Female Combatants

Citation:

Schwitalla, Gunhild, and Luisa Maria Dietrich. 2007. “Demobilisation of Female Ex-Combatants in Colombia.” Forced Migration Review 27: 58–9.

Authors: Gunhild Schwitalla, Luisa Maria Dietrich

Annotation:

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Female Combatants, DDR, Displacement & Migration, IDPs, Gender, Women, Girls, Gender-Based Violence, Conflict, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Paramilitaries, Non-State Armed Groups, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2007

Citation:

Henshaw, Alexis Leanna. Why Women Rebel: Understanding Women’s Participation in Armed Rebel Groups. Routledge Studies in Gender and Global Politics. London; New York: Routledge, 2017.

Author: Alexis Leanna Henshaw

Abstract:

‘Why Women Rebel’ presents a global analysis of the extent to which women are engaged in armed, organized rebellions, and why they choose to join such rebellions. Henshaw has collected and analyzed data on women's participation in over 70 post-Cold War rebel groups and provides a theoretical analysis drawing upon both mainstream literature in the social sciences and critical, feminist inquiry on women and political violence to offer a new gendered theory on why women rebel. The book demonstrates that women are active in well over half of all rebel groups sampled and that, while the majority of rebel groups have women serving in support roles away from direct combat, approximately a third of groups employ women in the conduct of armed attacks, and just over a quarter have women in a leadership capacity. Henshaw reaffirms the idea that women are more likely to be engaged in left-wing political organizations, but does suggest that more conservative or traditional movements may also successfully incorporate women by appealing to concerns about community rights. This book will be of interest to academics in the fields of political science, international relations, security studies, and gender and women's studies. (Abstract from WorldCat)

Topics: Combatants, Female Combatants, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Non-State Armed Groups

Year: 2017

Citation:

Harel-Shalev, Ayelet, and Shir Daphna-Tekoah. “Bringing Women’s Voices Back In: Conducting Narrative Analysis in IR.” International Studies Review 18, no. 2 (June 2016): 171–94.

Authors: Ayelet Harel-Shalev, Shir Daphna-Tekoah

Abstract:

In exploring wars and conflicts, Critical Security Studies and Feminist International Relations (IR) use various methodologies, including nontraditional avenues of inquiry. This study follows these theoretical and methodological perspectives and suggests a methodology that will contribute to contemporary debates in IR. Specifically, the study offers an innovative application of Carol Gilligan’s method, the “Listening Guide” (LG). The research demonstrates the utility of the LG analysis in uncovering additional forms of knowledge regarding armed conflicts. The context for analysis is women in combat. The implementation of the LG assists us in uncovering various voices, representing different aspects of the women combatants’ experiences in a conflict zone. In this study, this analytical tool, applied to conduct narrative research, enabled the researchers to hear both multiple and silenced voices. We suggest that this methodology should continue to be used in future studies and incorporated into the Security Studies and IR toolkit. (Abstract from original source)

Topics: Combatants, Female Combatants, Military Forces & Armed Groups

Year: 2016

Citation:

Giraldo, Saridalia. 2012. “Demobilized Women Combatants: Lessons from Colombia.” Paper presented at the Thinking Gender Conference, UCLA Center for the Study of Women, Los Angeles, February 3.

Author: Saridalia Giraldo

Abstract:

In Colombia, a country with one of the longest civil wars in the world, women combatants return to civil society in the midst of ongoing tension. In this transition, women suffer triple difficulties: the reaction of their home communities; hostility from armed illegal groups still engaged in conflict, and disregarding from the government itself. What accounts for these obstacles? First, in a patriarchal society such as Colombia, demobilized women face the denigration of their community which views women’s participation in armed conflict as an infringement on traditional female roles. Second, in the midst of continued conflict, demobilized women are also in danger of being rerecruited, tortured, killed or displaced from their home towns by their former peers in combat who perceive them as traitors, or by active criminal groups who consider them as enemies. Third, public policy designed to demobilize and reintegrate combatants gives little attention to women´s special needs as victims of gender violence. Recognizing that women and their needs remain invisible, this paper proposes that formal and informal post-conflict measures in Colombia must be gendersensitized in order to effectively reintegrate women and men into civilian life.
 

Keywords: women combatants, demobilization, reintegration, DDR, peace-building, Colombia, civil war, guerrillas, FARC, sexual violence

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Combatants, Female Combatants, DDR, Gender, Gender Roles, Gender-Based Violence, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Sexual Violence, Violence, Weapons /Arms Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2012

Citation:

Author: Temitope Oriola

Abstract:

Keywords: Niger Women, women and political violence, oil insurgency, Nigeria

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Masculinity/ies, Female Perpetrators Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Nigeria

Year: 2016

Citation:

Anctil Avoine, Priscyll, and Rachel Tillman. 2015. “Demobilized Women in Colombia: Embodiment, Performativity and Social Reconciliation.” In Female Combatants in Conflict and Peace, edited by Seema Shekhawat, 216–31. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Authors: Priscyll Anctil Avoine, Rachel Tillman

Abstract:

Colombia has been divided by armed conflict for over half a century. While still confronting multiple forms of violence, since the beginning of the peace talks in 2012 public attention in Colombia has shifted to social reconciliation. In June 2014, Colombians re-elected Juan Manuel Santos as president, his campaign having made peace the centre of attention. The peace negotiations in Havana have been widely recognized as promising by the national and international community, and an agreement with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia — Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP)1 is closer than ever. Women have been considerably marginalized in this peace process, however, especially those who played an active role in the armed conflict. These women experience a double alienation: not only has their participation in the perpetration of violence been largely invisible, but this failure to recognize their presence in the conflict means that they are also being overlooked in the peace-building process. Furthermore, their non-traditional performance of their own gender will make it very difficult for them as women to carve out a place in a post-conflict society. (Abstract from Springer)

