Women in combat short-changed in demobilisation
FROM 2002 to 2011, Ivory Coast experienced a civil war that divided the country socially, politically and geographically, with the north controlled by rebel armed groups while the south remained under government control.
Central to the conflict was the ideology of “Ivorianness”, which formed the basis of a violent, repressive policy of exclusion and discrimination against Ivorians from the north of the country who were considered “foreigners” by southern adherents.
The insurgents justified their armed uprising as “the denunciation of exclusion, social injustices, and identitybased abuses” carried out against “northerners”, with the aim of establishing “a new political order” in Ivory Coast. Since the conflict began, there have been attempts to implement a series of disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR) programmes – typically reserved for “post-conflict” settings – as part of a peace-building process.
The DDR of former combatants is a standard part of security sector reform (SSR) programmes and often includes a gender dimension, at least theoretically. The design of DDR programmes as part of a peace process is relatively recent. Before the 1980s, the disarmament and demobilisation of fighters were designed by and for the military.
But with conflicts becoming more complex, peace-building efforts have evolved to address new challenges such as countering violent extremism. In response, the scope, timing and expectations of DDR have evolved.
Ivorian DDR was not only the product of interventions from international and regional institutions – above all, it was an arena for national actors during social, political and military negotiations. And the DDR of combatants from both sides was mentioned in all peace and political agreements since the beginning of the crisis in 2002. DDR was viewed as critical for securing a return to peace and was a condition for holding presidential elections – as
such, it has been highly politicised and securitised. In 2007, several institutions were created to deal with former combatants and contributed to the first wave of DDR activities.
However, DDR was stymied many times due to breakdowns in peace process negotiations and disputes around elections, which continued until then-president Laurent Gbagbo’s tight race against Alassane Ouattara in 2010, which both candidates subsequently claimed to have won. Throughout the post-election crisis, there were violent clashes between the two sides, leading to over 3 000 deaths.
While Ivorian women were actors in the conflict, including in roles as violent actors, few analysts have focused on them. Many that do, focus on their vulnerability or victim status due to the increased acts of violence committed against them during the conflict. Their roles in the conflict have been depoliticised and de-securitised because of factors including gendered norms assumptions, the lack of value placed on women’s labour – such as cooking and providing care – and the particular stigmatisation of women who engage in violence.
In theory, Ivorian DDR was gendersensitive. Women who joined armed groups were considered to be “excombatants” on the same basis as men.
Indeed, the latest Ivorian definition of veterans included “people of both sexes”. This is distinct from other conflicts in which women in charge of “auxiliary” activities were not considered fighters, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. ADDR (one of the last programmes in charge of DDR in the country) specified that the DDR process must “be enriched by the consideration of gender issues”, though it does not specify these gender issues.
Therefore, while Ivorian DDR and SSR documentation promote gendersensitive actions, we observed during research trips from 2014 to 2019 that there were almost no measures or programmes specifically targeting women former combatants.
A former DDR employee said in 2014 that “the proportion of women is so low that we are not going to establish specific quotas for women”. Arguably, it could have been easier to create programmes directed at women combatants at such low numbers.
As there were no specific programmes directed at former woman combatants, we observed that the reintegration capacities of Ivorian women ex-combatants have been influenced by their social and cultural capital, particularly
in terms of education, but also their ability to access support networks of former combatants, which might allow them to benefit more easily from DDR programmes.
As one expert has argued, in post-conflict contexts, “men and masculinity are securitised postconflict while women – even when they act in highly securitised roles such as soldiers – are de-securitised and, in effect, de-emphasised in post-conflict policy making”. She has also noted that “the reintegration process for men has been emphasised as vital to the transition from war to peace, while the reintegration process for females has been deemed a social concern and has been moralised as a return to normal”.
We can make the same observations in the case of the Ivory Coast. This de-securitising of women in postconflict settings has knock-on effects. In many contexts, women are not recognised as combatants because they are excluded from the patronage networks that determine access to DDR programmes – rebel commanders control their troops after the conflict ends – and so they don’t benefit from the resources available in post-conflict settings. Experts have observed that having “DDR processes planned and implemented by military officials has resulted in a bias against those the military does not consider ‘real soldiers’ (men with guns)”.
Most Ivorian women involved with rebel armed groups between 2002 and 2011 joined voluntarily. They made up about 8% of the 74 000 ex-combatants identified by the last DDR programme in Ivory Coast. To justify their mobilisation, some of them invoked political purposes, such as to defend the nation against “Ivorianness”, and the return to peace. Others joined for career opportunities or other economic benefits. Some followed family or friends into the rebel group. And some joined for protection or to seek revenge. Overall, their motives appear to be similar to those of men and they emphasise women’s political agency during the war.
Our research has shown that while these women carried out diverse duties, including violent roles, they were mainly relegated to stereotypically gender-specific auxiliary roles, such as cooks, spies and nurses.
However, findings such as these should be looked at with some caution, since women, by characterising themselves as “auxiliaries”, may have been seeking to avoid implicating themselves in potential crimes.
As in other contexts, women’s participation in the Ivorian conflict did not lead to a transformation of social-gender relations. For most, the return to peace meant a return to the status quo. Part of the depoliticisation of women ex-combatants is the gendered assumption that women, unlike men, do not need to forge a new, post-conflict role in society; they can return to their work in the home. But not all Ivorian women were able to reintegrate easily because their status as ex-fighters carried a stigma for some.