CONCEPTS Concepts 1. Gender and gender mainstreaming WHO describes ‘gender’ as the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.16 While a person’s sex as male or female is a biological fact, which is the same in any culture, what that sex means in terms of a person’s gender role as a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’ in society can be quite different cross culturally.17 In sociological terms ‘gender role’ refers to the characteristics and behaviours that different cultures attribute to the sexes.18 Inequalities based on gender are prevalent in all societies to different degrees, with women enjoying less power than men in most spheres of life. This unequal balance of power is exacerbated in societies where other factors, such as religious or cultural norms, assign women a lesser status. Such power imbalances and social or cultural attitudes or beliefs are most often intensified in closed environments, which mirror the outside society in a way which is all the more pronounced. Promoting gender mainstreaming in places of deprivation of liberty is a long-term process, which involves not only changing the attitudes, policies and practices in these places, but also in wider society, in order to achieve durable change. Nevertheless, changing specific laws, rules, policies, procedures and practices can have a real and immediate impact on the protection of women from torture and ill-treatment. In all cases the training of staff on the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment, conducting independent investigations of complaints and bringing perpetrators to justice when ill-treatment occurs, are fundamental to the protection of all persons deprived of their liberty against torture and ill-treatment, including women. Monitoring bodies are advised therefore to look into the issue of staff training in institutions where women are held, using the Bangkok Rules20 as a benchmark to assess the shortcomings and develop recommendations. 2. Discrimination and violence against women The term ‘gender mainstreaming’ originated in United Nations policy language in 1997 when the Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC) agreed that ‘Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective into all Policies and Programmes of the United Nations System’ be performed. The Council defines gender mainstreaming as: ‘Integration of gender concerns into the analyses, formulation and monitoring of policies, programmes and projects, with the objective of ensuring that these reduce inequalities’.19 The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Article 1 describes the term ‘discrimination against women’ as ‘any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field’. The concept of gender mainstreaming is of key importance when applied to policies and programmes in places of deprivation of liberty. In these closed environments, where societal attitudes and power structures are reflected in an intensified way, women’s powerlessness and sense of powerlessness is increased. At the same time, perhaps paradoxically, women’s gender specific needs are recognised to an even lesser extent than in society at large, due to the fact that places of detention, are male dominated worlds with little recognition and understanding of gender related needs, with the exception, perhaps, of those needs which relate to child-birth and pregnancy. The most extreme form of discrimination faced by women is gender-based violence, that is, ‘violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately. It includes acts that inflict physical, mental or sexual harm or suffering, threats of such acts, coercion and other deprivations of liberty.’21 Gender-based violence amounts to ill-treatment and depending on the circumstances and nature of the violence, to torture. One of the gravest forms of gender based violence is rape. Women may be subjected to rape in places of deprivation of liberty as a means of coercion to elicit 16. See http://www.who.int/gender-equity-rights/understanding/gender-definition/en/ 17. Ann-Maree Nobelius (23 June 2004). ‘What is the difference between sex and gender?’. Monash University. http://www.med.monash.edu.au/ gendermed/sexandgender.html. <accessed 24 November 2015>. 18. ‘What is the difference between sex and gender?’ Monash University, op.cit. 19. E/1997/66, 12 June 1997. 20. Bangkok Rules, Rules 29 to 35. 21. CEDAW General Recommendation No. 19, para. 6. Penal Reform International | Women in Detention: a guide to gender-sensitive monitoring |5