Patricia Justino, Rebecca Mitchell, Catherine Müller. Development & Change. Volume 49, Issue 4. July 2018.
Introduction
Recent peace-building interventions in conflict-affected countries have a strong gender component—at least on paper—following the adoption of the United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2000. This document included among its main goals the need to address the specific needs of women and girls and, further, to reinforce women’s capacities to act as agents in relief and recovery processes in conflict and post-conflict contexts. These goals are supported by a growing body of evidence showing that violent conflicts have differentiated effects on women, men, boys and girls (Buvinic et al., 2012; Justino, 2009; Justino et al., 2014). Furthermore, gender equality may be associated with a lower risk of inter- and intra-state conflicts (Caprioli, 2003, 2005; Regan and Paskeviciute, 2003), improved respect for human rights (Melander, 2005), the promotion of democracy (Barro, 1997), and lower corruption in society (Dollar et al., 2001; Swamy et al., 2001). These factors are arguably central to successful peace-building processes.
Despite the widespread view that women are mostly victims of armed conflict, there are numerous accounts of women taking up new jobs, joining armies and acting as peacemakers. They provide essential economic and social support to reconstructing communities affected by violent conflict (Justino, 2016; Kumar, 2000; Moser and Clark, 2001b; Rehn and Sirleaf, 2002). Several studies have reported an increase in female labour-market participation in conflict-affected countries, including in Afghanistan (Bove and Gavrilova, 2014), Indonesia (Adam, 2008), Timor-Leste (Justino et al., 2015), Nepal (Menon and Rodgers, 2011), Tajikistan (Justino and Shemyakina, 2013) and Colombia (Calderon et al., 2011)—mostly in low-skilled ´ jobs in the informal sector (Justino et al., 2012; Kumar, 2000). Women also provide social services in areas affected by violent conflict, often voluntarily. They provide health services and education, help refugees, and offer counselling, training and psychological support in churches, schools, hospitals, charities, self-help groups and local political organizations (Kumar, 2000; Rehn and Sirleaf, 2002).
This opening of spaces for women during conflicts has resulted in a more visible presence of women in the political sphere in post-conflict countries, and wide recognition of the important role that they have to play in peacebuilding processes (Buvinic et al., 2012; Carmil and Breznitz, 1991). In some settings—often supported by international donors and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—women have been able to use the post-conflict period to ensure increased female political representation at the national level through voter registration drives, assistance to female candidates, and awareness raising about gender issues (Bouta et al., 2005; Weil, 2004). As a result, international organizations (including various UN agencies and the World Bank), NGOs and civil society organizations have sponsored initiatives to promote women’s rights and roles in conflict and post-conflict contexts, and their involvement in decision-making processes.
However, most evaluations of these initiatives have found that, even though gender roles may change during the conflict and women may play crucial roles in conflict prevention and peace building, gender identities tend to appear unchanged in the post-conflict period (Adam, 2008; Date-Bah, 2003; Handrahan, 2004; Justino, 2012, 2016; Kumar, 2000; Rubin, 2000; de Watteville, 2002). Women are again excluded from formal peace and political processes beyond the immediate local (family or community) level (Castillejo, 2010; El-Bushra, 2003, 2007; Justino et al., 2012; Kumar, 2000).
Why is there such a disparity between the intentions outlined in international peace-building policy and the realities on the ground? This study provides new qualitative evidence on women’s roles in peace building, and the barriers they face despite concerted international and regional efforts to ensure gender equality in peace-building processes. The study adopts a broad definition of peace building as ‘action[s] to identify and support structures which tend to strengthen and solidify peace to avoid a relapse into conflict’ (UN, 1994: 6). It draws on comparative case studies from four countries—Afghanistan, Liberia, Nepal and Sierra Leone.
