Hierarchies of Violence, Victimhood, and Remedy in the Pursuit of Women’s Rights After War

Overview and Key Concepts

• This article rigorously examines postwar gender reforms, revealing that a narrow focus on these reforms can overshadow other critical social cleavages. This oversight can perpetuate or intensify the marginalization of vulnerable groups. It identifies three principal hierarchies that significantly influence access to rights for communities affected by war:

  • Hierarchies of violence: This involves the prioritization of specific forms of violence over others, typically favoring more visible or internationally recognized acts.

  • Hierarchies of victimhood: This refers to the selective recognition of certain individuals or groups as victims, often based on political or social criteria.

  • Hierarchies of remedy: This pertains to the preference for state-based or formal institutional mechanisms for addressing grievances, which may not be accessible or effective for all.

• Through detailed subnational interviews across five postwar contexts, the authors uncover how particular forms of violence and specific groups are either prioritized or marginalized in the pursuit of women’s rights. The study also examines which responses—including policies, laws, and institutional frameworks—are given precedence.

• A key assertion is that the dominance of top-down, state-based responses often leads to the other two hierarchies mirroring state priorities. This can inadvertently reproduce exclusionary dynamics, undermining the goal of inclusive justice and reconciliation.

• The paper advocates for a more comprehensive and inclusive approach to rights access in post-war settings to ensure durable peace. It cautions that an overemphasis on gender reforms can obscure broader conflict-related inequalities, hindering holistic recovery and reconciliation efforts.

• This research is firmly grounded in debates on legal and policy reform, contributing to a deeper understanding of how rights regimes can simultaneously address and perpetuate gendered power structures. It calls for a more nuanced and context-aware approach to post-conflict reconstruction and justice.

Context and Framing (Multilingual opening)

• The abstract and introduction are strategically presented in English, Spanish, French, and partially in other languages to underscore the broad cross-national and cross-linguistic relevance of the research.

• The authors emphasize the extensive history of postwar reforms in critical areas such as criminal and family law, economic policy, and the security sector. These reforms are frequently propelled by international frameworks, such as the UN Women, Peace, and Security agenda, and are complemented by domestic reforms aimed at enhancing women’s political representation and securing property/inheritance rights.

Significance and Policy Relevance

• Policymakers are strongly encouraged to promote more equitable access to new rights in post-war societies. The authors stress that disparities in access can undermine peacebuilding efforts and destabilize communities.

• The article brings to the forefront crucial ethical and practical considerations, highlighting that reform efforts can inadvertently reinforce power disparities from the conflict era if they fail to address intersecting forms of marginalization. These include marginalization based on class, ethnicity, race, sexuality, and regional or positional differences.

Core Definitions and Concepts (as used in the paper)

• Hierarchies of remedy: The primary reliance on state-based institutions like criminal justice and formal legal mechanisms for delivering rights. This approach can favor certain groups while systematically excluding others who may not have equal access to these systems.

• Hierarchies of violence: The selective prioritization of specific types of violence, such as sexual violence and killings, over other pervasive forms of violence like economic hardship, dispossession, and everyday insecurity. This can result in a fragmented and incomplete response to the needs of war-affected populations.

• Hierarchies of victimhood: The process by which certain individuals or groups are officially recognized as victims, while others are marginalized or ignored. The legitimacy and prioritization of victims in justice and reparations processes are often influenced by political and social factors.

• Conflict positionality: A crucial analytical framework that captures how various identities—political, ethnic, gender, and others—intersect to shape individuals' access to rights in the aftermath of war. Understanding conflict positionality is essential for developing inclusive and equitable policies.

• Interlocking systems of oppression: The theoretical understanding that gendered power is intrinsically linked to other hierarchies, such as those based on race, class, caste, and ethnicity. This framework emphasizes the need to address multiple forms of discrimination and inequality simultaneously.

Methodological Notes (Preview)

• The study employs a feminist interpretivist, ethnographic methodology with subnational fieldwork to deeply explore the lived experiences of women in diverse situations. This approach allows for a nuanced understanding of the impact of gender reforms on their lives.

• It utilizes an inductive, iterative design, which prioritizes the participants’ interpretations and experiences over predetermined external markers of implementation success. This ensures that the research is grounded in the realities of the communities being studied.

• Data are derived from five specific country cases, with multi-phase fieldwork that includes modeling and data collection (Phase 1), detailed interviews across countries (Phase 2), and intensive subnational fieldwork (Phase 3).

Country Cases (Introductory Snapshot)

• The research focuses on five postwar contexts: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Nepal, Rwanda, and Sri Lanka. Each case offers unique insights into the challenges and opportunities of post-conflict gender reforms.

• The cases represent a variety of conflict endings: two negotiated settlements (Nepal, Colombia), two military victories (Rwanda, Sri Lanka), and one consociational arrangement (Bosnia-Herzegovina). This diversity allows for a comparative analysis of how different political resolutions impact gender equality.

• Across these cases, reforms encompass six key issue areas, as detailed in Table 1 of the paper: political participation, economic empowerment, civil-family law, gender-sensitive criminal justice reform, transitional justice and accountability, and WPS National Action Plans.

Key Takeaways from the Introduction

• Extensive reforms have significantly altered legal and policy landscapes in the studied countries. However, the benefits of these changes are not evenly distributed at the local level, leading to persistent inequalities.

• Single-axis gender reforms, which focus solely on gender without considering other intersecting forms of oppression, risk reinforcing pre-existing power hierarchies and conflict grievances, thereby undermining their intended impact.

• The hierarchies of remedy, violence, and victimhood are evident across different regime types and war endings, indicating that these patterns are deeply embedded in structural dynamics and are not easily addressed through conventional reform efforts.

• The authors advocate for a more intersectional and context-sensitive approach to policy design. This approach is essential to avoid reproducing marginalization and to promote lasting peace by addressing the complex interplay of gender, ethnicity, class, and other factors.

The Article’s Roadmap (from Page 3–4 Sections)

• Section II provides a concise overview of global efforts aimed at redressing gendered harms in war, setting the stage for the subsequent analysis.

• Section III details the methodological approach used in the study, including the rationale for the chosen methods and the process of data collection and analysis.

• Section IV presents compelling evidence from six subnational locations per country, highlighting the experiences of vulnerable women and the challenges they face in accessing rights.

• Section V concludes the paper by discussing structural effects and their implications for gendered power and the pursuit of peace. It offers recommendations for policymakers and practitioners seeking to promote more equitable and sustainable outcomes in post-conflict settings.

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Introduction, Continued: Historical Context and literatures

• The wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda during the mid-1990s were pivotal in galvanizing global efforts to integrate gender justice and equality into development and human rights agendas. These conflicts underscored the urgent need to address gender-specific harms and promote women's rights in post-conflict reconstruction.

• Key historical milestones include the ICTY and ICTR prosecutions, which marked a significant advancement by recognizing rape as a crime against humanity and an act of genocide. This recognition led to broader domestic legislation aimed at criminalizing and prosecuting sexual violence. Additionally, the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action promoted gender mainstreaming, and the UN Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda, launched in 2000, further solidified the commitment to addressing gender issues in conflict and peacebuilding.

