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Paper short abstract

Despite global attention to humanitarian security and commitments to ‘localisation’, violence against local women aid workers remains under-researched. This paper argues that dominant security frameworks obscure gendered and place-based experiences of violence and advances alternative frameworks.

Paper long abstract

Despite growing global attention to humanitarian security and international commitments to ‘localisation’, gendered violence against aid workers, particularly those embedded in local contexts, remains under-researched. Local women aid workers face multiple forms of violence, including legal, regulatory, socio-religious restrictions, as a direct result of their humanitarian work. As conflict-affected women from the global south, they face intersecting forms of marginalisation that exclude them from global debates on aid worker security and humanitarian access. Anchored in a feminist and justice-centred methodology, this paper interrogates existing datasets and conducts a discourse analysis of global policy on aid worker security. It builds on and critiques current theories related to aid worker security, protection and restraint by armed actors, and argues that dominant security frameworks obscure gendered and place-based experiences of violence. It advances alternative frameworks that centre decolonial feminist perspectives, challenging dominant security paradigms and informing more equitable humanitarian practice.