Tool 2: Policing and Gender power relations. Without integrating a gender perspective in the justice sector, gender power hierarchies are sustained, with their associated violence and other harms. 2.2 Individuals’ experiences of crime and injustice are gendered Gender matters to the justice sector because experiences of crime and injustice are gendered and because women have been the primary or only victims of certain forms of violence, usually perpetrated by men. For instance, women and men often experience violent crime differently, in different spaces and by different perpetrators. GBV is an umbrella term for any harmful act that is perpetrated against a person’s will and is based on socially ascribed (gender) differences between females and males. Examples include sexual violence, including sexual exploitation/abuse and forced prostitution; domestic violence; trafficking; forced/early marriage; harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation; honour killings; widow inheritance; and homophobic and transphobic violence. GBV can take the form of physical, sexual, psychological, verbal or socio-economic harm.6 While the nature and extent of GBV vary between cultures and societies, violence against women and girls and against LGBTI people is high in most societies. To give an indication of the scope of violence against women, the World Health Organization estimates that 35 per cent of women worldwide have experienced either non-intimate-partner sexual violence or intimate-partner physical and/or sexual violence.7 Beyond gendered experiences of crime, women and men often have different experiences of injustice more generally; for example, in relation to land ownership or inheritance. 2.3 Gender biases impact upon justice Access to justice and the type of justice received are also often gendered. Women, girls, men and boys tend to have different experiences within the justice sector when a victim or perpetrator of crime. Sexual orientation and gender identity, ethnicity, race, religion, social or other status can add to and exacerbate the effects of gender-based discrimination, and need to be considered and addressed in an intersectional way. In any society, “gender bias” shapes the way people act and are treated and can influence judges’ and juries’ assessments of guilt or innocence, and indeed all aspects of the operation of the justice system (see Box 2). Box 2: Gender bias Gender bias refers to prejudiced thoughts and/or actions based on assumptions of inequality or gendered stereotypes, leading to the advantaging or disadvantaging of individuals or groups based upon their gender. Examples are assumptions about how women, men, girls and boys should behave and typically do behave; what is feminine or masculine; and what constitutes “a good woman” or “a real man”. Gender bias interacts with other forms of prejudice, including against LGBTI persons. Gender bias works at various levels and can be difficult to identify, especially if biases are implicit and so ingrained that they have become unconscious or embedded in structures and procedures. The stereotypes which have informed attitudes may not even be consciously acknowledged. Some examples of the operation of gender bias in the justice system are as follows. Ê Men are assumed to be more aggressive and criminogenic than women, and so tend to be incarcerated more. This is particularly the case if they are also young, indigenous or from an ethnic minority.8 9