• These developments spurred reforms across various legal domains, including criminal law, family law, property and inheritance rights, divorce and custody laws, and women’s political representation. These reforms aimed to create a more equitable legal framework and enhance women's participation in political processes.

• Existing scholarly literature indicates that wars can disrupt traditional hierarchies, creating opportunities for rapid social change. However, reform efforts have frequently failed to reach the most vulnerable women, particularly when these efforts focus solely on gender without addressing interlocking systems of oppression. This narrow focus can perpetuate inequalities and undermine the intended benefits of the reforms.

Core Claims and Findings Preview

• The authors’ fieldwork across five contexts reveals two surprising dynamics that challenge conventional approaches to post-conflict reform:

  1) A narrow focus on gender inequality, without adequate attention to other axes of oppression, can reinforce existing hierarchies and preserve power disparities that predate the conflict. This can severely limit access to rights for politically marginalized women and exacerbate grievances that contributed to the violence. The study highlights the importance of addressing multiple forms of discrimination simultaneously to ensure equitable outcomes.

  2) Despite significant differences in regime types (democracies vs. autocracies) and conflict resolution outcomes (military victory vs. power-sharing agreements), the three identified hierarchies—remedy, violence, and victimhood—persist across war-to-peace transitions. This persistence suggests deep-rooted structural patterns that are not easily addressed through conventional reform strategies. The authors emphasize the need for innovative approaches that tackle these underlying structures.

• The authors advocate for an integrated approach to postwar reform that considers gender in conjunction with race, class, ethnicity, religion, and regional disparities. They argue that this holistic perspective is essential to improve inclusivity and foster durable peace by ensuring that reforms benefit all segments of society.

Research Design and Data Scope (High-level)

• The research is based on original qualitative data collected through 283 interviews conducted across five case study countries and various subnational locations. This extensive dataset provides a rich understanding of the complexities of post-conflict gender reforms.

• Interviewees included a diverse range of individuals, such as ordinary women, gender practitioners, activists, women’s political representatives, journalists, civil society leaders, and other experts. This variety of perspectives enhances the depth and breadth of the analysis.

• The study focuses on understanding how women with different identities experience and access newly enacted rights. It examines the barriers they face and the ways in which reforms have impacted their lives.

• The data collection spans five postwar contexts, enabling both cross-country comparisons and detailed analysis of subnational regional variation. This comparative approach sheds light on the factors that influence the success or failure of gender reforms in different settings.

The Three Hierarchies: A Preview

• Hierarchies of remedy: These refer to the state-centric pathways to rights, such as criminal and family law reforms and transitional justice mechanisms. While these pathways are intended to provide redress for harms suffered, they can also create barriers for marginalized groups who lack access to, or trust in, state institutions.

• Hierarchies of violence: These involve the selective attention given to different forms of violence after war. Often, certain types of violence, such as sexual violence and killings, receive greater attention and resources, while other forms of violence, such as economic exploitation and domestic abuse, are overlooked.

• Hierarchies of victimhood: These define who is recognized as a victim and who is not. Recognition as a victim can significantly impact access to support, compensation, and justice. However, the criteria for recognition are often influenced by political and social factors, leading to unequal treatment.

Policy Implications Preview

• The authors advocate for more equitable access to rights by considering conflict positionality and other power dynamics. They emphasize the importance of reducing exclusion and fostering durable peace through policies that address the root causes of inequality and promote inclusive governance.

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Research Design: How the study is structured

• The project employs a comparative, multi-sited, feminist interpretivist approach, grounded in intersectionality and decolonial praxis. This methodological framework allows for a comprehensive and nuanced analysis of post-conflict gender reforms.

• The research team aimed to center the lived experiences of differently situated women and to disaggregate uneven access to rights. By focusing on individual experiences and the intersection of various identities, the study provides insights into the complexities of post-conflict justice and reconciliation.

• Phase 1 (country case selection and dataset creation):

  • The initial phase involved identifying post-war countries that ended conflicts after the Beijing conference (1995) and that enacted gender-inclusive reforms in social, political, and economic participation. This criterion ensured that the selected cases had a demonstrated commitment to gender equality.

  • Five cases were selected: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Nepal, Rwanda, Sri Lanka. These cases represent a diverse range of post-conflict contexts and reform trajectories.

  • The selected wars span different endings: two negotiated settlements (Nepal, Colombia), two military victories (Rwanda, Sri Lanka), one consociational arrangement (Bosnia-Herzegovina). This diversity allows for comparative analysis of how different conflict resolution mechanisms impact gender reforms.

  • A dataset was created across six issue areas: (1) political participation, (2) economic empowerment, (3) family/civil law reform, (4) gender-sensitive criminal justice reform, (5) transitional justice and accountability, (6) WPS National Action Plans. This dataset provides a comprehensive overview of gender-related reforms across the selected countries.

  • Data sources included government archives, legal documents, newspapers, and inputs from country experts; datasets from prior work (e.g., Kang & Tripp 2018; Tripp 2015). This multi-faceted approach to data collection ensures the validity and reliability of the research findings.

• Table 1 (as presented): counts of reforms across six areas by country (see below).

Country Case Selection Rationale

• The five cases capture diverse postwar outcomes and reform trajectories, enabling cross-case comparison of how reforms distribute benefits across groups and across political regimes. The selection criteria ensured that the cases represent a wide range of experiences and challenges in implementing gender reforms.

• The authors note ongoing debates about whether progress on gender equality translates into broader peace and security outcomes. This debate underscores the importance of examining the linkages between gender reforms and overall stability in post-conflict societies.

Methods: Phase 2 and Phase 3 Outline

• Phase 2 (2019–2024): desk research plus in-country interviews with a range of stakeholders (activists, politicians, civil society representatives, lawyers, judges, journalists, etc.) to understand how women’s empowerment policies shaped outcomes and where obstacles to implementation lay. This phase provides valuable insights into the practical challenges of implementing gender reforms on the ground.

• Phase 3: purposively selected subregions within each country (six municipalities per country; two municipalities per subregion; inaccessible municipalities excluded for safety). This subnational focus allows for a deeper understanding of the regional variations in experiences with gender reforms.

• In each municipality: interviews with community leaders, political representatives, activists, journalists, and others; collaboration with local researchers to ensure safety and ethical practices. This community-based approach ensures that the research is sensitive to local contexts and priorities.

• Data collection involved mostly individual interviews; some countries also included small-group interviews (e.g., Rwanda and Colombia). The choice of interview format was tailored to the specific cultural and political context of each country.

• The authors emphasize ethical fieldwork, local leadership, and inductive analysis rather than imposing external implementation metrics. This commitment to ethical research practices ensures that the findings are grounded in the realities and perspectives of the communities being studied.

