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The struggle against sexual violence in conflict: Investigating the digital turn

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2021

Abstract

Digital technological innovations make new types of responses to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) possible, bringing with them both potential promises and pitfalls. Aiming to provide a conceptual starting point for further analysis, this article problematizes the trend towards data extraction in exchange for aid, protection and justice, and argues for the importance of complementing technology-driven approaches to the struggle against CRSV with the inclusion of strategies for user participation and investment in digital literacy as key aspects of the response. To explore how the digital turn shapes the struggle against CRSV, the article offers a three-part analytical framework. First, the article unpacks how digital technologies create corresponding “digital bodies” – comprised of images, information, biometrics and other data stored in digital space – which represent the bodies of individuals affected by sexual violence, and which interplay with the risks posed upon the physical bodies of those facing CRSV. Second, the article maps out the role of digital technologies in a cycle of intervention, including prevention of, response to, documentation of and accountability for CRSV. Third, recognizing the increasing importance of data governance to the struggle against CRSV, the article considers how divergent humanitarian, human rights and international criminal law approaches to data may create different pathways for CRSV data. This could also give rise to new tensions in how international actors approach CRSV.

Type
“Do no harm”: Humanitarian action in the digital age
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the ICRC.

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Footnotes

*

Research for this paper was funded by the PRIO-hosted project “Do No Harm: Ethical Humanitarian Innovation” and the University of Oslo-hosted project “Vulnerability in the Robot Society”, both funded by the Research Council of Norway.

References

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2 “Superplatforms”, or “platforms of platforms”, are giant internet companies that operate across multiple sectors, such as Apple, Facebook, and Google. See, for example, David Porteous and Olga Morawczynski, “The Superplatforms are Coming … and They Will Transform Financial Inclusion”, NextBillion, 21 December 2018, available at: https://nextbillion.net/the-superplatforms-are-coming-and-they-will-transform-financial-inclusion/ (all internet references were accessed in January 2021). We use this term for the emergence of platforms such as the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) PRIMES (see: www.unhcr.org/primes.html) and the World Food Programme's SCOPE (see: https://tinyurl.com/y4axb5br).

3 See also the thematic issue of the Review on “Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict”, Vol. 96, No. 894, 2015, available at: https://international-review.icrc.org/reviews/irrc-no-894-sexual-violence-armed-conflict.

4 We understand technologization as the incremental development and application of technology-based approaches.

5 António Guterres, Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: Report of the United Nations Secretary-General, UN Doc. S/2019/280, 29 March 2019, available at: https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/annual_report_of_the_sg_on_crsv_2018.pdf.

6 To that end, the article builds on and develops insights from Kristin Bergtora Sandvik, Technologizing the Fight against Sexual Violence: A Critical Scoping, PRIO Working Paper, Oslo, 2019, available at: https://gps.prio.org/Publications/Publication/?x=1274; Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora, “Digital Dead Body Management (DDBM): Time to Think it Through”, Journal of Human Rights Practice, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2020CrossRefGoogle Scholar, available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/huaa002.

7 While the notion of moral economy is used to describe those norms and habits embedded in market rationalities, more broadly it is also concerned with what it is that lends legitimacy to the constitution of markets and the economy. See Karstedt, Susanne and Farrall, Stephen, “The Moral Economy of Everyday Crime: Markets, Consumers and Citizens”, British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 46, No. 6, 2006CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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19 K. B. Sandvik, “Wearables for Something Good”, above note 9.

20 See K. B. Sandvik, “Making Wearables in Aid”, above note 9; Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora, Jumbert, Maria Gabrielsen, Karlsrud, John and Kaufmann, Mareile, “Humanitarian Technology: A Critical Research Agenda”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 96, No. 893, 2014CrossRefGoogle Scholar; K. B. Sandvik, K. L. Jacobsen and S. M. McDonald, above note 17. See also special issue of the International Journal of Transitional Justice on “Technology and Transitional Justice”, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2019.

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26 See, for example, “Sexual Assault and Technology Misuse”, VAWnet, available at: https://vawnet.org/events/sexual-assault-and-technology-misuse.

27 Evgeny Morozov, “The Perils of Perfection”, New York Times, 2 March 2013, available at: www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/opinion/sunday/the-perils-of-perfection.html; see also Evgeny Morozov, To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism, PublicAffairs, New York, 2013.

28 See the Callisto website, available at: www.projectcallisto.org.

29 See the LegalFling website, available at: https://legalfling.io/.

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43 Sam Gregory, “Cameras Everywhere Revisited: How Digital Technologies and Social Media Aid and Inhibit Human Rights Documentation and Advocacy”, Journal of Human Rights Practice, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2019.

44 See Joseph Rocca, “Understanding Generative Adversarial Networks”, Towards Data Science, 7 January 2019, available at: https://towardsdatascience.com/understanding-generative-adversarial-networks-gans-cd6e4651a29.

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46 On the trade-offs between freedom of speech and security, as well as the risks inherent in limiting freedom of speech, see David Kaye, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, UN Doc. A/74/486, 9 October 2019, available at: www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Opinion/A_74_486.pdf.

47 See Anastasia Powell and Tully O'Neill, “Cyber Justice: How Technology is Supporting Victim-Survivors of Rape”, The Conversation, 5 April 2016, available at: https://theconversation.com/cyber-justice-how-technology-is-supporting-victim-survivors-of-rape-56022.

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54 Mark Latonero and Zachary Gold, Data, Human Rights and Human Security, Data & Society Research Institute, 2015.

55 Access codes are a series of letters and numbers that allow access. The idea, of course, is that legal regulations apply once consent to access has been given. The authors are grateful to the participants at the Expert Roundtable on “Using Tech Innovation to Combat Conflict-Related Sexual Violence”, held in Geneva on 18–19 February 2019 and hosted by Legal Action Worldwide and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, for this point.

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58 M.-H. Maras and M. D. Miranda, above note 56.

59 Ibid.

60 See UNHCR, Global Virtual Summit on Digital Identity for Refugees, Concluding Workshop: Summary Conclusions and Recommendations, August 2019, available at: www.unhcr.org/idecosystem/wp-content/uploads/sites/69/2019/12/Conclusions_and_Recommendations.pdf.

61 As noted previously, this section develops insights articulated in K. B. Sandvik, above note 6; see also Kendall, Sara and Nouwen, Sarah, International Criminal Justice and Humanitarianism, University of Cambridge Faculty of Law Research Paper 69, 2018CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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