Sierra Leone

Women in Peacebuilding: A Criticism of Gendered Solutions in Postconflict Situations

Citation:

Erzurum, Kemal and Berna Eren. 2014. “Women in Peacebuilding: A Criticism of Gendered Solutions in Postconflict Situations.” Journal of Applied Security Research 9 (2): 236–56.

Authors: Kemal Erzurum, Berna Eren

Abstract:

Women are the most suffering part of populations in conflicts. They are required to fulfill different responsibilities during and after conflicts. Considering this fact, participation of women at peacebuilding efforts in postconflict areas has been considered as sine qua non requirement. However, active participation of women at these efforts, particularly decision-making activities, has been hampered due to diverse reasons. The barriers that block women involved in peacebuilding processes as decision-makers should be reexamined and eliminated by eradicating inequalities. In this article, gender-based violence, underestimated plight of women in conflicts, gendered approach of peacebuilding efforts, and the barriers in front of women's active participation in decision-making processes are examined.

Keywords: women, peace, peacebuilding, conflict, decision making, gender

Topics: Conflict, Gender, Women, Peacebuilding, Political Participation, Post-Conflict Regions: Africa, Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone

Year: 2014

The Moral Politics of Gendered Labour in Artisanal Mining in Sierra Leone

Citation:

Rutherford, Blair. 2020. “The Moral Politics of Gendered Labour in Artisanal Mining in Sierra Leone.” Development and Change 51 (3): 771–93. 

 

Author: Blair Rutherford

Abstract:

Drawing on current anthropological approaches to labour, this article examines some of the moral politics mobilized around women and artisanal mining in policy-inflected scholarship with reference to particular gold mining zones in Tonkolili district, Sierra Leone. In so doing, the article proposes that such a focus on labour not only allows one to appreciate how sentiments concerning (im)proper behaviour infuse wider policy proposals to amend social arrangements in regard to what is called ‘artisanal mining’, but it also offers insight into some of the enduring moral politics helping to constitute women as ‘family workers’ in the actual artisanal gold mining zones. The article suggests that examining the overlapping moral politics constituting women's labour practices provides a more supple understanding of the contested economic possibilities for women in this livelihood practice.

Topics: Economies, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Livelihoods Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Sierra Leone

Year: 2020

Gendered ‘Choices’ in Sierra Leone: Women in Artisanal Mining in Tonkolili District

Citation:

Ibrahim, Aisha Fofana, Blair Rutherford, and Doris Buss. 2020. “Gendered ‘Choices’ in Sierra Leone: Women in Artisanal Mining in Tonkolili District.” Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne Des Études Africaines 54 (1): 157–76. 

Authors: Aisha Fofana Ibrahim, Blair Rutherford, Doris Buss

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
This paper examines women’s “choices” in artisanal gold mining in Tonkolili District, Sierra Leone. It argues that women’s status in Sierra Leone and their socio-economic conditions contribute to the particular economic practices within artisanal gold mining in which they are able to participate. Showing how state interventions are enmeshed in the pre-existing social relations, dependency ties and governance relations in gold mining sites, it examines how gendered norms and practices, combined with governance issues pertaining to the effectiveness of policy in advancing equality, contribute to keeping women in gendered roles and limit their empowerment and full participation in the sector. These norms and relationships largely work against women, keeping them on the margins of the artisanal gold mines even while this economic activity may provide women (and their households) with muchneeded financial resources.

FRENCH ABSTRACT:
Cet article examine les « choix » des femmes en matière d’extraction artisanale de l’or dans le district de Tonkolili, en Sierra Leone. Il soutient que le statut et les conditions socioéconomiques des femmes en Sierra Leone contribuent aux pratiques économiques particulières du secteur de l’extraction artisanale de l’or auxquelles elles sont capables de participer. En montrant comment les interventions de l’État sont imbriquées dans les rapports sociaux préexistants, les liens de dépendance et les relations de gouvernance dans les sites aurifères, l’article examine comment les normes et les pratiques genrées, associées aux problèmes de gouvernance relatifs à l’efficacité des politiques de promotion de l’égalité entre les genres, contribuent à maintenir les femmes dans des rôles genrés et à limiter leur habilitation et leur pleine participation au secteur. Ces normes et ces relations jouent en défaveur des femmes, en les maintenant à la marge des mines d’or artisanales, alors que cette activité économique peut offrir aux femmes (et à leurs familles) des ressources financières très nécessaires.