Data Reporting and Appendices

• Online Appendix A (country case details) and Appendix B (subnational location descriptions). These appendices provide additional information and context for the study.

• Appendix C provides interview coding and analysis details. This transparency in reporting enhances the credibility and replicability of the research.

• Table 2 summarizes Phase 2/Phase 3 data by country (see page 5).

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Phase 1: Dataset and Country Case Selection in Detail

• Phase 1 identified post-war contexts that ended after the Beijing Conference (1995) and where specific legislative/political action promoted women’s inclusion and equality across six areas. The selection criteria focused on countries with a demonstrated commitment to gender equality.

• Countries chosen: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Nepal, Rwanda, Sri Lanka. These cases represent a diverse range of post-conflict contexts and reform trajectories.

• The six issue areas used to categorize laws/policies:

  1) political participation,
  2) economic empowerment,
  3) family/civil law reform,
  4) gender-sensitive criminal justice reform,
  5) transitional justice and accountability,
  6) WPS National Action Plans.

• Table 1 (reiterated): counts of reforms by country across the six areas and the total.

Data Collection Strategy and Coding (Phase 2 Details)

• Phase 2 used desk research plus in-country interviews with a broad set of stakeholders, plus dozens of informational meetings. This multi-faceted approach to data collection ensures the validity and reliability of the research findings.

• Interview questions targeted: how laws/policies shaped individual/collective outcomes; barriers faced by specific groups; effects of enacted laws; obstacles to implementation. The questions were designed to elicit detailed information about the impact and challenges of gender reforms.

• Phase 3 focused on subnational variation to examine regional differences in experiences with gender reforms. This subnational focus allows for a deeper understanding of the regional variations in experiences with gender reforms.

Subnational Sampling Strategy

• In each country, three phases included six municipalities total (two per subregion).

• Selection aimed to ensure regional diversity in war histories and political affiliations. The sampling strategy was designed to capture the wide range of experiences and challenges in implementing gender reforms across different regions.

• Regions differed by factional, religious, ethnic, and political backgrounds to probe differential experiences with reform implementation. This diversity enhances the robustness and generalizability of the research findings.

• The authors note that Bosnia, Colombia, and Nepal yielded more open interviewees, while Sri Lanka and Rwanda presented greater security constraints, affecting the data collection dynamics. These contextual factors highlight the importance of considering the local political and social dynamics in interpreting the research findings.

Data Presentation Preview

• A forthcoming Table 2 will summarize Phase 2 and Phase 3 data by country (see Page 6).

• The authors emphasize that the study focuses on the perspectives of the women the reforms aimed to help, rather than on external implementation metrics alone. This emphasis on lived experiences ensures that the research is grounded in the realities and perspectives of the communities being studied.

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Table 1. Gender reforms in six areas

• The table counts laws and policies across six domains designed to promote women’s inclusion and gender parity across the five cases. This provides a quantitative overview of the extent of gender reforms in each country.

• While there is variation across countries, the authors do not aim to explain variation but to identify patterns in how rights are realized. The focus is on understanding the common challenges and opportunities in implementing gender reforms, rather than on comparing the performance of different countries.

Continuities and Patterns Across Regimes

• The study identifies two continuities:

  • Temporal continuity: continuities between pre-war and post-war periods across all cases. This highlights the enduring impact of conflict on gender dynamics and the challenges of breaking cycles of inequality.

  • Regime-type continuity: hierarchies of remedy, violence, and victimhood persist across democracies and autocracies alike, regardless of war ending mechanism. This underscores the deep-seated nature of these hierarchies and the need for systemic reforms to address them.

• The authors argue that single-axis gender reforms (without attending to other axes of marginalization) can reinforce conflict-era power disparities and obstruct access for marginalized women. This emphasizes the importance of addressing multiple forms of discrimination simultaneously to ensure equitable outcomes.

Phase 2 and 3: Data Collection Outcomes (Preview)

• Phase 2 and Phase 3 data reveal that women from marginalized identity groups often perceive themselves as unable to access rights post-war, regardless of the ending type. This highlights the persistent challenges in ensuring that gender reforms benefit all segments of society.

• Although some women benefited significantly from new rights, others experienced continued exclusion or even reproduction of war-time grievances in post-war rights regimes. This underscores the need for context-sensitive and inclusive approaches to gender reforms.

Key Analytical Concepts Introduced (Early Framing)

• The authors connect their analysis to prior work on hierarchies of access in transitional justice (e.g., Schwarz, Baum, Cohen 2020; Kao & Revkin 2023; Kreft & Agerberg 2024; Krystalli 2024). This situates the research within broader scholarly debates and provides a foundation for further analysis.

• They stress that progress on gender reforms can mask other forms of private and state violence, reinforcing the vulnerability of war’s most at-risk victims. This highlights the importance of addressing multiple forms of violence simultaneously to ensure the safety and dignity of all individuals.

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Table 2. Summary of data

• The data summary indicates a robust qualitative dataset across cases, with a total of 283 participants. This provides a strong foundation for the research findings.

• The “Rwanda” Phase 3 data are noted as N/A in the table; instead, 18 focus groups were conducted in that country. This highlights the flexibility of the research design in adapting to different contexts and data collection challenges.

Hierarchies of Remedy: Reinscribing State Power

• Across all five countries, reforms in criminal and family law and various gender-sensitive transitional justice mechanisms have become the primary avenues for rights realization, with state institutions playing a central role in delivering remedies. This reliance on state-based mechanisms raises questions about access and equity for marginalized groups.

• Nevertheless, the state-based route can disadvantage those who face persecution by the state or are under-served by postwar power distributions. This highlights the potential for state-based remedies to perpetuate inequalities and exclude certain groups from justice.

• The authors provide specific exemplars:

  • In Sri Lanka, even activists seeking justice faced threats and state suppression, with a perception that reforms are unlikely to yield meaningful change in the next decade due to state persistence of power. This illustrates the challenges of implementing reforms in contexts where the state is resistant to change.

  • In Rwanda, the Gacaca system and ICTR largely limited redress to perpetrators on the side of the ruling government, erasing or criminalizing the suffering of Hutu victims opposing the regime. This highlights the potential for transitional justice mechanisms to be used for political purposes and to reinforce existing power dynamics.

  • In Sri Lanka, Tamil and Muslim communities face particular harm under state mechanisms, with risk to political and ethnic minorities seeking justice. This underscores the importance of ensuring that state-based remedies are accessible and equitable for all ethnic and religious groups.

  • In Bosnia, the justice process can reinforce power dynamics, with some victims feeling that perpetrators in positions of authority can still influence outcomes. This highlights the challenges of ensuring accountability and justice in contexts where power imbalances persist.

  • In Colombia, state actors can be complicit or ineffective in delivering justice when local cartels and armed groups exert influence in areas under their control. This illustrates the challenges of implementing reforms in contexts where non-state actors wield significant power.

• Despite rights-based reforms, state-centric routes can reproduce the very inequalities that fueled conflict: some women gain protection and opportunity while others, especially those at political or ethnic margins, do not. This underscores the need for a more nuanced and context-sensitive approach to post-conflict justice and reconciliation.

