Drawing upon one or more case studies, examine the role played by women during a violent conflict, and compare this with their role during the post-settlement peace building process.

University Degree Historical and Philosophical studies

Drawing upon one or more case studies, examine the role played by women during a violent conflict, and compare this with their role during the post-settlement peace building process.

This essay will examine the role that women have played in a violent liberation/revolutionary struggle and the role they played in peace building and in the building of a new society after the conflict. I will be using the example of Eritrean liberation as my case study.

War, armed conflict, revolution and struggles for independence have often been seen as men’s business. In fact women have always been centrally involved in all of these activities, playing both active and passive roles – as aggressor and victim – just as men have.

Most of the history of war and peace has women and men playing out the traditional roles that most societies have ascribed to them, although there have always been exceptional men and women who have stepped outside the norms. In the vast majority of cases, however, we can analyse women’s and men’s involvement in war as separate and different from each other. In most cases, wherever in the world, or whatever the time, the role that women have played has been generally similar.

Over the last century there have been a large number of conflicts that have been fought as liberation struggles – either to liberate a nation from colonial rule, like Zimbabwe and Algeria; or to liberate a minority group from majority oppression, or liberate a people from the oppressive actions of their own government, for example South Africa and Nicaragua. In some of these struggles women have played a more active and combative role than has been the norm and also in some cases the liberation of women has been either a central plank of at least one of the stated aims of the struggle.

I want to look at the role that women have played in this kind of struggle, particularly in Eritrea both during the struggle and in the peace building. I also will be looking at whether women’s liberation was advanced in any way as a direct result of the struggle and the part that women played in it.

The war in Eritrea lasted for thirty years and was a liberation struggle against Ethiopia, who were seen as an occupying force – set up by Ethiopia’s own ex-colonialists, through Haile Selassie, with the Soviet Union supporting the Ethiopia Derg in its fight after the overthrow of Haile Selassie in 1974. The war was a long one between two very poor countries with occupied land ebbing and flowing, with many complicating factors including civil war and major infighting within both Eritrea and Ethiopia. It was also placed in a very dynamic period of history – conditions and situations changed a lot during the thirty years and so it is not possible to be simplistic in looking at the roles that women played. None the less we can make generalisations without making arguments invalid.

Whilst I will be looking at the roles that women played and their liberation over the period of the war and the first few post-independence years, most of the information that I am basing the essay on come from the last few years of the war. There is a whole new story playing out with the more recent war with Ethiopia, which I will not be examining. For a more detailed political chronology, see Appendix 1.

Women's role in the conflict

Women’s role in the conflict changed significantly over the thirty years of the war. Most obviously women weren’t allowed to enlist as fighters at the beginning of the war, neither were they part of the decision making bodies of the Eritrean Liberation Front – which predated the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front.

Over the course of thirty years there were a lot of changes. Areas were liberated and lost; women became more and more active, while the world outside of the region changed along with women’s position in it.

Whilst a lot of attention is and has been put on the role of women fighters in Eritrea, it is important to remember that still the majority of women (as men) were civilians and played vital roles in the liberation struggle as such.

As Christine Mason says:

... the current discourse on Eritrean women largely categorizes their participation in the liberation struggle only in active or passive terms… In the context of the war for liberation, the ultimate demonstration of active female service was participation in the front as a military fighter or in roles previously reserved for men…“Traditional” gender roles situating women in fields such as health care, food preparation, child rearing and other non-combatant occupations during the war were frequently viewed as less significant, passive participation.

Cynthia Enloe examines the traditional roles that women have played throughout history in war and violent conflict. Whilst she has a very western perspective – analysing women’s roles largely in the US and the UK over the last two centuries – the roles she describes are still valid and relevant. As she also points out, ‘a war and a revolution are not synonymous’ and the ELF and EPLF (in common with other revolutions/liberation struggles) had a much wider socio-political agenda than merely ridding itself of an occupying force. Nonetheless, her analysis of the range of roles women play in conflict provides a starting point in examining women’s roles in Eritrea.

Wife, mother, daughter and sweetheart

The first and perhaps most obvious role that women play during conflict is a prime role that they play at any time: that of wife, mother, daughter or sweetheart. This role is defined in relationship to someone else – usually a man. This offers several vital roles to men fighting: someone to protect; someone to (re)produce; and someone to care-take, motivate, and inspire.

