The following is a very incomplete essay that I worked on a while back. It lacks any overarching structure and is largely unedited first-draft material, but it might be useful to some people. -EL
Women, War, and Liberia
Liberia’s
modern history is irrevocably marked by the civil war that spanned a decade and
a half. Much about the current state of its population and infrastructure can
be attributed to that conflict. It has also been marked by the peace movement
that followed. The explicitly gendered name and composition of the movement
(Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace) at elucidates the gendering of the consequences
to war; although men form the bulk (albeit not the entirety) of the combatants
in the vast majority of conflicts, women are simultaneously participants and
actors even at the same time that they might be victims. Although there are
still major roadblocks for women in Liberia, the mobilization of women in the
peace movement shows – not only is there a woman President, but women’s
participation in higher government matches that of the USA in the mid-late
1990s.
Liberia’s Background, In Brief
Liberia
emerged as a political state in 1847, although settlement began as early as
1822. (US Central Intelligence Agency) The nascent republic primarily consisted
of freed US American and Caribbean slaves, although their descendants comprise
only roughly 5% of the current Liberian population. Ironically, the indigenous majority
population was socio-politically subjugated and it was not until the Samuel
Doe’s 1980 coup d’état that the racial
and ethnic balance of power shifted. (Kwekwe)
Liberia
has been host to several violent conflicts during the period from 1980-2003 and
in that time, there were only scant periods of relative peace and stability. It
is estimated that roughly a quarter million people were killed during the
course of this civil war, and countless more were injured and/or displaced. (Geneva
Academy RULAC Project) Every warring faction has been reported to have engaged
in widespread murder, rape, mutilation, torture, forced conscription (including
that of minors), and enslavement. (Kwekwe)
The Rise and Fall of Charles
Taylor
Although
conflict in Liberia started in 1980 with Samuel Doe’s overthrow of the William
Tolbert government, Charles Taylor is at the nexus of all following conflict.
He successfully led the removal and execution of Samuel Doe in 1990, only to
see his own forces splinter. An uneasy ceasefire was reached in 1995, but
fighting broke out again by 1999. In 2003, he was forced in to exile, in part
due to the efforts of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace movement.
(Geneva Academy RULAC Project)
The Status of Women in Liberia
Today
The
2013 Human Development Report published by the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) listed Liberia 174th out of 186 nations in its Gender
Inequality Index, dropping almost 30 ranks from its place in 2012. (Malik, 158)
As of 2005, 54% of Liberian women were illiterate and during the period between
2006-2010, only 15.7% of women were able to achieve at least secondary
education. (Seager 120, Malik 158) 13% of Liberia’s government comprised of
women in 2008, with that number dropping to 11.7% by 2013. (Seager, 121, Malik 158)
Despite
the dearth of women in government, Liberia is notable in that its President
since 1995 has been a woman – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. In 2007, it was the first
nation to obtain an all-female peacekeeping police force. (Seager, 103) Human
Rights Watch has reported that the number of recorded rapes nearly doubled
between 2006 and 2007 despite the passage of the 2006 Rape Amendment Act. (Human
Rights Watch, 133)
Gendered Implications of Conflict
Findings
in post-conflict research carried out by Isis-Women’s International
Cross-Cultural Exchange (Isis-WICCE), the Ministry of Gender and Development in
Liberia, and Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET) discovered widespread rape
and sexual torture, chronic surgical and gynecological complaints, and
psychiatric disorders. (Liebling-Kalifani et al., 9-11) According to
Liebling-Kalifani et al., there has been a high incidence of comorbid
“[p]sychological problems, attempted suicide and alcohol abuse” with cases of
reported gynecological issues, suggesting a causal link. (ibid., 10) They
report that, “…well over half of the women experienced some form of sexual
torture,” (ibid., 9) that “[s]ixty-eight point five percent of women
respondents had at least one gynaecological complaint,” (ibid., 10), and that
“[a]round half of the participants in the study had significant psychological
distress indicating probably psychiatric disorder.” (ibid., 11)
Blurring the line between
Combatant and Victim
Aaronette
M. White complicates the notion that men commit acts of violence and that women
suffer and mourn, arguing that “[d]espite the multiple factors working against
women’s involvement in war, many contemporary African women served in African
liberation armies struggling for political independence from European colonial
rule.” (White, 71) In Liberia, as in other conflict zones, care must be taken not
to characterize all of the combatants as men and all of the victims as women.
