The Dutch have voted. Migration was once again front and centre. Campaigns warned of crises, headlines framed Europe as divided. Open borders versus closed minds, compassion versus control. It all sounds like Europe has taken sides.
But has it?
New research from the PACES project, led by Anne-Marie Jeannet, Associate Professor at the Department of Social and Political Science, University of Milan, suggests a quieter, more nuanced reality.
Most Europeans are not at the extremes. They sit somewhere in the middle. Ambivalent, thoughtful, and conflicted, they recognise that migration can be both necessary and challenging. They want rules and fairness, but, they also care about protecting people in need. Europeans Want Balance and Fairness.
The findings show that Europeans tend to support strong border control and structured return policies, conditional welfare benefits, and targeted regularisation schemes. For example, this could include returning rejected asylum seekers, limiting benefits to those who meet certain conditions, and allowing some undocumented migrants to stay legally.
Immigration policies that included returning migrants with criminal convictions were over 10 percent more likely to be supported than those that did not. By contrast, policies proposing to contain asylum seekers in third-country camps were 4 percent more likely to be rejected, as were policies offering residential or tax-based incentives to attract migrants (3 percent more likely). Overall, the study shows that the public favours policies that are lawful and orderly, but not excessively restrictive.
The silent middle often resolves tensions between competing values using mental shortcuts, or heuristics. Citizens distinguish between authorised and unauthorised migrants and between law-abiding and criminal individuals when forming policy opinions. When rules are transparent and fair, trust grows. Yet migration policies are often viewed as unclear, which can fuel fear.
The Middle Is Large, But Quiet
This middle majority is easily overlooked. Loud, extreme voices dominate headlines, giving the impression that Europeans are either for or against migration. In reality, most people hold multiple, sometimes conflicting, values: humanitarian concern, fairness, and a desire for order. They recognise that migration is not simply good or bad — it is a normal part of social life that can bring benefits, challenges, and everything in between. Rather than choosing sides, they weigh trade-offs, evaluate policies conditionally, and respond to evidence.
As World Migrants Day approaches on the 18th of December, perhaps it is time to move beyond framing people as simply for or against migration. These debates often make me wonder why so many of us feel torn about it. Many people say they want to help refugees while also wanting borders to be managed, or that they support integration but worry about pressure on housing or jobs. That mix of concerns is not a contradiction. It reflects the complexity of real life.
It also raises further questions: why is it so difficult for the silent middle to express their moderate views? Is it a lack of knowledge, a lack of interest, or simply the noise of polarised debate? And what would it take to bring these more balanced voices into the conversation?
Migration is more than a policy debate. It is a mirror reflecting our values, fears, and hopes. Acknowledging the silent middle, the thoughtful but often conflicted majority, opens the door to conversations and policies that reflect reality rather than rhetoric. And the next time you read that Europe has turned against migration, it is worth remembering that while extreme voices are loud, a much larger, quieter middle is watching.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the authors:
Anne-Marie Jeannet
Anne-Marie Jeannet is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Milan and affiliated with Bocconi University’s Dondena Centre. Her research examines how social changes such as deindustrialization and immigration reshape political life and public perceptions. She leads the ERC-funded project Deindustrializing Societies and the Political Consequences (DESPO) and has published widely in leading journals.
Marcela Rubio
Marcela G. Rubio is an Economist in the Migration Unit at the Inter-American Development Bank. She earned her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration from Bocconi University in 2022 and studies how migration dynamics affect crime, human capital, and development outcomes. Her work spans Latin America, the Caribbean, the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia, with prior experience in academia, NGOs, and international organizations.
Lois Mobach
Lois Mobach is a Communications Advisor at Erasmus University, where she supports major research initiatives. She works on projects including PACES, helping translate complex findings into accessible communication. As co-author, she brings expertise in research dissemination and public engagement.
