De Maio
Women and Conflict Management in West Africa
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collapse is West Africa. Liberia’s bloody civil war, beginning in the late 1980s, led this regional
trend. Liberian warlord and former president Charles Taylor’s support of the Revolutionary
United Front (RUF) fueled years of civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone. The RUF and other
combatants are slowly disarming, but the country still must overcome its corrupt elites and build
the infrastructure of a democratic state. Refugee flows from Liberia and Sierra Leone have
destabilized another neighboring dictatorship, Guinea. Côte d’Ivoire remains on the brink of civil
war as the result of the political manipulation of ethnic divisions. Tensions between the
Casamance region and the Senegalese national government have destabilized Senegal for more
than twenty years. And since the return of democratic rule, Nigeria has undergone increasingly
serious interethnic violence, exposing the fact that the military is not yet firmly under civilian
control.
Women have factored prominently, both as victims and combatants, in West Africa’s
civil wars. They have also been active participants in efforts for peace in the region. Their role,
however, has received little attention in political science literature. To understand the relevance
of gender analysis to issues of conflict and peace, I frame my case studies around the question of
what impact women have had on the management of conflicts in West Africa. I focus on three
cases in particular: the role of women in the Casamance conflict in Senegal; the efforts of the
Manor River Union Peace Network (MARWOPNET) in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone; and
the initiatives of the National Women Peace Group (NAWOPEG) in Nigeria.
A. Women and Protracted Conflict: Casamance, Senegal
The conflict in Casamance is one of the most protracted, but least-reported wars in West
Africa. Divided from the rest of the country by The Gambia, Casamance has retained a distinct
Convention