Engendering Compensation: Making Refugee Women Count!

Prepared for the Expert and Advisory Services Fund International Development Research Centre

by Nahla Abdo

March 2000 - Ottawa

3. Why Do We Need a Gender Perspective in Compensation?
A gender approach in research and policy decision-making on refugees is needed in order to unmask the differential experiences of women and men, the potentially different effects of policies, programs and legislation on women and men. We need gender-based analysis in order to assess the experiences of women’s and men’s different social realities, life expectations and economic circumstances, and to ensure the integration of these differences when accounting for compensation. Gender-based analysis must be seen as a tool for understanding social processes and for responding with informed and equitable options to the group targeted for compensation. To achieve this, a strategy of mainstreaming gender must be adopted with the aim of integrating gender equality concerns into the analyses and formulation of all policies, programs and projects designed for compensating refugees. Initiatives must be taken to enable women as well as men to formulate and express their views and participate in decision-making processes.

Since the 1975 launching of the UN Decade for Women in Mexico, and the UN Charter calling for the elimination of all forms of discrimination, most countries have made special efforts to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, and to promote gender equality. In fact, gender-based analysis has moved from the realm of academia or feminist intellectual exercise and entered into the actual political life of governments and institutions world-wide. Gender-based analysis, called for by the 1995 Beijing Platform of Action and the Commonwealth Plan of Action on Gender and Development, has been officially adopted by many countries, including Canada. Various governments have taken practical steps to include gender-based analysis at the decision-making levels in formulating their national and international policies. For instance, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in New Zealand has declared that:

Social impact analysis, including gender analysis is not just an add-on, to be considered after costs and benefits have been assessed, but an integral part of good policy analysis. (Emphasis added).

In Canada, a cabinet approved policy requiring federal departments and agencies to undertake gender-based analysis within the development of future policies and legislation was formulated. Specifically, in its Federal Plan for Gender Equality (1995), the Government of Canada committed itself "to ensuring that all future legislation and policies include, where appropriate, an analysis of the potential for different impacts on women and men".

A gender approach/perspective must be seen as a holistic approach that guides the whole process of dealing with any social phenomenon, including refugees and compensation. A gender approach should be used as a guide to the whole process of solving the refugee problem. As Elizabeth Carrière has observed,

Gender analysis is focused not just on outcomes, but on the concepts, arguments and language used to justify policy. How needs are interpreted and discussed is intrinsic to policy development... Gender analysis should focus on whether the policy challenges or reinforces existing power structures based on gender.

To reiterate, for an inclusive approach to negotiations on refugee compensation, concerned parties must operate on the principle that gender-based analysis should be a common thread woven from beginning to end throughout the entire policy process, and not merely an additional heading/section in briefing notes. To do so, we shall first contextualize compensation and examine the implications of gender deficiency to the overall discussion/research on Palestinian refugees.

For an inclusive approach to negotiations on refugee compensation, concerned parties must operate on the principle that gender-based analysis should be a common thread woven from beginning to end throughout the entire policy process.