Women in the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Process: The case of South Sudan 2005 – 2011

This study is about the involvement of women in the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) process in South Sudan, in the aftermath of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005. Special focus is on how the CPA and related documents addressing DDR provide for the effective involvement of women in the DDR process. In particular, the study asks how definitions of former combatants relate to women’s experiences of war, including the roles they play during war and their eligibility to participate in DDR programmes. Apart from reviewing definitions and eligibility criteria in key DDR-related documents, the study also refers to various reports on progress in the DDR process in general, citing examples from Sierra Leone and Liberia. One key finding is that the DDR policy documents most often do not define women former combatants as those who have been actively involved in fighting. Implicitly, definitions of former combatants are designed with male fighters in mind. Women’s role is ‘gendered’ by being defined as vulnerable, having special needs, or merely associated with armed forces, whereas male former combatants tend to be defined as active militants who carried weapons. Thus the ‘blurring’ of roles between men and women in wartime is often ignored in the policy literature and guidelines around DDR in South Sudan. The concepts of gender and patriarchy are used to try and explain the perceptions accorded to men and women during and after war.