putting pressure on states, through solidarity with national and internationalagencies, to end present conflicts;
preventing future conflicts;
lobbying for support for women in the country that is in conflict;
assisting with training and sensitisation programmes for human rights, healingand education;
popularising rights and the genderednature of problems that women face during and after conflict;
receiving and disseminating information regionally and internationally.
The exclusion of women
As women have spoken of their common
experiences of suffering during and afterwar at recent workshops and conferences on women and armed conflict, they haveasked the questions: What are women's specific needs in the wake of war? Whenso many women are displaced persons or refugees, which institutions and what kindsof organisations can respond to their needs?
They felt that these questions are par-ticularly acute after civil wars where health and education services and servicepersonnel are "military" targets.
Current economic policies emphasiseprivate sector solutions and self-reliance and the women had limited expectationsthat governments can or will provide the social services they need. Women spokeof diverse experiences of armed conflict, their local efforts to heal and re-buildtheir societies. Above all they talked about strategies to ensure their voices are heardat the negotiating table. They were clear about their right to be taken seriouslywhen political decisions on war and peace are negotiated and when internationalpeacekeeping and humanitarian interventions are made.
Why are women left out of the decisionmaking processes of war and peace in thefirst place? A gender analysis of different situations was discussed at the Dakarworkshop and at the follow-up conference, "The aftermath: women in post-warreconstruction" in Johannesburg in July 1999. This revealed the particular waysthat women are excluded from decisionmaking: from the political processes lead-ing up to the conflict; from the decisions and actions during the conflict; and fromthe decisions on the shape of peace and reconstruction in the wake of the conflict.
Participants came up with a broad analysis to explain their exclusion. Menand women are socialised to accept that women's first and foremost role is repro-ductive. This means that she is firstly a wife and mother with the main task ofmaintaining the household, the children, the animals and the men. Many delegatesreported that in the context they live in it
is not accepted that women should delib-erate on issues together with men, and there is a widely-held belief that womenare incapable of making firm decisions on policy issues or their implementation.
They quoted from studies carried out in peacetime, before conflict happens,that show that over half the women in the world have been abused in some way by apresent or former intimate partner. Statistics also show that rape or the threat ofrape is a common reality in the lives of most women and girls globally. In manycultures one way to feel unambiguously male is to dominate women, to behaveaggressively and to take risks.
Counts et al (1992), writing on vio-lence against women, state that one of the strongest predictors or correlates of soci-eties with high violence against women is the presence of a masculine ideal thatemphasises dominance, toughness or male honour. These findings strongly supportthe feminist contention that hierarchical gender relations--perpetuated throughgender socialisation and socio-economic inequalities of society--are integrallyrelated to violence against women. Another particularly strong factor seemsto be the wide social acceptance of violence as the only way to resolve conflict.
A very important understanding to emerge is that for women, having poweroutside the home (political, economic or magical) seems to offer some protection.In addition to female power, the presence of all-female coalitions or working groupsappears to make a significant difference. This is supported by Heise (1997) in herwork Violence, Sexuality and Women's Lives. She maintains that this could result fromthe increased economic power of women through skills development and capacity-building or through female solidarity and consciousness-raising. Especially significantis the presence of strong sanctions against violence and access to sanctuary. Heisesuggests that the possibility of a world without violence, especially againstwomen, is not a hopeless fantasy.
During and after conflict
Repeatedly, women speaking of their experiences of war noted, firstly, that warentrenches violence in their communities and secondly, that violence is experienceddifferently by men and women. Societies become militarised in civil war and even
after a ceasefire or return to civilian rulemilitarisation lingers on long afterwards. The military sow a culture of violence inlong wars that is hard to eradicate. The typology of violence emerging from thegroup discussions at the Dakar workshop, the workshop on women in conflict inLondon in May 1999, and at "The aftermath: women in post-war reconstruction"conference are clear evidence of this. Women spoke of how in the aftermath ofwar mass rape became gang rape, how mass murders turned into serial killingsand how the legitimisation of violence as a means to end conflict legitimised theuse of violence to resolve conflict in the home. The women identified differenttypes of violence. Explicit violence included systematic rape, forced pregnancy, forcingchildren to witness their mother's rape, mutilation of women's limbs and so forth.Implicit violence was seen to include abandonment and being left to fend for them-selves and their children, harassment and intimidation by the military and police,denial of access to the media and resources, denial of abortion on demand, and rejectionof women survivors of rape and of children conceived from rape.
