Chapter 4
ETHIOPIAN FEMALE EX-COMBATANTS: RECRUITMENT, DEMOBILISATION AND REINTEGRATION

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Published in Monograph No 85, April 2003

From Child Soldier to Ex-fighter
Female Fighters, Demobilisation and Reintegration in Ethiopia

Angela Veale

Entry and recruitment

Table 1: Participant’s age at recruitment, occupation, age at demobilisation, length of service
Age when joined fighters	Occupation at time of recruitment	Age at demobilisation (1991 to 1994)	Length of time in fighters
S1 11 years	attending school, grade 3	23 years	12 years
S2 5–6 years	young child	N/R	N/R
S3 17 years	attending school, grade 6	21 years	4 years
S4 12 years	farming, never attended school	30 years	18 years
S5 13 years	married at 12 years,	29 years	16 years
S6 13 years	never attended school	29 years	16 years
S7 14 years	attending school, grade 7	20 years	5 years
S8 15 years	attending school, grade 2	21 years	6 years
S9 12 years	attending school, grade 1	25 years	13 years
S10 14 years	never attended school	29 years	15 years
S11 13 years	married	23 years	10 years
Source: author’s own

The average age of recruitment of the 11 female participants in this study to the fighters was 12.68 years, while the youngest was five years old and the eldest was 17. Therefore, all entered as minors, and would officially be considered as ‘child soldiers’ at recruitment under official definitions used today. The average length of time spent as a fighter was 11.6 years. The shortest time was four years and the longest was 18 years. As a basis for comparison, within its sister movement the EPLF, a quarter of female ex-combatants surveyed spent more than 15 years as a fighter, one fifth spent five to ten years, and a third under six years as a fighter. Among ex-fighters that had spent more than five years in the field, proportionately more were female, attributed to the fact that many men joined the EPLF at the point of the ‘final push’, when it seemed militarily that extra resources could bring victory within reach.³²

Women’s accounts of how they came to join the fighters varied. Although political education was used as a recruitment tool in Tigray, only one women said she had been politicised by a friend before joining the TPLF, and cited this as her motivation to be a fighter.

I knew nothing about the TPLF but then one of my classmates told me about TPLF liberators, and about people being oppressed by the Derg. I withdrew from my family and went to the army. My family were not happy about it because it was difficult for my family to tell others that I had joined the TPLF. (S10)

This is not surprising given the young age of individuals at recruitment. Joining with peers or because family members had joined the fighters before them emerged as the most frequently cited reason, and this would be consistent with developmental expectations.

Another participant said she was attracted by the songs, dancing and ceremonies of the fighters, and the sense of belonging and community that this enforced.

One of the consequences of the TPLF policies to establish social services such as health, education and relief within Tigray province was that it secured the confidence of local communities that indirectly acted as a mechanism of recruitment. The provision of education was the entry point for one of our participants to the rebels, and politicisation and training as a fighter came later.

One participant saw being part of the fighters as a way of escaping from an early marriage, a practice very widely practiced in Tigray at the time, although less so presently as a result of political advocacy by the TPLF and women’s associations against this practice.

S5: I joined the fighters to escape marriage. I was married when I was 12 years and the only option to escape was to go join the fighters.

Two participants joined as a result of being separated from or the death of their family due to the drought and famine of 1984 (Ethiopian calendar 1977). A third also lived with the fighters and was raised within the fighters’ camp as an alternative home, but claims she was attracted to be with the fighters rather than with her mother, who most likely also became involved as a fighter.

When asked to indicate whether they experienced their recruitment as voluntary or forced, ten of the participants said it was voluntary. One said she had no choice as her parents were dead but that she was not forced.

The self-reports of our respondents fit with the findings of a much larger study by Tsegay of more than 200 female ex-combatants that examined the involvement of women in the TPLF. He reports:

A popular Tigrean mobilisation song demonstrates the combination of nationalistic sentiment with military intent.³⁴

Tsegay used a qualitative category analysis to analyse women’s reports of their motivation to join the TPLF. He classified them as 36% political motivation, 17% socio-economic, and 47% as ‘emotional’. Political motivation refers to those who were motivated by political concerns such as by opposing the Derg, and its ‘Red Terror’ campaign, by nationalism or the ideology of socialism and the class struggle. This group, he argues, was mainly composed of university students, civil servants and teachers. In its attempts to crush the opposition rebel group, the Derg regime used torture to instil fear and social control and men and women were tortured for their political beliefs. Gender politics were an integral part of a broader liberation politics for many politically motivated women, thus ensuring gender equality as an issue was placed central to TPLF ideology.

(Another) component for politically inspired women was a keen awareness and deep resentment of gender inequalities—this coincided with the TPLF’s ideological appeals in addressing their critical imbalance. This social group constituted quite a significant ratio (over one third) from among politically stimulated women.³⁵

Tsegay also reports on a number of women who joined the TPLF as a means of escaping the narrow, rigidly structured place of women in domestic life.

The second motivational category, socio-economic factors, refers to those women motivated to join the TPLF because of poverty, the famine of 1983/4 and the economic breakdown of the region, by fears of early marriage and as a result of disruption to family of the effects of conflict, migration, displacement and death. The third category, ‘emotional’ factors, is most interestingly, the largest category. In Tsegay’s analysis, this refers to women who were attracted to by the sentimental mobilisation songs, cultural shows, and dancing. The appeals to Tigrean identity gave these women a psychological identification with the movement, and the discipline and humble approach of the fighters was attractive. Young girls could identify the excitement of seeing new roles for women as fighters and many joined under the influence of friends. Tsegay also included as ‘emotional’ those for whom joining the fighters was an act of desperation, as a response to loss of family members, gross violations of human rights, and air raids. In razing communities, the Derg made women specific targets for physical violence and rape.