Keywords: Sierra Leone, gender, artisanal mining, governance, genre, exploitation minière artisanale, gouvernance

Topics: Economies, Extractive Industries, Gender, Gender Roles, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Sierra Leone

Year: 2020

Women Building Resilient Cities in the Context of Climate Change: Lessons from Freetown, Sierra Leone

Citation:

Kellogg, Molly. 2020. Women Building Resilient Cities in the Context of Climate Change: Lessons from Freetown, Sierra Leone. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security.

Author: Molly Kellogg

Annotation:

United Nations Security Council Resolution 2242 recognized climate change as an important consideration for the peace and security of women and girls. Women – marginalized in economic, political, and social spheres in many contexts – have even fewer available resources to cope with climate-related disasters as they face unique and often disproportionate risks.

Yet despite the challenges posed by climate change and gender inequality, evidence shows that women are actively contributing to building resilient cities. In urban contexts, women are carving paths to inclusion across multiple levels of local governance and helping communities become safer and more prepared to cope with disasters.

Field work in Freetown, Sierra Leone, reveals that women engaged in local governance are leading the charge for resilience building. This report distinguishes two key modes of engagement: formal representation, and community-based organizations or civil society networks. Local government shapes how residents experience risk, through providing services such as water or waste management, or planning future land use. In informal settlements, where local government is less reliable, informal structures of organizing can help build resilience, as through designing community-based early warning systems or forming savings cooperatives that allow households to bounce back after a disaster. Interventions from NGOs can fill gaps in service delivery and help link community-based initiative to government planning.

While the gender narrative for climate-related risks in urban areas has focused on women’s vulnerabilities, this report illustrates that women are also making important contributions to building resilient cities. Its findings point to five key recommendations for policy-makers and development practitioners to empower the voices and actions of women in local governance:

  • Invest in community-based organizations in informal settlement communities.
  • Promote collaboration between formal and informal governance bodies.
  • Design projects that are climate-responsive and gender-responsive.
  • Amplify the voices – and actions – of women change agents.
  • Conduct gender-responsive data collection in informal settlements.

Topics: Civil Society, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Women, Governance, Infrastructure, Political Participation Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Sierra Leone

Year: 2020

Gender and the Formal and Informal Systems of Local Public Finance in Sierra Leone

Citation:

van den Boogaard, Vanessa. 2018. “Gender and the Formal and Informal Systems of Local Public Finance in Sierra Leone.” Working Paper No. 87, International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD), Brighton. 

Author: Vanessa van den Boogaard

Abstract:

This paper considers how men and women in eastern and northern Sierra Leone interact differently with formal and informal revenue collection. It argues that the literature on tax and gender equity needs to be expanded in low-income countries to pay greater attention to the ways that citizens pay for public services in practice. It shows that formal taxation affects a very small proportion of the population, and especially of the female population. The reality is that women primarily pay for services at the local level through informal revenue contributions, which has the potential to reinforce gender inequities on account of the implications for intra-household divisions of power and lack of associated opportunities for political representation.

Keywords: gender, informal systems, local public finance, Sierra Leone

Topics: Economies, Informal Economies, Public Finance, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity, Households, Political Participation Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Sierra Leone

Year: 2018

Women, Gender Equality, and Post-Conflict Transformation: Lessons Learned, Implications for the Future

Citation:

Kaufman, Joyce P., and Kristen P. Williams, eds. 2019. Women, Gender Equality, and Post-Conflict Transformation: Lessons Learned, Implications for the Future. Abingdon: Routledge.

