Term

Gender-based violence

Gender-based violence refers to a violent act in which the affected person or perpetrator’s sex and gender play a role. The term also refers to systemic violence, i.e. societal heteronormative gender hierarchies. Gender-based violence is understood to be any act of violence directed against an individual or group due to their sex, socially assigned gender, and/or socially constructed gender role. 

Gender-based violence includes but is not limited to crimes of a sexual nature, such as so-called honor killings and intimate partner violence. Racism, classism, xenophobia and Islamophobia often play a role in gender-based violence’s patterns and forms.

A gender analysis of a particular conflict or crime site enhances the understanding of underlying social inequalities behind the violence. It shines a light on which experiences were reported on, by whom as well as gaps within investigations with respect to for example gender, religion or ethnicity.

Syria

Survivors: Sexual violence by Syrian intelligence services are crimes against humanity

Sexual violence

German authorities must finally prosecute sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Syrian detention centers for what it is: a crime against humanity. This is the aim of a criminal complaint that seven survivors of Bashar al-Assad’s torture system submitted in June 2020 to the German Federal Public Prosecutor in Karlsruhe.