In Eritrea, as in many other conflicts, women sacrificed their sons and daughters for the liberation movement, and many Eritrean women actively supported their husbands’ involvement in the war:

Women civilians whose husbands were fighting often went with them to a civilian base and cooked, nursed etc or if they were in a liberated area the same.

After 1977 or so marriages were allowed between fighters and that meant that women fighters also bore and raised children. Women fighters who had babies went to a place for women and babies and whilst they were pregnant they helped look after the new mothers and the babies whose mothers had gone back to the front. At the beginning women had to leave their babies after three months to go back to work, later after research showed that this was detrimental to the children they stayed with them for a year and then 18 months. Men had nothing to do with bringing up the children at all.

Nurse – support services

This role merges more into the previous one in this liberation struggle than it might in a conventional interstate war, as ‘fighters’ and civilians are much closer physically – often feeding, nursing and supporting the soldiers as a community rather than having specific support roles. In Eritrea the relationship was reciprocal, with the ‘fighters’ helping to work in the fields, educate and organise communities in liberated areas. In this sense the ‘fighters’ roles were a little less defined also and many of the ‘fighters’ spent time doing many different things and not just fighting.

The roles that civilian women played in relation to the soldiers was very much an extension of their normal roles within the community and as already mentioned many civilian women went with the husbands to base camps precisely to carry out the role of wife to him as a soldier.

The role that women within the EPLF played also tended to follow the traditional pattern with more women than men nursing. Many women in the EPLF were trained as ‘barefoot doctors’, and educators. As the war went on more women became involved in the front line fighting and men and women shared the tasks in the camps and in the liberated areas – this was a gradual process and often born out of necessity rather than ideology.

Prostitutes

Whilst Eritrean women were prostitutes in Asmara for the Ethiopian troops during the war there appears to be no evidence to suggest that the EPLF used women in this way.

Women nonetheless played a role in providing a sexual outlet for men. The issue of sexual relations was one that both the ELF and the EPLF gave consideration to in organising themselves. Both men and women fighters were expected to stay celibate, at the beginning of the war, unless they had their spouses with them. Although this wasn’t respected across the board, it does seem that it was respected to an extent. Evidence in other liberation struggles seems to suggest that most women who become fighters are single women. After 1977 soldiers were allowed to have sexual relations with other soldiers and this became quite widespread.

There were incidents of sexual harassment, and even rape, within the EPLF but few talked about it. However, if a man was proved to have raped a woman they were harshly punished. Nonetheless, more subtle sexual pressure was used by men in higher positions to intimidate and control women. At the same time there was some competition amongst women for the attention of men in high positions – for the gain of extra privileges, status, comfort etc.

Workers - keeping the economy going

Again this role is perhaps less clearly separated in a liberation struggle, as in ...

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Workers - keeping the economy going

Again this role is perhaps less clearly separated in a liberation struggle, as in liberated areas soldiers may well contribute to the general work of the community. The more of the younger, fit and active women who become soldiers themselves there are less of these women left behind to carry on the work as would be the case in many wartime situations.

However, civilian women did take over some of the jobs traditionally filled by men if they weren’t there and in a mainly agricultural/subsistence economy that mostly meant working on their own land and/or managing their own livestock.

Victims

Women, in any war, bear a large part of the misery that it causes. This was no exception in Eritrea. Holding families together, trying to protect, nurture and feed young and old, keeping food production going and making sure that they get a far share of any aid going when times are bad. Eritrea went through times of famine, as well as the direct violence. Eritrea is one of the poorest countries in the world with one the highest infant mortality rates – clearly, in wartime resources are diverted to fighting and this means that civilian women have to manage on even less. There were many refugees on the borders of Sudan, the majority of whom were women and children.

Fighters

This is another area that differs significantly from the more conventional war at which Enroe was mostly looking, with 13% of frontline fighters being women. Many sources suggest women were braver and more ferocious than men in battle – and as a result had more casualties. Women held many important posts in the military, some of them reaching the rank of battalion commander.

It is also said that women were regarded as much more ruthless and indeed cruel than men when dealing with prisoners and dealt out much more harsh punishments.