Annotation:

"This chapter draws on Judith Butler’s work on gender performativity to articulate a framework of analysis for understanding the possible role of demobilized women in the Colombian peace process. We analyze from the perspective of embodied gender performativity a bibliography of narrative accounts of demobilized women in various regions of Colombia gathered by the Centro National de Memoria Histórica. We also conducted semi-structured interviews of key actors within the demobilization process, specifically with people who have had direct and sustained contact with women ex-combatants. Although these sources are not necessarily statistically representative of the wide range of women involved in combat in Colombia, they nonetheless allow us to build a preliminary panorama of the relationship between gender performativity and the lives of women combatants before, during and after the conflict" (Avoine & Tillman, 2015, p. 216-17). 
 

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, DDR, Gender, Women, Peace Processes Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2015

Citation:

Dietrich Ortega, Luisa Maria. 2015. “Untapped Resources for Peace: A Comparative Study of Women’s Organizations of Guerrilla Ex-Combatants in Colombia and El Salvador.” In Female Combatants in Conflict and Peace, edited by Seema Shekhawat, 232–49. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Author: Luisa Maria Dietrich Ortega

Abstract:

Over the past decades, the international community has increased efforts to enhance spaces of women’s meaningful participation in all spheres of conflict to post-conflict transition. The acknowledgement of women as essential actors for sustainable peace has prompted advocacy activities to include women in planning, implementing and monitoring of peace-building efforts. Despite significant advances in the field, the challenge remains to overcome stereotypical notions that associate women as passive bystanders or only as bearers of the violent consequences of armed conflicts, while ignoring the role women play as political actors. A step towards a more inclusive and holistic transition consists of exploring contributions the female actors in armed conflict can bring to peace-building. Female ex-combatants have played active political and military roles in insurgent organizations. Besides their first-hand experience in disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programmes, some of them maintain connections with former insurgent groups and may influence processes from within. In that sense, organizations of female ex-combatants constitute an untapped resource for the promotion of gender-responsive transitions. (Abstract from Springer)

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, DDR, Gender, Women, Peacebuilding, Political Participation, Post-Conflict Regions: Americas, Central America, South America Countries: Colombia, El Salvador

Year: 2015

Citation:

Matiz Cortés, Stefanie. 2016. “Reintegración y emprendimiento, análisis del programa de educación para el trabajo de la ACR para mujeres excombatientes.” Master’s Thesis, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.

Author: Stefanie Matiz Cortés

Abstract:

Spanish abstract:

En esta investigación se hizo un análisis del programa de formación para el trabajo, que hace parte de la ruta de Reintegración Económica de la ACR, con el propósito de determinar si dicho programa lograba dar respuesta a las necesidades y expectativas sobre actividades productivas de las mujeres desmovilizadas de grupos armados. Para ello se realizó un estudio de tipo etnográfico – colaborativo que permitió comprender con las excombatientes, cómo y bajo qué condiciones se está desarrollando la dimensión productiva. Propone la profundización en el enfoque de género que tiene actualmente la Ruta de Reintegración con el fin de lograr que las exintegrantes de grupos armados logren reintegrarse en condiciones ajustadas a su realidad, sus intereses y sus posibilidades. En este sentido se rescata como elemento esencial las narrativas de las mujeres entrevistadas, ya que analizando sus necesidades, es indispensable que no se anule esa experiencia femenina dentro de la dinámica de la guerra y las transformaciones que experimenta en la sociedad. Por último se establece que es poco adecuado que los programas de emprendimiento sean considerados como un mecanismo de salida a la pobreza o una solución para impulsar el retorno de la población desmovilizada a la legalidad de forma autosostenible. Sencillamente porque el programa está planteado desde una perspectiva de emprendimiento por necesidad y no de emprendimiento por oportunidad, lo que va en contra de la naturaleza del emprendimiento y lleva la política al fracaso, pues lo que deberían ser empresas resultantes de aptitudes emprendedoras resultan siendo nada más que mecanismos simples de autoempleo (Abstract from original source​).

English abstract:

The purpose of this research was to analyze and look at the work of “the job training program”, as part of the economic reintegration path of the Colombian Agency for Reintegration, whose main objective was to determine if such program could give an answer to the needs and expectations of productive activities of armed group demobilized women .To do this, a collaborative-ethnographic study was conducted to better understand with the ex combats how and under what conditions productive dimensions have been developed. This research highlights the gender approach that the reintegration path currently has, in order to ensure that the former members of armed groups can reintegrate in fair conditions according to their reality, interests and possibilities. In this sense it is highlighted as an essential element the stories and narratives of interviewed women, as analyzing their needs is indispensable not to eliminate this feminine experience within the dynamics of the war and the transformations it faces in the society. Finally, it is stated that it is not appropriate that entrepreneurial programs can be considered as a mechanism to get out of the poverty trap or a solution to foster the comeback of demobilized population to legality in a self-sustainable way. Simply because the program is stated from the perspective of entrepreneurship due to necessities but entrepreneurship for opportunities, what goes against the nature of entrepreneurship and leads the initiative to failure, so what it should be seen as companies resulting in entrepreneurial attitudes it ends up as simple mechanisms of self employment (Translation from original source​).

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, Male Combatants, DDR Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2016