Authors: Joyce P. Kaufman, Kristen P. Williams

Abstract:

Summary:
The end of formal hostilities in any given conflict provides an opportunity to transform society in order to secure a stable peace. This book builds on the existing feminist international relations literature as well as lessons of past cases that reinforce the importance of including women in the post-conflict transition process, and are important to our general understanding of gender relations in the conflict and post-conflict periods. Post-conflict transformation processes, including disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programs, transitional justice mechanisms, reconciliation measures, and legal and political reforms, which emerge after the formal hostilities end demonstrate that war and peace impact, and are impacted by, women and men differently. By drawing on a strong theoretical framework and a number of cases, this volume provides important insight into questions pertaining to the end of conflict and the challenges inherent in the post-conflict transition period that are relevant to students and practitioners alike. (Summary from Routledge)
 
Table of Contents:
1. Women Living in a Gendered World
Laura Sjoberg
 
2. The Aftermath of War: Considering Gender in the Process of Disarmament, Demilitarization and Reintegration
Fionnuala Ni Aolain
 
3. Imagined Peace, Gender Relations and Post-Conflict Transformation: Anti-Colonial and Post-Cold War Conflicts
Jane L. Parpart
 
4. The Gender Politics of Negotiating and Renegotiating the Peace in Northern Ireland
Fidelma Ashe and Carmel Roulston
 
5. Bosnia, Women, and Gender in a Post-Dayton World
Kristen P. Williams
 
6. Perpetuating a Gendered Peace? Exploring Gender Mainstreaming in Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration (DDRR) in Liberia
Helen S. A. Basini
 
7. Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration and the Poetics of Slavery in Sierra Leone
Megan H. MacKenzie
 
8. Women, Apartheid and the TRC: The Impact of Apartheid on Women in South Africa, Plus 20 Years
Joyrce P. Kaufman
 
9. Engendering Peace: Divergent Post-Conflict Processes for Women in Guatemala and El Salvador
Kara Ellerby
 
10. Conclusions
Joyce P. Kaufman and Kristen P. Williams

Topics: DDR, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Mainstreaming, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Justice, Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict, Race, Peace Processes Regions: Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa, Americas, Central America, Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe, Northern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, United Kingdom

Year: 2019

African Democracy and Development: Challenges for Post-Conflict African Nations

Citation:

Veney, Cassandra Rachel, and Dick W. Simpson, ed. 2013. African Democracy and Development: Challenges for Post-Conflict African Nations. Lanham: Lexington Books.

Authors: Cassandra Veney, Dick Simpson

Annotation:

Summary:
Various African nations have undergone conflict situations since they gained their independence. This book focuses on particular countries that have faced conflict (civil wars and genocide) and are now in the process of rebuilding their political, economic, social, and educational institutions. The countries that are addressed in the book include: Rwanda, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In addition, there is a chapter that addresses the role of the African Diaspora in conflict and post-conflict countries that include Eritrea, Liberia, and Somalia. The book includes an examination of the various actors who are involved in post-conflict rebuilding and reconstruction that involves internal and external participants. For example, it is clear that the internal actors involve Africans themselves as ordinary citizens, members of local and national governments, and members of non-governmental organizations. This allows the reader to understand the agency and empowerment of Africans in post-conflict reconstruction. Various institutions are addressed within the context of the roles they play in establishing governance organizations such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone, the African Union, chiefs in Liberia, and non-governmental organizations. Furthermore, the external actors who are involved in post-conflict reconstruction are examined such as international non-governmental organizations and the African Diaspora. They both have their own constituents and agendas and can and do play a positive and negative role in post-conflict reconstruction. It is obvious that countries that are addressed in the book are in dire need of financial assistant to rebuild much needed infrastructure that was destroyed during the conflict. All of the countries covered in the book need schools, medical facilities, roads, bridges, airports, ports, and the government does not have the money to provide these. This is where the international non-governmental organizations and the African Diaspora play an important role. The chapters that address these issues are cognizant of their importance and at the same time, the authors realize that sovereignty can be undermined if Africans are not in the forefront of policy and decision making that will determine their future. There are chapters that provide a gendered analysis of post-conflict when it is appropriate. For example, it is clear that women, men, boys, and girls experienced conflict in different ways because of their gender. They all participated in the conflict in various ways. Consequently, the efforts at peace building are given a gendered analysis in terms of what has happened to women and girls in the demobilization and rehabilitation period including an excellent analysis of land reform in Rwanda and how that affects women and members of a certain ethnic group that are often overlooked in the examination of the 1994 genocide. In sum, this book provides a very good contribution to the literature on conflict and post-conflict African countries because of its depth and the vast topics it embraces. It provides an analysis of the internal and external actors, the role of gender in post-conflict decision making, and it provides the voices of ordinary Africans who were affected by the conflict, and who are determined to live productive lives. (Summary from Google Books)
 