Illustrative Quotations (Examples)

• Sri Lanka activist: "Nothing will come in the next ten years, because the perpetrators are back… We have to take safe houses, wash our hands of everything. We need to get people out of the country now the government is back." (Sri Lanka, January 2020) This quote illustrates the fear and disillusionment of activists in contexts where perpetrators of violence remain in positions of power.

• Sri Lankan activist on justice risk for marginalized groups and the fear of state retaliation. This highlights the challenges of seeking justice in contexts where the state is perceived as biased or repressive.

• Rwanda expert: Hutu victims of genocide often denied to be recognized as victims by state mechanisms; political considerations shape victim recognition. This underscores the importance of ensuring that transitional justice mechanisms are impartial and inclusive.

• Bosnia activist: Some perpetrators remain in positions of power; victims may have to face their rapists in daily life or in institutional spaces. This highlights the long-term impact of conflict on individuals and communities, and the challenges of ensuring accountability and justice.

• Colombia activist: Women facing stigma or fear when filing claims; prosecutors may be unsupportive or punitive toward the claimant. This illustrates the barriers that women face in accessing justice, and the need for supportive and gender-sensitive legal systems.

Key Takeaways: Remedy and Power Dynamics

• State-based right regimes can consolidate political power but simultaneously reproduce exclusionary dynamics for marginalized women. This highlights the need for careful consideration of the potential unintended consequences of state-based remedies.

• The intersection of gender with ethnicity, class, and politics shapes who can access state-provided remedies after war. This underscores the importance of addressing multiple forms of discrimination simultaneously to ensure equitable outcomes.

• The top-down orientation of remedial strategies tends to mirror the priorities of state actors and international programs, limiting the reach of rights for some groups. This highlights the need for more community-based and participatory approaches to post-conflict justice and reconciliation.

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Hierarchies of Victimhood: Who is Recognized as a Victim?

• The authors identify two patterns in who is recognized as a victim in postwar contexts:

  1) Focusing on women from particular backgrounds can create a dichotomy between “victim” and “perpetrator” groups, often ethnic or political in nature, which can legitimate interventions or justify neglect of others. This selective focus can exacerbate tensions and undermine efforts to promote reconciliation.

  2) The framing of who counts as a victim often aligns with political and ethnic identities, which can render certain groups invisible in formal justice processes. This invisibility can perpetuate inequalities and prevent certain groups from accessing needed support.

Illustrative Examples by Context

• Sri Lanka: Some interviewees suggested that political/ethnic identities precluded recognition as victims of war crimes, with some Tamil women framed as propagandists rather than victims of sexual violence. This illustrates the politicization of victimhood and the challenges faced by marginalized ethnic groups in accessing justice.

• Bosnia: Debates around victimhood show attention to Srebrenica, while other crimes against Serbs or Croats are less recognized, reflecting selective memory and instrumentalization of victim identities. This highlights the challenges of achieving a comprehensive and inclusive approach to transitional justice.

• Serb perspectives in Bosnia highlight perceived inequality in how war crimes are prosecuted and remembered. This underscores the importance of addressing the grievances of all groups and ensuring that justice is applied fairly.

• Nepal: Dalit and marginalized groups voice concerns that their rights to recognition and protection remain unfulfilled in postwar reform. This highlights the persistent challenges faced by marginalized groups in accessing justice and social protection.

Broader Patterns and Implications

• The construction of victimhood is not neutral; it reflects political, ethnic, and gendered power. This, in turn, influences which groups receive support, compensation, and institutional recognition for harms suffered. The allocation of resources and recognition is often influenced by political considerations, rather than solely by the needs of the victims.

• The authors argue that unequal recognition of victims can exacerbate grievances and contribute to ongoing tensions after the war. This underscores the need for a more inclusive and equitable approach to victim recognition and support.

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Victims, Regions, and Multiple Identities

• The data underscore how regional and ethnic identities shape access to justice and recognition as victims. Where a person lives and their ethnic background significantly affect their ability to access justice and be recognized as a victim.

• Some groups face neglect or labeling, which affects their ability to pursue remedies and reparations. The neglect or mislabeling of certain groups can prevent them from obtaining the assistance they need to recover from the conflict.

• The Sri Lankan eastern region and the Tamil communities illustrate how victimhood labels can be politicized and used to advantage or disadvantage groups in postwar governance. The manipulation of victimhood labels can serve political agendas and undermine efforts to promote reconciliation.

Additional Illustrative Evidence

• In Sri Lanka, a Muslim woman representative notes the ongoing absence of information about missing persons and the persistence of neglect in the North and East regions. The lack of information and continued neglect highlight the challenges faced by marginalized communities in the aftermath of conflict.

• In Bosnia, regional variation in attention to different war crimes and victims is highlighted, with calls for broader recognition of all victims rather than selected cases. Calls for broader recognition emphasize the need for a more inclusive and comprehensive approach to transitional justice.

• The broader argument is that victimhood is socially constructed, selective, and deeply entangled with state power and political narratives. Victimhood is not simply a matter of individual experience, but is shaped by social, political, and historical forces.

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Hierarchies of Violence: What Counts as “Worthy” Violence?

• The authors define hierarchies of violence as the prioritization by state and international actors of certain forms of violence as the primary targets for redress after war. The focus on certain types of violence can overshadow other serious harms suffered by individuals and communities.

• Two main patterns emerge:

  1) Spectacular forms of violence (e.g., killings, mass rape) receive disproportionate attention relative to everyday harms (dispossession, economic insecurity, disability, trauma). The emphasis on high-profile acts of violence can lead to the neglect of the ongoing challenges faced by individuals and communities in their daily lives.

  2) Distinctions between wartime violence and postwar, everyday harms show that violence outside the formal conflict (e.g., police violence, discrimination, poverty, gender-based violence) is often deprioritized. The failure to address everyday forms of violence can perpetuate inequalities and undermine efforts to build lasting peace.

Everyday Insecurities and War Legacies

• The research highlights persistent everyday harms that outlast the wars themselves and remain pressing for women, including:

  • economic insecurity and poverty,

  • intimate partner violence and gender-based violence,

  • health issues (e.g., pollution-related health problems in causal regions),

  • discrimination and social exclusion,

  • housing and displacement-related stress,

  • disabilities and limited access to social protection.

Regional and Country Examples Illustrating Violence Hierarchies

• Colombia: Grassroots women describe ongoing violence, poverty, and gendered subjugation that persists alongside formal reforms. This illustrates the gap between formal reforms and the lived experiences of women on the ground.

• Bosnia: Differences between war crimes and disability recognition illustrate how certain harms are prioritized over others. The prioritization of war crimes can lead to the neglect of the needs of individuals with disabilities.

• Nepal: Pollution-related health issues among women highlight quiet, structural harms that endure post-war. Structural harms, such as pollution, can have long-lasting impacts on the health and well-being of communities.

