Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: During 14 years of civil war, Liberian women served as combatants on all sides of the brutal conflict, some voluntarily and many under coercion. Thousands of women also suffered from the kinds of gender-based violence that have become signature weapons of war in contemporary armed conflict. Liberian women were also instrumental in bringing the armed hostilities to an end, and the 2003 UN resolution authorizing the peacekeeping mission in Liberia provided for a Gender Advisor with a mandate of mainstreaming gender in its mission, consistent with UNSCR 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security. In the country’s first democratic elections following the end of the civil war, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was elected president, becoming the first woman president in Africa. This paper will consider the potential of the first all female UN police unit, which arrived in January from India, to act as a force multiplier in the complicated process of mainstreaming gender and keeping the peace in Liberia. The landscape there includes features that be present in other post-conflict situations and that may therefore bear on the impact of any future deployment of women peacekeepers, including paramilitary or police units. Crime, and especially rape, is rampant in Liberia, and the rebuilding of Liberia’s police is of crucial importance to women there. At the same time, the reputations of UN aid workers and peacekeepers in Liberia have been tarnished by incidents of sexual exploitation. This paper will apply lessons learned from the case study to draw preliminary observations on the on-going effort by the UN to attract women police officers into their peacekeeping operations worldwide.