Methodology and Case Studies
The study was based on primary fieldwork that collected qualitative evidence between January and March 2012, in Afghanistan, Liberia, Nepal and Sierra Leone. These countries were chosen to represent a range of contexts in terms of ongoing conflict, post-conflict, and reconstruction and recovery situations. All four countries have experienced, or are currently experiencing (Afghanistan), severe forms of armed conflict. National-level peace-building processes have had varied degrees of success across the four countries, but none has yet reached a credible stability. Gender equality has been at the centre of national and international discourses and peace-building efforts in the four countries, also with varied degrees of success.
The research study focused on the community (the local level) as the main unit of analysis. This allowed a better understanding of local peacebuilding processes, how women individually, or in organized groups, engage with these processes, and how this engagement may map onto wider processes of peace and stability. The research focused on two purposively selected communities in each country. These communities (mostly rural villages) comprised clusters of around 200-350 households where local political, social and economic interactions take place. The two communities had similar contexts in terms of population size, geographic location (with respect to resources, borders, infrastructure), and the conflict’s impact (both communities were heavily affected by the conflicts in all four countries). Given the high level of NGO activity in peace-building activities in the four countries, in each country we chose one community that had participated in peace-building activities with NGO support, and one community where no such (or very limited) support had been available. NGOs’ peacebuilding activities included forming and supporting community women’s groups, which received mediation training, counselling, and capacity building; women’s rights education campaigns with both men and women; and specific skills training (such as tailoring). This research design allowed us to tease out how changes in women’s involvement in local peace-building activities may be determined by local effects, or by the efforts of external actors.
Data collection in these communities was based on face-to-face interviews conducted with approximately 10-15 key informants per country (through interpreters when necessary), and via telephone before and after the research team visited the country. The informants were identified with the help of the NGOs ActionAid and Womankind. They included staff from local organizations working with women involved in peace-building activities, government representatives and prominent community members. These interviews were complemented with focus group discussions in each of the communities where fieldwork took place. Access to these communities was facilitated by ActionAid and Womankind staff and their local partners. Focus group discussions were held separately with groups of young women and young men (below 20 years old), older women and older men (over 20 years old) and, where possible, local officials. This setting allowed women and men, and different generations, to share information separately, without undue pressure to conform to expected roles. Facilitators from the research team ensured that all participants were allowed equal time to intervene and engage in the discussion in each of the groups.
The number of participants in each focus group varied between 15 and 20 people. Interviews and focus group discussions were conducted using identical questionnaires and guidelines in the four countries, and in the two communities within each country, in order to compare results across research sites. Questions centred around four broad topics: (i) the types and levels of women’s peace-building engagement at local and wider levels; (ii) the role of different actors, institutions and norms in supporting or restricting women’s involvement in peace-building activities; (iii) how women’s roles in peace-building activities were perceived by other community members, and by national and international peace-building organizations; and (iv) how different individuals and communities perceived peace, and the role and relevance of different peace-building activities.
Opportunities and Barriers to Women’s Involvement in Peace Building in Afghanistan, Liberia, Nepal and Sierra Leone
UN- and NGO-led peace-building initiatives have strongly advocated for gender equality in decision-making processes in post-conflict contexts, including the countries covered by this study. These principles were reflected in activities in all the communities sampled where, independently of whether NGOs were present, women were actively involved in efforts to maintain peace. They also created safe spaces for women to come together to support each other in peace-building activities. The study uncovered, however, two additional important findings. The first was that women’s participation in peace building—despite their desire to participate and despite local, national, regional and international efforts—is hindered by substantial cultural, social and economic barriers, many of which were common across all case studies. Second, women and men revealed different understandings of peace; a factor that has wide implications for how women engage in peace building, and for how other community members (men, in particular) accept women’s participation in those initiatives. We discuss these findings in detail below.
