A BLOODY D
Gender Equality and the Aftermath by Peter Kugba-Nyande
C 16 iAM
ivil conflict generally leaves destruction in its wake. Sierra leone is no exception. The civil strife and indiscriminate violence that plagued Sierra Leone for over a decade (1991-
2002) took the lives of approximately 20,000 people, internally displaced two million citizens and forced over 500,000 people to flee overseas.
Children and women were particularly affected by abuse, abduction, exploitation, and amputation. Many children were forced into labour mining “blood diamonds” and a considerable number of children were conscripted to fight by both rebel groups and government-allied militias. Many of these children remain physiologically and physically traumatized. I argue that one of the less acknowledged effects of
the war and post-war healing efforts was an increased questioning of gender roles by Sierra Leonean women and demands for women’s rights and gender equality in Sierra Leone . Prior to the civil war, men dominated leadership roles and women scarcely participated in the governance of their localities. Women in rural areas had little-to-no exposure to life in cities let alone the outside of their ancestral village. Until recent rural penetration of information communication technologies such as cell phones, women in secluded villages had very limited access to information on the strides that their counterparts in other parts of the globe were taking to promote gender equality. The brutal civil war and its aftermath ushered in
unprecedented changes in gender relations. During the conflict, many people fled their ancestral villages for the
first time to seek refuge in other parts of the country and in neighbouring countries. According to the Human Rights Watch, internally displaced people and refugees accounted for approximately 50% of Sierra Leone’s total population (Human Rights Watch, 1999). Most refuge seekers relocated to urban centres, which were relatively safe due to large presence of military personnel. Despite the military presence, however, there were
often attacks by the juntas or rebel militias in the towns. Exasperated and infuriated by the mounting suffering, women and young girls discarded the lappa1
, their
traditional dress, for pants and shorts, took machetes, rocks and sticks, and joined the men in self-defense. These actions mark a major turning point in the history of gender relations. In a speech to the United Nations in March 2011, the Hon. Marilyn Jalloh, a parliamentary representative for Sierra Leone’s ruling All People’s Congress (APC) party and General Secretary of the Women’s Congress, stated that the involvement of women in the battle for peace and democracy helped catalyze gender empowerment in Sierra Leone. Similarly, Iyesha Josiah Kamara, a representative of the 50-502
group
asserted that the war demonstrated women’s ability to lead in a concrete manner. Mrs. Kamara specifically referred to instances of women’s leadership in confronting the rebels and in negotiating for peace and democracy, for example through their active participation in the Bintumani 1 and Bintumani 113
consultations. “The war has taught us that
there are roles that women can play”, she stated. Further, in post-war negotiations, women advanced
issues such as 30% representation for women consistent with the Beijing Declaration, and demands for increased government support for women’s literacy, health care and entrepreneurship.
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