Bush Wives and

Female Fighters: The complicated reality of women's participation in the Sierra Leone war

Chris Coulter, PhD

Gendered ideas about war and peace,

about soldiering and victimhood

Is the Soldier a Man?

What if this is a soldier?

Or this?

Or this?

When women fight

“Their female accomplices were almost more terrifying, covered from head to foot in black, their veils bearing Islamic slogans, their waists wrapped with belts full of explosives” (BBC 2002-12-16)

“’Black Diamond" and her comrades may look like any bunch of street-wise girls with attitude but they have the military hardware to back up the look.” (BBC 2003-08-26)

Lynndie England in the Abu Ghraib Prison (BBC 2004-06-15)

Men = War ?Women = Peace ?

The Sierra Leone War1999-2002

10 to 20 % of irregular

fighters are thought to have been

women or girls

DDR

• 72 500 combatants demobilized• 4 751 (6.5%) of them were women• 6 845 child soldiers demobilized• 506 (7.4%) of them were girls

“They trained all of us. No woman that spent a year with them was not trained how to fix gun and fire. This was for protection, maybe even among ourselves, if your companion want to kill you and you also know how to fire you can retaliate.” Aminata, 19

Major reasons for not demobilizing:

• No weapon or ammunition• Fear and shame• Not present at the time

They were afraid of me because they thought that the life we were living with the rebels will be the same I will do to them Aisha 21.