Finally, while the protection and promotion of gender-related rights should be prioritized at all times, some governments have in fact exploited gender inequality using these rights as a bartering tool to advance counter-terrorism objectives. For example, in 2009 Pakistani authorities signed a peace deal with the Taliban agreeing to implement the Taliban’s restrictive interpretation of Islamic law in exchange for peace.[73] Consequently, this interpretation was a significant impediment to the advancement of Pakistani women’s rights, and saw the closure of girls’ schools, prevention of women from working, and attending markets unaccompanied, and resulted in the beating of women for disobeying these laws.[74] While the bartering of gender-rights for counter-terrorism advancement is a direct violation of a State’s human rights obligations, it also implies human rights are optional. From the above examples, it is clear that state compliance with international human rights law in the counter-terrorism context has often not been prioritized or enforced in any meaningful way. Indeed, many of these instances are in line with conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism as identified by the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and adopted by the General Assembly under Resolution 70/291, including: Prolonged unresolved conflicts, dehumanization of victims of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, lack of the rule of law and violations of human rights, ethnic, national and religious discrimination, political exclusion, socioeconomic marginalization and lack of good governance.[75] And while this negligence could constitute a thesis in itself, this section has only attempted to highlight those gendered counter-terrorism strategies impacting women’s rights. Accordingly, having situated women and their rights in the current counter-terrorism discourse, this paper will now move on to a more in depth exploration of gender and gender perspectives, before applying them to counter-terrorism strategies. What is a Gender Perspective? Before engaging in a discussion on the impacts of applying a gender perspective to counter-terrorism strategies, it is essential to elaborate on what gender means. According to the United Nations Office of the Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, ‘gender’ refers to: The social attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female and the relationships between women and men and girls and boys, as well as the relations between women and those between men. These attributes, opportunities and relationships are socially constructed and are learned through socialization processes. Th>