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Prevailing responses to digital violence against women and girls remain overwhelmingly reactive. We demand justice only after revenge‑porn, doxxing, or cyber‑bullying has already shattered a woman’s livelihood, dignity, or sense of safety. The scale of the crisis is undeniable: globally, between 16-58% of women have experienced some form of online violence, and in Nigeria, 45% of women self‑report digital abuse. Yet our interventions continue to treat symptoms while leaving the systems that enables digital violence unchallenged.
We are holding only one end of the line.
In this blog, Emaediong Akpan argues for a dual approach that confronts both the structural and cultural roots of digital violence. First, we must hold tech platforms and legal systems accountable for the architectures that make abuse easy, anonymous, and viral. Second, we must rethink how we prepare and support the next generation, beginning with digital literacy from childhood. This is not about shifting responsibility to users; it is about building collective resilience against the weaponized shame that underpins digital abuse. When we meet survivors with belief, care, and solidarity, we disrupt the culture of silence and return shame to its rightful place — with abusers and the systems that protect them.
Photo Credit: UN Women
Beyond Reactions
Nearly half of the world’s women and girls, have no legal protection from digital violence. The uncomfortable truth in our fight for digital safety is that we are often act after the fact. There is an overwhelming number of safety nets: legal, social, psychological, designed to ‘protect’ women and girls after they have experienced harm in digital spaces. However, according to Amnesty International, 76% of women report altering their online behavior due to abuse. This statistic reveals the limitation of our reactionary approach. We are treating the consequences of digital violence but failing to confront the architecture that exposes women and girls to harm. Our reactionary approach, though vital, is a partial victory at best, it means holding one end of the line. My call is to extend our hands and hold both ends.
The reactionary approach operates after the fact, after the harm has been done. It fails to confront the underlying issue: a digital ecosystem that is engineered through its architecture, business model and algorithms to facilitate and profit from such harm. To address digital violence against women and girls, we must adopt a dual-approach. This approach requires us to hold the line of platform accountability on one hand while engaging in foundational prevention rooted in early digital literacy and communal care on the other.
Understanding the Impact of Digital Violence on Women’s Participation in Public Life
Globally, 16-58% of women have experience online violence. In Nigeria, 45% of women self-report experiencing digital violence, with girls aged 12-17 and young women up to 35 being targeted.85% of women globally have witnessed digital violence such as cyberbullying, false and misleading smear campaigns, doxxing, image and text-based threats, and more. Although the forms of digital violence vary, the motive remains the same: to shame, silence, and exclude women and girls from public life. Below I explain the impact of two particularly insidious forms.
Cyber-Stalking:Research indicates that an estimated 7.5 million people have experienced cyberstalking, demonstrating that anyone with a smartphone, social-media or GPS-enabled device is vulnerable. Data from domestic violence programs in multiple countries indicates that 71-85% of domestic violence perpetrators use technology from smartphones and GPS to spyware, to stalk, monitor and threaten survivors. The intimate violence of the physical world now follows women into every digital space, collapsing any boundary between public and private life.
I use “digital violence” throughout this blog because it is conceptually encompassing. It captures not only the act of violence (harassment, doxing) but also the structural nature of the harm. It points to a violent digital environment shaped by the algorithmic amplification of harm and the prioritization of engagement/virality over safety. Digital violence as a concept draws attention to the platform not as a neutral mirror of gender-based violence offline but as an active participant in these acts of violence.
Holding Platforms and Systems Accountable
Our response ought to begin with the platforms whose digital architectures are designed to maximize ‘engagement’ irrespective of whether these engagements are driven by joy, outrage or hatred. The algorithms reward inflammatory contents with increased visibility, providing a fertile ground for digital violence to thrive. In adopting this approach, we must move beyond reactive content moderation to safety-by-design principles that places the responsibility on these platforms to mitigate systemic risks, including gender-based violence.
Our laws should specifically criminalize forms of digital violence including but not limited to cyber-stalking, disinformation, revenge porn, and doxxing. Although the Nigerian Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act 2015 is a good starting point, its effective application to address digital violence requires both amendment and judicial activism. The Act currently lacks explicit provisions for image-based sexual abuse, cyber-stalking, and platform liability. Courts must be willing to interpret existing provisions broadly while legislators work to close these gaps. We need legal frameworks that recognize the unique harms of digital violence—its permanence, its viral spread, its capacity to follow victims across every platform and into every space.
