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Abstract
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Datasets on small arms and armed violence can be key to understanding and responding to the gendered aspects of lethal violence. A wealth of global, regional, and national datasets documenting violent deaths, unplanned explosions at munitions sites (UEMS), firearm holdings, and transparency in the arms trade have the potential to highlight relevant gen- dered dynamics. But the sex and gender components of these datasets are not well understood. The present study, which is designed to assess this knowledge gap, is conducted in the context of states' recent commitments to enhancing the collection and sharing of data on a number of indicators related to small arms and development—commitments that, if implemented, would allow policymakers and practitioners to better assess and address the gendered aspects of lethal violence.
Key findings
- The gender relevance of most violent deaths datasets is currently low. A majority of countries have only recently started to provide sex-disaggregated homicide data, while the numbers of female fatalities in ongoing armed conflicts are almost completely unknown.
- Increased awareness of the urbanization of conflicts and their impacts on civilians has brought new developments in data collection methods, including work to support measuring progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
- Femicide, which is a specific form of gender-based violence (GBV), is currently the focus of a number of monitoring and advocacy initiatives that are likely to generate relevant data for analysis and policymaking.
Global multilateral forums increasingly reflect political support for and commitment to better data collection and dissemination for a range of related lethal violence, small arms, and gender indicators. This includes donor-supported initiatives for strengthening relevant capacity.
- Civil society and academia play important roles in collecting and analysing data. Ultimately, both official and independently generated data will be needed to produce more holistic and detailed pictures of the gendered impacts of lethal violence.
The collection and analysis of sex-disaggregated data on violent deaths is essential for understanding and respond- ing to many kinds of armed violence. Lethal violence, including firearm violence, is highly gendered, with the majority of both victims and perpetrators being male, and with most of the female victims being killed as a result of GBV committed by men. Addressing GBV—that is, violence that is motivated or directed at victims because of their gender—requires data on male and female victimization. Intimate partner violence (IPV)—a widespread form of GBV that occurs across societies world- wide—occurs in both conflict-affected and non-conflict-affected contexts and, in aggregate, has mostly female victims (Mc Evoy and Hideg, 2017, pp. 71–74). Further, as more nuanced understandings of gender become mainstreamed in societies and encompass, for example, new categories (trans, intersex, and non- binary), our assessment of the uses of violence in relation to these gender identities needs to keep up with such developments. The question arises, for example, as to whether trans, intersex, and non- binary persons are more susceptible to suffering lethal violence than others. Sound data will be necessary to answer these and other related questions.
In societies where data on violent deaths (and even non-fatal injuries) is available in sex-disaggregated form, relevant baseline data has contributed to policy responses that address gendered aspects of gun violence, including intimate partner homicides. One prominent example is a set of legal prohibitions on firearm possession and ownership by people (overwhelmingly men) convicted of violence against an intimate partner (overwhelmingly women). Examples of these laws enacted in Australia and the United States show that they are associated with a reduction in intimate partner homicides.
The benefits of developing and analysing datasets containing sex- and age-disaggregated data include gaining a much more refined and nuanced understanding of violence directed at youths and adults of all genders. Further, because men are by far the major perpetrators of violence against both women and other men, we cannot advance our under- standing of how personal and societal perceptions of masculinity relate to violence without rich sources of relevant data being available for analysis. Better data that includes sexual orientation and gender identity information would also allow for more sophisticated research |