Sabrina Monuza Karim

Discusses to what extent UN peacekeeping operations have achieved gender equality within peacekeeping missions and have been vehicles for promoting gender equality in post-conflict states.  

Examines if the composition of peacekeeping forces along two dimensions – the proportion of women and the records of gender (in)equality in the contributing countries – helps explain variation in sexual exploitation and abuse allegations in peacekeeping missions. Indicates that including higher proportions of both female peacekeepers and personnel from countries with better records of gender equality is associated with lower levels of SEA allegations reported against military contingents. 
 

Uses the UN Mission in Liberia as a case study and finds that there is an “access gap” that prevents female peacekeepers from fully contributing to the mission’s operations and therefore prevents the peacekeeping mission from reaching its full potential.

Randomly selected 1,381 households using satellite imagery and GPS locators and randomly sampled 475 women between the ages of eighteen and thirty. Finds that more than half of them had engaged in transactional sex, a large majority of them (more than 75 percent) with UN personnel. Further estimates that each additional battalion of UN peacekeepers caused a significant increase in a woman’s probability of engaging in her first transactional sex. 

Examines the UN’s peacekeeping forces process of gender balancing. Proposes and presents evidence that female military personnel tend to deploy to areas where there is least risk and not to where they may be most needed—where sexual violence and gender equity has been a major problem.

Discusses Peru’s new approach to policing. Examines the belief that women are less corruptible than men and whether or not using women officers is an effective effort to revive confidence in law enforcement.