The adoption of United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1325 in October 2000 signaled a new normative framework on women, peace, and security (WPS). In this resolution, the Security Council acknowledged, for the first time, the gendered nature of armed conflict and recognized women as actors in peacemaking and peacebuilding (Cohn Reference Cohn, Rai and Waylen2008). Since then, significant milestones have been reached in terms of raising awareness about gender issues in conflict and peace processes, improving responses to wartime sexual violence, and increasing the representation of women in international institutions and peace missions. In 2013, however, when the Security Council declared its intention to increase its attention to WPS issues in its agenda on threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts, its WPS and counterterrorism agendas began to converge.Footnote 1 This convergence culminated in the adoption of Resolution 2242 on WPS in 2015, which calls on member states and the UN to work toward the greater integration of their own agendas on WPS, counterterrorism, and countering violent extremism. Resolution 2242 also requires member states and the UN system to adopt a gender-sensitive approach to counterterrorism and countering violent extremism, to consult with women's organizations, and to increase the number of women in leadership positions in bodies mandated to counter terrorism and violent extremism. Since the adoption of the resolution, the connection between violent extremism and WPS has become institutionalized in the work of the Security Council. In December 2015, in the UN Secretary-General's Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism, which introduced a new global counterterrorism structure and strategies, the secretary-general called for the protection and empowerment of women as a central consideration in strategies against terrorism and violent extremism, in line with Security Council Resolution 2242 (UN General Assembly 2015).
One of the challenges of including countering violent extremism in the WPS agenda is that there is no agreed-upon definition of what constitutes violent extremism or terrorism (Schomerus, El Taraboulsi-McCarthy, and Sandhar Reference Schomerus, Taraboulsi-McCarthy and Sandhar2017). Resolution 2242 was adopted in the aftermath of the high-profile kidnapping and sexual enslavement of 276 Chibok girls by Boko Haram in Borno State in Nigeria and of 6,800 Yazidis women and girls in Sinjar, in northern Iraq, by the so-called Islamic State (Cetorelli et al. Reference Cetorelli, Sasson, Shabila and Burnham2017). Although the resolution does not mention Islam or Islamic extremism, during the open debate held at the Security Council on October 13 and 14, 2015, references to Boko Haram and the Islamic State were made repeatedly by representatives of member states (UN Security Council 2015). While acknowledging that “violent extremism remains a diverse phenomenon, without a clear definition,” the Secretary-General's Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism adopted shortly after Resolution 2242 focuses entirely on Islamic extremist groups, with the exception of one reference to the Norwegian far-right extremist Anders Breivik (UN General Assembly 2015, 1). As a result, Muslim-majority member states, feeling targeted, resisted the Plan of Action and insisted on the need to distance Islam from violent extremism (Ucko Reference Ucko2018). Without agreed-upon definitions of terrorism and violent extremism, the policy shift to include these in the focus of the WPS agenda is problematic.
When Resolution 2242 was adopted, many feminist scholars warned that, based on the legacy of the so-called war on terror waged in the aftermath of 9/11, including violent extremism in the WPS framework would cause irreversible damage. The war on terror primarily targets Muslims and Muslim states as the source of terrorism and so far has resulted in colossal destruction, insecurity, and suffering. Ní Aoláin (Reference Ní Aoláin2016) in particular argues that because women do not get to define what constitutes terrorism or decide on the terms of their engagement with the counterterrorism agenda, such a policy shift would reinforce gender essentialism and confer legitimacy on counterterrorism measures, resulting in greater insecurity for women.
This article contributes to the wider debate on the UN resolution on WPS and countering violent extremism by adding supporting evidence from field research in Kenya to Ní Aoláin's argument that it is dangerous to associate these two agendas. I argue that in the Kenyan context, integrating countering violent extremism with the WPS agenda has failed to change the country's androcentric, militaristic, racialized, elitist, and top-down approach to conceptualizing and responding to violent extremism. The absence of a gender-centered and locally relevant definition of violent extremism has left the sources of extremism and insecurity in the lives of women in Kenya largely untouched. Far from improving gender security, this policy shift has exacerbated discrimination against women of Muslim minorities, redirected funding from peacebuilding and development-focused projects, and increased the insecurity experienced by local communities. Based on the findings of the Kenyan case study, I argue that unless the concept of violent extremism is redefined to include sources of gender insecurities, the risk to the WPS framework is extremely high. Such risk is heightened by the WPS resolutions’ weak commitments to gender equality, silence on race and intersectionality, and problematic stance on gender security. For the WPS project to be saved, its agenda must be reinvented to encapsulate a feminist security perspective that challenges rather than condones militarism, imperialism, colonialism, racism, inequality, and exclusion.
The article starts with a summary of the methodology, followed by four main sections: the first begins with a brief discussion of feminist literature and a critique of the WPS agenda; the second section discusses violent extremism in Kenya; the third examines the implementation of the WPS resolutions in countering violent extremism in Kenya; and the fourth describes the implications of integrating countering violent extremism within the WPS agenda for women and local communities in Kenya. The article concludes by discussing the main findings in light of feminist theory and literature.
METHODOLOGY
This article is based on rich empirical data and reflections derived from fieldwork conducted in 2018 studying the international, national, and local integration of countering violent extremism with the WPS agenda.Footnote 2 Interviews were conducted in Kenya in January and February 2018 and in New York in the spring of 2018. The choice of Kenya was motivated by ease of access, the recent rise in violent extremist-related incidents, and the fact that Kenya is a diverse country with a sizeable Muslim minority. Nairobi was selected for its ethnic and religious diversity, the frequency of terrorism-related incidents and counterterrorism operations, and the convenient presence of a large number of international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), donor agencies, civil society organizations, and policy makers.
The participants in this study were selected both purposefully and using a snowball technique based on their professional background and expertise. As this research was focused on the policy level, the research participants’ selection criteria did not include victims of violent extremism, and I did not actively seek to speak to them. I conducted semistructured interviews with 20 key informants drawn from civil society organizations and from researchers and security experts working on violent extremism and/or gender issues with a focus on WPS.