Resistance worker.

A very important role that women played, not examined by Enloe, was that of underground resistance worker. Many women helped to smuggle soldiers and other wanted people, acted as messengers. Being a woman often helped to divert suspicion from them:

Women are less likely to be seen as dangerous or ‘up to something’, and so can serve as escorts for men or messengers for men who are sequestered inside houses. Similarly women are often more successful at recruiting support for nationalist efforts because they are seen as less threatening and militant.

Women did a lot of hiding of fighters, and passing fighters over the border – Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki reported to Cheryl Hatch that women had played a huge role in this way.

Policy/decision makers

In the liberated areas women became involved in elected 'People's Assemblies' which replaced the traditional chiefs – 20% of the seats were reserved for women. Also, women who did become commanders of units within the EPLF clearly had much more control and power than would normally be the case in conventional wars – where women may achieve high rank in non-combative roles but would have rarely have any direct control over the course of the war itself.

So, in Eritrea women played a range of significant roles, as they have in the great majority of armed struggles throughout history. We can also see that throughout the ages women have been actively involved in peace building and in rebuilding society after conflict.

Women's role in the peace building

Many of the roles that women play during conflict are also important in peace building, and those roles that are used towards a war’s ends can also be used to build a peaceful society. For example, the roles of wife and mother can be used in many ways – to produce and support fighters, to produce and support citizens and also to bind peace accords or treaties with women being married into former enemies’ families and communities.

In Eritrea women worked hard to build a fair and just society after the war was over. Also, throughout the fighting, areas were taken and held by the EPLF and women played crucial roles in those areas.

Wives, mothers and daughters

They were involved in all of the traditional roles of wife/mother/daughter – assisting their families and loved ones to recover from the war. Nurturing new citizens, educating their children to be part of a peaceful Eritrea, working to bring their communities back into a state of normality which many of them had never known after 30 years of fighting.

Some of the women who had been soldiers returned to their communities and integrated back into them.

Workers

They worked in the fields to produce food and they worked in all spheres of life to rebuild the infrastructure and the community structures.

For some women, there were active able-bodied men returning to take on their share of the burden of subsistence living but for many civilian women it was ‘business as usual’ with little change – either because their men had not gone away in the first place or not come back. For others they had disabled and injured family members returning and more work.

Also most of the EPLF soldiers actually stayed on to do the work of the rebuilding and construction that was desperately needed:

While the war ended in 1991, EPLF fighters continued to serve without salaries, for only food and a place to sleep. They have been active in removing land mines, rebuilding roads, constructing dams, planting trees, teaching basic literacy and numerous other public works. It is only since summer 1993, two years after the war ended, that fighters have begun demobilizing and return to their communities.

Policy and decision makers

As mentioned above, during the liberation struggle democratic elections were held at a village level in all liberated areas. There was universal suffrage for everyone over 18 years. Elections themselves were new to people in Eritrea, never mind women’s participation in them – but 20% of seats were reserved for women and this continued in the peacetime. After the end of the war there was a referendum at which the vast majority of citizens cast a vote to accept independence from Ethiopian rule. In March 1994 the National Assembly established a Constitutional Commission, at which point women made up 48% of the commissions members.

Women’s lives do seem to have been affected by their participation in the struggle for Eritrean liberation, and their lives in the peace-building process do not seem to have returned to exactly the same state as before the struggle. Have the changes been to the benefit of women, overall – have Eritrean women been emancipated by the struggle?

Has women's liberation been advanced in Eritrea?

Eritrea was an extremely patriarchal society with women having very few rights. There are a range of proverbs from the region relating women to beasts of burden which demonstrate the common attitude “Just as there is no donkey with horns, so there is no woman with a brain”. The EPLF was seen as the most progressive liberation movement in the world and there were a lot of high hopes pinned on it, particularly in the area of women’s liberation.

Even the ELF, who pre-dated the EPLF and have often been portrayed as much more patriarchal, had as part of their political program of 1975:

The revolutionary state shall protect the rights of women workers. It shall remove all historical prejudice against women and will safeguard equal opportunities for women in the different activities of the state, social and private life. Women shall have a revolutionary place in revolutionary Eritrea. Any manifestation of discrimination against women shall be severely punished.