Opportunities for Women’s Engagement in Peace Building
It has been widely reported in the literature how, during conflict and postconflict periods, women often take on roles as peacemakers and negotiators within their families, households and communities (Hunt and Posa, 2001; Mazurana and McKay, 1999). Women play central roles in peace-building activities. These include setting up formal and informal groups involved in, for instance, demobilizing and reintegrating former soldiers, demilitarization and disarmament, and peaceful political development. These activities take the form of direct action, protests and negotiations between different groups (see review in Justino et al., 2012). They tend to emphasize areas that are neglected in more militarized international peace-building missions, such as the role of local-level peace building, and the communities’ psychosocial, relational and spiritual needs (Autesserre, 2010; El-Bushra, 2007; Hunt and Posa, 2001; Justino et al., 2013; Mazurana and McKay, 1999).
Similar activities were observed in the four case-study countries, where women’s groups were found to be active in peace-building activities in the two communities sampled in each country. This mirrored evidence from a large literature on peace building, which has illustrated the importance of women’s groups in setting up schools, health clinics and other social services in Afghanistan (Hassan, 2010), and in organizing peace rallies and acting as local intermediaries between the Maoists and the government in Nepal (Falch, 2010; Geiser, 2005). Studies have documented extensively the role of women—across all socio-economic strata—in challenging the military junta during the civil war in Sierra Leone through public demonstrations and rallies, support for the expansion of civic education, ousting military rule and establishing a responsive democratic government (Badmus, 2009; Duramy, 2009; Jusu-Sheriff, 2000; Mazurana and Carlson, 2004). In Liberia, women had strong engagement with peace-building processes and negotiations at international, national and local levels (Ellis, 1999; Moran, 1997; Utas, 2003).
Reflecting these national-level analyses, the study observed how, in the two communities in Afghanistan, women created safe spaces to enable women and girls to meet and organize. This was because formal systems of community engagement, such as jirgas (a traditional assembly of male leaders), are not open to women. Women-only spaces allow women to discuss and mobilize into peace and conflict-resolution actions. Although the role of women in society is less restricted in the other countries, similar women’s groups were created in the communities analysed in Nepal, Sierra Leone and Liberia. In some of these, we found examples of women conducting peace-building activities individually. However, in all four case studies, these activities were largely conducted by groups of women that organized collectively at the village level. In the communities with NGO presence, these groups were brought together by NGOs operating locally for particular purposes: education, training, employment activities and so forth. In the other communities (but also sometimes in the communities with NGO presence), these groups were self-organized. They were led by women who shared common concerns or expressed the need, as will be discussed below, for a space to freely discuss matters of common interest, or engage in collective peace activities.
In Nepal, the activities of peace-building groups run by women interviewed during the study, ranged from supporting conflict survivors, to providing rights, communication and decision-making training for both men and women in each community, to supporting victims in cases of domestic violence. Women’s rights groups were also active in supporting women whose parents were killed, to acquire citizenship—which is typically only accrued through male relatives. Women-led paralegal committees engaged in solving conflicts between husbands and wives, disputes in neighbourhoods and between households, and in protecting single (widowed or unmarried) women from violence, abuse and discrimination.
In Sierra Leone, women’s groups provided mediation between husbands and wives, organized sales of agricultural products and promoted education. ‘Mothers’ clubs’, in particular, worked with teachers to promote children’s school attendance, and were involved in the town’s cleaning and sanitation. Other women’s organizations supported farming activities and provided adult literacy classes—activities that were viewed by the research participants in Sierra Leone to be central to peace building. We noted higher levels of these groups’ activity and engagement in the community with NGO intervention, where different projects were implemented in the past five or six years. Women’s participation and the number of groups found in the community with no NGO intervention was more limited, but still prominent.
Liberia was where we observed women’s groups (in both communities) to be particularly active and playing critical roles in peace building at several levels of intervention, from the local community to national-level fora. In the other case studies, activities took place largely at the local (community) level.