Although this project was focused on the policy level, the research also included conversations with members of the local communities of Majengo and Eastleigh in Nairobi. It is through these conversations that personal narratives about victimization at the hand of extremist groups and government agents emerged. Besides these, I conducted 13 interviews with members of UN agencies and the international community in New York (10) and in Kenya (3). The study received ethical clearance for conducting the fieldwork, and I strictly followed all the ethical guidance provided by the review boards in relation to conducting research on sensitive topics. The names of all the participants cited in this article have been changed for the purpose of anonymity.Footnote 3
FEMINIST CRITIQUE OF THE WOMEN, PEACE, AND SECURITY AGENDA
Although the WPS agenda was celebrated as a breakthrough, many feminist scholars have criticized it for compromising on important feminist principles. One such critique relates to the WPS framework's treatment of “gender” as synonymous with “women.” One of the main contributions of feminism is to reconstitute gender as a social category and, in doing so, to challenge biological certainties and treat gender differences as socially constructed, fluid, and contestable. Feminists have discussed how gender, as both a discursive system and an analytical category, is used to signify power and promote violence and conflict. Peterson (Reference Peterson and Peterson1992), Tickner (Reference Tickner1992), and many others have highlighted the role of gendered ideologies and identities in producing and reproducing violence and structural insecurities, calling on governments to radically change the way they conceptualize and deliver security.
Scholars such as Shepherd (Reference Shepherd2008) and Charlesworth and Chinkin (Reference Charlesworth and Chinkin2006) have argued that Resolution 1325 treats “gender” as synonymous with “women” and, in doing so, fails to recognize the relational quality of gender representation. Otto (Reference Otto2006, 167) argues that “without active contestation of gender dualities and hierarchies, the ‘mindset’ will never change, and the purportedly social understanding of gender will blur with the biological certainties that have legitimated militarism and women's inequality.” Feminist scholars have problematized the WPS resolutions’ failure to address the structural factors that constrain and inhibit women's agency while at the same time trying to push for women's inclusion. Otto (2010, 106) argues that “the loudest silence characterizing resolution 1325 is the absence of any reference to addressing the structural causes of women's inequality, like women's economic marginalization, which must be addressed before the rhetoric of participation has any hope of translating into practice.” Without addressing the broader social hierarchies of gender, women's participation in the male-dominated and conceptualized security sphere will not result in any meaningful transformation and no alternative perspective on peace and security will emerge.
The second main feminist criticism of the WPS framework that is relevant to this study is the resolutions’ approach to security. Feminist scholars have fundamentally reconfigured the concept of security as a state of being in which all forms of violence and exploitation—physical, structural, and ecological—are diminished (Enloe Reference Enloe1990; Tickner Reference Tickner1997). Scholars such as Cockburn (Reference Cockburn1998, Reference Cockburn, Giles and Hyndman2004), Tickner (Reference Tickner1992), and Enloe (Reference Enloe1993, Reference Enloe2010) have all demonstrated that women experience violence as a continuum. Feminist scholars have linked gender inequality to militarism. Tickner (Reference Tickner1992) argues that institutionalized gender inequality creates a society that accepts the use of force. Caprioli (Reference Caprioli2000) provides convincing statistical evidence of the link between gender inequality indicators and states’ likelihood of engaging in conflict and violence. The meaning of “security” in the WPS framework has been problematized by feminist scholars who find its exclusive focus on conflict and postconflict contexts, failure to condemn militarism, overemphasis on conflict-related sexual violence, and silence regarding gender equality, particularly in terms of access to power and resources, highly problematic.
Meintjes, Pillay, and Turshen (Reference Meintjes, Pillay and Turshen2001) argue that there is no postconflict for women, since the violence they experience during conflict does not end with the negotiation of a peace deal. Violence against women, as Eisenstein (Reference Eisenstein2007) elucidates, is a parallel form of war on women in times of conflict as well as peace. McLeod (Reference McLeod2011, 495) argues that the demarcation between conflict and postconflict “is a discourse with contested temporal and special aspects [ . . . ] where certain ways are thrown into focus and others are downplayed.”
Feminist scholars have also decried the failure of the WPS resolutions to condemn war, militarism, and the arms race (Cockburn Reference Cockburn2007). Shepherd (Reference Shepherd2016) argues that the lack of commitment to antimilitarism in the WPS agenda has resulted in policies that make war safer for women without actively seeking to end conflicts, thus bolstering the militarism and elite-centric security governance that the resolutions are meant to challenge. Feminist scholars have also criticized the overemphasis on conflict-related sexual violence in the WPS agenda, contrasting this with its silence on sexual violence by civilians and in peacetime, making the latter seem ordinary and even tolerable (Aroussi Reference Aroussi2017; Eriksson Baaz and Stern Reference Eriksson Baaz and Stern2013; Henry Reference Henry2014). Ní Aoláin, Haynes, and Cahn (Reference Ní Aoláin, Haynes and Cahn2012) argue that the WPS resolution prioritizes sexual violence at the expense of other concerns for women that may be more closely linked to achieving their real security.
Scholars have called for the transformation of the WPS concept of security to include women's social, economic, political, and legal security (Aroussi Reference Aroussi2015). This is particularly important as gender inequality is thought to be linked to violence, conflict, and militarism. In the absence of a strong WPS emphasis on gender equality and without seeking to transform the structures that produce and sustain power inequality and economic, social, and political marginalization, this new policy shift will feed further into a gendered construction of state and international security that privileges, if not encourages, violence and militarism.
The third feminist criticism of the WPS framework that is relevant to this discussion is its failure to acknowledge how various forms of inequality and oppression, such as racism, ethnocentrism, colonialism, heterosexism, and class privilege, among others, intersect with gender oppression to buttress inequality and exclusion. Feminist scholars have condemned the resolutions’ treatment of “women” as a homogenous category with similar needs and priorities. Jansson and Eduards (Reference Jansson and Eduards2016) argue that the WPS resolutions divide women into two homogenous categories—voiceless victims and representatives and protectors of other women—silencing all other differences such as class, caste, race, ethnicity, nationality, and geographic location. Here, relationships among women are considered nonhierarchical and devoid of gender power and dominance, and in this way, the WPS framework reproduces and reinforces inequality among women.