Digital Literacy as a Complimentary Strategy
Preventive approaches have been critiqued —often rightly for placing the responsibility on potential victims while absolving platforms of responsibility. My suggested approach does not absolve platforms of their responsibility. Rather, I argue that building communal resilience is not a parallel response but a complimentary strategy in this fight against digital violence. Even in a utopia with perfectly regulated platforms, harm can exist. The goal is to change the social and psychological terrain on which these attacks land.
Fostering a child’s critical consciousness does not excuse a platforms toxic design; it can help mitigate the effect of that design. This is the inoculation I speak of, is not against infection, but against the shame that digital violence weaponizes. Where young girls and women have the nonjudgmental support of their community, it becomes harder to manipulate them into feeling shame and equips them to identify, and resist abusive dynamics.
Building Communal Resilience from the Cradle
Today’s children are digital natives in a profound sense. Globally, one in three internet users is a child. In high-income countries, 60% of children use the internet by age five. In Africa, with the world’s youngest population and smartphone adoption surpassing 50%, children are primary users of family devices, entering complex digital publics with little to no guidance. This strategy ought to begin with digital literacy.
Critical consciousness from early childhood: Teaching children to question what they see online, who benefits from this content? Who might be harmed? Why is this being shown to me? This is media literacy adapted for an algorithmic age.
Bodily autonomy and consent: Children need to understand they have the right to set boundaries online, to say no to requests for images or information, and that consent given under pressure is not consent at all. These conversations must happen before children encounter coercion, not after.
Trusted adult networks: Every child should be able to identify at least two adults they can turn to if something online makes them uncomfortable or afraid. This requires adults who respond without panic, judgment, or punishment, a significant cultural shift in many contexts.
Community response models: When digital violence occurs, the community’s response matters as much as the legal one. Schools, religious institutions, and community organizations must be prepared to support survivors with unwavering belief rather than interrogation, with resources rather than blame. In Nigeria, organizations like the International Federation of Women Lawyers,Feminist Coalition, and StandToEndRape have pioneered such models, but they need to become the norm, not the exception.
The evidence supports this approach. In Finland, where comprehensive digital literacy has been integrated into education since 2014, young people report higher confidence in identifying misinformation and manipulation online. In South Korea, where digital citizenship education is mandatory, rates of cyber-bullying have declined even as internet usage has increased. Nigeria has the capacity to develop contextually grounded approaches that respond to our specific realities of digital violence.
Conclusion: Holding Both Ends of the Line
The fight against digital violence is a struggle for the future of public space, discourse, and democracy itself. A singular focus on post-harm justice, while morally imperative, is strategically incomplete. It addresses the symptoms but does not prepare the next-generation for these realities. We must confront digital violence by contesting the exploitative architectures of platforms and by building a critically conscious population from the cradle. This dual-approach is critical in this moment.
We must confront digital violence by contesting the exploitative architectures of platforms while simultaneously building a critically conscious population from the cradle. We must demand that platforms redesign their systems for safety while teaching young people to navigate these systems with critical awareness. We must prosecute abusers while building communities that refuse to shame survivors. This dual approach is not a compromise, it is recognition that structural change and cultural transformation must advance together. One end of the line without the other leaves us perpetually playing catch-up, counting casualties, offering comfort after the fact.
It is time to hold both ends of the line. Our children are counting on it.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the author:
Emaediong Akpan is a legal practitioner and an alumna of the International Institute of Social Studies. With extensive experience in the development sector, her work spans gender equity, social inclusion, and policy advocacy. She is also interested in exploring the intersections of law, technology, and feminist policy interventions to promote safer digital environments. Read her blogs here: 1,2, 3, 4,5
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Sexual violence response systems rely on a workforce of caregivers who bear witness to trauma daily. Yet, the vicarious trauma eroding these responders’ wellbeing is dangerously overlooked. Drawing on her personal frontline experience, Emaediong Akpan argues that caring for survivors is impossible without caring for those who serve them.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
Bearing Witness in a Broken System
Drawing on my professional experience in sexual violence response, I have encountered two parallel realities. The first is the survivor’s journey marked by courage, fragmented by institutional demands, and too often complicated secondary victimization—the trauma inflicted by the very systems meant to provide justice. The second, less visible reality is that of the responders: the advocates, nurses, law enforcement officers, and counselors who absorb these narratives daily.