While two thirds of recruits could be considered as non-political on joining the TPLF, once women were mobilised within the fighters, they were quickly politicised. Mazurana et al. talk of the importance of the militarisation of females in fuelling and supporting conflict and argue “the roles of girl soldiers must be considered as an integral part of the conflict, a window through which we might gain a deeper understanding of the overall conflict itself”.³⁶ Arguably, the recruitment and training of women within the TPLF was a means of capturing the hearts and minds of the community in its entirety, thus maximising the impregnability of local structures to Derg forces. This influence exerted itself both ways, and while political education formed part of the training curriculum to be a fighter, our participants reported that a part of this training included explicit training on women’s emancipation.

Equality, based on Marxist-Leninism was stressed as the over-riding political ideology… Ultimately the TPLF succeeded in undertaking successful indoctrination upon its women folk. They were convinced that women were more oppressed than men. Women were also convinced to fight a social and political system, the root of their oppression, not just men. This ideology laid a premise that men can, of course, be political allies in a joint struggle towards the establishment of a fair political, social, economic order.³⁷

This sets up expectations for women’s role and status within military life.

Life in the military

This study did not aim to examine in detail women’s life within the military but to gain some insight into their roles and experiences within the military as a basis for understanding reintegration experiences. All reported that once they entered the fighters, they were taken for training. Some had the opportunity to complete school to Grade 6 before embanking on training as a fighter. From women’s reports, it seems training was quite structured. This is consistent with Tsegay’s accounts of the formal initiatives within the TPLF, through boarding schools, to raise the capacity of women to function in senior administrative, strategic and military positions. As mentioned above, part of the training included explicit training on issues of gender and equality. One participant said “They were telling us about the differences in the ideology of the Derg and TPLF. We learnt that females have double oppression in two ways: through the whole society with the Derg and for their being female”. Military training included training in the use of weapons, ambushes, and ‘being a fighter’. One of the women moved from combat to being a nurse, and she received six months training for this role. Participants were asked to indicate whether they had been engaged in active combat or not. Seven of the eleven participants, or 63% said they had been active participants in combat. Of the 11, only two had been awarded a military rank. Within its sister movement, the EPLF, Bruchhaus & Mehreteab report 70% of women served as ordinary fighters and never achieved higher military ranks.

Table 2: Participants involvement in active combat and military rank
	Were you involved in active combat	Given a military rank
S1	No	No
S2	yes then became a ‘barefoot nurse’ with 6 months training	no
S3	yes	no
S4	yes	yes
S5	yes	no
S6	Yes	no
S7	No	No
S8	No	no
S9	No	no
S10	Yes	yes
S11	Yes	No
Total	7=yes	2=yes
Source: author’s own

Participants were asked about social and power relations between men and women within the military. Participants said that work was shared equally between men and women; men worked in the kitchen and cooked enjira, alongside women and women fought in combat, alongside men. One said “Men and women, they worked together, even they sleep together, their relationship was like brothers and sisters. Any job was distributed among them equally. Whatever the job, they share it equally”. Another said “They respect females and live co-operatively.” This was consistently voiced among the participants.

A section of the interview focused on family life, sexual relations and sexual abuse within the fighters. All respondents insisted that discipline was tight with respect to sexual relations, and it was forbidden for a man to have sexual relations with a woman without her permission. Rape, they reported, was rare and severely punished. One said sexual relations happened “only out of interest, no forced relationships”. Another said that “Sometimes (there was) sex between two people on their own agreement if they were not married. If a man had sex with a woman without her permission, he would be imprisoned”. Another reported that there was a good relationship overall between men and women,

It was a co-operative life. The male does not behave like the others do in the civil society. They respect us. Even they advise those males who do not respect females. There was no forced sexual relationship with males. The male fighters did not force us to do anything without our interest. The male had no feeling of superiority over the female.

Many of the women married during their years in the military. They reported that earlier in the conflict, there was a marriage ban and marriage was prohibited. They explained this as the over-riding goal of the rebel movement was to destroy and overthrow the Derg. Marriage and having children was prohibited because it would distract from this goal. As one woman reported, “everyone worked for the achievement of the TPLF goal”. One of the women said she received lessons on how to control pregnancy, both using contraception pills and natural methods. Another said that if women got pregnant, they sometimes had abortions.

Once the marriage ban was lifted, men and women could get ask their commanding officer for permission to marry, and many of the women married. Such marriages were recognised as formal and official.

I married during the fighting years after the marriage ban was lifted. Marriage and getting pregnant was forbidden during the fighting years as having child would be an obstacle to strong fighting. But later the TPLF allowed marriage, and I got married at that time.

Demobilisation

Demobilisation refers to the specific tasks of the identification and assembly of soldiers and their dependents, registration and documentation, data collection, pre-discharge information, medical screening and transport home. The specific issues with respect to women at this point include:

whether they are formally targeted and included in demobilisation programmes;



whether they are registered as ‘family units’ and their needs considered as a family rather than as individuals;



physical security during encampment while awaiting discharge;



appropriate pre-discharge information that addresses women’s rights and entitlements (which may differ to men’s); and



appropriate health services including HIV screening and reproductive health.³⁸

De Watteville differentiates this from reinsertion and reintegration, which is support given during the first transitional 6–12 month period and afterwards, where the issues facing female ex-combatants may also differ from those facing men.

All the women interviewed for this study were demobilised as part of a formal demobilisation process. They were sent to one of a number of camps where they received education or skills training as part of the preparation for returning to civilian life. Women who had children were treated as a unit, but for many women, demobilisation meant separation from their husbands who remained as fighters with the new army of the EPRDF and were located in other parts of the country. Women explained their understanding of their demobilisation as follows:

We were told that our goal was to bring down the Derg Government and now it is collapsed. For this reason, you don’t have to lead this kind of life (military) anymore. So the programme was to educate us and give us a job. That time, we did what we were told to do.