Scholars have particularly questioned the power of speaking security within the WPS framework (Basu Reference Basu2013; Sjoberg Reference Sjoberg2011; Wibben Reference Wibben2011) and called for an intersectional approach that takes into consideration the diversity of women's voices and the differences among women in terms of race, ethnicity, and class privilege. Hoewer (Reference Hoewer2013) highlights the silence of the WPS framework on the ethnonationalist cleavages in the context of Northern Ireland that have resulted in women's exclusion from the male-dominated peace process. Martin de Almagro (Reference Martin de Almagro2018) argues that implementing the WPS framework in the global South has primarily benefited local upper-middle-class, English-speaking, educated, and well-connected elites, who have become intermediaries between the international community and grassroots women's groups. Pratt (Reference Pratt2013, 773), using a postcolonial feminist lens, criticizes the absence of race in the WPS framework, arguing that the UN body of resolutions on WPS privileges gender above race, class, or other significant relations of power in understanding women's experiences and responses to conflict and in doing so “re-inscribes racial–sexual hierarchies in international security, evoking continuities and discontinuities with colonialism.” Read in this way, the WPS framework becomes “a process of securitization, in which women and girls in conflict areas are constituted as the objects of security, ‘brown men’ as threats to international peace and security, and the international community as the legitimate agents of security” (Pratt Reference Pratt2013, 777). The protection of women and girls in this securitization discourse becomes a justification for interventionist wars, militarism, and violence. In her discussion of security as emancipation, Basu (Reference Basu2013) argues that unless there is a fundamental change in the production and nature of power, listening to the experiences of the subjugated narrated by elites, while still important, is not enough to deliver security. Instead, we should go far beyond disrupting “power over” to reconceptualize power as the capacity to empower oneself and others.
VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA: A CONTINUUM OF VIOLENCE
Kenya has lived through a series of terrorism-related incidents, linked to global politics and transnational terrorist networks such as Al-Qaeda, including the 1980 Norfolk hotel bombing and the murderous 1998 attack on the U.S. embassy that killed 213 people and injured around 4,000 others. In 2011, following a number of abductions of foreign tourists and aid workers by Al-Shabaab, an Islamist insurgent group based in Somalia, the Kenyan government launched the military Operation Linda Nchi against Al-Shabaab in southern Somalia with 2,000 members of the Kenyan Defense Forces (Rye Olsen Reference Rye Olsen2018). By early June 2012, the Kenyan forces had been formally integrated into the African Union Mission in Somalia, a regional peace support mission composed of 22,000 troops from six African countries (Rye Olsen Reference Rye Olsen2011). As a result, since 2011, retaliatory attacks by Al-Shabaab targeting police stations, police vehicles, night clubs, bars, churches, shops, and buses in Nairobi, Mombasa, and the North Eastern Province have intensified (Williams Reference Williams2014). The deadliest attacks linked to Al-Shabaab in Kenya have been the 2013 Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, killing 67 people, and the 2015 massacre in Garissa at Garissa University College, in which 148 people died (Villa-Vicencio, Buchanan-Clarke, and Humphrey Reference Villa-Vicencio, Buchanan-Clarke and Humphrey2016). Most recently, in January 2019, an attack on the DusitD2 hotel complex in Nairobi left 21 dead (Sevenzo, Karimi, and Smith-Spark Reference Sevenzo, Karimi and Smith-Spark2019).
As a result of this violence, the Kenyan government's 2016 National Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism adopted a definition of violent extremism focusing on Islamic extremism and groups such as Al-Shabaab and the “Islamic State”:
There are multiple forms of violent extremism but the main threat to Kenya is based on Salafi-Jihadi ideology that is embraced by Al Shabaab group (Harakat Al-Shabaab Al-Mujahidin), Al Qaeda's affiliate in the Horn of Africa, and other terrorist organizations such as Dae'sh (ISIS) that seek ‘entry’ into the Horn of Africa. (Government of Kenya 2016b, 9)
This framing, as I will argue, is based on a narrow, top-down, state-centered, and donor-led approach to what counts as violent extremism and does not reflect the nature of this phenomenon in the country or the multifaceted insecurity experienced in local communities every day.
With growing concern about Al-Shabaab, the Kenyan state has employed overtly militarized counterterrorism operations and hard security responses targeting Muslim and Somali communities (Luengo-Cabrera and Pauwels Reference Luengo-Cabrera and Pauwels2016). For instance, in April 2014, Operation Usalama Watch, which was conducted to flush out Al-Shabaab supporters, involved house-to-house searches and indiscriminately targeted the entire Muslim and particularly ethnic Somali communities in Eastleigh and Mombasa with arbitrary mass arrests, inhumane treatment, harassment, extortion, deportation, relocation, extrajudicial killings, and forced disappearances (Ndung'u, Salifu, and Sigsworth Reference Ndung'u, Salifu and Sigsworth2017, 20; Villa-Vicencio, Buchanan-Clarke, and Humphrey Reference Villa-Vicencio, Buchanan-Clarke and Humphrey2016, 2). The state's use of violence resulted in the deaths of 58 innocent civilians between 2011 and 2017 (University of Uppsala Conflict database 2017). This counterproductive hard security response to Al-Shabaab has been likened “to killing mosquito with a hammer” (Lind, Mutahi, and Oosterom Reference Lind, Mutahi and Oosterom2017, 119).
Rather than curbing Al-Shabaab's violence, Kenya's beefed-up approach to counterterrorism has led to an increase in the number of attacks in the country (Lind, Mutahi, and Oosterom Reference Lind, Mutahi and Oosterom2017). Many members of the Muslim and particularly Somali communities see the excessive use of violence by the antiterrorism police as state-led violent extremism. For instance, Maria, a gender expert and a member of a peacebuilding NGO in Kenya with experience of conducting research on violent extremism argued,
When asked about violent extremism, people were telling us that according to them the police were the violent extremists. Why? Because it was them who came to their homes in the middle of the night, ransacked their houses and took their children away. So this was very much experience-based. (interview, February 5, 2018, NGO, Nairobi)
Therefore, the national counterterrorism's exclusive focus on Al-Shabaab and Islamic extremism, particularly in a country with a sizeable Muslim and ethnic Somali minority, is very problematic.
Besides the threat of Al-Shabaab and Islamic extremism, Kenya has also experienced high-level political violence from political elites aiming to cripple and silence the opposition (Mwangi Kagwanja Reference Mwangi Kagwanja2003). For instance, in March 1975, two bombs were used in central Nairobi to target the politician J. M. Kariuki, resulting in the death of many civilians (Ngotho Reference Ngotho2018). Political violence motivated by rivalry over access to land, power, and resources and linked to communal and criminal violence typically peaks with each election (Kanyinga Reference Kanyinga2009). In 2007, election violence caused the deaths of 1,133 people and the displacement of 600,000 others and almost drove the country to civil war (Barkan Reference Barkan2013). Violent groups such as the Mungiki are frequently mobilized at the time of elections to terrorize civilians and commit mass atrocities, including gang rape and sexual violence (Kiman Reference Kiman2016).Footnote 4
The level of interclan violence linked to the struggle for political power, land, and resources is also extremely high in Kenya. According to Uppsala University's Conflict Database, interclan violence in Kenya claimed the lives of 991 civilians between 2011 and 2017 compared with 382 civilians murdered by Al-Shabaab during the same period (Uppsala University Conflict Database 2017). Yet in Kenya, this kind of politically motivated violence is depoliticized, masked as criminal or communal violence, and dismissively referred to as thuggery, crime, cattle rustling, or ethnic, land, or border clashes (Mwangi Kagwanja Reference Mwangi Kagwanja2003). The informal character of such violence has allowed the Kenyan state to claim victim status and thus evade accountability (Mwangi Kagwanja Reference Mwangi Kagwanja2003).