Across different roles, a common experience is a deep sense of professional and personal isolation. Many legal professionals, for instance, describe a deep conflict between the rigid demands of procedure and the human impulse to offer comfort, leaving them feeling like instruments of a process rather than agents of care. This profound alienation is not a personal failing; it is a structural byproduct of work that demands profound empathy while offering inadequate structural support.
During the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, our discourse rightly centers survivor voices and systemic accountability. However, I argue that this discourse remains critically incomplete if it does not also address the vicarious trauma permeating the response workforce. This is not about shifting focus from survivors, but about recognizing a fundamental truth: a system that consumes its caregivers is a system destined to fail those it seeks to serve. Neglecting the responder’s wellbeing is a direct, measurable detriment to survivor care, addressing it becomes a non-negotiable pillar of gender justice.
Beyond Burnout, Toward Transformation
To understand the true nature of this crisis, we must move beyond everyday words like “stress” or “burnout.” The core psychological hazard for trauma workers is vicarious trauma (VT). Grounded in seminal work by McCann and Pearlman, VT is understood as a cumulative and transformative process. It is not simply about feeling tired or sad. Rather, it is the profound, often permanent, change in a helper’s own inner world, their beliefs, memories, and sense of self, that results from repeatedly and empathetically engaging with the traumatic material of those they serve.
The key mechanism is the disruption of what psychologists call cognitive schemas. These are our most basic psychological frameworks, our deep-seated beliefs about safety, trust, esteem, intimacy, and control. Vicarious trauma forces these frameworks to change. Repeated exposure to traumatic stories creates a confrontation that our existing worldview can’t absorb. To cope, the mind is forced to rebuild its understanding of reality, leading to a profound shift: the helper’s worldview itself can become more pessimistic, fearful, and fragile.
This is what makes VT different. It’s not the same as compassion fatigue (which is the wearing down of your empathy) or burnout (which is general exhaustion from work stress). While those conditions are about depletion, VT is about alteration. It does not just tire you out; it can fundamentally and lastingly change how you see the world and your place in it.
The Perfect Storm: How Sexual Violence Work Fuels Vicarious Trauma
The nature of sexual violence response doesn’t just risk vicarious trauma, it actively creates the ideal conditions for it to take root and thrive. It is defined by a double exposure that sets it apart.
First, there is the chronic, cumulative exposure to traumatic material. Survivors are often caught in a relentless “testimonial spiral,” required to narrate their assault repeatedly, to police, medical examiners, prosecutors, and multiple counselors. Each time they narrate their experiences even though procedurally necessary, it is psychologically costly, forcing the responder to bear witness to graphic, intimate details of violence not once, but over and over again.
Second, and just as negatively impactful, is the exposure to systemic and procedural betrayal. We are not just witnesses to the original trauma. We become firsthand observers of how institutions can fail survivors: through skeptical questioning informed by rape myths, invasive forensic exams with little psychosocial support, and the devastating attrition of cases through plea bargains or dismissal. This generates more than empathy; it creates moral injury, the profound distress that comes from witnessing actions that violate our core sense of justice and ethics. The helper is thus traumatized by both the client’s story and the system’s failure.
This ‘perfect storm’ is intensified by the composition of the workforce. The victim services sector is predominantly female, reflecting the broader gendered landscape of care work. Furthermore, it includes a significant number of survivors who enter the field through a validated ‘survivor-to-survivor’ model of advocacy,a testament to the movement’s grassroots origins that value lived experience as expertise. While this brings profound empathy and insight, scholars note it also layers personal vulnerability onto professional exposure, a combination that is too rarely met with the robust structural safeguards it demands.
