This policy brief examines the expanding use of administrative measures in counter-terrorism contexts and assesses their gendered and age-specific impacts on individuals and their social environments. Building on earlier work on rule-of-law safeguards, it focuses on measures such as travel bans, control orders, and restrictions on movement that are increasingly applied outside the criminal justice framework.
The analysis demonstrates how ostensibly gender-neutral administrative measures can produce significant direct and indirect harms when gender and age are not adequately considered. It highlights how gendered assumptions - particularly those related to women’s roles as mothers and caregivers - shape both the design and implementation of counter-terrorism measures, often resulting in discrimination, stigmatisation, and unintended rights violations.
The paper concludes by calling for systematic gender- and age-sensitive impact assessments, stronger monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, and closer alignment with human rights and rule-of-law standards to ensure that administrative measures are effective, proportionate, and legitimate.