All of these factors contribute to the significant difference between what the government considers violent extremism and what the local population and civil society organizations define as violent extremism. Many respondents who are members of communities and civil society organizations in Kenya argued that the activities of groups such as the Mungiki, the Kaya Bombo, and the Mombasa Republican Council are also forms of violent extremism. For instance, George, a director of a local peacebuilding NGO working with local communities on youth and violence argued,
Many researchers make the mistake of confining extremism to extreme Islamic ideologies and groups. But extremism in Kenya is not confined to religion. The coast, for the longest time, has had organized criminal groups such as the Kaya Bombo and the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC). There is a link between crime and violent extremism. These criminal groups are a form of violent extremism [in] the way they operate and their activities, which are both violent and extreme. (interview, February 8, 2018, Nairobi)
Hekima, a Muslim woman from Nairobi, the mother of two teenage boys who had lost their lives in violent extremism, explained,
Violent extremism goes beyond Islamic extremism and Al-Shabaab. For example, there are gangs and militias that are killing people in Majengo and Eastleigh. It is not just about Islamic radicalization or going to Somalia. We also have other internal issues related to gangs and violence. (interview, February 12, 2018, community member, Nairobi)
The way in which local actors understand violent extremism is largely shaped by their personal experience of violence and influenced by their gender, ethnicity, religion, social class, and geographic location. For instance, while some see the Mombasa Republican Council as a violent extremist group, others, particularly those living along the coast, see the group as a political movement with a legitimate purpose. Likewise, many Kenyan Somalis living in areas such as Eastleigh perceive police brutality as a form of state-sponsored violent extremism, a view that would not be shared by others who have not been affected by police heavy-handedness.
In defining violent extremism, it is important to understand not only what is counted but also what is left out. In Kenya's national counterterrorism strategy, the focus on Al-Shabaab as the source of violent extremism epitomizes the public-private dichotomy reflecting a male perspective on violence that prioritizes the public over the private realm. Kenya is a deeply patriarchal society with very high gender inequality and violence against women. Research in this area demonstrated that sexual and gender-based violence make up a key part of the violence committed during elections and political transition (Thomas, Masinjila, and Bere Reference Thomas, Masinjila and Bere2013). During the 2007 postelection crisis in Kenya, hospitals in some areas saw three times the normal intake of rape and gang rape casualties (Thomas, Masinjila, and Bere Reference Thomas, Masinjila and Bere2013). Yet the government has done very little to prevent this form of violence or to ensure that survivors are able to access justice and reparation (Shackel and Fiske Reference Shackel and Fiske2016).
In 2011, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) expressed concern about the prevalence of patriarchal attitudes, negative gender stereotypes, and harmful cultural norms, practices, and traditions in all spheres of life in Kenya, and it condemned the government's failure to take serious action to modify or eliminate these (CEDAW 2011). The committee warned that such stereotypes contribute to the persistence of violence against women, including violence at the hands of intimate partners, sexual violence, female genital mutilation, polygamy, bride price, and wife inheritance (ibid). According to 2014 data from UN Women, the percentage of women experiencing lifetime physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence in Kenya was 40.7% (UN Women 2018). Child marriage and female genital mutilation in the country were also high, at 23% and 21%, respectively (UN Women 2018). Gender-based violence, although it is prevalent particularly in informal settlements (Swart Reference Swart2012), is not defined as violent extremism in Kenya.
Since the 2007 postelection violence and the adoption of the 2010 Constitution, Kenya has moved toward establishing devolved institutions at the county level. Influenced by the devolution process but perhaps also in recognition of the different challenges of violent extremism facing its various counties the Kenyan government decided to develop county-level action plans on counterterrorism and violent extremism. Although the Kenyan government organized, in the development of these plans, county-level consultations with local communities on how to tackle violent extremism, there was no scope in this process for redefining violent extremism from a local or a gender perspective.
While recognizing the diversity of what constitutes local priorities, my interviewees did not highlight countering violent extremism, particularly when narrowly defined as Islamic extremism, as a local priority.Footnote 5 Many members of civil society organizations argued that defining violent extremism as Islamic extremism is the result of donor-led Western agendas. Lucy, a member of a peacebuilding NGO, stated,
Violent extremism in Kenya is mainly a priority for the security actors and for donors. Who is funding the countering violent extremism programs? It is the Western countries. They are funding it because as the years progress this has become a migration concern, and so it is in their interest that this is managed. The fear in Western countries cannot be underestimated. This is about Western governments being terrified of migration and the idea that all these extremists are going to go there and threaten their populations. (interview, February 11, 2018, Nairobi)
Participants also argued that countering the violence of groups such as Al-Shabaab has become a priority for the Kenyan government and security forces because it is a source of funding and foreign aid, but addressing the other sources of insecurity that they experience every day, particularly police brutality, gang-related violence, and gender-based violence, is far more important than defeating Al-Shabaab. Members of civil society organizations maintained that violent extremism in Kenya is not ideologically driven, as stated in the National Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism, but rather intrinsically linked to economic, political, and social marginalization. In their view, the local priorities should be development, gender equality, peace, and human rights, rather than tackling Al-Shabaab. Maria elucidated,
Countering violent extremism is not a priority for the people here unless we refocus on prevention and we take it back to what it was originally—that is, development, peacebuilding, and human rights; but then it's not sexy for Western governments. (interview, February 5, 2018, Nairobi)
Maria concluded that understandably those who are struggling daily to survive do not see tackling violent extremist groups such as Al-Shabaab as a priority.