Implications for Accountability and Policy

• Focusing primarily on high-profile war crimes risks neglecting broader harms that are equally devastating to women’s safety and dignity. This limited focus can undermine efforts to promote healing and reconciliation.

• The authors argue for expanding accountability frameworks to address everyday harms and structural violence, not just war-time violence. A more comprehensive approach to accountability is needed to address the full range of harms suffered by individuals and communities.

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Implications for Rights Realization and Peace

• The article argues that a narrow emphasis on conflict-related offenses can normalize or deprioritize everyday violence, thereby undermining durable peace and gender equality. The failure to address everyday violence can prevent the achievement of lasting peace and gender equality.

• The authors emphasize the need for intersectional approaches that account for situational power dynamics (ethnicity, class, region, politics) to avoid perpetuating marginalization. An intersectional approach is essential for understanding the complex interplay of factors that contribute to inequality and marginalization.

Practical Recommendations for Policymakers and Activists

• Design reforms with explicit attention to intersectionality: ensure that marginalized groups (ethnic, caste, class, political opposition, regional) gain real access to rights. The design of reforms should specifically address the needs of marginalized groups to ensure that they benefit from new rights.

• Ensure that justice mechanisms are accessible to those who face state violence or neglect, not just those with favorable political alignment. Justice mechanisms should be accessible to all individuals, regardless of their political affiliations or relationship with the state.

• Recognize and address everyday harms (economic precarity, health issues, discrimination) as legitimate targets of reform and remedy, not as lesser concerns. Everyday harms should be recognized and addressed as important issues that affect the well-being of individuals and communities.

• Promote a broader notion of accountability that includes non-criminal forms of state violence (surveillance, harassment) and private harms. Accountability should extend beyond criminal acts to include other forms of state and private violence.

• Invest in subnational, community-driven monitoring and evaluation to capture local realities and prevent top-down distortions. Monitoring and evaluation efforts should be community-driven to ensure that they are sensitive to local realities and prevent distortions caused by top-down approaches.

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Conclusion: Gendering Security, Equality, and Justice After War

• The authors reiterate that the five-country, multi-sited study shows consistent patterns: hierarchies of remedy, violence, and victimhood shape access to postwar rights for differently situated women. These hierarchies have a significant impact on the ability of women to access their rights in the aftermath of conflict, often reproducing pre-existing inequalities or reinforcing new ones. - The research strongly advocates for an intersectional approach to post-conflict reconstruction, emphasizing that reforms focused solely on gender risk overlooking broader forms of marginalization based on ethnicity, class, race, sexuality, and region. Failing to address these intersecting oppressions can limit the effectiveness of reforms and perpetuate grievances that contribute to instability. - Furthermore, the study highlights how state-centric mechanisms for justice and redress, while often intended to promote rights, can inadvertently disadvantage politically or ethnically marginalized groups. This top-down orientation often aligns with state priorities, thus limiting the reach and impact of rights for vulnerable populations. - Finally, the authors call for a broader understanding of accountability that extends beyond spectacular wartime violence to include everyday harms such as economic insecurity, domestic abuse, and structural discrimination. Achieving durable peace and genuine gender equality requires acknowledging and addressing the full spectrum of violence and insecurity experienced by women in post-conflict settings. The insights from this study are critical for designing more equitable, inclusive, and effective policies that genuinely transform power relations and ensure justice for all.

Overview and Key Concepts

• The article examines postwar gender reforms, highlighting that a narrow focus can obscure other critical social cleavages and perpetuate marginalization of vulnerable groups. It identifies three principal hierarchies that impact access to rights:

  • Hierarchies of violence: Prioritization of specific forms of violence (e.g., highly visible acts).

  • Hierarchies of victimhood: Selective recognition of certain individuals or groups as victims.

  • Hierarchies of remedy: Preference for state-based or formal institutional mechanisms.

• Through subnational interviews across five postwar contexts, the authors reveal how certain forms of violence and groups are prioritized or marginalized in women’s rights initiatives, and which responses (policies, laws) are given precedence.

• A key assertion is that a dominance of top-down, state-based responses often leads to other hierarchies mirroring state priorities, inadvertently reproducing exclusionary dynamics and undermining inclusive justice.

• The paper advocates for a more comprehensive and inclusive approach to rights access post-war to ensure durable peace, cautioning that overemphasis on gender reforms can obscure broader inequalities.

• This research contributes to understanding how rights regimes can both address and perpetuate gendered power structures, calling for a nuanced, context-aware approach to post-conflict reconstruction.

Context and Framing

• The research emphasizes the broad cross-national and cross-linguistic relevance by presenting the abstract and introduction in multiple languages.

• It highlights the extensive history of postwar reforms in criminal and family law, economic policy, and security, often driven by international frameworks like the UN Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda, and complemented by domestic reforms for women's political representation and property rights.

Significance and Policy Relevance

• Policymakers are urged to promote equitable access to rights in post-war societies as disparities can undermine peacebuilding.

• The article stresses that reform efforts must address intersecting forms of marginalization (class, ethnicity, race, sexuality, regional differences) to avoid reinforcing conflict-era power disparities.

Core Definitions and Concepts (as used in the paper)

• Hierarchies of remedy: Reliance on state-based institutions (criminal justice, formal legal mechanisms) for rights delivery, potentially excluding certain groups.

• Hierarchies of violence: Selective prioritization of violence types (e.g., sexual violence, killings) over pervasive forms like economic hardship or everyday insecurity.

• Hierarchies of victimhood: Official recognition of certain individuals/groups as victims, influenced by political and social factors, marginalizing others.

• Conflict positionality: Analytical framework explaining how intersecting identities (political, ethnic, gender) shape access to rights post-war.

• Interlocking systems of oppression: Theoretical understanding that gendered power is linked to other hierarchies (race, class, caste, ethnicity), requiring simultaneous attention to multiple discriminations.

Methodological Notes (Preview)

• The study employs a feminist interpretivist, ethnographic methodology with subnational fieldwork, prioritizing participants' interpretations over external success markers.

• It uses an inductive, iterative design, drawing data from five country cases through multi-phase fieldwork (modeling/data collection, detailed interviews, intensive subnational fieldwork).

Country Cases (Introductory Snapshot)

• Research focuses on Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Nepal, Rwanda, and Sri Lanka.

• Cases represent diverse conflict endings: negotiated settlements (Nepal, Colombia), military victories (Rwanda, Sri Lanka), and consociational arrangement (Bosnia-Herzegovina).

• Reforms across these cases cover six key issue areas: political participation, economic empowerment, civil-family law, gender-sensitive criminal justice reform, transitional justice and accountability, and WPS National Action Plans.

Key Takeaways from the Introduction

• Postwar reforms have altered legal landscapes, but benefits are unevenly distributed locally, leading to persistent inequalities.

• Single-axis gender reforms, ignoring other oppressions, risk reinforcing existing power hierarchies and conflict grievances.

• Hierarchies of remedy, violence, and victimhood persist across regime types and war endings, indicating deep-seated structural dynamics.

