Gender-based violence in the conflict zones of Africa has reached epidemic proportions yet remains a silent disaster in the continent, invisible in the media and beyond donors’ reach.

Gender based violence increases during and after disasters as already fragile structure of law and order breaks down. The Global Fund for Women reports that more than a million women were raped, mutilated and abused during and after the civil wars in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda. Boys and girls are also affected. Boys served as cooks, porters and messengers while girls are forced into marriages and abducted as sex slaves.  Men, despite being often portrayed as perpetrators, are raped, killed and suffer from psychological trauma.

It is therefore important to understand that women, men, boys and girls experience disasters in different ways. In many reports after disasters, women are shown to be disproportionately affected because of their low social, economic and political status in society even before violent conflict and disaster strike. In their everyday lives, women and girls are often exposed to abuse when fetching water or gathering firewood. Women are restricted access to credit and are prohibited to inherit or own land. In disasters, women refugees are often forced to trade sex for survival, while relief policies favour refugee men.

However, despite the circumstances that women find themselves in, evidence from the ground has started to dismantle the ‘women as victims’ myth. Time and again, women continue to show their resilience in the face of disasters. They help build shelters and soup kitchens, organize self-help groups, and mobilize community to take action. Post-conflict, they play crucial roles in formal and informal peacekeeping initiatives. In 2003, Liberian women mobilized and demanded an “unconditional ceasefire, a negotiated settlement and an international community presence in Liberia.” In Ghana, during the peace negotiations in which women were markedly absent, “a group of women held a parallel meeting resulting in The Golden Tulip Declaration. They physically barricaded the stalled peace talks using their bodies as human shields and demanded that an agreement be reached.” Women in Monrovia formed the West Point Women’s Action Group to prevent rape and other violence.

Similar stories of women’s capacities and resilience abound and there is a need to systematically document these accounts in support of evidence-based research that could inform risk reduction policies and programmes and the development agenda.

There is also a need to build networks and coalitions to amplify the advocacy on gender justice and women’s rights in post-conflict and disaster situations. Writing on the status of women in Africa, Pumla Dineo Gqola, a feminist writer and academic, argues for a “coalition of women across the continent to further the cross-pollination of strategies, experience and research.” Gqola emphasised on taking advantage of the opportunities provided by ICTs.

One initiative of this nature is the Gender-based Violence Prevention Network. It was initiated by Raising Voices and UN Habitat’s Safer Cities Programme in response to the disconnect with other like-minded organizations and the need for space to share programs, approaches, strategies and ideas on GBV prevention. At the global level, the Gender and Disaster Network (GDN) draws on the interconnectivity provided by the World Wide Web to generate, share and exchange knowledge on gender and disaster risk reduction (GDRR) by documenting, analysing and transmitting the experiences of women and men; girls and boys, before, during, and after disasters and highlighting their capacities as agents of change.

Preventing gender based violence, addressing a culture of impunity and upholding women’s rights in disasters are not easy tasks. Collective action coming from the ground with support from governments, international NGOs, donors and the media is imperative to achieve fundamental change in the way society treats and views women and other marginalised social groups.

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Cape Town Principles on the Recruitment of Children into the Armed Forces on Demobilization and Social reintegration of Child Soldiers in Africa. Cape Town, South Africa, 27-30 April 1997.

Gcola, P.D. The Status of Women in Africa. In Gender Instruments in Africa Consolidating Gains in the Southern African Development Community,ed. Ruiters, M. Institute for Global Dialogue, South Africa. 2008.

Global Fund for Women Annual Report 2009-2010. http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/what-we-do/publications/reports/latest-annual-report/1826 (accessed 10 November 2010)

Marsh, M. , Purdin, S. and Navani, S. ‘Addressing sexual violence in humanitarian emergencies’, Global Public Health, 1:2, 133 – 146. International Rescue Committee, New York. USA. 2006.

Neumayer, E. and Plumper, T. The Gendered Nature of Natural Disasters: The Impact of Catastrophic Events on the Gender Gap in Life Expectancy, 1981-2002. Final Version. Social Science Research Network. January 2007. http://www.gdnonline.org/resources/SSRN_Neumayer_Plumper_GenderedNature_NaturalDisasters.pdf accessed 10 November 2010

Reproductive Health Matters. Conflict and and Crisis Settings: Promoting Sexual and Reproductive Rights. Ed. Petchesky, R.P. http://www.rhm-elsevier.com accessed 10 November 2010

Scanlon, H. and Muddell K. Gender and Transitional Justice in Africa: Progress and Prospects. In African Journal on Conflict Resolution. Vol. 9, No. 2. ACCORD 2009.

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Note: An excerpted and edited version of this article appeared in the Genderlink website.