The Architecture of Neglect: Systemic Drivers of Vicarious Trauma
It is important to note that VT is not an accidental outcome; it is manufactured by systemic failures across multiple levels.
a. The Political Economy of Care Work
Victim services are notoriously underfunded, relying on precarious grants and charitable funding. This translates into low salaries, high caseloads, and chronic understaffing, conditions directly correlated with VT severity. Workers, often women, are asked to perform emotionally extreme labour with economic precarity, a classic example of the gendered devaluation of care.
b. Institutional Illiteracy
Many criminal justice and healthcare institutions lack trauma-informed organizational practices. Supervision is often administrative, not clinical or reflective. There are rarely protocols for routine psychological debriefing, caseload management to prevent saturation, or mandated “cool-down” periods between intense cases. New, younger advocates, those most vulnerable to secondary traumatic stress, are frequently thrown into the deep end without adequate mentorship (as highlighted in my own training materials).
c. Cultural Stigma and the “Strong Helper”
Especially within masculinized domains like law enforcement, a culture of stoicism prevails. Help-seeking is stigmatized as weakness, with legitimate fears about confidentiality breaches and career repercussions. Studies indicate that a majority of first responders are reluctant to seek support due to perceived professional risks. The culture of stoicism, particularly in criminal justice roles, stigmatizes help-seeking. People fear being seen as weak or unfit, forcing distress underground and often leading to maladaptive coping mechanisms like substance use.
d. Professional Isolation and Erasure
Those in roles like victim advocacy, often situated uneasily between community and court, can experience “trauma hierarchy,” where their exposure is minimized compared to “first responders.” This lack of validation exacerbates feelings of isolation and invisibility, stripping away a protective sense of shared purpose.
e. The Inevitable Consequence: Compromised Survivor Care
My argument is that the systemic production of VT is not merely an occupational health issue. It actively degrades the quality and ethics of survivor services.
Attrition of Expertise: Vicarious trauma is a primary driver of high turnover. When a skilled, trauma-informed advocate burns out and leaves, survivors lose continuity, a relationship of trust is severed, and institutional memory evaporates. This constant churn keeps organizations in a state of novice crisis, unable to develop deep expertise.
The Erosion of Empathetic Capacity: Compassion fatigue, a precursor or companion to VT, manifests as detachment, cynicism, and emotional numbing. A responder struggling with these symptoms cannot provide the authentic, patient, and validating presence that trauma recovery requires. Interactions become transactional, potentially replicating the impersonal harm of secondary victimization.
Impaired Judgment and Ethical Risk: VT’s cognitive disruptions, hypervigilance, pervasive pessimism, disrupted boundaries, can lead to clinical errors, inappropriate self-disclosure, or burnout-driven shortcuts in care. Pearlman & Saakvitne (1995) warn that unaddressed VT can lead to boundary violations, where the helper’s own unmet needs distort the therapeutic relationship.
The Silencing of Advocacy: A responder drowning in unprocessed trauma loses the energy for systemic advocacy. The fight to change oppressive policies, challenge rape myths in court, or secure better resources requires a reserve of righteous anger and hope. VT depletes that reserve, creating a workforce that is too exhausted to challenge the very systems that harm both them and their clients.
In summary, a workforce without proper support becomes a fragile system designed to carry immense weight but lacks the reinforcement to do so safely or indefinitely. Because it cannot sustainably hold the weight of survivor trauma, and it will inevitably fracture, with survivors bearing the consequences of the collapse.
Toward a New Paradigm: From Individual Self-Care to Structural Accountability
The common prescription of “self-care” places the burden of resilience on the individual, obscuring the systemic origins of the harm. We must demand a shift toward “system-care” and structural accountability.
Mandate and Fund Psychological Infrastructure: This must be a budget line, not a perk. Agencies need embedded, confidential mental health services specializing in trauma-exposed professions. Funding bodies must tie grants to the existence of realistic caseload limits, competitive salaries, and wellness protocols.