Despite the strong emerging evidence of linkages between economic and political marginalization, grievances against the state, and recruitment into groups such as Al-Shahab (Allan et al. Reference Allan, Glazzard, Jesperson, Reddy-Tumu and Winterbotham2015), the Kenyan government continues to focus on ideology as the driver of violent extremism, ignoring the root causes of this problem. Ian, a representative of a donor government based in Nairobi stated,
From conversations with our counterparts, the government of Kenya, through their national strategy, are very much focused on ideology being kind of the sole driver for violent extremism in Kenya. But there are other more structural issues that are enabling the environment for recruitment and for people to join extremist groups, like major political grievances—things like marginalization, discrimination, historical injustices against certain communities, continued extrajudicial killings and highly securitized approaches. But our government counterparts are not too willing to talk about that. (interview, February 9, 2018, Nairobi)
WPS AND COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA
There is incontrovertible evidence that women play an important role in the perpetration of violence, including terrorism (Alison Reference Alison2009; Bloom Reference Bloom2011; Gardner Reference Gardner2018). However, in Kenya, violent extremism is largely understood as a male youth issue (Mambo ya vijana) (Ndung'u, Salifu, and Sigsworth Reference Ndung'u, Salifu and Sigsworth2017, 30). Although Al-Shabaab has deployed women as suicide bombers in attacks in Somalia on a few occasions, most of those who join Al-Shabaab do so as brides and to cook, clean, and fulfill other supportive roles, including recruitment and intelligence gathering, arranging financial transactions, and providing medical care rather than fighting on the front line (Ndung'u, Salifu, and Sigsworth Reference Ndung'u, Salifu and Sigsworth2017). Because women are not perceived as perpetrators of terrorism they have been left out of this security-dominated countering violent extremism agenda. The text of Kenya's 2016 National Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism does not pay sufficient attention to gender or women's participation in its policies and programs to counter violent extremism, nor did the process of adopting Kenya's National Counterterrorism Strategy involve consultation with women's organizations or women in affected communities.Footnote 6 Beyond a brief reference to the threat of extremism in its introduction, the 2016 Kenyan National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security does not refer to terrorism or violent extremism in its text, nor in the matrix specifying the plan's actions and indicators (Government of Kenya 2016a). Maria, the gender expert and member of a peacebuilding NGO mentioned above, contended that in Kenya the WPS framework is not seen as relevant to security matters such as violent extremism. This was clear to her based on the government's decision to host the Kenyan National Action Plan in the “underfunded and overburdened” Ministry of Gender rather than in the Ministry of Interior or Foreign Affairs. She went on:
The [National Action Plan] was launched by the President's wife! Now, why would the National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security not be launched by the Minister for Interior, Security and the President himself? It is on peace and security? So the focus is on the women's aspect and not on peace and security. We were given kangas [sarong] for the event! . . . When you give kangas, even the men who attended the event would start to think “OK, this is a women's issue and not a peace and security discussion.” (interview, February 5, 2018, Nairobi)
Participants from local and international organizations also complained of the lack of attention to gender in efforts tackling violent extremism. Many argued that the Kenyan government is unwilling to adequately integrate gender in efforts aimed at countering violent extremism. Respondents from civil society organizations claimed that members of the security forces are particularly resistant to gender issues and to engaging with women's groups. Miranda, a member of a faith-based local NGO, stated,
People from the military and senior police still feel strongly against engagement with civil society in a security sphere and the ability of civil society to understand enough about security to be able to engage in countering violent extremism. This is just about the engagement and the role of civil society. Now imagine how this would be now that we're moving to the women's sphere. (interview, February 13, 2018, NGO Nairobi)
Christina, a member of an international organization that delivers training for the police and security forces in Kenya, argued that engaging with the security forces on a human-rights-based approach to counterterrorism is already a challenge, which makes it even more difficult to include training on the gender dimension of violent extremism in the curriculum. She went on:
There are so many negotiations with the government actors on the content of the curriculum. Mostly they are interested in how do we do surveillance better, better investigation tactics, and technical counterterrorism work. But we're constantly fighting to keep the focus on prevention, human rights and engaging with communities, etc. so we always have to compromise on what is accepted and what isn't. So in our training we don't do anything about gender. (interview, February 10, 2018, Nairobi)
In an informal discussion on the absence of gender in the National Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism with Tom, a European diplomat based in Kenya, he argued that women in Kenya do not have an important role in terrorism, and hence gender in the national strategy is not a priority. He concluded that while it is better to have a national strategy than not to have one, one has to be realistic in terms of what to expect from this document (interview, February 9, 2018, Nairobi). The disconnect between gender and the sphere of violent extremism in Kenya became even more evident when a USD 600,000 study on masculinity, gender norms, and violent extremism, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), had to be abandoned because of the Kenyan government's objections and uproar against the idea that heteronormative hypermasculinity has anything to do with violent extremism (Dahir Reference Dahir2018; Harrington Reference Harrington2018).
At the national level, the discussion of gender in violent extremism was dominated by gender stereotypes based on the idea of women as wives, mothers, and victims of extremism. For example, Christina, a member of an international NGO in Kenya, reflected,
The idea here is that women only go there to Somalia as wives and jihadi brides, but then why isn't anyone thinking that there are women who go there because they believe in the cause? So the only reason a woman will go and join Al-Shabaab is because there's a man who put her up to it or that there is a man that she is going to be married to (Interview, February 10, 2018, Nairobi)
The emphasis on women's participation in preventing and countering violent extremism in UN Resolution 2242 has not resulted in an increased number of women involved in this area, particularly at the decision-making level. Many respondents in this study complained that women from communities affected by violent extremism are seen by the government only as useful sources of intelligence and are excluded from decision-making. As Maria put it,
Women are not included in finding the solution in terms of preventing or countering violent extremism, or in conversations on these issues. So they are only seen as sources of information about their sons, husbands and daughters, but not at the table to make positions and to contribute to this conversation (Interview, February 5, 2018, Nairobi)
One unintended consequence of the inclusion of countering violent extremism in the WPS framework is the narrowing of space for the participation and engagement of women, particularly those from marginalized communities. Nwangwu and Ezeibe (Reference Nwangwu and Ezeibe2019) argue that in many African countries, women's involvement in security issues is perceived as both culturally unacceptable and offensive to men. In a society that remains highly patriarchal and where access to power and resources is linked to ethnicity, participation in the security sphere at the decision-making level remains a male but also an elite privilege. Instead of improving women's participation in addressing violent extremism, the policy move to bring violent extremism into the WPS agenda has increased the participation of men and a few elite women in this sphere, something that many of the female respondents in this study protested. Fatuma, who works for a local organization specializing in the prevention of violent extremism, complained that in Kenya many of those working on violent extremism, particularly at the decision-making level, including those in the civil society, are men belonging to the elite. Reflecting on her own experience she lamented that women and especially those from Muslim minorities are excluded and “underutilized”:
