istanbul, Turkey on October 15-16. Participants at the Istanbul workshop will consider both the ongoing gendered impacts of U.S. post-9/11 policies that have been discontinued and the gender effects of current U.S. counter-terrorism measures, particularly in the areas of combating violent extremism, U.S. defense strategy in the Middle East, anti-terrorism financing laws, rendition, secret detention, and torture, and cross-border movement. The discussion will encompass impacts on women and men, as well as the ways in which counter-terrorism measures use and affect gender stereotypes, including those relating to sexual orientation and gender identity.

EVENTS

CHRGJ hosts: "The United States and Gender, National Security, and Counter-Terrorism Asia Workshop" (September 13-14, 2010)

CHRGJ will host a workshop to discuss the gender and human rights impacts of U.S. counter-terrorism measures in Bangkok, Thailand on September 13-14. Participants at the Bangkok workshop will consider both the ongoing gendered impacts of U.S. post-9/11 policies that have been discontinued and the gender effects of current U.S. counter-terrorism measures, particularly in the areas of combating violent extremism, U.S. defense strategy in Asia, anti-terrorism financing laws, rendition, secret detention, and torture, and cross-border movement. The discussion will encompass impacts on women and men, as well as the ways in which counter-terrorism measures use and affect gender stereotypes, including those relating to sexual orientation and gender identity.

EVENTS

CHRGJ Co-hosts: "The United States and Gender, National Security, and Counter-Terrorism Africa Workshop" (August 26-27, 2010)

CHRGJ in partnership with the Open Society Initiative for East Africa will co-host a workshop to discuss the gender and human rights impacts of U.S. counter-terrorism measures in Nairobi, Kenya on August 26-27. Participants of the Nairobi workshop will consider both the ongoing gendered impacts of U.S. post-9/11 policies that have been discontinued and the gender effects of current U.S. counter-terrorism measures, particularly in the areas of combating violent extremism, U.S. defense strategy in Africa, anti-terrorism financing laws, rendition, secret detention, and torture, and cross-border movement. The discussion will encompass impacts on women and men, as well as the ways in which counter-terrorism measures use and affect gender stereotypes, including those relating to sexual orientation and gender identity.

EVENTS

Engendering Counter-Terrorism and National Security (October 27, 2009)

6:00-8:00PM/ Vanderbilt Hall 218

Click here to hear the audio recording of the event

On October 26, 2009, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism presented his groundbreaking report on gender and counter-terrorism measures to the U.N. General Assembly. The report addresses the long-ignored impacts of counter-terrorism on women and LGBTI individuals, condemning patterns such as government bartering of these individuals’ rights to appease terrorists and the use of anti-terrorism laws to criminalize gender equality advocates.

To mark the presentation of the report to the General Assembly, the Center hosted a discussion with a distinguished group of panelists working on issues of gender and counter-terrorism. The panelists were: Karima Bennoune, Professor of Law and Arthur L. Dickson Scholar, Rutgers School of Law – Newark; Jayne Huckerby, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Clinical Law and Research Director, CHRGJ, NYU School of Law; Martin Scheinin, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism; and Malalai Joya, an Afghani women’s rights advocate and the youngest member ever elected to the Afghan parliament. Fareda Banda, Professor, NYU School of Law, moderated the panel discussion.

Martin Scheinin explained that he chose to present this thematic report on gender and counter-terrorism measures to the General Assembly in New York, rather than at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, because of the importance of mainstreaming gender into the U.N.’s counter-terrorism work. He reported getting negative reaction to his report from some states at the General Assembly. Nonetheless, he expressed his conviction that, with time, the U.N. will come to take gender into account in countering terrorism.

Jayne Huckerby then set out the drafting process of the report and the key questions it addresses. Most important, she said, was addressing what we understand as a gendered perspective and what the challenges and opportunities a gender and counter-terrorism approach presents. She pointed to several new patterns identified in the report, including the bartering of women’s and LGBTI rights to appease terrorist groups, the collateral impacts of counter-terrorism on women, and women’s dress as a focal point for profiling suspects in counter-terrorism policies.

Karima Bennoune said the Special Rapporteur’s report contributed to a holistic approach to counter-terrorism and terrorism and gendered abuses. She called women’s experience of terrorism a much-neglected topic and identified the need for a human rights account of terrorism and gender. She saluted Professor Scheinin for being forward-looking, emphasizing that his report should only be mark the beginning of an important process.

Malalai Joya described the catastrophic situation of women in Afghanistan. Despite the United States’ use of women’s rights as justification for military intervention in Afghanistan, she said the U.S.’ actions had pushed women “from the frying pan to the fire.” She spoke of impunity, insecurity, corruption, and joblessness that characterize daily life and a false “democracy” that has privileged warlords and fundamentalists. She described her own experience of being elected to, and then expelled from, Parliament because she denounced the presence of warlords and criminals in Parliament; she now lives under constant threat of violence. Ms. Joya called on the audience to lend their support to Afghani women and to demand a change in US policy in recognition that peace will not be secured through war.

The panel then took many questions from audience members, which ranged from their appraisal of the role of the U.N. in Afghanistan to the rise of female suicide bombers. The panel was followed by a reception at which guests and panelists were able to discuss the issues further.

About the panelists:

Karima Bennoune, Professor of Law and Arthur L. Dickson Scholar, Rutgers School of Law - Newark

Jayne Huckerby, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Clinical Law and Research Director, CHRGJ, NYU School of Law

Martin Scheinin, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism

Moderated by Fareda Banda, Professor, NYU School of Law

EVENTS

Gender, National Security, and Counter-Terrorism: Expert Consultation Meeting (March 20-21, 2009)

By invitation only

In Spring 2009, the Center launched a new project on the issue of Gender, Counter-Terrorism, and National Security. As part of our work in this programmatic area, the Center hosted an expert consultation on this topic in support of Professor Martin Scheinin’s mandate as U.N. Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. The purpose of the consultation was to provide input into the project and to advise the Special Rapporteur on this topic.