Table of Contents:
1. No Justice, No Peace: The Elusive Search for Justice and Reconciliation in Sierra Leone
Sylvia Macauley
 
2. The Role of Ex-Combatants in Mozambique
Jessica Schafer
 
3. Memory Controversies in Post-genocide Rwanda: Implications for Peacebuilding
Elisabeth King
 
4. Land Reform, Social Justice, and Reconstruction: Challenges for Post-genocide Rwanda
Helen Hintjens
 
5. Elections as a Stress Test of Democratization in Societies: A Comparison of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
John Yoder
 
6. Partners or Adversaries?: NGOs and the State in Postwar Sierra Leone
Fredline A.O. M'Cormack-Hale
 
7. Chieftancy and Reconstruction in Sierra Leone
Arthur Abraham
 
8. The Role of African Diasporas in Reconstruction
Paul Tiyambe Zeleza
 
9. The Role of the African Union in Reconstruction in Africa
Thomas Kwasi Tieku
 
10. Governance Challenges in Sierra Leone
Osman Gbla
 
11. Challenges of Governance Reform in Liberia
Amos Sawyer
 
12. Achieving Development and Democracy
Dick Simpson

 

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Combatants, DDR, Gender, Gender Analysis, Girls, Women, Genocide, Governance, Infrastructure, International Organizations, Justice, NGOs, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa Countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia

Year: 2013

The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace and Security

Citation:

Davies, Sara E., and Jacqui True, eds. 2019. The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace and Security. New York: Oxford University Press.

Authors: Sara E. Davies, Jacqui True

Abstract:

The Oxford Handbook on Women, Peace, and Security examines the significant and evolving international Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda, which scholars and practitioners have together contributed to advancing over almost two decades. Fifteen years since the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), the WPS agenda has never been more salient on the agenda of states and international organizations. The Global Study of 1325 (“Preventing Conflict, Securing Peace”) commissioned by the UN Secretary-General and released in September 2015, however, found that there is a major implementation gap with respect to UNSCR 1325 that accounts for the gaping absence of women’s participation in peace and transitional decision-making processes. With independent, critical, and timely analysis by scholars, advocates, and policymakers across global regions, the Oxford Handbook synthesizes new and enduring knowledge, collectively taking stock of what has been achieved and what remains incomplete and unfinished about the WPS agenda. The handbook charts the collective way forward to increase the impact of WPS research, theory, and practice.

Keywords: WPS agenda, women peace and security, UNSCR 1325, gender and security, UN Security Council, women's rights, conflict and post-conflict

Annotation:

Table of Contents:
Part I. Concepts of WPS
 
1. WPS: A Transformative Agenda?
Sara E. Davies and Jacqui True
 
2. Peace and Security from a Feminist Perspective
J. Ann Tickner
 
3. Adoption of 1325 Resolution
Christine Chinkin
 
4. Civil Society's Leadership in Adopting 1325 Resolution
Sanam Naraghi Anderlini
 
5. Scholarly Debates and Contested Meanings of WPS
Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin and Nahla Valji
 