• Authors advocate for an intersectional, context-sensitive policy design to prevent reproduction of marginalization and promote lasting peace.

Historical Context and Literatures

• Wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda (mid-1990s) were crucial in integrating gender justice into global development and human rights agendas.

• Milestones include ICTY/ICTR prosecutions (recognizing rape as crime against humanity/genocide), the 1995 Beijing Declaration (gender mainstreaming), and the 2000 UN WPS agenda.

• These developments spurred reforms in criminal law, family law, property/inheritance, divorce/custody, and women’s political representation.

• Existing literature notes that while wars disrupt hierarchies, reforms often fail to reach the most vulnerable women if they narrowly focus on gender without addressing interlocking oppressions.

Core Claims and Findings Preview

• Fieldwork reveals two surprising dynamics:

  1. Narrow focus on gender inequality, without attention to other oppressions, can reinforce existing hierarchies and limit rights access for politically marginalized women, exacerbating conflict grievances.

  2. Despite differences in regime types and conflict outcomes, the three hierarchies (remedy, violence, victimhood) persist, suggesting deep-rooted structural patterns needing innovative approaches.

• Authors advocate for an integrated approach to postwar reform that considers gender alongside race, class, ethnicity, religion, and regional disparities for inclusivity and durable peace.

Research Design and Data Scope (High-level)

• The research uses original qualitative data from 283 interviews across five countries and various subnational locations.

• Interviewees include ordinary women, gender practitioners, activists, political representatives, journalists, civil society leaders, and experts.

• The study examines how women with different identities experience and access newly enacted rights and the barriers they face.

• Data collection allows for cross-country comparisons and detailed subnational regional variation analysis.

The Three Hierarchies: A Preview

• Hierarchies of remedy: State-centric pathways to rights (criminal/family law, transitional justice) that can create barriers for marginalized groups lacking access or trust in state institutions.

• Hierarchies of violence: Selective attention to different forms of violence (e.g., sexual violence, killings prioritized over economic exploitation, domestic abuse).

• Hierarchies of victimhood: Defining who is recognized as a victim, impacting access to support and justice, often influenced by political/social factors.

Policy Implications Preview

• Authors advocate for more equitable access to rights by considering conflict positionality and power dynamics to reduce exclusion and foster durable peace.

Research Design: How the study is structured

• The project uses a comparative, multi-sited, feminist interpretivist approach, grounded in intersectionality and decolonial praxis, centering lived experiences of women and disaggregating uneven access to rights.

• Phase 1 (country case selection and dataset creation):

  • Identified post-war countries ending conflicts after Beijing (1995) with gender-inclusive reforms.

  • Selected five cases: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Nepal, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, representing diverse conflict endings (negotiated settlements, military victories, consociational arrangement).

  • Created a dataset across six issue areas: political participation, economic empowerment, family/civil law, gender-sensitive criminal justice, transitional justice/accountability, and WPS National Action Plans.

  • Data sources: government archives, legal documents, newspapers, country experts, prior datasets.

• Table 1 (as presented): Counts of reforms across six areas by country.

Country Case Selection Rationale

• Five cases capture diverse postwar outcomes and reform trajectories, enabling cross-case comparison of how reforms distribute benefits across groups and political regimes.

• Authors note ongoing debates on gender equality's translation into broader peace and security outcomes.

Methods: Phase 2 and Phase 3 Outline

• Phase 2 (2019–2024): Desk research plus in-country interviews with stakeholders (activists, politicians, civil society, lawyers, judges, journalists) to understand policy impact and implementation obstacles.

• Phase 3: Purposive selection of subregions (six municipalities per country; two per subregion; excluding inaccessible municipalities for safety).

• In each municipality: Interviews with community leaders, political representatives, activists, journalists; collaboration with local researchers for safety and ethical practices.

• Data collection: Mostly individual interviews; some small-group interviews (e.g., Rwanda, Colombia).

• Emphasis on ethical fieldwork, local leadership, and inductive analysis over external implementation metrics.

Data Reporting and Appendices

• Online Appendix A (country case details) and Appendix B (subnational location descriptions).

• Appendix C provides interview coding and analysis details.

• Table 2 summarizes Phase 2/Phase 3 data by country.

Phase 1: Dataset and Country Case Selection in Detail

• Phase 1 identified post-war contexts post-1995 Beijing Conference with legislative/political action promoting women’s inclusion and equality across six areas.

• Chosen countries: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Nepal, Rwanda, Sri Lanka.

• Six issue areas for categorizing laws/policies:
  1) Political participation
  2) Economic empowerment
  3) Family/civil law reform
  4) Gender-sensitive criminal justice reform
  5) Transitional justice and accountability
  6) WPS National Action Plans

• Table 1 (reiterated): Counts of reforms by country across the six areas and total.

Data Collection Strategy and Coding (Phase 2 Details)

• Phase 2 used desk research, in-country interviews with diverse stakeholders, and informational meetings.

• Interview questions targeted: how laws/policies shaped outcomes; barriers for specific groups; effects of enacted laws; implementation obstacles.

• Phase 3 focused on subnational variation to examine regional differences.

Subnational Sampling Strategy

• Six municipalities total per country (two per subregion) to ensure regional diversity in war histories and political affiliations.

• Regions differed by factional, religious, ethnic, and political backgrounds to probe differential experiences with reform implementation.

• Bosnia, Colombia, Nepal yielded more open interviewees; Sri Lanka and Rwanda presented greater security constraints.

Data Presentation Preview

• Forthcoming Table 2 will summarize Phase 2 and Phase 3 data by country.

• Study focuses on perspectives of women the reforms aimed to help, not just external implementation metrics.

Table 1. Gender reforms in six areas

• The table quantifies laws and policies promoting women’s inclusion and gender parity across the five cases.

• Focus is on identifying patterns in rights realization, not explaining variation across countries.

Continuities and Patterns Across Regimes

• Two continuities identified:

  • Temporal continuity: Between pre-war and post-war periods across all cases.

  • Regime-type continuity: Hierarchies of remedy, violence, and victimhood persist across democracies and autocracies, regardless of war ending.

• Single-axis gender reforms, without addressing other marginalization axes, can reinforce conflict-era power disparities and obstruct access for marginalized women.

Phase 2 and 3: Data Collection Outcomes (Preview)

• Data reveals that women from marginalized identity groups often perceive themselves as unable to access rights post-war, regardless of conflict ending.

• Some women benefited significantly, while others experienced continued exclusion or reproduction of war-time grievances.

Key Analytical Concepts Introduced (Early Framing)

• Analysis connects to prior work on hierarchies of access in transitional justice (e.g., Schwarz, Baum, Cohen 2020; Kao & Revkin 2023; Kreft & Agerberg 2024; Krystalli 2024).

• Progress on gender reforms can mask other forms of private and state violence, reinforcing vulnerability of at-risk war victims.

Table 2. Summary of data

• Data summary indicates a robust qualitative dataset across cases, with 283 total participants.