Barriers to Women’s Engagement in Peace Building
Despite women’s engagement in local peace-building activities across the countries covered in the study, research respondents reported facing substantial barriers when trying to become involved in such processes. This was particularly where high levels of decision making, beyond their immediate social relations, were concerned. This finding mirrors a broad literature on the barriers women face to their inclusion in political decision-making processes, including peace building, across the world (Porter, 2003). For instance, Afghanistan’s government has imposed a 25 per cent quota for women in parliamentary elections and has recognized equal rights for women and men in its constitution. These have not, however, always been translated into significant improvements in gender equality in peace-building processes. Many women have faced a backlash from men who perceive as inappropriate reforms that allow women greater freedoms and voice (Rubin, 2000). In Nepal, despite high levels of engagement in the conflict, women were not involved in formal peace talks, nor had they been involved in formal decision-making processes. Women were organized mostly in small NGOs, community groups and as peace activists, which limited their opportunities to shape and influence formal peace-building efforts (CARE, 2010). In Sierra Leone, women played active roles during the conflict, but were largely excluded from disarmament, demobilization and rehabilitation programmes (Mazurana and Carlson, 2004; Richards et al., 2004).
Even when organized in groups—in the two communities sampled in each of the four countries—women reported experiencing considerable difficulties in actively pursuing peace efforts outside their immediate household. This was due mostly to cultural, social and economic barriers that have prevented women’s access to important decision-making processes, both in their communities and at wider levels of governance. Most peace-building activities documented in the case studies took place predominantly in the domestic sphere. Only sporadically, and mostly in Liberia, did women’s engagement in peace building take place at wider levels of governance. In the other three countries, there were almost no accounts of women engaging in peace-building activities beyond the family and community spheres. We discuss below the main factors that have restricted women’s engagement in peace building beyond the local level, in the four countries covered in the study.
Cultural and Social Norms
The most oft-cited barrier to women’s involvement in formal peace-building agendas is the persistence of harmful cultural and social norms and patriarchal values that discourage women from participation in political decision making (Enloe, 2000, 2005; Strickland and Duvvury, 2003). In line with this literature, in all four case studies, and independently of the presence of NGOs in the community, women’s roles as peace builders were noted by both men and women that participated in the community focus groups as ‘difficult’ or ‘dangerous’—terms that entrenched the idea of women as victims rather than agents in (post-)conflict contexts (Justino, 2016; Manchanda, 2005). These observations were particularly prevalent in Afghanistan (but mentioned across all countries), where women talked about the home being the ‘easy’ and ‘natural’ place to start with conflict mediation. This widespread view was eloquently summarized by a key informant interview in Kabul:
Society is men and women both, so with every process—social and cultural—we have to consider them both … You can see women’s role in peace as described in Islam. Women’s role is related to men and the family … My main message for my sisters is to teach their sons how to speak and behave. Women have to raise sons to raise their consciousness about peace.
In the communities where NGOs were present, men paid lip-service to the principles of gender equality and appeared to support women’s engagement in formal peace-building initiatives. However, their actions revealed another story. For instance, a male leader in one of the communities in Afghanistan talked extensively about gender equality and the importance of women’s education and leadership. We later found that neither of his young daughters attended school.
The focus groups conducted in the four case studies emphasized concerns about insecurity and intimidation faced by women who participate in peace-building activities. This was particularly true for those working in women’s rights organizations, who consistently reported receiving threats against them and their families because of their work. But intimidation also often originated in the family. For instance, in Nepal, almost all female research participants who were actively engaged in local groups reported being questioned by their husbands and other household members about their whereabouts and the use of money for travel and activities. A key informant in Kathmandu summarized this pervasive view as follows: ‘If a grassroots woman wants to attend some meetings, but it does not come with some financial benefit for the household, the man would stop them attending. It would cause conflict’.
During the interviews and focus group discussions in Sierra Leone, men discussed openly the importance of women’s rights; yet, when male respondents were asked about groups or institutions that contribute to peace, they rarely mentioned women or women’s groups, or they would assign them a small role. The only exception were younger men (under 20 years old) who attributed more importance to women’s involvement in peace-building activities, as they themselves tended to challenge traditional figures of authority.