6. Advocacy and the WPS Agenda
Sarah Taylor
 
7. WPS as a Political Movement
Swanee Hunt and Alive Wairimu Nderitu
 
8. Location Masculinities in WP
Henri Myrttinen
 
9. WPS and Adopted Security Council Resolutions
Laura J Shepherd
 
10. WPS and Gender Mainstreaming
Karin Landgren
 
11. The Production of the 2015 Global Study
Louise Olsson and Theodora-Ismene Gizelis
 
Part II. Pillars of WPS
 
12. WPS and Conflict Prevention
Bela Kapur and Madeleine Rees
 
13. What Works in Participation
Thania Paffenholz
 
14. What Works (and Fails) in Protection
Hannah Donges and Janosch Kullenberg
 
15. What Works in Relief and Recovery
Jacqui True and Sarah Hewitt
 
16. Where the WPS Pillars Intersect
Marie O'Reilly
 
17. WPS and Female Peacekeepers
Natasja Rupesinghe, Eli Stamnes, and John Karlsrud
 
18. WPS and SEA in Peacekeeping Operations
Jamine-Kim Westendorf
 
19. WPS and Peacekeeping Economics
Kathleen M. Jennings
 
20. WPS in Military Training and Socialization
Helena Carreiras and Teresa Fragoso
 
21. WPS and Policing: New Terrain
Bethan Greener
 
22. WPS, States, and the National Action Plans
Mirsad Miki Jacevic
 
Part III. Institutionalizing WPS
 
23. WPS inside the United Nations
Megan Dersnah
 
24. WPS and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sexual Violence in Conflict
Eleanor O'Gorman
 
25. WPS and the Human Rights Council
Rashida Manjoo
 
26. WPS and International Financial Institutions
Jacqui True and Barbro Svedberg
 
27. WPS and the International Criminal Court
Jonneke Koomen
 
28. WPS and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Stéfanie von Hlatky
 
29. WPS and the African Union
Toni Haastrup
 
30. WPS and the Association of South East Asian Nations
Ma. Lourdes Veneracion-Rallonza
 
31. WPS and the Pacific Islands Forum
Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls and Sian Rolls
 
32. WPS and the Organization of American States
Mary K. Meyer McAleese
 
33. WPS and Civil Society
Annika Bjorkdahl and Johanna Mannergren Selimovic
 
34. WPS and Transnational Feminist Networks
Joy Onyesoh
 
Part IV. Implementing WPS
 
35. Delivering WPS Protection in All Female Peacekeeping Force: The Case of Liberia
Sabrina Karim
 
36. Securing Participation and Protection in Peace Agreements: The Case of Colombia
Isabela Marín Carvajal and Eduardo Álvarez-Vanegas
 
37. WPS and Women's Roles in Conflict-Prevention: The Case of Bougainville
Nicole George
 
38. Women in Rebellion: The Case of Sierra Leone
Zoe Marks
 
39. Protecting Displaced Women and Girls: The Case of Syria
Elizabeth Ferris
 
40. Donor States Delivering on WPS: The Case of Norway
Inger Skjelsbæk and Torunn L. Tryggestad
 
41. WPS as Diplomatic Vocation: The Case of China
Liu Tiewa
 
42. Women Controlling Arms, Building Peace: The Case of the Philippines
Jasmin Nario-Galace
 
43. Testing the WPS Agenda: The Case of Afghanistan
Claire Duncanson and Vanessa Farr
 
44. Mainstreaming WPS in the Armed Forced: The Case of Australia
Jennifer Wittwer
 
Part V. Cross-Cutting Agenda? Connections and Mainstreaming
 
45. WPS and Responsibility to Protect
Alex J. Bellamy and Sara E. Davies
 
46. WPS and Protection of Civilians
Lisa Hultman and Angela Muvumba Sellstrom
 
47. WPS, Children, and Armed Conflict
Katrine Lee-Koo
 
48. WPS, Gender, and Disabilities
Deborah Stienstra
 
49. WPS and Humanitarian Action
Sarah Martin and Devanna de la Puente
 
50. WPS, Migration, and Displacements
Lucy Hall
 
51. WPS and LGBTI Rights
Lisa Davis and Jessica Stern
 
52. WPS and CEDAW, Optional Protocol, and General Recommendations
Catherine O'Rourke with Aisling Swaine
 
53. Women's Roles in CVE
Sri Waiyanti Eddyono with Sara E. Davies
 
54. WPS and Arms Trade Treaty
Ray Acheson and Maria Butler
 
55. WPS and Sustainable Development Goals
Radhika Balakrishnan and Krishanti Dharmaraj
 
56. WPS and the Convention against Torture
Andrea Huber and Therese Rytter
 
57. WPS and Climate Change
Annica Kronsell
 
Part VI. Ongoing and Future Challenges
 
58. Global Study: Looking Forward
Radhika Coomaraswamy and Emily Kenney
 
59. Measuring WPS: A New Global Index
Jeni Klugman
 
60. Pursuing Gender Security
Aisling Swaine
 
61. The Challenge of Foreign Policy in the WPS Agenda
Valerie M. Hudson and Lauren A. Eason
 
62. Networked Advocacy
Yifat Susskind and Diana Duarte
 
63. Women's Peacemaking in South Asia
Meenakshi Gopinath and Rita Manchanda
 
64. WPS, Peace Negotiations, and Peace Agreements
Karin Aggestam
 
65. The WPS Agenda: A Postcolonial Critique
Swati Parashar
 
66. The WPS Agenda and Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
Chantal de Jonge Oudraat
 
67. The Challenges of Monitoring and Analyzing WPS for Scholars
Natalie Florea Hudson

 

