Defining sexual and gender-based violence in the refugee context

This post forms part of our series in showcasing abstracts of presentations featured at our annual postgraduate interdisciplinary conference on refugee and forced migration research, hosted in November 2018 at The University of Melbourne.

ANDREW SIMON-BUTLER

The term ‘sexual and gender-based violence’ (SGBV) has gained prominence in international human rights documents and within academic discourse relating to refugees. The SEREDA project (SExual and Gender Based Violence in the REfugee Context: From Displacement to Arrival) – a major research collaboration between the University of Birmingham, University of Melbourne, Uppsala University and Bilkent University – aims to understand the incidence and nature of SGBV experienced by refugees who have fled conflict in the Levant Region. As a contribution to the initial phase of this project, a literature search was undertaken to examine how key terms relating to SGBV have been defined and how these terms may apply in the refugee context.

This presentation will explore from a legal perspective how a broad definition of SGBV has been used to understand the refugee experience in conflict settings, with particular focus given to the current conflict in Syria. The international community’s approach to SGBV will be examined, with close attention paid to definitions in multi-lateral Conventions and other hard and soft instruments of international law. Finally, what gender means in the context of SGBV and the resulting debates about who should be the primary focus of humanitarian intervention will be discussed.

Andrew Simon-Butler (BIntSt(Hons), JD, LLM, LLM(LegPrac), MRes) is a Research Assistant at the Melbourne Social Equity Institute, where he undertakes legal research in international human rights law, mental health law and criminal law. Andrew is also a qualified Australian Lawyer, Canadian Barrister and Solicitor and Australian Registered Migration Agent.