In 1979 the National Union for Eritrean Women was founded and has played a very active role in all issues that effect women and has continued to this day to play the same role and to be very active and influential. Changes in the lives and roles of women were explicitly promoted as central to the liberation struggle:

Travelling cultural shows reinforced the message that there would be no liberation of the country without women’s full participation. In effect, it became unpatriotic to resist women’s involvement in economic and political life.

So how much has the liberation of women been advanced by the independence of Eritrea? Has it gone back to its old ways or have women managed to progress and achieve emancipation? I will look at three main areas of life and see how much has changed both legally and practically on the ground.

Economically

Eritrea is mainly a rural country, with most work being in the country, and the population made up of 80% rural and 20% urban. The majority of the population are involved in subsistence farming still – but 40% of employed workers are women.

Before the war women were not allowed to own land. All property was owned and inherited by men. In 1994 the new government new regulations which meant that all land was owned by the state but that all adults had a right to use the land and the land was allocated accordingly. Despite this, it is often extremely difficult for a woman to exercise that right. This action by the government does seem to have made some difference to some women but as in so many cases this is limited by custom and practise that is deeply embedded in the culture.

At a seminar on girl's education in Asmara, Eritrea in 1996, Osman Saleh, then Minister of Education, told the attendees that reconstruction of Eritrea would succeed only:

… if all the people are involved, and not just some sectors or groups. This is why our education policy clearly stipulates that basic education (seven years of schooling) is compulsory for all, irrespective of gender, nationality or religion.

The same seminar also presented evidence that education is perceived in rural areas as destructive of the traditional values of respect, obedience, and virtue; and that it interferes with marriage prospects as well as domestic training. The government was all too aware that it could not move too far or too fast to promote gender equality. There is still an 85% illiteracy rate amongst women, and girls represent less than 10% of all students who pass the high school graduation examinations.

Everyone – men and women - over the age of 18 years now has to undergo 18 months national service – six months military training and one year on construction projects. This has been beneficial to some women as a way of learning skills, being seen as capable and competent to do ‘non-traditional’ tasks and gaining self-confidence. However, it has been relatively easy for women to be exempted from doing National Service.

In 1995, in response to the difficulties that they were experiencing, a group of women ex-fighters set up the Eritrean Women War Veterans Association - also known as BANA (dawn or brightness). With money received from donations from abroad they were able to set up co-operatives for women to earn money together. Unfortunately this scheme, and other similar schemes, did not last long once they were taken over by the government.

Socially/Culturally

Before the war women could not choose their husbands. It was common for them to be married at puberty. Female genital mutilation and virginity testing were the norm as was wife beating within many cultures. Women often suffered from chronic malnutrition and anaemia since they were the last to eat. The life expectancy of a woman in 1992 (at independence) was about 40 years – this had improved by nearly 20 years by 2002.

Now marriage can only be entered into with full consent of both parties and the age of consent is 18 for men and women. Divorce and inheritance laws have changed to give women equal rights and female genital mutilation is outlawed.

So things have changed a great deal – but for women in the villages and towns, on the ground how much have things actually improved?

It seems that women fighters were not always an attractive marriage partner either for previously non-fighting men or even for former fighters themselves. They were independent and strong willed and not ‘feminine’. Men who had been fighting and were married to fighting women were often coerced by their families to divorce her and marry a more traditional woman who would be willing to be a traditional wife:

After independence people were offended by the fighters as they often had a harsh and abrasive manner learned through the way of life that they had lived.

Genital mutilation is now illegal, and there have been attempts made to promote cultural change in this area. There were lots of educational campaigns both after the war but also during in the liberated areas to try to encourage people to give up the practise of female circumcision and child marriage – yet 85% of girls are still genitally mutilated – both Muslim and Christian. The government, it would seem, has yet to effectively enforce the law.

It seems that despite many good intentions the previous conservatism and patriarchy has reasserted itself – and there doesn’t seem to be much evidence that in the personal realm of the family a great deal has changed for the vast majority of women.

Politically

Whilst women’s liberation was intrinsic to the EPLF’s program, the Draft Constitution of the government in 1996 did not make specific reference to gender issues at all. This was a fiercely contended and debated issue, but in the end women had to content themselves with a statement that equal rights would be extended to ‘all persons’. The Constitution states that “women and men shall interact on the bases of mutual respect, fraternity and equality” – the choice of the word ‘fraternity’ in the English version has not gone unnoticed.