Even when [organizations] get funding for a project on gender and countering violent extremism they'll still not involve women. They will do it with men, but [they] say “This is what we're doing for women.” Women haven't really been given their right place when it comes to fighting extremism. It's still not happening. Our society is still very patriarchal. (interview, February 9, 2018, Nairobi)
CONSEQUENCES FOR WOMEN AND LOCAL COMMUNITIES ON THE GROUND
The interviewees complained that increasing attention to violent extremism has redirected funding from areas such as gender, development, and peacebuilding to the security sector, impacting funding for civil society and women's organizations:
The interest in countering violent extremism has redirected funds from peacebuilding and gender projects to the focus on countering violent extremism. [ . . . ] All development projects are suffering now. Women are not a security priority, so how do they fit into this security-led agenda? I'm now not sure who is still interested in [Resolution] 1325, as I see the [donors’] focus is shifting to countering violent extremism. This new focus on countering violent extremism has even pushed these things [Resolution 1325] further down. (interview, February 5, 2018, Nairobi)
Donors’ interest in violent extremism, directly or indirectly, puts tension on civil society organizations, which feel pressured to apply for funding and to develop programs in this area, leading to a proliferation of violent extremism related projects in Kenya. Ian, a representative of a donor government based in Nairobi, tried to shed light on this phenomenon:
There is an increased funding for counterterrorism programming and countering violent extremism. What you've seen in Kenya is a shift in many projects that were historically focused on, let's say, land-based or cattle-based conflicts. These now have components of countering violent extremism added to them. What we've seen from organizations in Kenya is that projects have different hats that they wear depending on what the funders’ interests are. (interview, February 8, 2018, Nairobi)
One of the dilemmas that was repeatedly brought up in interviews by respondents from civil society was the ideological and financial struggle that they face within their organizations between the choice of applying for funding to address violent extremism and the risk of not being able to continue their work. Many organizations in Kenya continue to refuse to engage in any way with actors and funding involving the violent extremism agenda for ideological but also for safety and security reasons, and as a result their access to funding has suffered considerably.Footnote 7
Although what counts as preventing violent extremism can be loosely interpreted to include human rights, youth employment, and education programs, participants in this research complained of increasing difficulty in securing funding for projects that frame violent extremism broadly rather than narrowing it to Islamic extremism. George, the director of the peacebuilding NGO, had a project on youth and violent extremism that tackled young people joining organized criminal groups:
We really struggled to get funding because our project was not seen as specifically countering violent extremism, and so it cannot immediately be supported [as such]. Reintegrating kids, supporting them, livelihood activities, all of that is actually countering violent extremism, but it is an argument that is not easily accepted by donors. The problem is that they're too careful and too cautious to make sure that their support is aligned to the government's priorities and definition of violent extremism. (interview, February 8, 2018, Nairobi)
Another consequence of including countering violent extremism in the WPS agenda is that it exacerbates the stigmatization, insecurity, and exclusion suffered by the Muslim community, especially women. The marginalization and unequal citizenship status of Muslim communities in Kenya are well recognized by scholars (Lind, Mutahi, and Oosterom Reference Lind, Mutahi and Oosterom2017). In this study, the participants argued that Muslims are doubly vetted when they apply for identity cards and passports. Participants also discussed the racial profiling of Muslims by the Kenyan police and security forces during security checks. Because of their visibility, Muslim women who wear jilbaabs, veils, or headscarves are particularly targeted for security checks. Participants also complained of the exaggerated use of state violence during counterterrorism operations. According to respondents, all of these factors are making Muslim communities feel under attack and increasing their alienation and grievances against the state:
Whenever we have a terrorist attack, whether it happens in Westgate or in Mombasa, the minute it happens there will be a crackdown on all Somali-populated areas in Eastleigh in Nairobi, in Garissa, in Majengo etc. Communities have been shamed. In Wajhir, after the massacre men have been made to lie on the tarmac in public, so they could not protect their families and communities. So there is a lot of shame. You know the communities that are branded with violent extremism, they suffer the consequences of this communally. (interview with Maria, February 5, 2018, Nairobi)
This hard security approach has led to “higher levels of societal prejudice against Muslims, increasing social alienation and fostering radicalization among targeted communities” (Luengo-Cabrera and Pauwels Reference Luengo-Cabrera and Pauwels2016, 2). Women whose children have left home to join Al-Shabaab often bear the brunt of the stigma and societal prejudice. Hekima, the mother who lost two teenage sons to violent extremism, spoke about the stigmatization that she and other women encountered in their mixed community after their children joined Al-Shabaab:
In my community the government is against you and the community is against you. We are between two hard plates. People try to avoid me. After my sons went to Somalia many members of the community thought I was getting money from Al-Shabaab. Whenever I go somewhere, or whenever there's something in the community like iftar [breaking the fast] during Ramadhan, they say “Why is she here? What is she doing here?” (interview with community member, February 12, 2018, Nairobi)
Hekima added that many mothers of children who have joined Al-Shabaab find themselves rejected by their spouses and blamed for their children's actions:
After my sons left for Somalia my husband also left. He started a new life. He was saying my boys were their mother's sons. Most of the women whose sons have left for Somalia don't have the support of their husbands. Swahili men are like that. If there's a problem in the first wife's house, the man goes to the house of the second wife. If there's a problem in the house it's always the woman's fault (Interview February 12, 2018, Nairobi)
Finally, rather than improving women's security, bringing violent extremism into the WPS sphere, particularly in the absence of a human-rights-based approach to counterterrorism, has created additional violence and insecurity for women and their communities in Kenya. Hekima spoke of the police harassment she experienced after reporting her sons’ disappearance:
The antiterror police started coming to our homes asking “Where is Al-Shabaab?” They used to come in large numbers, in the middle of the night, even 50 of them. They threatened me, they ransacked the house, they stole things. They said now that my sons are gone, Al-Shabaab must be sending money to me. Every time something happens in the rest of the country, such as the Westgate and Garissa attacks, they come back and start threatening us, the mothers, again. After my second son died the antiterror police came to me and said “Can you work with us as an informer?” But I refused. (interview, February 12, 2018, Nairobi)
Because of their fear of the antiterror police, members of the communities do not want to associate with women who have had dealings with the police. Lucy described the story of a number of youths from Mombasa who were arbitrarily arrested after the 2015 attack:
When they went back to their communities nobody wanted to associate with them anymore. They will say “You are now on the police radar, I don't want to be your friend.” What happened is that their mothers couldn't go to the market, couldn't go to social places, couldn't do anything because everybody is like “Aha, if I associate with you, next time the police will be at my door asking me questions.” (interview, February 11, 2018, Nairobi)
