Gender, poverty and violence: Transitional justice responses to converging processes of domination of women in eastern DRC, northern Uganda and Kenya

SynopsisGender, poverty and violence readily intersect in women's lives with profound impacts for women entrenching cycles of violence, disadvantage and disempowerment across women's lives in private and public domains. These effects are exacerbated in situations of armed conflict and in post-conflict societies where women are often targeted for particular types of violence, forced to enter into exploitative or abusive relationships and are routinely under-represented in key political, legal and economic decision making structures. Drawing on extensive fieldwork material we examine the complex and mutually constitutive ways in which gender, poverty and violence interact to shape the lives of women living in three conflict and post-conflict societies; eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), northern Uganda and Kenya. Finally, we consider the role of transitional justice, arguing for a more holistic approach with greater attention to gendered social and economic structures and better integration of the various mechanisms of transitional processes.