ABSTRACT
It is both politically and normatively desirable to act to prevent mass atrocity crimes from being committed rather than to react after they are already underway. In fact, not only to prevent atrocities save lives, but it is also less expensive than reaction and rebuilding, and above all, it solves the dilemma between respecting State sovereignty and interference. However, it is difficult to translate rhetorical support for the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities into cohesive strategy. Prevention of genocide is still partial and some indicators are still missing. In fact, for as accurate they are, risk assessment and models for genocide prevention are not perfectly accurate yet. Existing early warning mechanisms to prevent mass atrocities are almost totally gender-blind, which means that they do not recognize any distinction between the sexes and incorporate biases not recognizing that women and men are constrained in different and often unequal ways by atrocities and therefore may have different needs, interests, and priorities.
