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Gender violence in conflict situations:

Boko Haram and its evolving tactics

Tahmina Rahman
AS the Nigerian government hosts the World Economic Porum 2014 in capital Abuja, the families of over 200 teenage school girls abducted by Boko Haram takes it to the street demanding return of their children. Since its establishment in 2002 by Muhammed Yusuf, Boko Haram has been opposing what it views as the Westernisation of Nigerian politics and society. It particularly dislikes the idea of co-education and strives to establish a Muslim state in Nigeria. The Nigerian government was successful in quelling an uprising by the organisation in 2009 that led to the extrajudicial killing of Yusuf. Abubakar Shekau, the new leader of the organisation, called for jihad and the resurgence of violence since 2010 has cost thousands of lives so far.
Within this context of ongoing conflict between the Nigerian government and the radical Islamist organisation, the recent abduction situation has once again proved that women are mere pawns in the great game of politics between men. Nigeria's social and cultural norms are not considered very women friendly. This discriminatory attitude has affected women's security during conflict situations. They have been dragged into this schism against their will by both parties.
Over the years, Boko Haram has evolved as a militant organisation and mastered new and more violent tactics to achieve its strategic goals. As unfortunate as it sounds the Nigerian government started the practice of detaining women belonging to the families of Boko Harm members since 2011 as a deliberate strategy to destroy the morale of the militants. The leadership of the organisation threatened to reciprocate the act with kidnapping the wives of the government officials. Since 2012, Boko Haram has been systematically kidnapping women to create pressure on the government. In a number of video messages, Shekau justified his action on the basis of government strategy to punish Boko Haram family members, hinting on the possibility of sexual violence committed by government forces.
The state of emergency that has been in place in some parts of the country since last year has only exacerbated the situation. Nigeria's Political Violence Research Network suggests that Christian women in these areas are experiencing increased violence and intimidation from Boko Haram members. The militants abduct young women and force them to cook and clean for them. They also use the women for sexual gratification and employ them as baits to lure government officials so that they can be killed by the militants. These involuntary but 'valuable' services provided by abducted women helps keeping the conflict alive and give Boko Haram a tactical advantage over the government. Women are also being used for operational purposes like smuggling weapons by the militants. Boko Haram might not think much of women's liberation or empowerment, but it sure knows the utility of women in evading security check points.
This practice conforms to the behavioural pattern of rebel groups across Sub-Saharan Africa. We have seen widespread gender violence in Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Rwanda before. Even now in South Sudan women are being killed and raped as a part of ethnically motivated violence by rival forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar in the conflict that erupted last year. Men belonging to all fighting factions in these conflicts have relied on the productive and reproductive roles of women in sustaining their campaign.
The World Economic Forum this year started with a minute of silence remembering the victims of the abduction. British and the US governments are sending specialists to help the Nigerian government to rescue the girls. Help is coming from othersources too. But it might be too little too late. It's been over three weeks since those ill-fated girls were kidnapped from their school. Neither the government nor the international community initially seemed much concerned about the situation. In fact, investigation by Amnesty International has revealed that government security forces were warned about this abduction sometime before it actually took place, but they did not care much about doing something to prevent it.
The chances of rescuing those girls from the Sambisa forest would be as slim as finding a needle in the haystack, even with the help of Western powers. Many abducted girls might already have been sold across the border and lost the chance to be reunited with their families. Nigerian government should focus on a few things to avoid such incidents in future. Last year it started a plan to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, on safeguarding women during conflict. This is a good sign. But a lot more has to be done. There is no culture of cross-border cooperation between law enforcement agencies in that part of the world, and transnational organised criminals and terrorists take advantage of this situation. There would be better chance of rescuing those girls if any institutionalised mechanism were there to carry out joint operations with Nigeria's neighbouring countries.
For its own sake, Nigeria might think about initiating such co-operation with law-enforcement agencies and security forces across the border. It also has to sensitise its own security forces about gender issues and change its policy of getting back at the enemy by taking their family members hostage. Nigeria has emerged as the biggest economy in the continent, but the fruits of economic development are not evenly distributed across the country. The deprived, jobless and economically insecure young people are the typical target for recruitment of Boko Haram. Unless the government takes some concrete measure to rectify this uneven economic development, the situation will not improve much.
The selective engagement of the international community in the conflict situations in the name of promoting women's rights is truly hypocritical. Their silence on how both the Nigerian government and the militants have (ab)used women as instruments of war so far have helped the problem get bigger. Sending a handful of specialists to help the government in rescue operation is not enough. We need visible and long-term commitment from the international community in dealing with such problems instead of case-by-case basis response. Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has described this recent act of Boko Haram as an attack on women's civil rights. Promoting such rights against gender based violence takes time, patience and political will. If the international community is not willing to commit to such a cause, then we will see more tragic incidents like this in future.