Since independence the PFDJ have made real efforts to ensure that women are involved in all levels of governance. At a regional level, for example, 1996 quotas for women representatives of 20% were later raised to 30% - reported as exceeded in electoral results for 1999. A woman attorney general has enforced laws on sex discrimination, the politically led land reform has made possible real changes in some women’s lives, and the Constitution Commission included a near majority of women members. Some women held high office – three towns had women mayors in 1997, and by 1999 significant numbers of women were serving as judges, in the national parliament, as 85% of deputy district administrators, and as the Ministers of Labour and Justice.

While this represents real progress for a deeply conservative society, high office remains overwhelmingly male: in 1999 again, men made up 78% of the national parliament, 84% of judges, 88% of serving ministers, all provincial governors and first secretaries in international assemblies. The wartime pattern of women’s leadership being encouraged to a certain level, but not reaching or being accepted beyond that level, would seem to have repeated itself in civilian political life in peace-time.

Conclusion

Women were active in the liberation movement of Eritrea. They were involved in all aspects of the war and the struggle from the more traditional roles of wife and mother to the very atypical roles of battle commander, decision maker and front line soldier. They learned new skills and utilised old ones and were as fully committed to the struggle as were their male counterparts. Much changed for them during the 30 years and they were taken more seriously in many ways.

Much really valuable work went on in the liberated areas in educating the people around issues of women’s liberation. The people were politicised into realising that women must be fully involved in the revolution if it was to succeed. It did succeed, against huge odds, and in the process many men’s and women’s lives were changed and many lost.

After the war finished, again women were involved in all aspects of rebuilding the country, which was devastated from 30 years of war and destruction. They had the advantage of the fact that the EPLF had maintained the infrastructure of the liberated areas as best they could throughout – nonetheless there was still a huge job ahead of them and men and women worked very hard to see their dream of a free and liberated Eritrea come to pass.

A question of great interest to many was whether the sincere wish of the EPLF would or could be translated into a society where women genuinely had equal rights. Or whether it was possible that all that political education, sacrifice and courage on women’s part, and their shared experience in the trenches, could really just disappear as it seems to have done in other situations. As Henrietta Moore says:-

Time and time again, a pattern has emerged where women play a significant role during the armed struggle but once the revolutionary government is installed, women’s needs and interests fade from the political agendas, and the political rhetoric fails to give rise to active programs for women’s emancipation.

Eritrea was a deeply patriarchal society and also an agrarian one, with people living in villages in the same way that generations had done before them – and this has not changed. Many isolated areas had very little contact with governments of any kind and survival remains the prime concern of many of the people in one of the poorest countries in the world. If women’s liberation was to succeed and to change society in these conditions then there would need to be a concerted and persistent effort.

Unfortunately that was not forthcoming. For many reasons it is clear that just a few years after independence, women’s liberation took a decided back seat and the status quo was allowed to roll back in. There is a sense that women’s liberation is not a key issue anymore.

This is not surprising given the socio-economic situation of the country. The government clearly needed to get as much general public support as possible from the people and women’s issues were often contentious and threatening to the accepted order of things.

As Matsuoka and Sorenson say, after their research and conversations with many Eritrean women:

… many [women] expressed their belief that the situation of women had not improved greatly and that national independence had not bought about significant changes.

However, despite this gloomy picture there are many signs of hope and the PFDJ seem to have made some real and genuine efforts to ensure that women’s situation is different now. Many laws have changed giving women equality in many areas that they didn’t have before – marriage, land rights, governance, education and employment. Life for some women is vastly changed and opportunities are opened up. There is scope and potential for much more change but it is clearly going to be a long and slow struggle as it is indeed for women everywhere.

