Gender, Violence and the State in Asia

283 Pages·2016·3.815 MB·English

by  Amy Barrow

Gender, Violence and the State in Asia
While gender-based violence occurs in all societies irrespective of the level of
development or cultural setting, whether in confl ict or peacetime, the challenges
for legal responses to gender-based violence are particularly acute in Asia. This
book addresses the lack of academic discourse on gender-based violence in Asia
beyond domestic violence, by demonstrating that gendered violence exists within
many diff erent contexts and is perpetuated by multiple actors.
Bringing together scholars, legal practitioners and human rights advocates, the
book examines the intersections between gender, violence and the state in Asian
contexts. It considers the role of state institutions in perpetuating and preventing
violence based on gender and identity, and thus contributes to growing scholar-
ship around due diligence standards under international law. Analysing both phys-
ical and structural gender-based violence, it scrutinises how such violence exists
within a landscape shaped by distinct cultural norms, laws and policies, and grap-
ples with how to practically translate international human rights standards about
state responsibility into these complex domestic environments. Contributors from
diverse backgrounds draw on case studies and empirical research to ground this
academic scholarship in lived experiences of individuals and their communities
in Asia.
By bridging the divide between policy, laws and practice to off er a unique
insight into both theoretical and practical responses to how gender-based violence
is understood within communities and state institutions in Asian countries, this
book will appeal to students and scholars of Asian Studies, Gender Studies and Law.
Amy Barrow is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at The Chinese University
of Hong Kong, where she is a founding member of the Centre for Rights and
Justice.
Joy L. Chia is a program offi cer with the East Asia Program at the Open Society
Foundations.
Routledge Research on Gender in Asia Series
For a full list of titles visit www.routledge.com/Routledge-Research-on-Gender-
in-Asia-Series/book-series/RRGAS
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Gender, Violence and
the State in Asia
Edited by Amy Barrow and Joy L. Chia
First published 2016
by Routledge
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© 2016 Amy Barrow and Joy L. Chia
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Barrow, Amy (Law teacher), editor. |
Chia, Joy L. (Joy Li Fen) editor.
Title: Gender, violence and the state in Asia/Edited by Amy Barrow
and Joy L. Chia.
Description: New York, NY: Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge research on
gender in Asia; 13 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2015049071| ISBN 9781138101722 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781315656731 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Sex discrimination against women–Law and
legislation–Asia.
| Sex discrimination–Law and legislation–Asia. | Women–Violence
against–Asia. | Women–Crimes against–Asia. | Violence–Government
policy–Asia.
Classifi cation: LCC KM145.W64 G46 2016 | DDC 342.508/78–dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015049071
ISBN: 978-1-138-10172-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-65673-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Sunrise Setting Ltd, Brixham, UK
Contents
List of tables vii
Notes on contributors viii
Acknowledgements xiii
Table of international legal instruments xv
Introduction: framing gender, violence and the state in Asia 1
AMY BARROW AND JOY L. CHIA
1 Gender, violence and access to justice in international law 11
CHRISTINE CHINKIN
PART I
Gender, violence and states in transition 33
2 From transition to transformation in gender equality:
lessons from Asia 35
RITA SHACKEL
3 Women in post-war Sri Lanka: linking policy to reality 52
SHYAMALA GOMEZ
4 Violence, women and confl ict in Nepal 68
AMRITA GURUNG AND LILY THAPA
5 Implementing Security Council Resolution 1325 in Asia:
the role of national action plans on women, peace and security 84
AMY BARROW
PART II
Gender, violence and access to justice 101
6 Sexual assault under cover of national security laws in India 103
SURABHI CHOPRA
vi Contents
7 Public interest litigation on violence against women
in Bangladesh: possibilities and limits 119
SARA HOSSAIN
8 Dispute resolution and access to justice in rural China:
an analysis from a gender perspective 134
HUANG ZHONG
9 Bringing intersectionality home: delivering contextualised
justice in response to gender-based violence in Hong Kong 148
PUJA KAPAI
PART III
Transcending borders and boundaries
Negotiating gender, identity and violence 167
10 State violence, human-rights violations and the case
of apwint in Myanmar 169
LYNETTE J. CHUA AND DAVID GILBERT
11 Legislating inequalities: gender, sexuality and violence in China 186
JOY L. CHIA
12 PathFinders: supporting access to justice for pregnant
migrant workers and their children in Hong Kong 204
KAY McARDLE
13 Women against women? Rural women leaders’ role
in addressing gender-based violence in China 223
GAO WEI
14 Law, inequalities and diverse vulnerabilities: client-perpetrated
violence against female sex workers in Hong Kong 238
SUSANNE YUK-PING CHOI
Conclusion 255
AMY BARROW AND JOY L. CHIA
Index 260
Tables
14.1 Diversity of the sex industry in Hong Kong 243
14.2 Client-perpetrated violence reported in the 2006/2007 survey 244
14.3 Legal prohibitions related to sex work in Hong Kong 250
Notes on contributors
Amy Barrow is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at the Chinese Univer-
sity of Hong Kong, where she is a founding member of the Centre for Rights and
Justice and a member of the Gender Research Centre. Amy’s research expertise