Entrenched traditional gender norms also meant that female respondents in all communities showed a lack of awareness of the potential roles they could play in society. Key informants mentioned that organizations advocating for women’s involvement face great challenges when explaining to women their right and capacity to contribute to political decision-making processes. Even educated women rarely challenge their roles in their families, and are deeply set in cultural traditions that restrict women’s participation in non-familyrelated activities. When women try to challenge such norms, such as putting themselves forward for positions of power (for example, chairperson), they struggle against men who do not wish to relinquish power. For instance, according to key informants in Kathmandu, there is a 33 per cent quota for women to participate in all governmental bodies in Nepal. Despite this, women’s meaningful participation to influence decision making was still nominal, even in local peace committees. The few women who were active at policy level belonged to political parties—and the latter were accused of fulfilling their quota requirements by allowing women to be candidates only in areas where they know they will not be elected.
Similar situations were observed in the other case studies. In Liberia, 7 out of 11 key informants emphasized cultural and social barriers, particularly the dominant role of men as decision makers, as an obstacle to women engaging in peace-building activities. This was evidenced in men’s perception of women’s roles as encompassing largely household chores and child rearing. It was further evidenced in practices of domestic violence discussed by women in most women-only focus groups in the two communities in each country. One male key informant in Monrovia reflected this view by describing how ‘[a]fter the conflict, men and women are doings things equally. Women are trying to get to the same level as men, both economically and politically … However, men continue to dominate women, through domestic violence and sexual abuse’.
This situation was aggravated by gender inequalities in the access to justice in all case studies (Kumar, 2000). Justice systems are generally dominated by men. There were no women jurors in the courts accessible to the communities covered in the study, and there were very few female lawyers and female police officers. Restricted access to justice, alongside pervasive social norms about the role of women in society, pose significant barriers to women’s engagement in peace building. Although women may understand that disputes that threaten peace can be taken to the formal justice system, they often prefer to resolve conflicts within the community. This is due to the levels of discrimination they face when trying to reach the police or local courts.
Women’s rights organizations in all communities in the four countries (and independently of NGO presence) reported limited access to appropriate levels of funding, resources and support for peace-building work—which generally requires intensive community engagement over long periods of time. In addition, transport and logistical costs, and loss of daily earnings, often prevented women from becoming involved in voluntary groups. For instance, in Nepal, organizations that support women and women’s groups reported facing severe financial challenges. This negatively affected the amount of training and activities they were able to support, and the geographical spread of their work. Organizations also reported their inability to cover women’s loss of earnings while engaging in peace-building activities, which limited poorer women’s participation. Similar concerns and financial restrictions were discussed in the other case studies.
In addition to economic restrictions, women in Afghanistan, Nepal and Liberia (independently of NGO presence) emphasized the role of education. In Afghanistan, women’s lack of education and literacy was highlighted as a barrier to their involvement in formal decision-making processes. This was particularly true of interviews conducted with men and in the male focus groups. Afghan women also mentioned lack of education as a barrier to their engagement in collective work outside the family, with specific examples of girls being forbidden to attend higher education by their families. However, they emphasized—contrary to their male counterparts—that they had skills that could be useful for conflict resolution and peace building. In Nepal, lack of education was mentioned as a particularly negative barrier to women’s engagement in peace-building activities. This was disproportionately emphasized in the focus group discussions with older Nepalese women, but both men and women of all ages in the two communities sampled largely believed that women were not knowledgeable enough to participate in decision-making processes. However, women who were active during the 1996-2006 civil war were knowledgeable about the peace process in Nepal. Many belonged to organizations and groups involved in peace building. In both countries, lack of education appeared, therefore, to be a justification to reinforce the gender norms that prevent women’s engagement in peace building beyond their families. In contrast, the interviews and focus groups in Liberia strongly promoted and discussed the importance of education and training in supporting peace, and in raising women’s empowerment, awareness and self-esteem.
