Browsing by Author "Medie, P.A."

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Fighting gender-based violence: The women’s movement and the enforcement of rape law in Liberia.
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society., 2013) Medie, P.A.
Many African states have adopted laws that criminalize rape and other forms of gender-based violence (GBV), but the enforcement of such laws is often weak. Many rape cases are never brought to court and victims are frequently encouraged to accept reconciliation instead of prosecution of offenders. Drawing on research from post-conflict Liberia, this article investigates the ability of women’s movements to influence the state’s implementation of rape law, and seeks to theorize the relationship between women’s activism and the enforcement of rape law. It documents the range of strategies adopted by the Liberian women’s movement, and argues that these tactics have contributed to an increased referral of rape cases to court. This was made possible by two conditions: a relatively open political environment and political and material support from international organizations, which in turn enabled women’s NGOs to gain access to and make an impression on the implementation process. This demonstrates the capacity of civil society organizations in Africa’s more open and internationally connected states to influence policy at the implementation stage – even in particularly challenging areas such as women’s rights.
Media Representation of Women Parliamentary Candidates in Africa A Study of the Daily Graphic Newspaper and Ghana’s 2016 Election
(2021) Coffie, A.; Medie, P.A.
Women’s movements, sometimes with the support of international organizations and aided by a favorable political opportunity structure, have placed women’s political representation on the agenda in many African countries (Bauer 2014; Bauer et al. 2017; Kang 2015). This has resulted in countries’ adoption of gender quotas and has also led to the implementation of programs aimed at encouraging women’s political participation. In Ghana and elsewhere, some of these efforts to increase women’s political representation have targeted the media; civil society organizations (CSOs) have trained the media on how to cover women candidates. As the Media Foundation for West Africa (2019: 11) writes, these efforts have occurred in Ghana where, “Undoubtedly several media houses and journalists have participated and received training by organizations such as UNESCO, CSOs and other development organizations on gender-sensitive reportage.” In turn, they have used “their platforms to increase women’s voices and participation in governance.” For example, “the Daily Graphic—has consistently provided a column in its newspaper to address gender and related issues while providing the platform for women’s increased participation in governance processes.” Given the media’s central role in elections (Temin and Smith 2002), such media training, including on how to cover women politicians, is essential.
Power, knowledge and the politics of gender in the Global South
(European Journal of Politics and Gender, 2018) Medie, P.A.; Kang,A.J.
Critical feminists have argued that research on women and gender is not sufficiently ‘global’ in its representation of scholars and perspectives. We draw on these works to argue that the scholarship on women, gender, and politics does not sufficiently consider the effects of the global order in the Global South. We propose the adoption of a ‘global lens’ to address this gap. We further examine the representation of South-based scholars by analyzing leading women, gender, and politics journals, and find that they are severely under-represented as authors. We propose steps to address this underrepresentation and to decolonize the scholarship.
Rape reporting in post-conflict Côte d'Ivoire: Accessing justice and ending impunity
(African Affairs, 2017) Medie, P.A.
International organizations are increasingly paying attention to the problem of sexual violence. One outcome of this attention has been the adoption of instruments that call on states to punish perpetrators of rape and end impunity for this crime. The reporting of rape to law enforcement agencies is key to formally holding perpetrators accountable. This article examines the influence of police officers and gendarmes and of social forces on survivors' decision to report rape in post-conflict Côte d'Ivoire. It also investigates the challenges that confront those who choose to seek redress from the state. It argues that the Ivorian conflict contributed to fostering a preference for redress from the state over informal justice mechanisms. On the other hand, the blaming and shaming of rape survivors was pervasive and discouraged them from reporting. Support from friends and relatives increased the likelihood that survivors would report rape but negative social reactions had adverse psychosocial effects on them. The article explores the implications of these findings for ending impunity and for post-conflict gender relations. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society.
The Role of Women’s Movements in the Implementation of Gender- Based Violence Laws
(Cambridge University Press, 2021) Anyidoho, N.A.; Crawford, G.; Medie, P.A.
The question of whether social movements can catalyze change has preoccupied researchers but an understanding of how such change can be created is equally important. Specifically, there has been little investigation of how women’s movements engage in the process of implementation of women’s rights laws. We use a case study of Ghana’s Domestic Violence Coalition to examine the challenges that movements face in the policy implementation process. The Domestic Violence Coalition, a collective of women’s rights organizations, was instrumental to the passage of Ghana’s Domestic Violence Act in 2007. Our study investigates the coalition’s subsequent attempts to influence the act’s implementation. Drawing from the social movement literature, we apply an analytical framework consisting of three internal factors (strategies, movement infrastructure, and framing) and two external factors (political context and support of allies) that have mediated the coalition’s impact on implementation. We find that changes in movement infrastructure are most significant in explaining the coalition’s relative ineffectiveness, as these changes adversely affect its ability to employ effective strategies and take advantage of a conducive political context and the presence of allies. This article advances the literature on rights advocacy by women’s movements by analyzing the challenge of translating success in policy adoption to implementation and explaining why women’s movements may have less impact on implementation processes.