IN THE NUMEROUS ARMED CONFLICTS that are tearing the
African continent apart, young women are participants and carry
guns alongside their male comrades-in-arms. Challenging the
stereotype of women in African wars as victims only, this issue of
the Nordic Africa Institute Policy Dialogues shows how in modern
African wars women have often been as active as men. Female
fighters are victimized, yet they are not mere victims. Girls and young
women who volunteer to fight often possess quite considerable
strength and independence.

Programmes for disarming, demobilizing, and reintegrating former
fighters must be based on better understanding of the range of
women’s roles and experiences in war and post-war settings in
order to act in a gender-sensitive way and to empower this group
of women in the aftermath of war.