Similar to the reports of Bruchhaus & Mehreteab from Eritrea, many of the women reported that they were demobilised reluctantly. They said they were worried about returning to civilian life; indeed, as they had joined the rebel forces while still children, and were effectively ‘child soldiers’ at recruitment, they experienced the prospect of civilian life less as ‘reintegration’ and more as being catapulted into an unfamiliar and foreign way of life. One explained:

Because before, the aim was to destroy or remove the Derg at any cost, that is why it cannot demobilise female soldiers before that time. In the demobilisation process, some of them were not (demobilised) voluntarily—I did not accept the demobilisation process because at the time, demobilisation for me was difficult because I liked the social and the military life.

A number of the women claimed that they understood that there was an international law that forbade women to be soldiers, and the EPRDF then applied this law once they were in a position to do so, after the removal of the Derg government. One respondent explained “Internationally women cannot be soldiers, and as our government accepts that, it decreased the numbers of women fighters”. Another explained her understanding of why women were demobilised in large numbers at that time as follows:

My demobilisation was part of a formal demobilisation process. According to international law, women shouldn’t be fighters. The government told us that we are the ones who made history so that the Government was not to let us live a rural life as we did before the struggle, but (we were to) stop being soldiers. Also (they wanted to) increase the number of ethnicities in the army.

In spite of this as a consistent claim of a number of women in this study, no such international law banning women as fighters exists. However the Government did undertake a demobilisation of many ex-TPLF fighters in order to increase its capacity to recruit new soldiers as part of a broader, national army.³⁹ A comprehensive package was put in place for female-ex-fighters as part of a reinsertion and reintegration package. According to some key informants in Addis Ababa, the new Government recognised the debt it owed to female fighters, who had fought bravely and effectively, but women faced many cultural barriers on reintegration that proved more complex than simply the will of the Government could resolve.

Reinsertion and reintegration

The following captures the main themes that emerged from interviews with the 11 participants in this study with respect to reintegration. The semi-structured interviews explored women’s worries and concerns on reintegration, strategies for resolving these worries, participant’s perceptions of the particular issues facing women in reintegration as compared to men, socio-economic reintegration, social and community relationships, adjustment criteria and personal change as a result of having been a fighter.

Government support during reintegration

Through the support of the Government’s demobilisation and reintegration package, all the women in this sample had the opportunity to complete their education to Grade 12. One woman said however “I received the support of education but I couldn’t learn because of health problems”. Women received varying amounts of cash on demobilisation that they used in different ways. One woman reported she used it to help support her family on her return. Others were not asked specifically what they did with the money so it is not possible to compare responses. The women in this sample obtained government jobs, and all were working for the Government at the time of interview.⁴⁰ In Eritrea, Bruchhaus & Mehreteab noted that the tendency to live in towns was strongest among women and that female ex-fighters either preferred to go to larger towns in order to find a job and/or escape the control of their family, or to return home to their villages and the protection of the family. Participants in our sample said they observed a similar pattern.

Women’s worries, concerns and experiences on reintegration

Participants were asked about their concerns on demobilisation. It quickly emerged that rather than ‘reintegration’, the women experienced civilian life as a new socialisation experience. All had entered the fighters as minors, and for the most part, spent the formative years of their teens being trained as fighters, and educated in liberation politics including gender politics. On demobilisation, they were reinserted-reluctantly-into a society where traditional gender roles for Ethiopian women were the norm and where their behaviour and appearance was experienced as ‘odd’. One key informant explained the contradictions that were that were experienced by women and by the host society through stories that demonstrated some of the issues.

When peace was coming, women were told ‘now you can go’, you don’t have to be associated with the men anymore. Women were well-treated in the EPRDF situation. They were very politicised people, very assertive, they have proved that they were real heroes, even stronger than the men. The EPRDF felt indebted to them and designed special projects for women. One of the things they did was to set up a textile factories that absorbed women ex-fighters as workers. It is still going. It started with 2,000 to 3,000 women. However there were problems from the start with the management. Those women were challenging, they didn’t give a shit, they wouldn’t take orders, and management couldn’t manage the factory. Senior ERPDF people had to go and ask them ‘Please take orders from this man, that manager. But the women said ‘Look at you, you were fighting side by side with us, and now, look at the shoes you are wearing, they are more than our salaries”. Mediation failed-they expected a lot and life was difficult and there were adjustment problems. They had experienced many traumas and marriage failures. Over time, the managers decided to employ other people to work in the factories, those that say ‘yes’. They reasoned, ‘If we put too many ex-fighters in one place, there could be trouble’, and they tried to dissolve the fighters. The Government did what they could for those women, gave some money to start a business, for homeless and disabled women, there were sheltered workshops, but the issues were greater than the Government could solve.

What emerges from the interviews is that TPLF women, on emergence from the military, experienced what can be most accurately described as a form of culture shock. Their gender socialisation within the military was so at odds with that within civilian society that the gender role discontinuity they experienced challenged them at all levels of their daily life. The first significance of this is that, rather than women having certain ‘add-on’ special needs in demobilisation and reintegration, which assumes the challenges facing men and women are the same e.g. socio-economic reintegration, but with areas of special needs e.g. gynaecological health, the issues may be more fundamental and merit further analysis in demobilisation programming.

A second issue is with respect to the impact of female ex-combatants on the host society; these women are simultaneously forcing societal change by challenging traditional roles that they find they cannot accept, and strongly argue that they have personally gained and not lost from their experiences as fighters. This presents challenges to a further set of assumptions with respect to the impact of having been a ‘child soldier’, and ‘female’ child soldiers in particular and the relationship between minors and politics.

