VIOLENCE OUTSIDE OF BATTLEGROUNDS- Qualitative text analysis of Women, Peace, and Security resolutions

Abstract: Women experience violence in times of war and peace. The UN’s Security Council has formulated ten resolutions on the Women, Peace, and Security agenda (WPS) to increase women’s political participation and address their experiences and needs in relation to armed conflicts. Women’s experiences of violence continue through time, space, and forms of violence, which have resulted in the theories of the continuum of violence. Research has found that the WPS agenda focuses on sexual violence during armed conflict. This thesis uses qualitative text analysis to study how violence against women is discussed in pre-conflict and post-conflict in the WPS resolutions. The thesis will answer if and how the WPS resolutions consider violence in public/private spheres, flight/encampment, and different forms of sexual and gender-based violence before and after conflict and if it changes over time. Results and analysis show that the resolutions focus on public violence in post-conflict in the space where the conflict took place and recognize different forms of violence, particularly the consequences of sexual violence. There is little change over time, except that they, in later resolutions, refer to both gender-based and sexual violence and introduce terrorism.