Implement Trauma-Informed Supervision: Replace purely administrative oversight with reflective, clinically-informed supervision that normalizes discussion of VT, provides strategies for cognitive integration, and safeguards boundaries. Models like that proposed by Harrison & Westwood (2009) have shown efficacy in reducing VT.
Dismantle Stigma Through Leadership: Institutional leaders must model vulnerability and help-seeking. Peer support programs, with rigorous confidentiality safeguards, can create culturally-competent spaces for processing within the workforce itself.
Integrate Resilience into Training: Education for responders must begin before first contact with survivors. Training should include psychoeducation on VT, grounding techniques, boundary-setting skills, and clear pathways to support, framing resilience as a core professional competency.
Conclusion: My Call for an Unbreakable Chain of Justice
As we concluded the 16 Days of Activism , we must commit to a more holistic vision of justice. The fight against gender-based violence is fought on multiple fronts: in the courtroom, the hospital, the therapist’s office, and the advocate’s office desk. These fronts are connected by people. If the people on the front lines of care are being psychologically depleted by the very structure of that care, we have designed a self-defeating system.
Caring for survivors and ensuring the wellbeing of those who care for them are inseparable goals.They represent two halves of a single ethical imperative. We cannot build a survivor-centered response on the broken well-being of the workforce. Investing in the resilience of responders, through funding, institutional change, and cultural shift, is not a diversion from survivor justice. It is the most pragmatic investment we can make in its sustainability and quality.
The witness who is heard, the advocate who can stay present, the nurse who maintains compassion, the officer who conducts a trauma-informed interview, these are not just individuals doing a job. They are the living, breathing infrastructure of a just response. It is time we built that infrastructure to last.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts solely reflects the views of the author of the post in question.
About the author:
Emaediong Akpan is a legal practitioner and an alumna of the International Institute of Social Studies. With extensive experience in the development sector, Emaediong Akpan’s work spans gender equity, social inclusion, and policy advocacy. She is also interested in exploring the intersections of law, technology, and feminist policy interventions to promote safer digital environments. Read her blogs here: 1,2, 3, 4.
Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.
International law has an incredible potential to be the vehicle through which global transgender liberation is realized. In this reflective blog, Paxton McCausland argues that international law is already being used to improve the quality of life for transgender peoples across the world. Sadly however, this dream will never be fully accomplished with the continuation of horrific impunity.
As an American grassroots organizer for transgender liberation, I never envisioned myself becoming interested in or even inspired by law. During my undergraduate education, in which I studied Political Science, I took a Constitutional Law class and was deflated, disappointed and bored. American constitutional law has very few safeguards for transgender individuals and the Supreme Court, in its present composition at least, is generally hopeless. Having completed several unpaid internships with politicians who used my work without crediting me, I began to understand that American politics were not for me. My despondent view of the law changed when I began to learn about international law in graduate school.
It turns out that international law has incredible potential to realize and spread transgender liberation. While there are several forms of international law, all with their own guidelines, concepts and modalities, in this blog post I will use a broad definition, meaning that the points I make do not align with one specific form of international law. Additionally, I must establish that I am not an international lawyer, but rather merely a liberation nerd, endlessly excited by the potential of international law. That being said, international law not only contains an actual definition of gender, it also contains radical promotion of self-determination, a concept I had never heard of within the domestic law of my own nation. Both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, major tenants within the international human rights law, begin with the phrase ‘All peoples have the right of self-determination’. Self-determination as transgender liberation, as I have understood it in my background as a trans organizer, advocates for an individual to understand and decide for themselves who they are and what is best for them. In theory, the ultimate expression of transgender liberation is the truest expression of self-determination. This incredible tool for international trans liberation, however, cannot reach its full potential while blatant impunity against war crimes and continuous double standards for the worst and most powerful offenders continues. In a very obvious example, the United States has been protecting Israel from punishment, as well as allowing the country’s many war crimes and crimes against humanity, such as the blatant encouragement of illegal Israeli settlements, to continue with impunity for decades via the UNSC veto power and other such methods. The longer this impunity continues, the weaker international law becomes. I would even go so far as to say that the future of international transgender liberation rests on the protection and sanctity of international law, and therefore the end of such impunity.
