CONFLICT AND REINTEGRATION: THE CASE OF FEMALE EX-COMBATANTS IN COTE D'IVOIRE

Abstract This study was carried out in Cote d’Ivoire on female ex-combatants and members of organisations working with reintegrating former combatants. The study revolves more on war and reintegration of female ex-combatants. The main objective of the study is to document the presence, roles (combat roles), and treatment of women within war and reintegration. This is done for the fact that, women are often present if not always present within wars but are often neglected in the aftermath. As opposed to the quantitatively dominated method within research today, to carry out this study, qualitative method was applied. The qualitative method was made up of semi-structured interviews used to collect the necessary data from both female ex-combatants and representatives of organisations working in the domain of reintegration of ex-combatants in Cote d’Ivoire. Information collected from the participants was greatly incorporated into the analysis. Snowballing sampling was used to get the seven interviewees. The female ex-combatants were gotten via an organisation. They come from different social backgrounds of age, education, marital status etc. The other five interviewees in the study (representatives of organisations) also come from different social backgrounds of age, gender, marital status, and education. Furthermore, documents from different organisations working with reintegration of ex-combatants were used to cross check with the result of the interviews. The data was analysed from two points of view namely: theoretical material and past literatures. Some of the core arguments which build up the theory - masculinity being a preserve for men and exists in males’ bodies, masculinity being a hard wiring of genes and hormones. Counter arguments such as masculinity is a social construct just as gender is and can be thought and learned through socialisation or culture and can be learned by both males as well as females. Through this, data was analysed following a contextual pattern. This includes, investigating the presence of women in traditional “masculine” spheres; military, violence and drugs; female ex-combatants within DDR programs, equality and fair treatment, completion/abandonment, and also if female ex-combatants were considered social pariahs within their communities of origin. Primary data shows that women are not only victims during conflicts but are also active participants and perpetrators of violence