The following are some of the main themes that emerged in women’s accounts of their reintegration experiences.

Missing the collective nature of military life

One of the things women most missed on demobilisation was the collective nature of military life; the camaraderie, the social life, and the sense of common purpose. One woman noted:

At the beginning, everything seemed difficult, In the past, good social life, no responsibility, clarity, collective life; these things are not in the reintegration so it seems difficult and you adapt yourself in the process.

Another said:

There was no thinking of yourself—rather thinking for all, or for all the fighters but now I am thinking of myself only.

The participant who went to live with the fighters when she was 5 or 6 years old said that, for her, it was particularly difficult and she experienced demobilisation almost as a loss of family, and the ‘absence’ of these things as a sense of loneliness.

I did not have any experience of civilian life, because almost the whole of my life was with the TPLF. So life for me as a woman is difficult, and I preferred the military life. I liked the social life of the military. We eat, drink together, even we sleep together, we like each other as brothers and sisters. But these things are not present now and the absence of these things worried me….. Life was not as I expected but whether the life is good in civilian community or not, I do not like it, rather I prefer living in the military life.

Although demobilised for approximately ten years, arguably for this woman, civilian life is still experienced as ‘other’ and military life is the standard against which it is gauged.

Difficulties of domestic civilian life

The everyday chores of managing a household were difficult for women, and women reported that they found this very difficult.

Life is difficult, being a women because you know nothing about how to work in the house. Since I went to fighting when I was 12 years old, as a means of escaping from an unwanted marriage, I did not know how to manage the household and this was difficult for me.

Reintegration from the military life to civilian life is difficult; when we compare between women who were not fighters and those who were, most of the time, the keeping and leading of the household is difficult for those fighter women than for those who were never fighters.

To live individually was something new for us, since we came here when we were children, we didn’t know any other life. Even we found it difficult to adapt to work individually, to administer our home and our life. Neighbours, friends showed us how to adapt.

In the military, many tasks such as ordering and preparing food, managing and administering daily life were taken care of by the institutional machine of the military. Where soldiers carried out such tasks, the work was done collectively. Women found the individual responsibility of administering the household very strange. As the women in this sample had moved to Addis Ababa rather than return to their community of origin, they depended on neighbours and friends to help them adapt, rather than family, as they lived far away. As a result of joining the military as children, the normative learning within the home and community was largely missing for these women. Key informants reported that this also created conflict with the host community. One man reported that mother-in-laws would be scandalised their daughter-in-laws couldn’t make enjira, and would sarcastically ask their sons whether their ex-fighter wife was a man or a woman!

Lack of equality with men

Within this division of household labour, one of the issues women found particularly difficult was their sudden experience of a lack of equality with men, with whom they felt they had participated as equals in the difficult task of being a fighter, but suddenly, saw they were relegated-unequally-to the work inside the home. They noted that their male counterparts did not experience the role incongruity they experienced.

Life is more difficult for women than for men, because during the fighting, women and men were doing the same work, and were living in the same camp, and their job also was the same. But after reintegration to the community, women have to do women’s work and men have to do men’s work. That is women’s work is in the household rearing children and others, but men cannot work at women’s work.

This theme was echoed again and again in the interviews:

Life is more difficult for women than men because during the fighting, women and men were living the same, but now householding, rearing children and such are women’s duty

As females, we cannot escape from housework but the males are not expected to do housework

In post-war Europe in the 1940’s and 1950’s, a number of feminist authors have identified ideological and social patterns which sought to return women from the public life of work to the home, and to wrest from them power, skills and emancipation they had gained while the men were off fighting. In Ethiopia, as one woman noted, their experience was not only a push to be responsible for the home, but frequently to do this in addition to the ‘male’ task of being a contributory or sole breadwinner.

Male and female work equally in the military life. But after reintegration comes the difference! The females can’t escape from housework. But the males are not expected to do the housework. They work outside the house whereas the female works in the two simultaneously.

De Watteville notes that demobilisation impacts in this way both on women who were fighters and also on women in the host community. Women are frequently encouraged to take up employment when human resources were scarce during conflict, but post-demobilisation, are pushed into marginal employment once a surplus of men becomes available to do the work. She notes “Unfortunately, in some countries, like Eritrea, women can only compete with the return of men because they accept lower salaries. Women are also sometimes pressured by the Government or patriarchal views to become housewives in order to help reduce male unemployment”.⁴¹

Socio-economic reintegration

The women in the small sample here were all employed in Government jobs. The EPRDF placed many ex-fighters in Government positions as a means of socio-economic reintegration. However, eight to ten years after demobilisation, the majority of women in our interviews felt they were stuck in low paid and unskilled work as guards or janitors. They reported they were struggling to survive economically. Tsegay noted that the reintegration of women was linked to the degree of education and their status in the military hierarchy. For example, he noted that of women who joined for socio-economic reasons, the vast majority had little or no previous education and the government found it difficult to integrate them into post-war development activities. One woman reported:

Most fighter women are poorer than other women. This is because fighter women lack experience in civilian life. The fighter women spend their life in the military but other women in urban areas have access to education and they learn from when they were children, and this leads them to have a good status and way of life.

In fact, in terms of education, ex-combatant women are higher educated than women generally in Ethiopian society and one participant noted this by saying “(Fighter women) are better in education but economically, they are as poor”. What they reported they lacked was the ‘know how’ to make this work for them in civilian life while urban non-fighter women learnt from a young age how to generate employment for themselves in the urban informal market.