Doing so reconstitutes the gendered norms of masculinity and femininity
responsible for systemic patriarchal violence, grossly oversimplifies the
conflict and the peace and reconciliation process, and renders female
combatants invisible. Cynthia Enloe offers as an example Hanoi’s Women’s Museum.
It is dedicated to Vietnamese motherhood and ignores the reality of
childlessness among female veterans. (Enloe, 249)
It
is important to note that it is possible to descriptively address gendered
specificities, sociopolitical attitudes regarding gender, and specifically
gendered forms of violence without adhering to prescriptive assumptions about
subject/object, actor/non-actor relationships. Without the ability to
descriptively analyze structural power, there is an unfortunate tendency to
individualize problems rather than indict systems of domination.
It
is also critical to remember that in Liberia, many of the combatants were
recruited and press-ganged as children, making them victims in their own right.
There is no question of the wide-spread (ab)use of these children – Enloe
explains that “in the 1980s and early 1990s, a local term was created just to
describe the process of press-gangs’ forced conscription of young boys: afesa, ‘sweeping up.’” (Enloe, 243) Many
of these boys were either literal or effective orphans, their parents either
dead or displaced. (ibid., 242)
Male
and female former combatants were both “forced to perpetrate brutal acts of
violence including rape, torture, and murder while they [were] subjected to the
same.” (Johnson et al., 676) Over a quarter of these women saw active combat.
(ibid., 688) Amongst former combatants, 35.3% of women and 16.5% of men
reported being “forced to be [a] sexual servant or slave.” (ibid., 682) 42.3%
of women and 32.6% of men reported having experienced sexual violence. In spite
of rampant mental health issues like PTSD, Major Depressive Disorder, suicide
ideation, and homicidal ideation, a significant proportion of former combatants
have little to no access to mental health counseling and psychological
services. (ibid., 683)
Refugees
The
challenges that women faced in Liberian refugee camps were significant. For
example, lack of resources, professional expertise, and trust in government and
private facilities made providing adequate health care difficult to impossible,
with the percentage of individuals treating themselves/seeking traditional
healers/seeking health professionals falling at 92%, 63%, and 35% respectively.
(Liebling-Kalifani et al., 12) Yet, it remains critical to acknowledge that
while there are immense difficulties, there is, in the words of Sherwood and
Liebling-Kalifani, “a relationship between resilience, access to rights and
support and identity,” that can potentially manifest. (Sherwood and
Liebling-Kalifani, 86) The authors argue that the assumption of
PTSD-inevitability within a biomedical model as a response to conflict prevents
genuine analysis of positive adaptation to wartime pressures. Some refugee
camps may potentially become places where deeply social and emotionally
significant communities develop, whether by kinship or shared experience. Some
find peace through religious beliefs and practices that may be strengthened by
their trials and tribulations. For some, this may re-awaken a sense of cultural
belonging and identity. (ibid., 88)
Liberia
provides a particularly poignant example of positive adaptation to wartime. There
is little doubt that the women of Liberia suffered immensely as a result of the
Liberian Civil War.
Yet,
Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace sprang out of “women’s exhaustion and
desperation – but there was nothing spontaneous about it…” (Gbowee, 138) Rather,
it demonstrated a development of common consciousness and resolve. The actions
of the movement were carefully orchestrated and organized, bringing together
women of many different backgrounds and, notably, of different religions.
