Analyses of gender-based violence during mass conflict have typically focused on violence committed against women. Violence perpetrated against men has only recently been examined as gender-based ...violence in its own right. Using narratives from 1,136 Darfuri refugees, we analyze patterns of gender-based violence perpetrated against men and boys during the genocide in Darfur. We examine how this violence emasculates men and boys through four mechanisms: homosexualization, feminization, genital harm, and sex-selective killing. In line with an interactionist approach, we demonstrate how genocidal violence is gendered and argue that perpetrators committing gender-based violence perform masculinity in accordance with hegemonic gender norms in Sudan. We also show how gender-based violence enacts, reinforces, and creates meaning on multiple levels in a matrix of mutually reinforcing processes that we term the gender-genocide nexus. By extending the gender–violence link to the context of mass atrocity, this study facilitates an understanding of the mechanisms through which gender inequalities can be reproduced and maintained in diverse situations and structures.
Tuberculosis, which is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria, is the second deadliest infectious disease (after HIV/AIDS, which causes a high mortality rate). It often infects the lungs and ...can spread when tuberculosis patients expel the bacteria into the air by coughing. This study aims at investigating the geographical distribution of tuberculosis cases in the province, and the discrepancy between age groups of tuberculosis patients in North Darfur State in Western Sudan in the years 2020, 2021 and 2022. The study covers 15 government hospitals in a number of governorates where the number of confirmed tuberculosis cases reached 680 cases, according to the reports of the Ministry of Health of North Darfur State. However, the study showed that tuberculosis spreads more among males than females aged 15-54 years than in women, as it spreads among the economically active groups. The study also showed that there are statistically significant differences between the cases of infection during the period of the study.
Climate change, conflict and health Bowles, Devin C; Butler, Colin D; Morisetti, Neil
Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine,
10/2015, Letnik:
108, Številka:
10
Book Review, Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Summary
Future climate change is predicted to diminish essential natural resource availability in many regions and perhaps globally. The resulting scarcity of water, food and livelihoods could lead ...to increasingly desperate populations that challenge governments, enhancing the risk of intra- and interstate conflict. Defence establishments and some political scientists view climate change as a potential threat to peace. While the medical literature increasingly recognises climate change as a fundamental health risk, the dimension of climate change-associated conflict has so far received little attention, despite its profound health implications. Many analysts link climate change with a heightened risk of conflict via causal pathways which involve diminishing or changing resource availability. Plausible consequences include: increased frequency of civil conflict in developing countries; terrorism, asymmetric warfare, state failure; and major regional conflicts. The medical understanding of these threats is inadequate, given the scale of health implications. The medical and public health communities have often been reluctant to interpret conflict as a health issue. However, at times, medical workers have proven powerful and effective peace advocates, most notably with regard to nuclear disarmament. The public is more motivated to mitigate climate change when it is framed as a health issue. Improved medical understanding of the association between climate change and conflict could strengthen mitigation efforts and increase cooperation to cope with the climate change that is now inevitable.
While recent research focuses on why conflict parties attack peacekeepers, little attention has been given to other types of resistance against peacekeeping missions, such as intimidation and ...obstruction. It is argued in this article that one reason why peacekeepers are obstructed and intimidated is that armed actors that target civilians want to maintain the operational space to carry out attacks against civilians and want to prevent peacekeepers from monitoring human rights violations. A spatially and temporally disaggregated analysis on resistance against peacekeepers in Darfur between January 2008 and April 2009 indeed suggests that the intimidation and obstruction of peace-keepers is more likely to take place in areas with higher levels of violence against civilians. The findings hold when taking into account the non-random occurrence of violence against civilians through matching the data. Finally, anecdotal evidence from other sites of armed conflict than Darfur suggests that resistance against peacekeepers in these cases is also likely to be related to the targeting of civilians. This suggest that in order to be effective in protecting civilians, peace missions should not only be robust as highlighted in previous research, but peace missions should also develop an effective strategy to deal with armed groups that try to prevent peacekeepers from fulfilling their mandate.