Burchhaus & Mehreteab’s survey of 238 ex-fighters in Eritrea, of whom a third were women, examined indicators of socio-economic reintegration. Unemployment was higher amongst women (28%) than men (21%), but apart from that figure, the employment profile of men and women was similar; a third of each sex worked in Government employment, 11% of women and 12% of men were employed and 50% of women and 55% of men were self-employed. However, they reported that more than half of respondents were not satisfied with their economic situation. Of our participants, although all were working, none expressed themselves satisfied with their economic status. Some felt they were better off than female friends who did not have a regular salary, while others felt they were very lowly paid and their low earnings placed them under considerable stress. What emerged again and again was the fact that, having joined the fighters as children, women to some extent had been institutionalised within that context, and had never had to be responsible for the generating and managing money.

From an economic point of view, everything is expensive. When I was in the army, what I know is about firing a gun and ammunition. I knew nothing about leading life economically. In the past, the government used to arrange everything now things are difficult and I have to be responsible for doing economical thing that had been done by Government

Socio-economically, it was like this. In the past, I didn’t start leading my own life economically even though I got married, I was just a child, so I was with my family. But when I see things, life is difficult. But I have salary. A little difficult but when I compare myself with my friends without salary, I am better, at least I allocate the salary I have. But it’s not the life I want to lead.

Women moved from a position where the fighter movement, then, during demobilisation and encampment the government, provided everything they needed, then suddenly they had to manage for themselves. For many women who separated from their husbands during demobilisation, it was a double push to independence; the struggle to manage without the logistical and economic support of the army, and the push to survive as a single woman or head of household in an economy that offered marginal work for women.

Family relationships

Key informant reports indicated that the incidence of separation and divorce were high, following demobilisation and reintegration. This was confirmed by the observations of women in our sample. In a conversation with two women who had separated from their husbands during demobilisation, one explained

My husband is still a fighter, because of the demobilisation process, we live in separate ways. And he did not help me, even I do not know where he is, but he is alive. Formally we are not divorced but it seems like divorce. Divorcing because of demobilisation is common for many women.

In the small sample here, of 11 women interviewed, 6 were still with their husbands, although not all were living together as their husband was still a fighter in the government army. One woman had remarried, and four women were either separated, divorced or widowed.

The small sample makes it impossible to draw any conclusions from these results. However the survey of Eritrean ex-combatants by Bruchhaus & Mehreteab examined marital status by gender and clear trends emerged with respect to gender. They found that a far higher percentage of female than male ex-combatants were divorced, separated or widowed. They found 13.4% of females were single (35.9% of men), 56.1% of females were married (58.3% of men), 18.3% were divorced (3.2% of men), 8.5% females separated (0.6%) and 3.7% widowed (0.6% of men).

They attributed the relatively higher level of marriage breakdown among female ex-fighters to post-liberation stresses.

(In) Eritrea many marriages (were) between fighters…In most cases, the married couples did not live together, as they were usually assigned to different units in different places, and only spent between a couple of days and one month together during common leave. It is also noteworthy that there were no material problems they had to bother about. Even if it was not much, the EPLF took care of this. After liberation, when the couples came home, they suddenly had to cater for their livelihood. Problems with in-laws also started. Whereas the fighters had learned to disregard ethnic and religious differences, their civilian relatives had not reached that stage. They often rejected sons- and daughters-in law, because they did not belong to their own ethnic or religious community. Another fact should not be neglected: in cases where the wife was demobilised and the husband remained in the new army, he usually had to join his unit far away from their residence, and she was expected to follow him. In many cases, she refused to do so. Considering all these circumstances, it is actually astonishing that there are still many happily married (ex-) fighter couples.⁴²

One of the implications of the rather high percentage of women who are widowed, divorced, separated or single, is that they have to raise their children alone. They noted “Unlike during the war when children were totally taken care of by the Front, in post-war Eritrea, kindergartens are rare. Many female ex-fighters cannot go for training or take up employment because they do not have anybody to take care of their children” and so has a significant impact on socio-economic reintegration. In Eritrea, both within the military and civilian life, ethnic differences between Ethiopians and Eritreans were responsible for the expulsion of individuals and the break-up of many families where two partners were on different sides of the geographical divide. This did not emerge in our interviews, although it is possible that it did occur more broadly among combatant couples.

One key informant interviewed as part of this study also highlighted that a contributing factor to marriage breakdown amongst fighter couples was that, once returned from the front to civilian life, some men appreciated the more traditionally feminine appearance and behaviour of civilian women who had never been fighters. Fighter women had grown used to adopting the dress code of men, including short hair and masculine dress. Adaptation to the feminine style demanded by civilian life seemed foreign to many of them. In Eritrea, Burchhaus & Mehreteab also noted that male ex-fighters had more opportunity to marry civilians than female ex-fighters, which is probably linked to cultural notions of ‘femininity’ and what is desirable or expected in a woman as a wife.

Psychosocial well-being

In order to understand the adjustment difficulties faced by women, and the strategies they used to cope with these, participants were asked to indicate signs that an ex-fighter was adjusting well in civilian life, and signs that she was having difficulty adjusting. Criteria of positive adjustment were identified as

being sociable;


being able to manage economically;


being able to participate in education and learn skills that were useful for civilian life;


working hard and starting your own business; and


being able to integrate in some of the women’s associations such as the Edir associations, which are traditional savings and credit associations managed and administered by women for women.

Other criteria were to adapt your behaviour to the way of life of the civilian society, and to things in such a way that it doesn’t bring you into conflict with others. Signs of being not well-adjusted were linked to not being able to achieve these tasks. One of the necessary adaptations was to change their communication style. All the women noted that they had trouble because the language they used was the language of the fighters. However the adjustment needed went deeper than that language or words used but the whole style of communication:

Things that were difficult to adapt to were related to the work life, how to communicate with office workers and others. We speak like fighters i.e. (fighters) have clarity, they speak to a person if he/she has weak points in front of the person. In addition, they lack politeness, but such things are not wanted by the office workers. Yes, compared to other women who were not fighters, the fighter women speak what they want without any feeling, but others feel shy or frightened or something.

