Gender-Based Violence and Human Rights Protests in in Western Asia, 2016-2022

Regina Werum, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Daniel Schaefer, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Research indicates rising levels of protest globally, particularly in countries undergoing rapid economic and demographic shifts, paired with a rise in right-wing and populist governments that have rolled back the rights of women and minorities. We ask: “Under which conditions do protests on behalf of human rights occur? How are those protests linked to gender-based violence, especially violence targeting women?” To that end, we analyze media-reported protests and gender-based attacks/hate crimes in India in 2021-22. We ground the paper in grievance-based and political process theories. We use an innovative and sophisticated geospatial approach, involving monthly pooled time series aggregated to rasterized “pixels” (0.5 degrees or ~55x55km), which facilitates significant improvement in analytic precision. Robustness checks will involve e.g., analyses involving aggregated data at sub-district levels (akin to large counties). The first dependent variable (human rights protests) is derived from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. ACLED content-codes media-reported protests, including geocodes and time stamps. Substantive codes specifically identify “demonstration for rights,” cross-referenced further by actors, enabling us to identify "human rights" protests. The second dependent and key independent variable (acts of violence against women), is also derived from ACLED, which curates an innovative dataset specifically aimed at tracking such hate crime attacks rarely used in academic research to date. (Alternatively, we can use National Crime Records Bureau data). Independent variables, which gauge socio-demographic and quality of life indicators (cultural, economic, infrastructural and even land-use data), are also aggregated to the same level of analysis as the outcome variables. These variables are derived from proprietary data provided by FRAYM INC. Models will also include controls for political conditions, sensitive locations along borders and coastal areas (frequently associated with unrest), and satellite-derived proxies for population density and climatological factors linked to protest levels.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 239. Gender and Health