• Rwanda Phase 3 data noted as N/A; 18 focus groups were conducted instead.

Hierarchies of Remedy: Reinscribing State Power

• Reforms in criminal/family law and gender-sensitive transitional justice are primary avenues for rights realization, with state institutions central to delivering remedies.

• State-based routes can disadvantage those facing state persecution or underserved by postwar power distributions.

• Specific exemplars:

  • Sri Lanka: Activists faced threats; reforms seen as unlikely to yield change due to persistent state power.

  • Rwanda: Gacaca system and ICTR limited redress to ruling government's side, erasing/criminalizing Hutu victim suffering.

  • Sri Lanka: Tamil and Muslim communities face harm under state mechanisms; risk to minorities seeking justice.

  • Bosnia: Justice process can reinforce power dynamics; perpetrators in authority influence outcomes.

  • Colombia: State actors complicit/ineffective in delivering justice where local cartels/armed groups hold sway.

• Despite rights-based reforms, state-centric routes can reproduce inequalities that fueled conflict; some women gain protection/opportunity, others (political/ethnic margins) do not.

Illustrative Quotations (Examples)

• Sri Lanka activist: "Nothing will come in the next ten years, because the perpetrators are back… We have to take safe houses, wash our hands of everything. We need to get people out of the country now the government is back." (Sri Lanka, January 2020).

• Sri Lankan activist on justice risk for marginalized groups and fear of state retaliation.

• Rwanda expert: Hutu victims often denied recognition; political considerations shape victim recognition.

• Bosnia activist: Some perpetrators remain in power; victims face rapists daily or in institutions.

• Colombia activist: Women face stigma/fear filing claims; prosecutors unsupportive/punitive toward claimant.

Key Takeaways: Remedy and Power Dynamics

• State-based right regimes can consolidate political power but reproduce exclusionary dynamics for marginalized women.

• Intersection of gender with ethnicity, class, and politics shapes who accesses state-provided remedies.

• Top-down orientation of remedial strategies mirrors state/international priorities, limiting rights reach for some groups.

Hierarchies of Victimhood: Who is Recognized as a Victim?

• Two patterns in victim recognition:

  1) Focusing on women from particular backgrounds can create a dichotomy between “victim” and “perpetrator” groups, often ethnic or political in nature, which can legitimate interventions or justify neglect of others. This selective focus can exacerbate tensions and undermine efforts to promote reconciliation.

  2) The framing of who counts as a victim often aligns with political and ethnic identities, which can render certain groups invisible in formal justice processes. This invisibility can perpetuate inequalities and prevent certain groups from accessing needed support.

Illustrative Examples by Context

• Sri Lanka: Some interviewees suggested that political/ethnic identities precluded recognition as victims of war crimes, with some Tamil women framed as propagandists rather than victims of sexual violence. This illustrates the politicization of victimhood and the challenges faced by marginalized ethnic groups in accessing justice.

• Bosnia: Debates around victimhood show attention to Srebrenica, while other crimes against Serbs or Croats are less recognized, reflecting selective memory and instrumentalization of victim identities. This highlights the challenges of achieving a comprehensive and inclusive approach to transitional justice.

• Serb perspectives in Bosnia highlight perceived inequality in how war crimes are prosecuted and remembered. This underscores the importance of addressing the grievances of all groups and ensuring that justice is applied fairly.

• Nepal: Dalit and marginalized groups voice concerns that their rights to recognition and protection remain unfulfilled in postwar reform. This highlights the persistent challenges faced by marginalized groups in accessing justice and social protection.

Broader Patterns and Implications

• The construction of victimhood is not neutral; it reflects political, ethnic, and gendered power. This, in turn, influences which groups receive support, compensation, and institutional recognition for harms suffered. The allocation of resources and recognition is often influenced by political considerations, rather than solely by the needs of the victims.

• The authors argue that unequal recognition of victims can exacerbate grievances and contribute to ongoing tensions after the war. This underscores the need for a more inclusive and equitable approach to victim recognition and support.

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Victims, Regions, and Multiple Identities

• The data underscore how regional and ethnic identities shape access to justice and recognition as victims. Where a person lives and their ethnic background significantly affect their ability to access justice and be recognized as a victim.

• Some groups face neglect or labeling, which affects their ability to pursue remedies and reparations. The neglect or mislabeling of certain groups can prevent them from obtaining the assistance they need to recover from the conflict.

• The Sri Lankan eastern region and the Tamil communities illustrate how victimhood labels can be politicized and used to advantage or disadvantage groups in postwar governance. The manipulation of victimhood labels can serve political agendas and undermine efforts to promote reconciliation.

Additional Illustrative Evidence

• In Sri Lanka, a Muslim woman representative notes the ongoing absence of information about missing persons and the persistence of neglect in the North and East regions. The lack of information and continued neglect highlight the challenges faced by marginalized communities in the aftermath of conflict.

• In Bosnia, regional variation in attention to different war crimes and victims is highlighted, with calls for broader recognition of all victims rather than selected cases. Calls for broader recognition emphasize the need for a more inclusive and comprehensive approach to transitional justice.

• The broader argument is that victimhood is socially constructed, selective, and deeply entangled with state power and political narratives. Victimhood is not simply a matter of individual experience, but is shaped by social, political, and historical forces.

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Hierarchies of Violence: What Counts as “Worthy” Violence?

• The authors define hierarchies of violence as the prioritization by state and international actors of certain forms of violence as the primary targets for redress after war. The focus on certain types of violence can overshadow other serious harms suffered by individuals and communities.

• Two main patterns emerge:

  1) Spectacular forms of violence (e.g., killings, mass rape) receive disproportionate attention relative to everyday harms (dispossession, economic insecurity, disability, trauma). The emphasis on high-profile acts of violence can lead to the neglect of the ongoing challenges faced by individuals and communities in their daily lives.

  2) Distinctions between wartime violence and postwar, everyday harms show that violence outside the formal conflict (e.g., police violence, discrimination, poverty, gender-based violence) is often deprioritized. The failure to address everyday forms of violence can perpetuate inequalities and undermine efforts to build lasting peace.

Everyday Insecurities and War Legacies

• The research highlights persistent everyday harms that outlast the wars themselves and remain pressing for women, including:

  • economic insecurity and poverty,

  • intimate partner violence and gender-based violence,

  • health issues (e.g., pollution-related health problems in causal regions),

  • discrimination and social exclusion,

  • housing and displacement-related stress,

  • disabilities and limited access to social protection.

Regional and Country Examples Illustrating Violence Hierarchies

• Colombia: Grassroots women describe ongoing violence, poverty, and gendered subjugation that persists alongside formal reforms. This illustrates the gap between formal reforms and the lived experiences of women on the ground.

• Bosnia: Differences between war crimes and disability recognition illustrate how certain harms are prioritized over others. The prioritization of war crimes can lead to the neglect of the needs of individuals with disabilities.