International law has already begun to benefit and protect transgender, gender-non-conforming, nonbinary and Indigenous third gender peoples throughout the world. Despite a somewhat problematic definition of gender within the Rome Statute, which confuses sex and gender, the International Criminal Court established the understanding that gender is socially constructed as an international law standard through the Office of the Prosecutor’s Policy on the Crime of Gender Persecution. For more information on the debate regarding the definition of gender in international law, I encourage readers to engage with Alexandra Lily Kather and Juliana Santos de Carvalho’s brilliant article on the subject. As mentioned above, international law’s standard of the concept and promotion of self-determination is extremely helpful in establishing transgender people’s right to gender-affirming care and ability to self-identify. Many scholars, such as B. Camminga, advocate for trans folk’s right to legal gender recognition (LGR), or accurate depiction of an individual’s gender identity on legal documents, on the basis of self-determination alone. In arguing for LGR on this basis, requirements for trans people to ‘prove’ their gender identity (refer to the Camminga article linked above), through costly, cumbersome, invasive and harmful medical diagnosis or bottom surgery, a form of reproductive violence and forced sterilization, are rendered unnecessary. In the unfortunate situation in which a trans person has a well-founded fear of persecution based on their membership to a particular social group – the trans community – international law grants them, via the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugee status and allows them to apply for asylum. The international law principle of non-refoulement states that it is prohibited for these individuals to be sent back to their countries of origin if their return would most likely result in a serious threat to their life or freedom. These are a few of the ways international law is already working toward transgender liberation.
Given these standards of international law and the enormous potential of this type of law to realize transgender liberation, it is imperative that all roadblocks to its success be eliminated. We cannot tackle the toughest battles until the means by which the battles can be fought are working as they were intended to. Liberation builds on itself – at a macro and micro level, we are all fighting the same battle for liberation. As such, protecting international law not only ensures the protection and safety of trans and gender-non-conforming individuals, today and tomorrow, but it additionally ensures protections of rights for everyone. By battling impunity, we are allowing trans people, Palestinians, Sudanese, Royhinga, Yadzidi and everyone to live full and dignified lives everywhere.
They say the future of international law is domestic law. Given this adage, it is my greatest hope that one day I can see the laws in my own country reflect those that protect my people through international law. At that point, with my ultimate life and career goal being international transgender liberation, I will be able to die happy. Protect international law. Protect the International Criminal Court. The liberation of transgender peoples and of all peoples depends on it.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the author:
Paxton McCausland
Paxton McCausland (he/they) is an organizer and academic who began working toward gender justice as a grassroots organizer for transgender liberation. They were recently appointed as a board member for the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice and received a Master of International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs. Paxton currently resides in Pennsylvania.
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International criminal law has made remarkable progress in recognizing gender-based crimes, yet conviction rates alone cannot capture the meaning of justice for survivors. In this blog, Abubakar Muhammad Jibril draws on the Gender Justice in International Criminal Law Conference to argue that genuine gender justice must be reimagined through survivors’ lived experiences—centering healing, dignity, and accountability beyond the courtroom.
Over the past two decades, international criminal law (ICL) has evolved to acknowledge sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) as crimes of the gravest concern. From the landmark Akayesu judgment of the ICTR, which recognized rape as an act of genocide, to the Rome Statute’s explicit listing of sexual slavery, enforced pregnancy and other forms of sexual violence, progress has been undeniable. Yet despite these achievements, the lived experiences of many survivors reveal a different reality. During the Gender Justice in International Criminal Law Conference, several participants echoed a powerful truth: a conviction does not automatically equate to justice. Survivors often remain unseen, unheard and unsupported in the aftermath of trials. Many return to communities where stigma and silence persist, where reparations are delayed and where their suffering is reduced to a footnote in legal history. This paradox between legal recognition and lived reality lies at the heart of why gender justice remains incomplete.
