Where are the Girls? Girls in Fighting Forces in Northern Uganda, Sierra Leone and Mozambique: Their Lives During and After War
As implied in its provocative title, Where are the girls? by Susan McKay and Dyan Mazurana is intended to highlight the specific experiences, needs and capacities of girls in fighting forces, perhaps the least visible of the ‘invisible soldiers’. The authors argue: “At its core, this study’s findings emphasize the implications of seeing girls in fighting forces. It is these implications that provide a vision to help inform and shape future actions.” (p. 119) However, the book is not about girls in isolation. Rather, the authors’ approach is at the same time less categorical and more radical. McKay and Mazurana provide an insightful gender analytic lens to view girls not as a separate, monolithic category for ‘special’ intervention, but rather as members of dynamic communities, whose roles and relationships need to be recognised.
The study also provides a refreshing break from traditional portrayals of girls in conflict as either passive, traumatised, helpless victims or irrational, deviant villains. In contrast to this unhelpful sensationalism, McKay and Mazurana argue that girls and women in fighting forces are actors, with both needs and capabilities, embodying vulnerabilities as well as agency, facing opportunities and challenges. While drawing out common themes, the authors do not gloss over individual differences, but contextualize patterns of, and highlight nuances among, girls’ multiplicity of experiences in Northern Uganda, Sierra Leone and Mozambique.
After a global overview of trends of the presence, entry and roles of girls in fighting forces from 1990-2003, the authors focus on the specific experiences of girls in three African conflicts. A brief overview of the situation in Northern Uganda, Sierra Leone and Mozambique, as well as rationale for selection of the case studies, provide essential background for understanding girls’ experiences in fighting forces in these contexts. Comparative data and a rich analysis of psycho-social issues and the roles that girls play in the fighting forces form the heart of the study. The authors argue that entire communities must be involved in a holistic approach to reintegration, taking into account shifting social, political, economic and gender contexts. This dynamic process involves both girls adapting to often “disjointed, displaced, reconfigured” (p. 39) communities, and communities recognising and accepting how girls have changed because of their experiences. A thoughtful analysis of the multiple roles and experiences of girls in fighting forces in the three countries challenges monolithic stereotypes of girls as ‘simply’ ‘bush wives’, ‘sex slaves’ or ‘camp followers’. Rather, McKay and Mazurana show how girls’ and women’s productive and reproductive labour is essential to fighting forces and thus argue that conceptual, policy and programmatic approaches must be modified to take girls’ roles seriously.
Drawing on a wide range of secondary sources, as well as primary material collected from hundreds of interviews with girls and practitioners in the field, Where are the Girls? provides a wealth of information and analysis for academics, policy makers and practitioners. The extensive bibliography points to most of the existing literature on the topic, while the methodological appendices document useful research approaches and tools. An index and glossary would have further contributed to the book’s utility as a resource guide. The policy and programming recommendations in each section provide a realistic framework for action. However, these are almost exclusively targeted at the international community; a recognition of the specific interventions, challenges and opportunities of local organisations would have made the study more relevant to a larger audience. These few limitations, however, do not detract from the authors’ goal to render more visible girls in fighting forces. Indeed, McKay and Mazurana surpass this aim by also highlighting, in a refreshingly sensitive, nuanced and contextualized way, the multifaceted nature, causes and consequences of girls’ participation in fighting forces and challenge us to provide a correspondingly holistic, flexible, locally appropriate and gendered response.
* Montreal: Rights and Democracy, 2004. ISBN: 2-922084-74-4
* Reviewed by Christina Clark, Fahamu