Participants discussed the methods used by the police and the danger of forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings:
The antiterror police had their own informers within the community; when they intervened here they used to pick up young men and after picking them up, some disappeared forever and others were found killed. The antiterror police, when they intervened it was just arbitrarily picking people up, disappearances, and killings. (interview with Hekima, February 12, 2018, Nairobi)
The fear of such disappearances and extrajudicial killings has made women reluctant to talk openly about their children's radicalization. Extrajudicial killings were a frequent theme in the interviews. For example, Miranda argued,
The security officers in Kenya take the hard approach. So if you go to them and say “I have these returnees and they need rehabilitation,” the next thing is “Okay, let me take them to get information,” and then two or three days later this boy or this girl will be found dead. (interview, February 13, 2018, Nairobi)
It must also be noted that people who interact with the police are targeted by extremist groups as informers and may be tracked down and killed. Hekima's second son was shot dead after he escaped and returned to Kenya from Somalia, presumably by members of Al-Shabaab. In the absence of protection and a human-rights-based approach to countering violent extremism, playing a visible role in this area can be extremely dangerous for women. Along these lines, Hekima argued,
Given a chance, women can play a role in the community by speaking about the warning signs and their experiences, because they are the first to notice these changes in their children or spouses. But then at the community level people are afraid that the antiterror police will come and take their children away or kill them. Also if you talk about your experience people say “Oh, you're an informer.” So women hide themselves and don't share what is happening. (interview, February 12, 2018, Nairobi)
The danger of abuse of power by the antiterror police is also problematic for civil society organizations who work in the local communities. This is because efforts to coordinate action on violent extremism at the national level have meant that Kenyan authorities are now interested in the activities of civil society organizations that fit within the National Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism. Yet sharing this information in a country that is not taking a human-rights-based approach to counterterrorism can create significant risks to civil society organization's safety and access to local communities. This point was illustrated by Lucy:
If you are an organization working to counter violent extremism you have to register with the Counterterrorism Centre, and you have to share information about your activities with them, which is highly problematic. This is a security risk for the parents, the community, and all the people involved. It's also problematic even in terms of our engagement with the communities that we're working with. (interview, February 11, 2018, Nairobi)
DISCUSSION
Although there is no consensus on what constitutes terrorism and violent extremism, at the global level, these terms are largely defined from a male and state-centered perspective that favors a militarized approach and prioritizes the public over the private realm. Violent extremism and terrorism are generally considered more important, different, and disconnected from everyday violence. The focus of counterterrorism efforts has always been on groups that threaten Western ideologies, ways of life, and economic and military interests. Because they do not fit into this understanding of terrorism, other experiences of violence including gender-based violence are depoliticized, trivialized, and silenced. Against this backdrop, the recent association of the WPS agenda with that of counterterrorism and countering violent extremism is unsettling. The Kenyan government's 2016 counterterrorism strategy defines violent extremism as Islamic extremism linked to groups such as Al-Shabaab. The state's response to violent extremism has been through military operations, for which it continues to receive support from Western allies. This hard security response has itself become a new source of insecurity for local communities. The obstinate focus on Al-Shabaab and excessive military responses have led to violence against women and gender inequality, with the patriarchal culture that produces, perpetuates, and drives gender insecurity as well as violent extremism being overlooked. Feminist scholars have argued for a broader understanding of security that takes into consideration the interrelationship between the various forms of violence that pervade all levels of society (Tickner Reference Tickner1992).
Violent extremism, like other forms of violence, is the product of gendered ideologies that produce, justify, and sustain gender inequality. Aslam (Reference Aslam2012) argues that in the context of her country, Pakistan, gender inequality and socially constructed norms around femininity and masculinity lead to hypermasculinity and men's use of violence, including terrorism. Another study, conducted in Jordan by the Arab Women Organization of Jordan (AWO) and the Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED) and funded by the European Union, has found strong empirical evidence linking gender-based violence to radicalization. In this study, areas and communities that were most affected by radicalization had higher rates of gender-based violence (AWO and ACTED 2016, 4–5). The study found that violence against women increased with radicalization, which was perceived to legitimize and encourage gender-based violence (4). In a recent study, Castillo Díaz and Valji (Reference Castillo Díaz and Valji2019) discuss evidence from across the world that misogyny is correlated with violent extremism. They argue that misogyny, as a political phenomenon that enforces gender inequality, is the gateway, the driver, and the early-warning sign in most terrorism-related violence. The strong nexus between misogyny and violent extremism, according to Castillo Díaz and Valji, should persuade governments to divert resources to address gender inequality and to take misogynistic violence as seriously as all other forms of ideologically motivated violent extremism.
These findings are not surprising, considering that groups implicated in terrorism and violent extremism such as the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and ISIS are also known to subscribe to a misogynist agenda and to perpetrate gender-based violence. Although violence against women and norms that legitimize and promote gender inequality are intrinsically linked to violent extremism, misogynist violence continues to be treated as a private problem of individuals rather than as a broader public security concern (Castillo Díaz and Valji Reference Castillo Díaz and Valji2019; Duriesmith, Ryan, and Zimmerman Reference Duriesmith, Ryan and Zimmerman2018). Without broadening and gendering the concept of violent extremism to include gender-based violence, gender inequality, and sources of gender insecurity, extremist violence will not be defeated.
One of the consequences of the closer link between the WPS framework and countering violent extremism is the redirection of development aid to prevent and counter violent extremism, as evidenced by the proliferation of such projects in Kenya. This is not necessarily an intended outcome, as international and local NGOs tend to follow donors’ interests with their programs and applications for project funding. Although more evidence is required, certainly in Kenya's case the experiences and perceptions of the respondents in this study are of a struggle for funding for gender, WPS, and development projects, and increased funding and funders’ interest in work related to countering violent extremism.
Western countries pursue international development in line with their national interests. For countries such as the United Kingdom, countering violent extremism abroad is a foreign aid priority (HM Treasury and Department for International Development 2015). The United States and the United Kingdom are Kenya's two largest country donors of terms of development aid, providing USD 836 million and 190.1 million, respectively, per year (HM Treasury and Department for International Development 2015). A significant proportion of this aid is used for projects against violent extremism, such as NiWajibu Wetu (It's Our Responsibility) and SCORE (Strengthening Community Resilience against Violent Extremism), which were launched by USAID to reduce violent extremism among at-risk individuals and communities in Kenya (OECD 2017). This is in addition to other military and security financial assistance provided to Kenya for counterterrorism operations.
