Immense beyond imagination, the untamed rainforests of western New Guinea represent a biodiversity hotspot, home to several unique species of flora and fauna. The territory’s astonishing beauty and diversity is underpinned by a stunning array of natural resources. The island is also home to many indigenous communities practicing hundreds of local languages and traditions and depending on their natural environment for maintaining their traditional livelihoods, identity and culture. The territory’s much-contested decolonization process in the 1950-60s led to widespread discontent among indigenous Papuans and gave rise to persistent dissent from Indonesian rule, routinely met with disproportionately violent action by Indonesian security forces. Adding to these longstanding colonial ills and grievances, indigenous Papuan communities also struggle to grapple with inequitable allocation of land and resources, extreme pollution and environmental degradation caused by the mining and palm oil sectors. In the meantime, climate-exacerbated weather events have become more frequent in the region creating new tensions by putting an additional strain on natural resources and thus leading to an increased level of insecurity and inequality. In particular, these challenges have a disproportionate and profound impact on indigenous Papuan women, whose native lands are deeply embedded in their cultural and ethnic identity, and who are dependent on access to land to carry out their prescribed roles. Displacement also puts women at further risk of violence. Adding to sexual violence and displacement experienced by indigenous Papuan women, the loss of traditional lands and resources has been identified as having a singularly negative impact on women as it impedes their empowerment and makes them vulnerable to continued violence. The Papuan experience thus serves as a timely illustration to exemplify how environmental factors, such as resource extraction and climate change, not only amplify vulnerabilities and exacerbate pre-existing inequalities stemming from colonial times, they also give rise to gendered consequences flowing from large-scale degradation and loss of the natural environment.
The past two decades, a disproportionate growth of females entering the criminal justice system and forensic mental health services has been observed worldwide. However, there is a lack of knowledge on the background of women who are convicted for violent offenses. What is their criminal history, what are their motives for offending and in which way do they differ from men convicted for violent offenses? In this study, criminal histories and the offenses for which they were admitted to forensic care were analyzed of 218 women and 218 men who have been treated between 1984 and 2014 with a mandatory treatment order in one of four Dutch forensic psychiatric settings admitting both men and women. It is concluded that there are important differences in violent offending between male and female patients. Most importantly, female violence was more often directed towards their close environment, like their children, and driven by relational frustration. Furthermore, female patients received lower punishments compared to male patients and were more often considered to be diminished accountable for their offenses due to a mental illness.
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