Bibliography

Amnesty International, ‘Eritrea’ Amnesty International Report 1999 (from website: , 1999) Accessed 6th February 2003

Amnesty International, ‘Eritrea’ Amnesty International Report 2000 (from website: , 2000) Accessed 23rd November 2002

Amnesty International, ‘Eritrea’ Amnesty International Report 2001 (from website: , 1999) Accessed 6th February 2003

Connell, Dan, Rethinking Revolution: New Strategies for Democracy and Social Justice: The experiences of Eritrea, South Africa, Palestine and Nicaragua (New Jersey, USA & Asmara, Eritrea: Red Sea Press, 2002)

Central Intelligence Agency, ‘Eritrea’ The World Factbook (published as website: , 2002) Accessed 15th December 2002

Enloe, Cynthia, Does Khaki Become You? The militarization of women’s lives (London: Pluto Press, 1983)

Eritrean People’s Liberation Front – Democratic Party, Program: February 2002 (Eritrea: EPLF-DP from website: , 2002) Accessed 23rd November 2002

Gilmore, Inigo, ‘Women hold the line in Africa’s forgotten war’ Electronic Telegraph Issue 1437, 2nd May 1999 (Tsorona, Eritrea: from website: ) Accessed 23rd November 2002

Hale, Sondra, ‘Liberated, But Not Free: Women in Post-War Eritrea’ in Meintjes, S. et al. (eds) The Aftermath: Women in Post-Conflict Transformation. (London: Zed books, 2002)

Hatch, Cheryl, ‘Women of War’ Christian Science Monitor (Amsara, Eritrea: from website , 2000) Accessed 23rd November 2002

Hatch, Cheryl, The Struggle Continues (Johns Hopkins University Magazine, 2002: reprinted Pew Fellowships website: , 2002) Accessed 23rd November 2002

Iyob, Ruth, ‘The Eritrean Experiment: a Cautious Pragmatism?’ The Journal of Modern African Studies Vol. 35, no. 4 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997)

Kutschera, Chris, ‘What happened to the demobilised Eritrean women?’ in The Middle East magazine, June 1997 (republished on website: , 2002) Accessed 26th November 2002

Mason, Christine, Working Paper #274: Gender, Nationalism and Revolution: Re-assessing Women’s Relationship with the Eritrean Liberation Front (Michigan, USA: Michigan State University, 2002)

Matsuoaka, Atsuko and Sorenson, John, After Independence: prospects for Women in Eritrea. (Norway: University of Tromso Women’s Worlds 99 conference papers website: , 1999) Accessed 12th November 2002

Mebrahtu, Daniel, ‘The Challenge: Reflecting aspirations of all’ Eritrean Profile, Vol. 1, no. 48, 11th February 1995 (Eritrea: republished on website: ) Accessed 24th November 2002

Moore, Henrietta, Feminism and Anthropology (Minneapolis, USA: University of Minnesota Press, 1998)

Nagel, Joanne, ‘Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the making of Nations’ Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 21, no. 1 (London: Routledge, 1998)

National Union of Eritrean Women (Ottawa Chapter), Eritrean Women in the Struggle for Independence (Canada: Peace and Environment News, April 1994: republished on website: ) Accessed 24th November 2002

Pateman, Roy, Even the Stones are Burning, second edition (New Jersey, USA: Red Sea Press, 1998)

Rude, John, On the Wings of Change in East Africa (Thirst for Learning website , 1997) Accessed: 26th January 2003

Shaebia Staff, Women in Eritrea: Much Progress, Continuing Struggle (Eritrea: PFDJ’s “Shaebia” website: , 2002) Accessed: 26th November 2002

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Appendix 1 – Political Chronology

- from Connell(op. cit.) pp xix-xx

To give some idea, however, here are Amnesty International’s summaries from their “country reports” in 1999 and 2001:

In May [1998] war broke out between Eritrea and Ethiopia after Eritrean troops occupied an area claimed by Eritrea. Eritrean air strikes against Ethiopia in June … [were followed by an] Ethiopian air attack on Asmara airport ... Further air strikes by both sides were quickly suspended and there was little further fighting until November, when shelling resumed in contested border areas …

Amnesty International ‘Eritrea’ from Amnesty International Report 1999 at : Accessed 6th February 2003

The border war with Ethiopia resumed in May [2000] after a year's tense confrontation along the 1,000-kilometre border. Both sides had continued to expand their forces and to buy weapons. Eritrea continued to conscript nationals for military service … In May Ethiopia attacked and captured large parts of south-western Eritrea, forcing Eritrean troops out of areas they had occupied since the war began in May 1998. The UN Security Council called for a cease-fire … [which] was signed in June under the auspices of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). ... A formal peace treaty was signed in December in Algeria in the presence of the UN Secretary-General … [and] the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) began deploying troops and human rights observers into the Ethiopian-occupied zone.

