A Decade Lost: Locating Gender in U.S. Counter-Terrorism provides the first global study of how the U.S. government’s (USG) counter-terrorism efforts profoundly implicate and impact women and sexual minorities. Over the last decade of the United States’ “War on Terror,” the oft-unspoken assumption that men suffer the most—both numerically and in terms of the nature of rights violations endured—has obscured the way women and sexual minorities experience counter-terrorism, rendering their rights violations invisible to policymakers and the human rights community alike. This failure to consider either the differential impacts of counter-terrorism on women, men, and sexual minorities or the ways in which such measures use and affect gender stereotypes and relations cannot continue. As the USG leads a world-wide trend toward a more holistic approach to countering terrorism that mobilizes the 3Ds—defense, diplomacy, and development—and increasingly emphasizes the role of women in national security, the extent to which counter-terrorism efforts include and impact women and sexual minorities is set to rise. As the ten-year anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001 approaches, now is the time for the USG and governments the world-over to take stock of, redress, and deter the gender-based violations that occur in a world characterized by the proliferation of terrorism and counter-terrorism and the squeezing of women and sexual minorities between the two.
This report provides a roadmap for this effort. It represents the culmination of over three years of primary and secondary research into the gender dimensions and impacts of the USG’s counter-terrorism policies domestically and abroad, drawing on scores of interviews with USG and foreign government, non-government, academic, and inter-government entities; regional Stakeholder Workshops in the United States, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA); and extensive secondary research (see further Methodology below). Where appropriate, the Report also draws on comparisons with the United Nations’ (U.N.) and foreign governments’ (including the United Kingdom’s) counter-terrorism strategies and their gender and human rights aspects and outcomes. While the Report’s findings and recommendations are primarily directed to the USG, the patterns documented and lessons learned will nonetheless resonate with, and be relevant to, those foreign governments and inter-governmental institutions which often emulate or participate in the USG’s approaches to countering terrorism.
Section 1
Section 1 outlines what it means to take a gender approach to counter-terrorism and terrorism, scrutinizing the USG’s current emphasis on women in national security, and presenting ten overarching recommendations to ensure that women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) individuals are the beneficiaries rather than casualties of the USG’s counter-terrorism measures. This overview does not squarely address the USG’s claim that promoting gender equality counters terrorism—a question that is beyond the scope of this Report—but does demonstrate the failure to take account of gender cuts against both counter-terrorism and equality goals.
While A Decade Lost takes up this and other questions in respect of two of the most invisible stakeholders in national security—women and sexual minorities—it (1) devotes significantly more attention to the former, in large part because of the dearth of information on the latter; (2) locates the focus on gender in the broader context of the USG’s focus on Muslim communities; and (3) examines how the gender features and impacts of the USG’s counter-terrorism efforts relate to gendered patterns in failures to protect women and LGBTI communities against terrorist violence.
Section 2
Section 2 analyzes the USG’s development activities to counter the conditions that lead to violent extremism.
Section 3
Section 3 analyzes the USG’s militarized counter-terrorism efforts.
Section 4
Section 4 analyzes the USG’s anti-terrorism financing measures.
Section 5
Section 5 analyzes the USG’s tactical counter-terrorism efforts in terms of intelligence and law enforcement measures and cooperation.
Section 6
Section 6 analyzes the USG’s border securitization and immigration enforcement.
Section 7
Section 7 analyzes the USG’s diplomacy and strategic communications.
Section 8
Section 8 summarizes and offers initial insights into how to overcome the challenge of measuring counter-terrorism activities both in terms of gender impacts and efficacy, stressing the urgent need for tools to measure both outcomes as ultimately effective counter-terrorism measures should protect the whole population from terrorism, including particularly women and LGBTI individuals who are regularly its victims.
