Beyond conflict-related sexual violence: the continuum of violence in Iraq’s Women, Peace and Security action plans

Abstract

Women’s experiences of conflict and their roles in its prevention have become an increasingly large focus for feminist scholars, particularly since the adoption of the Women, Peace and Security agenda in 2000. Iraq has been at the forefront of engagement with the Women, Peace and Security agenda, being the first Middle East state to adopt a national action plan. This article analyses Iraq’s Women, Peace and Security action plans, largely drafted by women’s civil society organisations, using the concept of the ‘continuum of violence’. In doing so, the article shows how a fuller breadth of violence is used by Iraqi women writing and working on Women, Peace and Security inside Iraq than what appears in Women, Peace and Security resolutions. The article therefore contributes to critical engagements with the Women, Peace and Security agenda by addressing two themes: the agenda’s limited capture of gendered violence in conflict; and the agenda’s top-down nature when it comes to reconceptualising the agenda, its limits and its opportunities.