Inherent in this quote is part of the fundamental difficulty women felt in adjusting to civilian life. They recognised that the style of communication of the fighters was causing conflict, hostility and was ‘not wanted’ by those office workers, but they felt it was a more honest and open form of dialogue. It was part of not being ‘shy, or frightened or something’, like those female office workers they were supposed to be trying to emulate in order to fit in. This theme emerged a number of times in interviews with different women.

There is a change. Being a fighter leads you to speak freely about what you feel, and they don’t like back-biting any person, rather they prefer to speak freely in front of the person, or in face-to-face communication.

Deeply embedded communication patterns were a part of the ‘culture shock’ that women recognised they had to adjust to. Positive adjustment was linked to being able to be sociable and to get on with people and elicit their help and support; bad adjustment was when ex-fighters continued to be in conflict with other people. Yet within this, women still valued the communication style they had learnt in the fighters and quietly fought against the ‘shy and frightened’ style they felt characterised women who were never fighters.

Emotional adjustment also presented many difficulties for women. In other parts of the interviews women hinted at the sense of isolation, loneliness and being suddenly ‘individuated’ they felt on initial demobilisation. Another element of this was that, within civilian life, the emotional numbing that may have characterised their experience of traumatic events within the fighters, partly supported by the collective experience of being with other fighters experiencing similar things, was less. This only emerged in one interview but is worthy of further exploration. One woman explained:

During the fighting, I was happy; I felt happy compared to civilian life. For example, at that time, if somebody died, you didn’t feel any sadness, whether that person will be their brother, or sister or friend, you didn’t feel about the death of the person because their aim, dream is how to destroy/fall the Derg at any cost. The Derg was their enemy.

The implication was that in civilian life, it was a battle to keep feelings of sadness away, without the focus of a goal and the collective support of other fighters. One of the key informants insisted that many women were experiencing psychological trauma because of the violence they had witnessed and participated in, often from when they were children, and that this has to been recognised because of the women and fighters status, even if only to themselves, as heroes.

Community expectations and acceptance

In general, the women reported that they had been accepted by the host community and felt they had been able to positively reintegrate, after an initially difficult period of adjustment. The language and communication issues outlined above caused conflict at first, but this was part of the adjustment process. They said acceptance was generally good. However, there was not unanimity on this. One woman said:

I am living in the same area as when I returned. The community treats me in a good way. They say that it is because of the struggle that everybody got freedom of speech. When I come back from work, my neighbours help me in different way.

Another said her experiences contradicted this:

People in Addis Ababa, in the community in which I live, dislike me because of being a fighter because most of the Addis Ababa people dislike Tigray fighters for the reason that they have an intention of Derg.

It is clear therefore that community acceptance is linked, not to individual adjustment and personality, but to women’s political identity as ex-fighters. For some community members, they are seen as liberators who freed the country from the Derg; for others, suspicious of the political aspirations of the present Government, they are perceived with a related suspicion. The link between political identity and reintegration has been noted in the demobilisation literature with respect to whether individuals were on the side of the winners or the losers.⁴³ Socio-economic and political reintegration has been found to be easier in many post-conflict contexts for the victors of conflict. In Eritrea, local organisations and international NGOs were favourable to hiring ex-combatants. A similar trend was noticed in Ethiopia. However it can also bring misconceptions. One woman argued:

The community expect that we are rich, because we were fighters, but in reality we are poor.

In other contexts (such as Rwanda), there is visible evidence of the ‘new wealth’ of the Tutsi-dominated military and political hierarchy. However in Ethiopia, while the government has sought to ensure women were supported to be economically self-sufficient by favouring many demobilised soldiers for government jobs, Tsegay estimates that women have not fared as equally well as men and many are disillusioned that the societal change and emancipation they fought for has failed to materialise. In the post-liberation Ethiopia, political change has been brought about but female liberation is something they have been left to fight for themselves. The sense from the interviews with women is while they felt broadly accepted by the host civilian community, they themselves continued to reject the traditionally submissive position and role of women in the host society. This places them in an uneasy position with respect to normative Ethiopian society.

Political reintegration

Political reintegration refers to the extent to which ex-combatants, in this case, female ex-combatants, are involved in decision-making and power structures both locally and nationally. A key informant in this study told a story a recent question put to the Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi by a female member of the Ethiopian parliament, as ‘There was a large number of women in the liberation movement—where are women in the army now, it appears they have been moved aside?’ This indicates awareness locally that fighter women have been politically sidelined in the post-conflict context.

While women fought in the war, it is not clear to what extent they were consulted in the formation of the peace. De Watteville argues that

the participation of women, and especially female ex-combatants, in peace negotiations at an early stage is a prerequisite to the promotion of their interests and to their future participation in decision-making. It is at the peace table that the tone is set for the reconstruction of the country, and that the political, economic, social and institutional changes are initiated. It is also an opportunity for women to express their views and influence decisions.⁴⁴

The author is not aware but assumes that women were involved in the Addis Ababa transitional conference of July 1991 in which the EPRDF set out its agenda as a transitional government. In the report of this conference , there is not a single mention of issues that could be seen as priorities for women, and the discussion was dominated by issues of regional self-determination, in particular, the issue of Eritrean independence.⁴⁵

While there has been limited representation of women at a political level nationally, the women in our sample were highly politicised, and they claimed they asserted this in their daily lives. One woman explained that fighter women made their voices heard at local government level in a manner that was atypical for Ethiopian females:

In politics, those (women) who were fighters are better than those who were not. E.g. If there is a meeting at the Kebele, these fighter women ask and answer questions. They participate actively, but this activity is not common to those who were not fighters or other women because they feel frightened or afraid of anybody.

However in general, the participation of women at a political level has not matched the promises or expectations that existed within the period of the liberation struggle.

