Crisis Prevention and Recovery Newsletter

Gender and Mine Action
The rise of gender mainstreaming in mine action
By Melissa Sabatier and Reuben McCarthy, Mine Action and Small Arms Team, BCPR

Mine action was developed in the late 1980s to address the humanitarian and development problems associated with landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO). It began as an engineering exercise that was focused on identifying and destroying weapons. However, it became apparent that the problem had more to do with the interactions of people and a mine-contaminated environment than it did with the technical characteristics of the weapons. By bringing human behaviour into the equation, mine action practitioners began to examine gender roles among affected populations and how gender might determine the degree of risk.

In the early 1990s, casualty trends emerged that showed men and boys were more vulnerable to death or injury from mine and UXO accidents than women and girls. This pattern was identified in a number of communities. Today, it is estimated that males suffer between 75 to 95 percent of all accidents. Many of the gender roles and occupations of males (such as military, farmers, hunters, etc.) lead them to be more vulnerable. At the same time, it was assumed that these roles meant that males were more informed about mine threat than females.

The casualty situation led many practitioners to focus risk-reduction activities on young men and boys. However, mines and UXO not only kill and injure but also significantly disrupt livelihoods and impede development activities. Landmines can block the use of productive land and contaminate schools, markets and roads. In sum, they can seriously impede the reconstruction process and affect an entire community-irrespective of gender.
By the mid-1990s, a new analytical and programmatic framework in which the social and economic effect of landmines on community development (as well casualties) was examined in order to devise priorities and risk-reduction strategies. It also analyzed outcomes related to mine action activities: who would benefit and how.

This analytical framework led to a greater focus on the community and development activities. Initially, however, this framework did not contain a gender analysis. Mine-action practitioners were somewhat resistant to gender analysis, because it seemed wasteful to dedicate resources to a segment of the population who were, by-and-large, not suffering accidents. Males and females were not equally involved in identifying mine-action priorities, particularly areas for demining. Information gathered from the male population seemed sufficient to identify the nature and scope of the threat.

However, recent efforts to include more women in the process have led to interesting insights. In Jordan, both men and women were interviewed to identify mine-contaminated areas. The result: they identified different areas as mined due to different daily activities and knowledge. In Cambodia, efforts to involve both men and women in identifying land to be cleared have shown different priorities.

In both cases, the gender of the participants gave them access to important information that the other group did not have. Excluding males or females can lead to lost information about the threat and missed development opportunities. In Mauritania, a national landmine impact survey was recently carried out by five gender-balanced teams in order to involve women in the survey process and to devise fairer and more effective priorities. Efforts such as these in mine action have collectively been referred to as "gender mainstreaming."

Within mine action, gender mainstreaming involves considering the separate needs and realities of women, men, boys and girls in all activities aimed at identifying the impact and mitigating the threat of landmines and UXO, whether it is through mine clearance, risk education, victim assistance or advocacy. Although there is still a long way to go to realize parity, most practitioners today have taken steps towards gender mainstreaming. This has included involving women in surveys, planning and prioritization processes and giving more women opportunities to be employed in mine action. These days, most people are aware that gender equality is a normative obligation and a human right, but in mine action it is also becoming increasingly clear that it is a practical necessity to achieve our humanitarian and development goals in the most effective manner possible.