2.3. Deconstructing the women and peacebuilding nexus in the context of current debates
2.3.1. Women as conflict instigators and combatants
Stereotypically, the conventional and general views as stated by Goldstein (2001), Coulter et.al (2008:7) and Cohen (2013:383) have always been to present women as peaceful, incapable of perpetrating violence during conflicts or simply playing supportive roles to male
21 Post-colonial conflicts included inter-state conflicts, such as between Algiers and Morocco in 1964/1965; and Ethiopia and Eritrea conflict. Also, there were internal conflicts, which continue to be in this contemporary.
These conflicts take the form of ethnic, religion, and resource conflicts, secessionist rebellions and Coup d’Etats (Bujra 200).
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fighters in conflict. However, the reality on the ground as expounded by these authors speak of a different tale where women likewise partake in conflicts and carryout acts of violence on civilians as well as non-combatants together with their male counterparts. In existing and former conflict societies like Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Uganda, the participation of women as conflict combatants and inciters remain(ed) quite a reality (Coulter et.al 2008:7). For example, Cohen’s (2013:384) research on ‘Female combatants’ in Sierra Leone clearly catalogues accounts of women perpetrating violent and indisputable acts of rape on targets by holding down victims to be gang raped and interleaving substances into their bodies. According to Cohen (2013) therefore, same experience was the case in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, during the genocide, where women also participated and piloted the killings of their victims.22 Likewise, Specht (2006) relates that in Liberia, violent actions by women combatants during the conflicts spanned gruesome sexual offenses like severing the genitals of their male victims and using guns and other objects to perpetrated vicious acts of rape on fellow women. In effect, Coulter et.al (2008:7) maintain that in their roles as combatants, women possess(ed) the ability to be more aggressive and uncompromising in certain instances than the male combatants. To scholars like Goldstein (2001) and Coulter et.al (2008) these violent actions by women were and are often executed, irrespective of whether their participation is voluntary or not, informed by the reasons for which they were recruited as fighters in the first place, or inspired by the ideology of feminist liberation.
In Liberia, the abduction, killing and raping of children, girls, women, family and community members during conflict, and especially the social burden of the conflicts themselves, often account(ed) for some of the reasons that prompt(ed) women to take up arms in violent retaliation (Specht 2006). In the context of women’s roles as inciters of conflict, it has been variously articulated that women, as in the case of Liberia, instigated such using the strong social bearings they had on their husbands, male children, and brothers (Kandakai 2015). For example, during the course of the night and in the privacy of their bedrooms, women’s tactical language and subtleness in expressing their grievances of the effects of the conflicts and the
22 Also see, Jones A. (2002). Gender and Genocide in Rwanda. Journal of Genocide Research 4(1), pp. 65-94.
And, Sharlach L. (1999). Gender and Genocide in Rwanda: Women as Agents and Objects of Genocide. Journal of Genocide Research 1(3), 387- 399.
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roles their husbands should or ought to play, saw them rallying their male children and more men in the community to take up arms and engage in the conflicts. Notably, women also prompted their husbands and male figures in the family with such comments like, ‘the other faction is winning the fight, killing our children, strong men and your friends are in battle line while you are sitting here doing nothing.’ Likewise, they instigated conflict along tribal lines, an example being in Lofa county, northern Liberia, where ethnic feelings where very strong and tribal lines drawn between the Lormas and the Mandingos (Kandakai 2015). A study by Mohamed (2004:13) reveals that in the Darfur region in Sudan, women were advocates, instigators, and in some instances the cause of inter-group conflicts among their male counterparts. For example, the Razaigat women verbally and by ways of actions, publicly and privately provoked and ridiculed their men for not taking revenge against the Cherubino people, who violently attacked, killed their people and appropriated their cattle (Mohamed 2004:16). Often, such incitements by women sow the seeds of battle in their male counterparts, with the end result being the community mobilization of the male folks to counterattack opposing factions.
In many ways, changes in women’s roles or gender disruptions occur during conflicts (Tripp 2015). Therefore, it should be understood that the impact and new strength of women in and out of the battle field contributes to them stepping out of the background to take up active roles as combatants and conflict instigators in the given of the above discourse. As part of the development of the women and peacebuilding discourse, this implies a shifting interpretation behind the raison d'être and focus on the involvement and role of women in peacebuilding, which for the purpose of this study is emphasized in terms of strategies to abet and enhance reconstruction and sustainable processes in post-conflict Liberia. Therefore, whilst the reality of women’s hard fought conflict roles and experiences is a major indictor in the evolving women-peacebuilding consensus, it also in many ways presents a flipped dimension of longstanding and banal perspectives that equate aggression and violence to men and peacefulness and pacifism to women (Goldstein 2001).
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2.3.2. Women as caregivers and peacebuilders during conflict and in post- conflict