Confidence Levels
Several previous studies have highlighted lack of confidence as a barrier to women’s engagement in political decision making (Anderlini, 2007; Enloe, 2000, 2005). Similar narratives were reported across all communities analysed in the study—even in Liberia, where there have been considerable advances in women’s participation in both informal and formal peacebuilding activities. Liberian women reported in focus group discussions that low levels of education, lack of finance, lack of experience in employment, and a cultural tradition that previously marginalized women economically, has led to a lack of confidence to engage in collective activities. Similar barriers were discussed in Afghanistan, but views differed between the two communities sampled. In the community where NGOs were present, we observed how specific support and training on women’s rights, and on the links between gender equality and peace building, was associated with a marked difference in women’s confidence to be involved in conflict resolution and mediation. More support was also provided by men to women in that community, to participate in decision-making processes. This difference in women’s confidence in the community with NGO presence was also observed in Nepal and Sierra Leone. In these countries, gender training ensured that women were more aware of their rights, more willing to engage in collective activities and more actively supported by men, even if sometimes (as discussed above) support was forthcoming in words but less so in practice.
Women’s confidence in participating in peace-building activities may also be affected by how their roles are acknowledged by others, including their families and other community members (Gizelis, 2011). While several women undertook peace-building activities at some level in all case-study communities, there was substantial variation in how women and men accounted for the importance and impact of these activities. In Afghanistan, when asked to identify significant players in the community who contributed to building peace, no women identified themselves or their groups and networks. Women’s role in peace building was underplayed by both women and men in the focus group discussions. This was reflected in a comment made in one of the young women’s focus group discussions: ‘Women can’t contribute to big issues—but men can. Men are the ones who participate in these discussions’. However, when prompted, women talked about activities they were doing to promote peace and to prevent and resolve conflict in their communities, as discussed above.
Women were also modest about their impact as peace builders in Sierra Leone. However, it was widely acknowledged—particularly in the community with NGO presence—that the existence of spaces to discuss women’s issues and to support each other had increased their awareness about genderbased violence, women’s rights and girls’ education. This had positive effects, such as creating cooperative livelihoods schemes, and promoting women into leadership roles in the community—achievements that were mentioned in all focus group discussions.
The situation in Liberia was markedly different. Across all interviews and focus group discussions, women’s involvement in peace building was perceived to be important. It was seen to have positive impacts in terms of welfare improvements among their households and their communities. Examples of these positive activities included reconstructing schools and local infrastructure. Furthermore, all respondents in focus group discussions emphasized the importance of women’s groups in solving disputes and avoiding further conflict, both locally and nationally. In the community where NGOs were present in Liberia, respondents discussed women’s groups’ considerable impacts through mediation training and implementing livelihoods training projects. In the community without NGO presence, women were still engaged in peace efforts within their community, and proud of their achievements.
The Meaning of Peace and Peace Building
Key informant interviews in the four countries repeatedly emphasized that women’s wider participation in peace-building activities—beyond their family or immediate community—was restricted by the understanding of what peace, security and peace building meant to local communities, and the men and women within them. This finding was mirrored in the focus group discussions where, overall, men’s understandings of ‘peace’ emphasized, predominantly, the absence of violence and armed conflict in the community. In contrast, women discussed the concept of ‘peace’ at a more personal level, including in it access to basic needs for their families, such as food and shelter, absence of violence in the home, their children’s ability to attend school, and unity in communities and families.