Table 3: A comparative overview of the differences among the 1960 Civil Code, The Revised Family Code and the Tigray Family Law in terms of references to women and children
	Legal issue	The 1960 Civil Code Presently applicable nationwide except in Dira Dawa and Addis Ababa	The Tigray Family Code Developed in Tigray pre-1991	The Revised Family Code (2000) Addis Ababa & Dira Dawa
	Marriageable age	A woman who attains the full age of fifteen may contract marriage	A man who attains the full age of twenty two and a woman who has reached the full age of eighteen years can contract marriage	Neither a man nor a woman who has not attained the full age of eighteen years can conclude marriage
	Head of the Family	The husband is the head of the family	Both the husband and the wife are equally heads of the family	No such provision is included in the revised family code
	Management of the Family	Management of the family under the guidance of the husband	Joint management of the family-vested with equal right in management of the family	Joint management of the family-equal rights in the management of the family
	Administrationof common property	Administration of common property by the husband	Administration of common property with the full knowledge and ability of both the husband and wife	Administration of common property conjointly by the spouses
	Divorce by mutual consent	Prohibits divorce by mutual consent	Permits divorce by mutual agreement of the spouses	Allows divorce by mutual consent of the spouses
	Common property under irregular union	Excludes the development of communal property could be adduced to	Allows the development of communal property in an irregular union provided that the relation had lasted for at least 10 years. Yet even in the case where the relation has lasted for less than 10 years, evidenced the court to the effect that the property is a common property	Allows the development of communal property in an irregular union provided that the relation had lasted for not less than three years.
	Termination of an irregular union	In the case of termination of an irregular union the man (if equity so requires) may be condemned by the court to pay an indemnity to the woman corresponding to the expense of the maintenance of the woman for not more than six months.	In the case of termination of an irregular union, the man may not be condemned by the court to pay indemnity to the woman or forfeit any of his rights	In the case of termination of an irregular union, liquidation of property shall be dealt with in accordance with the provisions of the code relating to liquidation of pecuniary relations of spouses.
	Legal conflicts in regulating paternity	The Child shall be attributed to the husband of the man with whom the woman is living at the time of birth in preference to the husband or the man with whom she was living at the time of conception.	The child shall be attributed to the husband or the man with whom she was living at the time of conception in preference to the husband or the man with whom the mother is living at the time of the birth.	The child shall be attributed to the husband or the man with whom the mother is living at the time of the birth, in preference (to) to husband or the man with whom she was living at the time of conception.
	Source: Compiled for this report by Yonatan Tesfaye, Addis Ababa University.

In spite of that, however, issues that impact on women have slowly begun to be addressed in political agendas. According to key informants, women are a significant political force at local and regional government levels within Tigray. While this does not generalise to the rest of Ethiopia, legal and social change within Tigray is making its impact on Ethiopian society as a whole, through changes in the legal code. Take, for instance family law, which profoundly affects women’s rights in society around rights to property and inheritance. Ethiopian Family Law is for the most part based on the 1960 Civil Code that applied to the country as a whole until very recently. As part of its political programme of a pan-Ethiopian framework, the EPRDF has introduced a federal system that gives regions within Ethiopia rights to self-determination in key areas, thus aiming to change rather than dismantle the Ethiopian state. In 2000, two regions, Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa adopted a Revised Family Code that contains significant changes that impact on women. As part of this study, a legal expert was commissioned to examine the similarities and differences between the original 1960 Civil Code (Tigray Family Law) which was developed and applied by the rebel TPLF for Tigray province before 1991 and the 2000 Revised Family Code that is now in place in Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa, and may be adopted elsewhere in Ethiopia.

The Revised Family contains some very significant changes with respect to the legal position of women. It increases the legal marriageable age of females to eighteen years, a significant move in a country where many women’s associations are advocating for an end to early marriages for girls. It removes a statement in the 1960 Civil Code referring to the husband as the head of the family and asserts the equal rights of the man and woman in the management of the family. Under the Revised Code, rights to divorce is the prerogative of both partners, however the division of property and common assets following divorce is linked to there being reasonable grounds for divorce. Domestic violence, for example, is not regarded as a sufficient ground for women to seek divorce. The right to the administration of property also is held conjointly by both partners, as opposed to by the husband, as under the 1960 civil code. Although women have arguably been sidelined as a political force in the new government, the gender political base of the TPLF, which developed within the Baitos (local councils) of Tigray where women were engaged in “making their own revolution”, is slowly infiltrating legal and social codes within Ethiopia, resulting in progressive social change.

The impact of being a fighter on women’s construction of self

Throughout the interviews, there emerged a sense that being an ex-fighter was not something that women had relegated to the past, but was an active part of women’s identity, part of their experiences that differentiated them from other women in Ethiopian society. Women felt they were changed by this experience and overwhelmingly, they saw this as a positive change compared to women who were never fighters. Participants were asked “Do you think being a fighter has changed you in important ways, compared to other women who did not become fighters?” Some of the responses women gave to this question were as follows:

Because I was a fighter, I got access to education; had it not been for being a fighter, I could not get access to education because the place where I was born is rural, and there is no school there.

Being a fighter, I escaped from an unwanted marriage.

Before, I was afraid of somebody, to do what I want to do but now I have confidence to do everything, I can decide by myself. I can marry who I want; I do not care for someone else (their opinion). All these things I get from being a fighter. I know I can solve whatever problems face me.

Interviewer: How has being a fighter changed you?

Woman: To think about the equality of female with male, to believe and internalise that there is nothing that women do less than men.