• Nepal: Pollution-related health issues among women highlight quiet, structural harms that endure post-war. Structural harms, such as pollution, can have long-lasting impacts on the health and well-being of communities.

Implications for Accountability and Policy

• Focusing primarily on high-profile war crimes risks neglecting broader harms that are equally devastating to women’s safety and dignity. This limited focus can undermine efforts to promote healing and reconciliation.

• The authors argue for expanding accountability frameworks to address everyday harms and structural violence, not just war-time violence. A more comprehensive approach to accountability is needed to address the full range of harms suffered by individuals and communities.

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Implications for Rights Realization and Peace

• The article argues that a narrow emphasis on conflict-related offenses can normalize or deprioritize everyday violence, thereby undermining durable peace and gender equality. The failure to address everyday violence can prevent the achievement of lasting peace and gender equality.

• The authors emphasize the need for intersectional approaches that account for situational power dynamics (ethnicity, class, region, politics) to avoid perpetuating marginalization. An intersectional approach is essential for understanding the complex interplay of factors that contribute to inequality and marginalization.

Practical Recommendations for Policymakers and Activists

• Design reforms with explicit attention to intersectionality: ensure that marginalized groups (ethnic, caste, class, political opposition, regional) gain real access to rights. The design of reforms should specifically address the needs of marginalized groups to ensure that they benefit from new rights.

• Ensure that justice mechanisms are accessible to those who face state violence or neglect, not just those with favorable political alignment. Justice mechanisms should be accessible to all individuals, regardless of their political affiliations or relationship with the state.

• Recognize and address everyday harms (economic precarity, health issues, discrimination) as legitimate targets of reform and remedy, not as lesser concerns. Everyday harms should be recognized and addressed as important issues that affect the well-being of individuals and communities.

• Promote a broader notion of accountability that includes non-criminal forms of state violence (surveillance, harassment) and private harms. Accountability should extend beyond criminal acts to include other forms of state and private violence.

• Invest in subnational, community-driven monitoring and evaluation to capture local realities and prevent top-down distortions. Monitoring and evaluation efforts should be community-driven to ensure that they are sensitive to local realities and prevent distortions caused by top-down approaches.

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Conclusion: Gendering Security, Equality, and Justice After War

• The authors reiterate that the five-country, multi-sited study shows consistent patterns: hierarchies of remedy, violence, and victimhood shape access to postwar rights for differently situated women. These hierarchies have a significant impact on the ability of women to access their rights in the aftermath of conflict, often reproducing pre-existing inequalities or reinforcing new ones.

• The research strongly advocates for an intersectional approach to post-conflict reconstruction, emphasizing that reforms focused solely on gender risk overlooking broader forms of marginalization based on ethnicity, class, race, sexuality, and region. Failing to address these intersecting oppressions can limit the effectiveness of reforms and perpetuate grievances that contribute to instability.

• Furthermore, the study highlights how state-centric mechanisms for justice and redress, while often intended to promote rights, can inadvertently disadvantage politically or ethnically marginalized groups. This top-down orientation often aligns with state priorities, thus limiting the reach and impact of rights for vulnerable populations.

• Finally, the authors call for a broader understanding of accountability that extends beyond spectacular wartime violence to include everyday harms such as economic insecurity, domestic abuse, and structural discrimination. Achieving durable peace and genuine gender equality requires acknowledging and addressing the full spectrum of violence and insecurity experienced by women in post-conflict settings. The insights from this study are critical for designing more equitable, inclusive, and effective policies that genuinely transform power relations and ensure justice for all.

Overview of Postwar Gender Reforms and Challenges

This research examines postwar gender reforms, arguing that a narrow focus on gender alone can inadvertently overlook other critical social divisions and perpetuate the marginalization of vulnerable groups. It identifies three core hierarchies that profoundly influence access to rights for communities affected by war:

• Hierarchies of violence: Prioritizing certain forms of violence (e.g., highly visible acts like killings or mass rape) over pervasive everyday harms (e.g., economic insecurity, dispossession, domestic abuse).

• Hierarchies of victimhood: The selective recognition of individuals or groups as 'victims,' often influenced by political or social criteria, leading to the marginalization or invisibility of others.

• Hierarchies of remedy: A preference for state-based or formal institutional mechanisms (like criminal justice systems) for addressing grievances, which may not be accessible or effective for all, especially politically or ethnically marginalized groups.

Key Arguments and Findings

• Intersectional Approach is Crucial: A central claim is that focusing solely on gender inequality without addressing other intersecting axes of oppression (such as race, class, ethnicity, or regional differences) can reinforce existing power disparities that predate or were exacerbated by conflict. This limits access to rights for politically marginalized women and can exacerbate grievances.

• Persistence of Hierarchies: Despite significant differences in regime types (democracies vs. autocracies) and conflict resolution outcomes (military victory vs. power-sharing), the identified hierarchies of remedy, violence, and victimhood consistently persist across war-to-peace transitions. This suggests deep-rooted structural patterns that conventional reforms often fail to address.

• State-Centric Bias: Top-down, state-based responses for rights realization often mirror state priorities and can inadvertently reproduce exclusionary dynamics. State institutions, while intended to deliver justice, can disadvantage those who face persecution by the state or are underserved by new power distributions (e.g., specific ethnic minorities or political opposition groups).

• Neglect of Everyday Harms: The prioritization of spectacular wartime violence (e.g., mass rape, killings) by state and international actors often leads to the deprioritization or normalization of pervasive everyday harms that outlast the conflict, such as economic insecurity, intimate partner violence, discrimination, and health issues. This narrow focus undermines comprehensive healing and peacebuilding.

Policy Implications and Recommendations

• Promote Equitable Access: Policymakers must actively promote more equitable access to new rights in post-war societies, recognizing that disparities can destabilize communities and undermine peace.

• Design Intersectional Reforms: Reforms must be designed with explicit attention to intersectionality, ensuring that marginalized groups (based on ethnicity, caste, class, political opposition, region) gain genuine access to rights and remedies.

• Accessible Justice Mechanisms: Justice mechanisms should be accessible to all, including those who face state violence or neglect, not just those with favorable political alignment or who fit specific victim categories.

• Broader Accountability: Accountability frameworks need to expand beyond high-profile war crimes to include everyday harms and structural violence (e.g., economic precarity, discrimination, non-criminal state violence like surveillance and harassment).

• Community-Driven Monitoring: Investing in subnational, community-driven monitoring and evaluation is essential to capture local realities, ensure reforms are effective on the ground, and prevent distortions from top-down approaches.

Conclusion

The study consistently shows that hierarchies of remedy, violence, and victimhood profoundly shape who can access postwar rights. An intersectional approach to post-conflict reconstruction is advocated as essential for genuine gender equality and durable peace, as reforms focusing solely on gender overlook deeper marginalization. State-centric justice mechanisms often disadvantage marginalized groups, reinforcing existing inequalities. A broader understanding of accountability, encompassing both spectacular wartime violence and persistent everyday harms, is critical for transforming power relations and ensuring justice for all in post-conflict settings.