Topics: Civil Society, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Conflict, Conflict Prevention, Displacement & Migration, Economies, Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gender Mainstreaming, Gendered Power Relations, International Law, International Organizations, LGBTQ, Peacekeeping, Peace and Security, Peace Processes, Post-Conflict, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, Weapons /Arms Regions: Africa, MENA, West Africa, Americas, South America, Asia, East Asia, Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, Nordic states, Northern Europe, Oceania Countries: Afghanistan, Australia, China, Colombia, Liberia, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Syria

Year: 2019

Female Combatants and the Post-Conflict Process in Sierra Leone

Citation:

Cullen, Laura C. 2020. "Female Combatants and the Post-Conflict Process in Sierra Leone." Journal of International Women's Studies 21 (2): 114-25.

Author: Laura C. Cullen

Abstract:

Women and girls had a specific and gendered experience of the civil war in Sierra Leone. They filled the role of combatants, ‘bush wives’, child soldiers, and sexual slaves. As a result of these roles, women are often described as having dual identities of both perpetrators and victims of violence. This duality resulted in the complex question of how to help these women both reintegrate into society and also address the crimes which they are alleged to have committed during the war. In this paper, I argue that these women and girls should be treated as victims due to the fact that their crimes were committed under coercion. I investigate the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) process, performing a critique of its gendered assumptions and its inability to provide adequate assistance to females coerced into combat. I perform a critical analysis of the formation and efficacy of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). I investigate the Special Court’s treatment of the women and girls who were victims coerced into war and potentially held responsible as if they were perpetrators. In doing so, critical deconstruction of the treatment of these women highlights both the hybrid court’s successes and failures in advocating for these women. Throughout the paper, I explore the question of how the post-conflict reconstruction process should treat women and girls, who are victims but who have discursively been positioned also as perpetrators.

Keywords: female combatants, women combatants, Special Court for Sierra Leone, bush wives, DDR, child soldiers, post-conflict resolutions, international criminal justice, hybrid courts, gendered assumptions in the post-conflict process

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Female Combatants, DDR, Gender, Women, Girls, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts, TRCs, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Sexual Violence, Sexual Slavery Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Sierra Leone

Year: 2020

UNSC Resolution 1325 National Action Plans in Liberia and Sierra Leone: An Analysis of Gendered Power Relations in Hybrid Peacebuilding

Citation:

Ryan, Caitlin, and Helen Basini. 2017. "UNSC Resolution 1325 National Action Plans in Liberia and Sierra Leone: An Analysis of Gendered Power Relations in Hybrid Peacebuilding."Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 11 (2): 186-206. 

Authors: Caitlin Ryan, Helen Basini

Abstract:

This paper considers how the use of ‘hybridity’ in the peacebuilding literature overlooks the gendered dimensions of hybrid interactions. It does so by examining the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1325 national action plans (NAPs) for Liberia and Sierra Leone. By asking the gendered questions of ‘who participates?’ and ‘how do they participate?’ it draws from Mac Ginty’s conception of hybridity and traces the compliance and incentivizing power in hybridized peace, as well as the ability of local actors to resist and provide alternatives. However, Mac Ginty’s model is found to be inadequate because of its inattention to the gendered nature of power. It is found that with a gendered approach to hybridity, it is easier to trace the processes of hybridization of NAPs in post-conflict states where their implementation is limited. In asking the questions of ‘who’ and ‘how’, three conclusions about the gendered nature of hybrid peacebuilding are drawn: international intervention relies upon the ‘feminization’ of local actors; issues framed within the realm of the ‘masculine’ are more likely to get attention; and the Resolution 1325 agenda in post-conflict states can be subverted by framing it as a ‘soft’ issue.

Keywords: UNSC Res. 1325, hybrid peace, Liberia, Sierra Leone, National Action Plans

Topics: Gender, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, Post-Conflict, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325 Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Liberia, Sierra Leone

Year: 2017

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