(ibid., 138-139)
Sherwood
and Liebling-Kalifani recognized this same potential, not just in Liberia in a
variety of conflict zones in Africa. In fact, in their study, “[a]ll of the
women interviewed described witnessing violence, sexual violence, or death of a
relative as a result of conflict.” (Sherwood and Libeling-Kalifani, 96) Many
expressed deep psychological and physical trauma. (ibid., 97) This much is well-established
from a multitude of studies and surveys about conflict zones. Less studied, and
perhaps every bit as vital, was the aforementioned relationship between
resilience, access to rights and support, and identity. Most of the women
living in these conflict zones developed coping mechanisms in order to proceed
with their lives.
To
many Westerners, the notion that living in the midst of battlefields can become
mundane is literally unbelievable. Bearing in mind that state of privilege, it is
easy to imagine how PTSD-informed medical models would be popular.
Do UN Peacekeepers Keep Peace?
Following
the deposing of Charles Taylor, the UN Security Council established the UN
Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). UN Peacekeepers took over active duty in
safeguarding the transitional government, enforcing the ceasefire, and security
reform beginning on October 1, 2003. Within five years, there were almost
12,000 UN Peacekeepers from over 60 nations in Liberia. (Geneva Academy) On the
surface, this seems like a strong show of worldwide support in helping Liberia
rebuild. Yet, it is nevertheless necessary to ask the titular question.
In
her analysis of militarized masculinity, Caitlin Maxwell turns a critical eye
on UN Peacekeepers. Citing numerous documented cases of sexual assault, rape,
and coercion by Peacekeeper forces and a blasé “boys will be boys” sentiment
towards male sexual violence, she demonstrates how an embedded culture of
masculinity fundamentally “has produced a tolerance for extreme behaviors such
as sexual exploitation and abuse.” (Maxwell, 110) Some have suggested that
all-woman military forces might prevent such actions, and indeed, Liberia has
one such peacekeeping unit, comprised of women from India. (Seager, 103) Yet
Maxwell contends that incidents like that of Abu Ghraib, the complicity of
women in promoting “boys will be boys” ideologies, and multiple-axis of
domination and power point to institutional problems that UN Peacekeepers may
not be able to adequately solve without first addressing the centering of
aggressive masculinities, racism, colonialism, and misogyny. (Maxwell, 110-111)
She also points out Liberia as a case where the practice of othering locals
came in to sharp focus – while HIV and AIDS were and continue to be a
significant problem, the incidence rates were heavily exaggerated to ensure a
basic level of discomfort and separation. (ibid., 111)
Jennifer
Hyndman offers another critique of UN Peacekeeper actions with regards to the
UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). Although the UNHCR Emergency Handbook
offers some token support for culturally and spatially-aware coordination, it
nevertheless gives greater priority to standardized advice. (Hyndman, 196) Such
an approach has uncomfortable associations to instrumental rationality, which
itself bears strong ties neoliberalism and economic imperialism.
Works Cited
Enloe, Cynthia H. Maneuvers:
The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives. Berkeley:
University of California, 2000. Print.
Gbowee, Leymah, and
Carol Mithers. Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex
Changed a Nation at War : A Memoir. New York: Beast, 2011. Print.
Hyndman, Jennifer.
"Refugee Camps as Conflict Zones: The Politics of Gender." Sites
of Violence: Gender and Conflict Zones. Ed. Wenona Giles and Jennifer
Hyndman. Berkeley: University of California, 2004. 193-212. Print.
Johnson, K., J. Asher,
S. Rosborough, A. Raja, R. Panjabi, C. Beadling, and L. Lawry.
"Association of Combatant Status and Sexual Violence With Health and
Mental Health Outcomes in Postconflict Liberia." JAMA: The Journal
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Kwekwe, Deddeh.
"Violence Against Women in Liberia: A Situation Report." Women's
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Profile." Rule of Law in Armed Conflicts Project. Geneva
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Print.
Liebling-Kalifani,
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Malik, Khalid. 2013
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"Moving Beyond Rape as a "Weapon of War": An Exploration of
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Penguin Atlas of Women in the World: Fourth Edition. Brighton:
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Sherwood, Katie, and
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White, Aaronette M.
"All the Men Are Fighting for Freedom, All the Women Are Mourning Their
Men, but Some of Us Carried Guns: A Race-Gendered Analysis of Fanon's
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