1. Bush Wives and Female Fighters: The complicated reality of women's participation in the Sierra Leone war Chris Coulter, PhD

2. Gendered ideas about war and peace, about soldiering and victimhood

3. Is the Soldier a Man?

5. What if this is a soldier?

8. Or this?

10. When women fight

11. “Their female accomplices were almost more terrifying, covered from head to foot in black, their veils bearing Islamic slogans, their waists wrapped with belts full of explosives” (BBC 2002-12-16)

12. “’Black Diamond" and her comrades may look like any bunch of street-wise girls with attitude but they have the military hardware to back up the look.” (BBC 2003-08-26)

13. Lynndie England in the Abu Ghraib Prison (BBC 2004-06-15)

14. Men = War ? Women = Peace ?

17. The Sierra Leone War 1999-2002 10 to 20 % of irregular fighters are thought to have been women or girls

19. DDR 72 500 combatants demobilized 4 751 (6.5%) of them were women 6 845 child soldiers demobilized 506 (7.4%) of them were girls

21. “They trained all of us. No woman that spent a year with them was not trained how to fix gun and fire. This was for protection, maybe even among ourselves, if your companion want to kill you and you also know how to fire you can retaliate.” Aminata, 19

23. Major reasons for not demobilizing: No weapon or ammunition Fear and shame Not present at the time

25. They were afraid of me because they thought that the life we were living with the rebels will be the same I will do to them Aisha 21.