Some strategies
The discussion and debates at these forums
have yielded many strategies for meetingthe basic needs of women, for stopping regional wars, for transforming genderidentities and for protecting the environment. One of the most important strate-gies is that women must be involved in the search for peace for it to be sustainable.Another is to feminise the language of war so that, for example, security does notjust mean military responses to meet "threats" against the state but includesfood security, education and housing for all. There was a consensus that there is aneed for a new paradigm to be developed for a people-centred "state" of security.
Among the most important recommendations was to build coalitions nationally,regionally, across Africa and internationally, to campaign against war. Social movementswere identified as critical in building support and solidarity, in raising feministconsciousness to demilitarise societies and prevent the re-occurrence of war.
The lessons of recent history were painfully evoked in women's narratives onthe war-torn societies of Rwanda, Burundi, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Haiti, SierraLeone and Liberia. Women from these countries insisted that the time has cometo step beyond post-conflict humanitarian activities of caring for orphans and widows.It is necessary to claim a place at the negotiating table to discuss genocide,security for all, reconstruction and development. As Codou Bop from Senegalpointed out:
"Not all wars are liberation strugglesand the transformation of society is not the purpose of most conflicts today" (Verbatim proceedings, 1999).
A world without war
The African Women's Anti-War Coalition
faces a daunting task given women's warreports of horrific brutality, deprivation and abuse. The Coalition members presentwere representatives from Sudan, Britain, Croatia, Haiti, Niger, Senegal, UnitedStates, Angola, South Africa, Nigeria, Rwanda, Kenya, Canada and Uganda.
The African Women's Anti-War Coalition's vision is to contribute to the creation of a world where there is no war and noviolence committed against women: to reconstruct a world of peace and of lifewhere women are afforded full citizenship, where they play a very active role andparticipate in the decisions which affect every aspect of their life in society. TheCoalition emphasised the respect for the dignity of persons, integrity and differ-ences between human beings.
The Coalition's mission is to:
mobilise to create awareness amongst women, and to sensitise them to genderissues;
develop and co-ordinate women'sorganisations in Africa at national and regional level;
carry out lobbying activities through various national, regional and internationalefforts for the protection of women during and after war;
call for support and solidarity with all countries at war, and for reconstruction.
During discussions, it became clear that building a coalition is a long, slowprocess. Debate and participation are more often about conflict than agreement. Thestruggle to understand each other and work together for a common cause is dif-ficult but it is a necessary part of coalitionbuilding. This process itself is no morethan a microcosm of the broader struggle to accept diversity of opinion and ideasand to work with differences and commonalities without resorting to any formof violence and oppression of each other.
Given the realities of conflict, depriva-tion and suffering in many parts of Africa today, the Coalition may seem to be morea matter of rhetoric than of substance. An action plan developed at the first meetinglaid out a strategy for the Coalition where networks would be developed, informationwould be collected and sent out to all members, and mechanisms set up to coor-dinate actions in different countries. At this point, the Coalition is still in its veryinitial phase of fundraising and logistical creation.
Africa is also so diverse that regional solidarities are probably more realistic inthe foreseeable future than pan-African ones. The plan is to set up coalitions ineach region of Africa, that is East Africa, West Africa, North Africa and SouthernAfrica. All these regions are currently resented in the current general assembly.The ideals inspiring the Coalition are a necessary response to a continent wrackedby wars. Africans have to find their own solutions to their social and economicproblems, and resist the neo-colonialism that offers them ready-made northernsolutions from outside. Civil society, especially women, need to be brought tothe negotiating table to participate in ensuring physical, economic, cultural andpolitical security.
The African Women's Anti-War Coalition recently joined forces with another pan-African coalition on child soldiers,the Commonwealth African Coalition on Armed Conflict Children. Together, theseCoalitions, with the help of many others, will attempt to sensitise civil society tothe horrors of war and encourage a culture of peace and tolerance.
References
Verbatim proceeding (1999) "The aftermath: women in post-war reconstruction conference", 20-22 July, University of Witwatersrand.
Counts D, Brown J and Campbell J (1992) Sanctions and Sanctuary: Cultural Perspectives on the Beating of Wives, Boulder: Westview Press.
Heise LL (1997) Violence, Sexuality and Women's Lives, New York: Routledge.
1. The initial objectives of the Dakar workshop
grew out of discussions with the organisers of the conference "The aftermath: women in post- war reconstruction", held in July 1999. This article
was originally published in Agenda (#43, April 2000), a quarterly feminist magazine published in South Africa. See p30 for details
Anu Pillay is the one of two co-ordinators for the African Women's Anti-war Coalition. She considers herself a feminist and is active on the issue of violence against women. She is also the South African Director of Ashoka Innovators for the Public. African Women's Anti-War Coalition, PO Box 30653, Braamfontein, 2107 Johannesburg, South Africa (email: anu@sn.apc.org).