includes UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and the development of norms on
women, peace and security; gender and the law; human rights; institutional mech-
anisms for the advancement of women; and socio-legal research methods. Amy
has a keen interest in how international law fi lters down to the grass-roots level
and is used by multiple actors in society. Within her work Amy adopts an interdis-
ciplinary approach and draws upon empirical research methods. She is a member
of the WILPF Academic Network, a think tank that focuses on issues of gender,
peace and security, and a founding coalition member of Everywoman Every-
where, a project of the International Commission on Violence against Women and
Girls, which grew out of research conducted by the Initiative on Violence against
Women at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights.
Joy L. Chia is a program offi cer with the East Asia Program at the Open Society
Foundations. She was a visiting scholar (honorary) at the Centre for Rights and Justice
at the Faculty of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong from 2012 to 2015. Joy was
previously the Asia Law and Justice Fellow at the Leitner Center for International Law
and Justice at Fordham Law School, and has worked on myriad human-rights issues,
including gender and sexuality, the rights of refugees and immigrants, public health,
and the protection of Chinese human-rights defenders and lawyers. She has also been
an Adjunct Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and at Fordham Law
School. Prior to her fellowship with the Leitner Center, she was a complex commer-
cial litigation associate at two large New York law fi rms, with a strong commitment to
pro bono work in asylum and family law. Joy is a graduate of Yale University and
Columbia University School of Law, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.
Christine Chinkin , FBA, is currently Director of the Centre for Women, Peace
and Security, a former Professor of International Law at the London School of
Economics, a William C. Cook Global Law Professor at the University of Michi-
gan Law School and an academic member of Matrix Chambers. She has degrees
in law from the Universities of London, Yale and Sydney. She is the author of
many articles on issues of international law, of H alsbury’s Laws of Australia , Title
on Foreign Relations (2nd edition 2001) and Third Parties in International Law
Notes on contributors ix
(1993); and co-author of D ispute Resolution in Australia (2nd edition 2002), The
Boundaries of International Law: A Feminist Analysis (2000) and T he Making of
International Law (2007). In April 2001 she was awarded the American Society of
International Law’s Certifi cate of Merit for ‘outstanding contribution to scholar-
ship’ and in 2006 the Society’s Goler T. Butcher Medal ‘for outstanding contribu-
tions to the development or eff ective realization of international human rights law’
(with H. Charlesworth). Professor Chinkin has been a consultant on traffi cking in
women to the UN Offi ce of the High Commissioner on Human Rights; and on
Peace Agreements and Gender to the UN Division for the Advancement of Women
and UNIFEM. She was a scientifi c expert to an Ad Hoc Committee of the Council
of Europe on the drafting of the Istanbul Convention on Preventing and Combat-
ing Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, 2011. She is currently a
member of the Kosovo Human Rights Advisory Panel.
Susanne Yuk-ping Choi is Professor at the Department of Sociology, the
Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her current research interests include gender,
family, health and migration. She has written extensively on issues related to vio-
lence against female sex workers in Chinese societies. Her co-authored work Mas-
culine Compromise: Migration, Family and Gender in China is to be published by
University of California Press. She has also been published by journals such as
American Journal of Sociology , Journal of Marriage and Family , International
Migration Review , The China Quarterly , Social Science and Medicine , Violence
against Women , Culture, Health and Sexuality , Journal of Interpersonal Violence ,
Aids Care , Sexually Transmitted Diseases , Sociology of Health and Illness and
British Journal of Sociology .
Surabhi Chopra is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law, Chinese Uni-
versity of Hong Kong. She researches national security laws, mass violence and
the rights of the poor in South Asia. She co-edited “On Their Watch: Mass Vio-
lence and State Apathy in India” (New Delhi: Three Essays Collective 2014). Pro-
fessor Chopra has worked as a barrister and human rights consultant. Her
experience includes work with, inter alia , the International Development Research
Centre, Tooks Chambers, Human Rights Watch, ActionAid, UNICEF and India’s
National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights. She studied law, human
rights and anthropology, and was educated at Cambridge and Harvard Universities
and the London School of Economics.
Lynette J. Chua is a law and society scholar with research interests in law and
social change, and law and social movements. She is conducting fi eldwork and
writing on the emergence of sexual minority rights mobilisation in Myanmar at a
time of political transition. She has also conducted an ethnographic study of
Singapore’s gay and lesbian movement to analyse the emergence, development,
and strategies and tactics of the movement, and explore the complex role of law and
meanings of rights. Her book, M obilizing Gay Singapore: Rights and Resistance
in an Authoritarian State , received the 2015 Distinguished Book Award from the
Sociology of Law Section of the American Sociological Association. Her work is
also published in Law and Society Review, Human Rights Quarterly and the
Asian Journal of Law and Society.