‘Forced marriage’ and sexual slavery in contemporary African conflict are female gender-specific crimes against humanity, unusual in that they are predominantly committed within armed groups. They highlights tensions between the militarization of girls and women in war, and the ‘civilianization’ of contemporary conflict, blurring the boundaries between modalities of life ...
(Show more)‘Forced marriage’ and sexual slavery in contemporary African conflict are female gender-specific crimes against humanity, unusual in that they are predominantly committed within armed groups. They highlights tensions between the militarization of girls and women in war, and the ‘civilianization’ of contemporary conflict, blurring the boundaries between modalities of life in peace and war, and between ‘victims’ and ‘perpetrators’. The current literature is dominated by legal, gender studies and humanitarian readings, but this paper contends that a rigorous historical contextualization of the place of girls and young women in African conflicts, and a historicized reading of current evidence, are necessary to properly understand the phenomenon of ‘forced marriage’ among ‘girl soldiers’ in Africa. The paper’s evidential base includes the Sierra Leone TRC report, Machel report, UN Office for the High Commissioner on Human Rights, international humanitarian reports, and ‘girl soldier’ memoirs. The paper begins by investigating strategic reasons for the forcible marriage of girl soldiers, before moving on to analyse legal and humanitarian/human rights discourses surrounding ‘forced marriage’ as a crime against humanity, and its relationship to ‘sexual slavery’, ‘forced labour’ and ‘customary marriage’. It will historically contextualize these debates as a critical interface of shifting gender rights, child rights, cultural relativism, and the ‘child soldier’ crisis. Finally, the paper will problematize the evidence deployed in these debates, questioning how girls who have suffered forced marriage and sexual slavery understand and narrate the violence that is done to them, and how humanitarian discourses have constructed the categories of ‘bush wives’ and ‘girl soldiers’ from such narratives: how the silences and ‘outrages’ surrounding forced marriage have seen girls constructed as victims, perpetrators or individuals displaying tactical agency, from the local community to the international stage.
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