military, but not demobilized and reintegrated as
men were. Barth (2002) describes the disappointment
of peasant Eritrean female fighters at being neg-
lected by society following the war, remaining un-
married, or being forced to return to unequal
domestic situations and rural labor.
A third trend appears in the 1980s and 1990s,
where African women entered guerilla armies to
help resolve societal injustices and state crises. For
example, in Uganda, when the corrupt govern-
ments of Idi Amin and Milton Ubote fell through
coups, women joined the grassroots National
Resistance Army formed by Yoweri Museveni.
Ultimately, they were integrated into the Ugandan
Defense Force, and today more than 500 Ugandan
women serve as captains, administrators, or pri-
vates. In South Africa, women joined the African
National Congress to resist apartheid, some
becoming members of its exiled military leadership,
Mkonto we Sizwe. When these women fighters
returned at the end of apartheid, they had to force
their former comrades and party members to nego-
tiate women’s 30 percent representation in political
positions within the new South Africa. Ultimately,
many ANC women were integrated into the recon-
structed South African Defense Forces, joining
white women who were already 10 percent of
SADF (Cock 1995, 1993). Alternatively, many of
these former combatants were elected as parlia-
mentarians on ANC slates throughout the country.
A fourth trend has appeared since the end of the
Cold War, where militias or armed forces have
waged “wars against the people” (Ferguson 2003).
This has involved the captures of girls by rebel
groups and formal armies, gang rape, and general-
ized violence against women in places such as
Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Congo/DRC, and
Rwanda during the genocide. In Northern Uganda,
the Lord’s Resistance Army captured girls as a way
of reproducing “rebel families.” Elsewhere they
were abducted through the killing of their family
members, although some entered to escape domes-
tic abuse or through fear of the victimization that
could accompany war. The absence of alternatives
to fighting may propel them toward joining. Often
these girl and women fighters were no less violent
than their male counterparts, although ANC
women tried to avoid killing people. Overall, the
futures of women fighters have tended to be in
doubt, since demobilization efforts usually do not
include the girl and women fighters (Veale 2003).
The exceptions are places such as Sierra Leone,
where women’s NGOs have taken as their mission
the rehabilitation of child fighters and women.488 military: women’s participation
Strong indications of women’s opposition to this
trend emerged in the 1990s. Women’s peace move-
ments were evident all across the continent, espe-
cially in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali, Nigeria, Kenya,
Rwanda, Tanzania, and South Africa (Mikell forth-
coming). African women’s peace and anti-military
themes were evident at the 1995 Beijing Conference
and have been carried forward at conferences in
Zanzibar, South Africa, and Ghana between 1998
and 2003 that have been distinctly pro-state, anti-
militarist, and supportive of civilian control of the
military. Women have speculated that in southern
Africa, the HIV-AIDS trajectory may be linked to
the SADF expansion into frontline states, account-
ing for the 20–36 percent AIDS prevalence rates in
these countries (Mail and Guardian1999). In many
of the countries listed here, especially South Africa,
Uganda, and Rwanda after the genocide, women
became an elected majority within parliament, and
were better able to reshape the relationship be-
tween state, military, and civil society.
At the same time, a fifth trend is appearing, sig-
naling a new relationship between women and sol-
diering in those societies undergoing transitions to
democracy. Since women are not conscripted in
Sub-Saharan Africa, their voluntary entrance into
the military indicates their desire for economic
mobility as well as their nationalist commitment.
Although women are represented in small numbers
in these militaries, they are achieving high rank.
Today, women still make up a significant portion
of the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces. They are
now a part of the security bureaucracy and defense
ministers for SADF, and they are among the officer
corps in international venues such as the Africa
Center for Strategic Studies. This trend is likely to
increase as Sub-Saharan African countries democ-
ratize, and as women demonstrate agency and
nationalism by opting for the military because it
can offer them career opportunities. One Ugandan
woman soldier defended her choice: “You see, in
the army your performance will either pull you up
or down” (UAF 2001).Bibliography
A.-O. Agbese, Maintaining power in the face of political,
economic and social discrimination. The tale of Nigerian
women, in Women and Language 26:1 (March 2002),
<http://static.highbeam.com/w/womenandlanguage/
march222003/maintainingpowerinthefaceofpolitical
economicandsoc/>.
E. F. Barth, Peace as disappointment. The reintegration of
female soldiers in post-conflict societies. A comparative
study from Africa, PRIO Report 3, 2002, <http:// http://www.
prio.no/page/Project_detail/Projects_by_programme_
all/9244/37835.html>.