Amnesty International ‘Eritrea’ from Amnesty International Report 2001 at : Accessed 6th February 2003

Mason, Christine, Working Paper #274: Gender, Nationalism and Revolution: Re-assessing Women’s Relationship with the Eritrean Liberation Front (Michigan, US: Michigan State University, 2002): p 1

Enloe, Cynthia, Does Khaki Become You? The militarization of women’s lives (London: Pluto Press, 1983)

Ibid.: pg 164

Jones, Senait: Interview with author, October 2002. Senait was a member of the EPLF for seventeen years, during which time she served as a front-line soldier, raised a child, and was engaged in education and construction projects.

“The term ‘fighter’ is ambiguous since it usually refers to any active member of the EPLF (and at times it is used in the same context to women in EPLF), even though they never physically have fought at the frontline. However, the PFDJ clarified this in 1997 explaining that while one third of the EPLF was female, only 13% were frontline fighters” – Mason, op.cit.: p 14

Jones (see note 5)

Enloe, op. cit.: p 164

Jones (see note 5)

Ibid.

I have not been able to discover as much as I would like about the effect of the war on the economy, although the CIA fact book {Central Intelligence Agency, ‘Eritrea’ The World Factbook (published as website: , 2002) Accessed 15th December 2002} suggests that much infrastructure was built by EPLF during the war but much was also destroyed. Thirty years is a long time to have many young active men and women away from the land – it would be fruitful to examine further the effect this had on an already poor country.

See note 6

Jones (see note 5). See also Hatch, Cheryl, ‘Women of War’ Christian Science Monitor (Amsara, Eritrea: from website , 2000) Accessed 23rd November 2002

National Union of Eritrean Women (Ottawa Chapter), ‘Eritrean Women in the Struggle for Independence’ Peace and Environment News April 1994 (Canada: republished on website: ) Accessed 24th November 2002

Jones (see note 5)

Nagel, Joanne, ‘Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the making of Nations’ Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 21, no. 1 (London: Routledge, 1998) p 253

Hatch, op. cit. (in audio clip)

Although there were real difficulties for many women in returning to conservative societies from the very un-traditional roles they had played in the liberation struggle, including a reported 50% divorce rate – see Hatch, op. cit.

University of Pennsylvania African Studies Department, Eritrea: Africa's Newest State (from website: , 1999) Accessed 28th January 2003

Connell, op. cit.: p 115

Ibid.

Eritrean Liberation Front Social and Cultural Policies, Article 2 – quoted in Mason, op. cit.: p 11

Connell, op. cit.: p 114

Central Intelligence Agency, op. cit.

Shaebia Staff, Women in Eritrea: Much Progress, Continuing Struggle (Eritrea: PFDJ’s “Shaebia” website: , 2002) Accessed: 26th November 2002

Matsouka and Sorenson, op. cit.

Rude, John, On the Wings of Change in East Africa (Thirst for Learning website , 1997) Accessed: 26th January 2003

Ibid.

Hatch, op. cit.

Rude, op. cit.

Connell, op. cit.: p 115

Jones (see note 5)

Matsuo & Sorenson, op. cit.

Connell, op. cit.: p 114

Central Intelligence Agency op. cit.

Connell, op. cit.: p 119

Jones (see note 5)

Ibid.

Hatch, op. cit.

Iyob, Ruth, ‘The Eritrean Experiment: a Cautious Pragmatism?’ The Journal of Modern African Studies Vol. 35, no. 4 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997): p 647-673.

Connell, op. cit.: p 115

Hale, op. cit.: p 135

Connell, op. cit.: p 115

Pateman, Roy Even the Stones are Burning, second edition (Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press, 1998): pp 254-255

Hale, op. cit.: p 135

Ibid

Moore, Henrietta, Feminism and Anthropology (Minneapolis, USA: University of Minnesota Press, 1998): p 171

Matsouka and Sorenson, op. cit.

Drawing upon one or more case studies, examine the role played by women during a violent conflict, and compare this with their role during the post-settlement peace building process.