This finding is important because many state- and international-led peacebuilding efforts emphasize peace as ‘ending the war’, rather than taking into account the complex range of issues that local communities may define as peace and peace building (Anderlini et al., 2010: 11). As a result, women (and men) may restrict their engagement in formal peace-building processes beyond the community level, because these appear too disengaged from their own perceptions about what constitutes peace. Donini et al. (2005) found that local communities, in general, understand peace and stability to be more than the absence of physical insecurity. Narrow foci on security issues by international organizations may lead to frustration—and potentially further conflicts—because they do not address the issues that most matter for different individuals and groups. These are, for example, access to employment and basic services, political participation and social and cultural freedoms. The study by Donini et al. (ibid.: vi) reported that local populations expressed concern that ‘negative peace’ (the absence of conflict) could ‘evaporate quickly’ if ‘positive peace’ (access to basic services, employment and freedoms) was not ‘consolidated’ and ‘nurtured’. Similar findings were reported in De la Rey and McKay (2006), El-Bushra (2000), Mazurana and McKay (1999), Moser and Clark (2001a, 2001b), and Yablon (2009), where women, in particular, defined ‘peace’ and ‘peace building’ as encompassing interpersonal relations, meeting basic needs, and accessing stable and secure livelihoods.
One woman in the young women’s focus group discussion in the community with NGO presence in Afghanistan, summarized this common view across most research participants as follows: ‘We’re not talking about a big war, but peace also means no domestic violence’. In Liberia, women in both communities stated that, in order to have peace, they would have to live without violence or conflict in their homes. In Sierra Leone, women in the two communities did not consider themselves to be living in peace, despite the absence of national-level conflict. This was attributed to the high incidence of poverty and violence against women, including physical abuse, abandonment and disrespect.
What was less clear from the narratives above was whether the broader understanding of peace, articulated by women, created a barrier to women’s engagement in peace-building initiatives beyond the local level. And if this was the case, whether this was as a result of the limited meaning that more militarized peace efforts had to their daily lives, or whether this broader understanding of peace was a way of justifying entrenched gender norms—or was itself shaped by prevalent gender norms—that restrict women’s participation in peace building beyond their homes and immediate community.
Most men (and often women) consistently described the role of women in peace building as being focused on their households and close relatives. The scope of men’s activities was seen as wider and more effective. The notion of ‘positive peace’ was, in our study, largely articulated by women, or defined as something that women do. In contrast, the focus group discussions and interviews with men tended to focus on what men perceived to be the ‘bigger issues’ of peace—such as the absence of armed conflict and insecurity at community, regional or national level. For instance, in Afghanistan, men talked about peace as meaning the absence of corruption and establishing good governance practices, investment in better infrastructure, and access to resources and job opportunities. In Liberia, the men in both community focus groups also discussed peace primarily in terms of absence of conflict and insecurity at community or regional levels. In Nepal, men in all community focus groups and key informant interviews, understood peace to be the absence of violence and conflict in the community and country, and the absence of fear. For instance, individuals in the mixed officials’ focus group in the community with NGO presence told us that ‘To maintain peace nationwide, all political party leaders should agree. Local people want peace, they [the politicians] are stirring’.
It was, however, generally recognized that many family disputes are settled by women’s interventions, and women were given credit by their male counterparts for their dispute-solving and -prevention skills in families. As stated by a male member of the Justice and Peace Commission in Liberia, reflecting a common view across all case studies, ‘Women build peace among themselves. They mediate and solve disputes at the community level. Most men solve conflicts at “chief” level’. The role of women in their children’s education was also captured in the focus group discussions as central to maintaining peace. One female key informant in Nepal expressed this view as follows: ‘We are hoping that there will be peace and law and order in the community, but directly we have not done anything as such except for educating our kids, which we think is a big responsibility’.
The quotes above suggest that women’s understanding of what constitutes peace may be reinforced by dominant narratives. These are beliefs about how women’s activities are particularly important to maintaining peace when they focus on their immediate households and social relations. In conjunction with entrenched norms about gender roles, narratives that equate peace with family relations may act, therefore, as a subtle but powerfully restrictive mechanism. They may prevent women’s wider engagement in peace-building processes beyond the local level despite international efforts to strengthen gender equality in conflict resolution efforts worldwide.