Praise for the 2005 Edition:
"A passionate and highly readable account of the current tragedy that combines intimate knowledge of the region's history, politics, and sociology with a telling cynicism ...about the polite but ineffectual diplomatic efforts to end it. It is the best account available of the Darfur crisis."-Foreign Affairs
"Does the conflict in Darfur, however bloody, qualify as genocide? Or does the application of the word 'genocide' to Darfur make it harder to understand this conflict in its awful peculiarity? Is it possible that applying a generic label to Darfurian violence makes the task of stopping it harder? Or is questioning the label simply insensitive, implying that whatever has happened in Darfur isn't horrible enough to justify a claim on the world's conscience, and thus invite inaction or even the dismissal of Darfur altogether? These questions lie at the heart of a much-needed new book by Gerard Prunier. In this book, Prunier casts aside labels and lays bare the anatomy of the Darfur crisis, drawing on a mixture of history and journalism to produce the most important book of the year on any African subject."-Salon.com
"The emergency in Darfur in western Sudan is far from over, as Gérard Prunier points out in this comprehensive and authoritative book. . . . He concisely covers the history, the conflicts, and the players. . . . This book is essential for anyone wanting to learn about this complex conflict."-Library Journal
"If Darfuris are Muslim, what is their quarrel with the Islamic government in Khartoum? If they and the janjaweed-'evil horsemen'-driving them from their homes are both black, how can it be Arab versus African? If the Sudanese government is making peace with the south, why would it be risking that by waging war in the west? Above all, is it genocide? Gérard Prunier has the answers. An ethnographer and renowned Africa analyst, he turns on the evasions of Khartoum the uncompromising eye that dissected Hutu power excuses for the Rwanda genocide a decade ago."-The Guardian
Darfur: A 21st Century Genocideexplains what lies behind the conflict in Western Sudan, how it came about, why it is should not be oversimplified, and why it is so relevant to the future of Africa. As the world watches, governments decide if, when, and how to intervene, and international organizations struggle to distribute aid, Gérard Prunier's book provide crucial assistance. The third edition features a new chapter covering events through mid-2008.
This study investigates the patterns of self-assertiveness by using Arabic and other native languages among the ethnic groups characterised by ethnolinguistic vitality in Nyala, the capital of South ...Darfur State, and the satellite internally displaced persons’ camps. The study also looks into how these communities perceived the role their native languages could play in the construction of their ethnic identities. In addition, factors influencing the construction of ethnic identities were investigated. Data pertaining to language perceptions on identity, and the role of conflict in the process of identity construction were collected. To this end, four tools were employed to collect the data: a thirteen-item questionnaire administered to 711 respondents; 12 focus group discussions held with 112 participants; in-depth interviews with 20 persons; and participant observations. The study came to a number of conclusions, the most important of which were: (a) the communities investigated were found to have revitalised their native languages by taking pride in them in different domains; (b) there was a perceived aversion towards Arabic across the groups studied; (c) there was a conscious revitalisation of ethnolinguistic identities; and (d) the current conflict has played an important role in the emergence of revitalised ethnolinguistic identities.
This article looks at the representation of Darfur in Kenya from 2003 to 2008. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory and Rodney Benson’s habitus affinity and habitus disaffinity, this article ...highlights the pitfalls of using ‘African media’ as an analytical category when studying media representations of atrocities by Africa’s press. The evidence presented here suggests the need for an approach that is nuanced when analysing representation of issues of political or social import, especially considering, in the case of Kenyan news organizations, the willingness to lift news reports from Western organizations. By lifting such a large number of stories from wire agencies, the Kenyan media field privileges narratives employed by these organizations. This parsing out of articles is necessary if scholars are to confidently understand how the press in Africa represents Africa to local/national audiences.
Sociologists are not at the forefront of studying African news organizations' coverage of atrocity despite having the tools to do so. This article works to remedy that. I investigate how a media ...field in Africa frames and represents an atrocity unfolding in Darfur. The article relies on content analysis of news reports published in Kenya between 2003 and 2008. To provide more nuanced analysis, I also rely my own interviews with journalists who had covered and traveled to Darfur. The content analysis delineates the article through the use of by-line accreditation to allow for an analysis between different journalists working for either local news organizations or wire agencies with offices in Nairobi. I find that Kenyan journalists are not central actors in the process of "meaning making" when it comes to the atrocities in Darfur for the Kenyan audience. They are, effectively, silenced from the knowledge-construction process in Kenya. Consequently, being Kenyan conspires to produce a condition of invisibility and erasure of Kenyan journalists in the global narrative construction.