Dr Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits presents her paper on peacemaking and state making as organized crime in Afghanistan.
During the recent Research Policy Dialogue on Navigating non-state justice and security actors in fragile states', organized by the European Union Institute for Security Studies and the Swedish Agency for Peace, Security and Development, Jayasundara-Smits presented the first draft her research paper 'Peacemaking and state-making as organised crime: Peacebuilders, war lords and dancing boys in Afghanistan' which she co-authored with recent MA in Development Studies graduate, Farid Ghalib.
In their paper, Jayasundara-Smits and Ghalib argue that the agendas of liberal Western peace and statebuilders require them to turn a blind eye to the gender and sexual violence commited by their local allies again Batcha Bazi (dancing boys). These agendas helped empower the Taliban and Afghan war lords and thus bear equal responsibility for the tragic condition faced by girls, women and other marginalized groups. They furthermore consolidated the deeply gendered and militant-masculinized state under the present Taliban rule.
On the second day of the Dialogue, Jayasundara-Smits was one of the panellists on the Programming for Hybrid Governance Realities: Critical approaches to international actors' current practices and future directions discussion.
The event was attended by EU policy makers working on EU foreign and security policy.