Conclusions
This article analysed the opportunities and barriers faced by women in Afghanistan, Nepal, Sierra Leone and Liberia in their engagement in peacebuilding processes beyond the local level. The results of this empirical analysis show that women—individually or as part of women’s groups—contribute to peace-building processes in myriad ways. Women in all communities covered in the study were found to mediate disputes among themselves and among other members of the community, promote women’s involvement in power positions in communities, and support women’s access to justice. They were also found to start productive activities (such as cooperative farming and livelihood training), and conduct community campaigns (such as promoting children’s attendance at school). These roles were as intended by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and subsequent peace-building initiatives promoted by international, national and local organizations.
However, the analysis emphasized how women’s groups, and NGOs involved in supporting women’s engagement in peace-building efforts, face serious constraints in terms of funding, reliance on short-term planning, and lack of capacity to support more marginalized women, who are unable to command enough resources to engage in peace-building activities. This reflects previous findings in the literature, reviewed at the start of the article, on how gender identities tend to revert to pre-war social norms once the conflict is over (Justino et al., 2012). Equally, the study found that women’s own contributions to formal peace-building efforts are considerably restricted beyond the local level due to the persistence of traditional gender values, economic restrictions, lack of education and rights awareness, and lack of confidence—factors that also restrict women’s inclusion in political decision-making processes in many parts of the world (Porter, 2003). Furthermore, even though female respondents in the communities covered by the study lived in a variety of household environments, the barriers faced by women were similar across all socio-economic groups, and remarkably similar across all countries. Liberia was the main outlier, where women played prominent roles in peace building beyond the local level. This reflects Liberia’s significant number of educated, professional women who have been prominent in its society both pre- and post-war (Ellis, 1999; Moran, 1997; Utas, 2003). However, even in Liberia, barriers to women’s engagement in peace-building activities were substantial. These barriers were similar in communities with and without NGO presence, even though the support of NGOs seemed to be associated with higher levels of confidence among women and more progressive views among men exposed to gender equality training and awareness campaigns.
These barriers to women’s participation in formal peace-building processes contrasted with the fact that women in all communities assumed very active roles in their families to solve disputes, ensuring that their children were formally educated (where possible), and counselling family members to not engage in violence. One explanation offered by the study is that these contributions were typically understated by both men and women because they generally took place outside formal peace processes. They were perceived as an extension of women’s roles in their families.
The narratives compiled across Afghanistan, Liberia, Nepal and Sierra Leone suggest that this perception was simultaneously a cause and a consequence of different views about what constitutes ‘peace’, as articulated by men and women. Women tended to define peace beyond physical security, to encompass economic security, the absence of domestic violence and tensions within the household and immediate social circles, and the ability to avoid local confrontations. Even though men’s definitions of peace mentioned similar dimensions, their priorities were more broadly defined, associating peace with community security, and with political stability at regional and national level. These views were closely associated with—and possibly shaped by—prevalent narratives about how women’s roles in peace building ought to centre on their households. There, their actions were seen to be more effective, leaving men to pursue formal channels and engage in wider political decision-making processes.
Differentiated articulations of what constitutes peace were strongly highlighted throughout the course of the study. The presence of traditional gender norms and differentiated meanings of peace among men and women appeared to reinforce the normative view prevalent across all four countries—that women’s roles in peace building belong in the realm of the home or the community. These findings suggest that strengthening women’s roles in peace-building processes will require better accounts of the social, cultural and economic barriers faced by women and women’s organizations. They also suggest the need for a better understanding of what motivates men and women to join peace-building efforts, and what narratives are constructed to justify different levels and types of engagement among men and women. These narratives themselves are constructed from prevalent social norms that shape existing gender relations and power dynamics. They, in turn, determine how women and men engage with—and with what forms of—peace-building processes. Understanding these complex normative relations may offer entry points to better understand what peace efforts may improve gender equality in political decision-making processes, and change prevalent norms that prevent women’s wider participation in peace-building activities beyond the local level.