In August 2018 during her trip to Kenya, the British Prime Minister Theresa May signed a new agreement to expand UK military counterterrorism support to Kenya in the war against Al-Shabaab (Kennedy Reference Kennedy2018). For donor countries, connecting the WPS agenda with the aim of counterterrorism is value for money. By adding “women” to existing programs on countering violent extremism, governments not only ensure the alignment of development aid with their national interests and priorities but also kill two birds with one stone. Alarmingly, the WPS agenda and protecting women can be dangerously used here as justification for increasing funding to military operations and counterterrorism purposes.
Unsurprisingly, the recent policy shift connecting the WPS agenda with countering violent extremism has not resulted in a significant increase in the participation of women, particularly those from marginalized communities in Kenya, in the area of countering and preventing violent extremism, which remains dominated by men and elites. The case of Kenya demonstrates that without contesting the power hierarchies on the ground or addressing the structural factors that constrain women's agency, attempts to increase women's participation will only reinforce existing inequalities. The WPS framework treats women as a homogenous group and ignores their fundamental differences, but countries in the global South have highly diverse populations in terms of race, ethnicity, clan, religion, class, and other identity markers. Ignoring these differences necessarily leads to the failure to understand and transform how power is exercised on the ground. Without an intersectional approach, the integration of countering violent extremism into the WPS agenda will only reinforce the already unequal power relations and result in additional marginalization, violence, and insecurity for women in minority groups. Here the question of “who can speak security” within the WPS framework becomes extremely urgent. In the light of feminist critiques of the WPS agenda, the inability of Resolution 2242 to transform the way that counterterrorism is addressed is predictable. Without addressing the structural causes of women's inequality and questioning the broader social hierarchies of gender, the inclusion of women in the counterterrorism structure is not enough to deliver an alternative approach to violent extremism and terrorism. The prioritization of “women” rather than “gender” in the WPS framework has only resulted in an “add women and stir” approach focused on women's participation without questioning or addressing the structures that produce and sustain violent extremism. The absence of intersectionality from the WPS resolutions is particularly problematic with countering violent extremism becoming part of the agenda.
Instead of transforming counterterrorism, the new focus on gender and violent extremism in Kenya has increased women's insecurity and buttressed stereotypes about them. This study has provided evidence of how women can be instrumentalized for counterterrorism purposes and reduced to informing on sons, daughters, and husbands suspected of being involved in violent extremism. While women are used as a source of intelligence, they are excluded from decision-making processes about how violent extremism is defined and how it can be addressed. The consequences of engaging women as frontline actors in preventing radicalism in terms of their safety and security are particularly serious in a context where a human-rights-based approach to counterterrorism (if it ever existed) is lacking (Ní Aoláin Reference Ní Aoláin, Tripp, Ferree and Ewig2013).
The case of Kenya also shows that in countries with diverse populations, the lack of an intersectional approach to women's security can only exacerbate the exclusion and insecurity of marginalized ethnic minorities. Muslims in Kenya are noticeably more economically, socially, and politically marginalized than other communities (Anderson and McKnight Reference Anderson and McKnight2014; Torbjörnsson Reference Torbjörnsson2017). This marginalization is even greater for women, who represent the bottom half of most societies. The narrow focus on Al-Shabaab and Islamic extremism has increased the marginalization and stigmatization of the Muslim minority, including women. This is not unique to Kenya but is common in other countries with Muslim minorities. During her visit to Belgium, the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism warned that many of the country's counterterrorism and de-radicalization laws, policies, and practices have a stigmatizing and discriminatory effect on its Muslim migrant communities (UN Special Rapporteur 2018). The concept of security, as Tickner (Reference Tickner1992) points out, is meaningless when it is built on the insecurity of others. As Pratt (Reference Pratt2013) has warned, by failing to pay attention to intersectionality, the WPS framework contributes to normalizing the discourses and practices of the “war on terror” and legitimizes counterterrorist and counterinsurgency violence against Muslim women and Muslim communities.
CONCLUSION
This article has demonstrated that in the Kenyan context, the integration of countering violent extremism into the WPS agenda has both failed to transform the government's approach to violent extremism and resulted in additional marginalization, violence, and insecurity for women. These results were precipitated by the lack of a gender inclusive and locally relevant understanding of violent extremism and exacerbated by the WPS resolutions’ weak commitment to gender equality, silence on race and intersectionality, and problematic stand on security that favors militarism and the use of force. Based on findings from Kenya, I maintain that connecting the WPS agenda with countering violent extremism can have alarming consequences on the ground.
Almost two decades ago, the WPS resolutions were celebrated as a tool through which feminist ideas could be transposed into nonfeminist forms of power (Aroussi Reference Aroussi2015). Naively, the expectation was that the feminist content of the WPS would somehow influence and transform the way in which security institutions deal with gender and women's issues. Yet bringing the women's agenda to the Security Council ran the risk of losing its feminist content. In 2002, in an early article on Resolution 1325, Otto warned that a feminist agenda for peace necessarily requires disrupting the gender norms and structures that produce militarism and women's exclusion. She cautiously argued that merely entering the “master's house” would not result in meaningful transformation and that “until feminists understand how this conundrum can be addressed, the ‘master's house’ will remain heavily defended against gender disruptions” (2006, 118). The risk of engagement with the Security Council, a highly militarized, hypermasculine, warmongering, hegemonic institution has certainly become clearer with Resolution 2242. As Heathcote (Reference Heathcote2018, 375) points out, linking the WPS agenda with countering terrorism and violent extremism “underlines the reality that the Security Council cannot and does not function as a space for feminist law making.”
The current focus on violent extremism in the WPS agenda may change in the coming years when the international community moves its attention to a new pressing issue, but this will be one that does not question or seek to challenge militarism, real politics, and power at the UN Security Council. For the intention behind including countering violent extremism in the WPS agenda was never about introducing transformative feminist ideas on women's security that would threaten the status quo. Instead, this policy shift is dangerously about aligning the WPS's agenda with the rest of the Security Council's work and reducing it to a mere tool for counterterrorism. For the WPS agenda to be saved, it must be urgently redefined and recreated from a feminist perspective that entails bringing women's everyday experiences of insecurity to the forefront, recognizing the differences and power relations among women, and addressing the root causes of gender inequality. But it would also, and perhaps more importantly, necessitate staying faithful to core feminist principles by resisting and confronting militarism, imperialism, colonialism, racism, inequality, and exclusion.
