By Rosalie Arcala Hall and Julian Smith
Popular distortions often applied to women’s functions in war can obstruct the peace process.
There are several myths about women’s roles in conflict, beginning with the fallacy that women do not often play significant roles as combatants, auxiliary personnel, or as peace spoilers. In fact, in several countries, Myanmar and the Philippines among them, the popular distortions so often applied to women’s functions in war can obstruct the peace process and deepen the conflict.
One myth is that women passively follow men into conflict. In contrast, two recent case studies on women fighting in the Kachin resistance movement in Myanmar and women in the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in the Philippines found that women are very active decision-makers.
Overlapping identities as members of minority religious, ethnic and/or lower class or caste groups, together with their traditional exclusion from political decision-making, often fuels their decisions to adopt roles as combatants, provocateurs, intelligence operatives and informants. As one woman combatant, fighting for the Kachin Independence organization (KIO) explains:
“I am connected to the KIO as a mother organization. It’s more emotionally connected, like not officially connected, not like you have to go and do training… it’s more about being emotionally involved, an awareness of being an ethnic minority, and that we are an oppressed people.”
These examples, from Myanmar’s Kachin State and the Philippine’s Bangsamoro region also demonstrate that while men engaged in the conflict as auxiliary personnel such as doctors and nurses, in preparing and transporting meals or in communications and in fundraising are mostly seen as soldiers, women undertaking the same functions are simply seen as civilians supporting the war effort. Bangsamoro women join rebel movements not as civilians supporting the war, but because they see themselves as defending their communities from unjust actions by security forces and preserving their Muslim identity.
However, women in conflict are then expected to lay down their arms once the men have agreed on the terms. Historically, this is nothing new. But there are clear risks emerging from trivializing women’s roles in conflict and by treating them as invisible during the reintegration phase.
Read the full story at The Diplomat