The epistemic gap in International Criminal Law
ICL, by design, privileges evidence, procedure and precedent. It asks: What can be proved? Who can be held responsible? Yet for survivors of gender-based crimes, justice often depends on questions the law cannot fully answer: How can I heal? Who believes me? Will my story change anything? This epistemic gap between legal knowledge and experiential truth reflects a deeper structural limitation. The courtroom, though vital, cannot capture the emotional, social and cultural dimensions of gendered harm. The narratives of survivors are frequently filtered through lawyers, investigators and judges, transformed into ‘admissible evidence’ rather than lived testimonies of pain and resilience. As feminist scholars like Catharine MacKinnon and Fionnuala Ní Aoláin have argued, law can recognize sexual violence without truly listening to survivors. This dissonance risks turning gender justice into a symbolic victory rather than a transformative one.
From criminalization to transformation
At the conference, one speaker remarked that international tribunals have been more successful in criminalizing gender-based crimes than in transforming the conditions that enable them. This distinction is crucial. Criminalization ensures accountability for perpetrators, but transformation demands more: it requires dismantling the patriarchal, cultural and institutional structures that make such crimes possible in the first place. Survivors do not merely seek punishment; they seek recognition, healing and inclusion in rebuilding their societies. For instance, the Trust Fund for Victims under the International Criminal Court (ICC) has provided symbolic reparations, but survivors repeatedly stress the need for collective and community-based remedies, access to education, psychological care, economic empowerment and public acknowledgment. These are not mere add-ons to justice; they are justice itself.
Centring survivors’ voices: towards participatory justice
Reimagining gender justice means shifting from a courtroom-centred model to a survivor-centred one. Survivors must not only testify; they must shape the process. Participatory justice approaches already piloted in certain post-conflict societies offer valuable lessons. In Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Uganda, survivor networks have played pivotal roles in truth-telling and community reconciliation. Their initiatives illustrate that justice becomes meaningful when survivors help define their goals and outcomes. As discussed in several conference panels, integrating psychosocial support, trauma-informed procedures and culturally sensitive reparations into ICL processes could bridge the gap between law and lived experience.
The politics of recognition
Gender justice cannot be disentangled from global hierarchies of power. Many survivors come from the Global South, yet international criminal processes are dominated by Northern institutions and perspectives. This imbalance shapes not only whose stories are heard but also how justice is defined. To move beyond symbolic inclusion, international mechanisms must decolonize their approaches, valuing local knowledges, community healing practices and indigenous forms of accountability. Justice cannot be exported; it must be co-created with those who have suffered most. A decolonial feminist approach to ICL thus requires more than reforming procedure; it demands rethinking the very epistemology of justice from punishment-centred to person-centred, from institutional legitimacy to human dignity.
Reclaiming the meaning of justice
The conference’s closing sessions were marked by a shared realization: while legal frameworks are essential, they are not sufficient. The future of gender justice lies not only in how courts punish crimes but in how societies restore humanity after harm. For survivors, justice is not measured in verdicts but in voices being heard, believed and healed. It is in communities that refuse to silence them, in policies that empower them and in histories that finally honour their truths. International criminal law must therefore evolve from a reactive to a restorative paradigm, one that integrates legal accountability with social repair, trauma healing and long-term prevention. Only then can justice be both legal and lived.
Conclusion
As scholars, practitioners and advocates, we must move beyond celebrating convictions to asking harder questions: Whose justice? For whom? At what cost? The survivors who continue to rebuild their lives after unimaginable violence remind us that justice is not a verdict; it is a process of human restoration. The future of gender justice in international criminal law depends on whether we can truly listen to the people for whom justice was meant to serve.
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the author:
Abubakar Muhammad Jibril is a legal researcher and LLM candidate specializing in human rights law, with a focus on women’s and children’s rights, gender-based violence and international human rights frameworks. His work integrates comparative legal analysis across diverse jurisdictions, exploring the intersections of law, culture and religion, particularly within Islamic legal traditions. Abubakar’s research aims to promote equitable legal reforms and deepen the scholarly understanding of justice, dignity and protection for vulnerable groups worldwide.
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