Participants felt that, as a result of being a fighter, they were stronger, more confident, more able to face and solve their problems, and considerably more assertive. The significance of this can only be truly appreciated by comparing it to Ethiopian societies norms of appropriate and desirable traits for women. According to Tsegay in Ethiopia, society characterises adult males by traits such as dominance, achievement and aggression, whereas ‘decent’ women are characterised by traits such as timidity, passivity, emotionalism, deference and self-abasement. He goes on to state that “deviation from this norm would be discouraged and rejected”. The women in this study deviated considerably from this norm. They expected equality in their relationships with men and in their personal relationships with their spouses. This expectation characterised their approach to their life. One woman said of her relationship with her husband “There is equal right in decision making. The decision is based on whose idea is better and right, beyond this we have equal power in the family”. Another said, “My husband and I—the decision making in our family is between us equally”.

We have equal power, we discuss everything. In the family, I advise if these is any problem

Another said it gave her confidence in her ability to cope with challenging situations. For example:

It changed me in many ways. Even when you get few things to eat, you can prepare them in good way.

Another woman said it empowered her with respect to family planning, and the experiences and knowledge she gained as a fighter helped her in taking control over her reproductive health:

It makes a difference because my friends and family are in the rural area. They have many children and they nothing about birth control but I do have only two children. I could add (more children) but I live my life economically (i.e. have the number of children I can afford).

Bruchhaus & Mehreteab note that in general, Eritrean ex-fighters are very concerned about the future of their children, especially about their education thus valued small families, and, for women, since their time in the field, most of them practise family planning. Our interviews suggest a similar pattern amongst female ex-TPLF fighters.

In order to examine female ex-combatants’ constructions of self i.e. the cognitive constructs they hold about themselves as women, repertory grid analysis was used to explore and elicit information about how women understand and construct who they are. This is now examined in the following section.

Repertory grid analysis with female ex-combatants

Repertory grids were carried out with six female ex-combatants who participated in the interviews in the first part of the study. In addition, repertory grids were completed with four community women who had never been fighters. These women were from the Gurage region, but were matched on the basis of being a similar age to the women in our interviews, and as having moved from a rural area to the capital city.

An analysis of individual repertory grids provides an opportunity to see women’s individual constructions of self.

Example 1

This is the repertory grid of one of the female ex-combatants. The first table is a visual matrix summarising her construct of self before the fighters, self during fighters, self currently and her constructions of other males and females. The second table gives an account of her elicited constructs.

In terms of the rating scale, it is a scale with numbers between 1–5, where 1 refers to the construct in the extreme left hand column and 5 refers to the construct on the extreme right-hand column. For example, for the first construct, 1=equality, 5=accept male superiority. Each element receives a rating with respect to each construct.

From this matrix, it can be seen that, on the first construct ‘equality’, this participant judged ‘Me before the fighters’ is the same as ‘My mother’ and ‘A man I know’, (4=close to ‘accept male superiority) and similar to A woman who was never a fighter (3). These contrast with ‘me during fighters’ and ‘Me currently’ and ‘My husband’, who are rated as ‘Accepts equality’. This sets up a contrast between an acceptance of cultural notions of the position of men as superior to women, and an acceptance of equality between the sexes. It captures the personal movement of the woman from a position of ‘accepts male superiority’ before joining the fighters to one of ‘accepting equality’ on joining the fighters.

Interestingly on ‘Not accepting all culture as it is’, she judges that she moved from a position of ‘accepts culture’ (a rating of 4), to ‘does not accept culture’ during the fighters (a rating of 1), then to ‘2’ for ‘me currently’. Reintegration has resulted in making some compromises on accepting traditional cultural norms.

Table 4: Example 1: Repertory grid of female ex-combatant-constructs and rating scale
Construct(positive)	Me before fighters	Me during fighters	Me currently	My mother	A man I know	My female fighter friend	A woman never a fighter	My husband	Opposite construct(less positive)
Accept equality	4	1	1	4	4	1	3	1	Accept male superiority
Self-confidence	4	1	1	3	2	1	3	1	Lack of self-confidence
Economic independence	5	5	3	3	1	2	4	2	Economic dependence
Lead life according to one’s own interest	5	1	2	3	1	1	3	1	Lead life on (other’s?) interest
Not accepting all culture as it is	4	1	2	4	4	2	4	2	Accepting culture as it is
Don’t worry for minor problems	1	1	1	3	2	1	3	2	One who worries for minor problems
The one who works hard to get needs	5	1	2	3	1	2	3	1	Gets satisfied with limited needs
Source: author’s own

On economic independence, she rates her position before and during the fighters as ‘economic dependence’. Currently, she rates herself as 3, implying she is not as economically independent as she would wish, and this contrasts with the position of ‘a man I know’, who is rated a 1, or economically independent, or her husband (an ex-fighter) whom she rates 2 on this construct. The second table gives the detailed meanings of each of these constructs for this participant.

Table 5: Example 1: Repertory grid of female ex-combatant-Constructs elicited
Reject male superiority/Accept equality I prefer this because accepting ideas from one side is not good. Taking example from my married life, I don’t want my husband to be superior so that he will do every decision to me. For instance, if my husband wants to have a child, it is not only his choice but I have to agree at this point	Accept male superiority
Self-confidence It is important for all. I am not the one who is suspicious/not sure for everything I do. When I decide to sat something or do something, it is with confidence that is it possible for me to do it. I am not that much dependent on others to get better ideas or solutions.	Lack of self-confidence
Economic independence It is obvious that everyone prefers economic independence. I have economic independence so that I allocate the income I get in a way that it furthers my interest. If I were not economically independence, I would be dependent on my husband not only financially but also for other things. My husband would have been the one to decide fro my own life. I wouldn’t have freedom to go wherever I like and so on.	Economic dependence
Lead life according to one’s own interest I choose to lead life according to my own interest because it is a good thing for me to lead a happy life. I have to live based on my own interest and my husband’s interest with agreement and understanding. If I do accept things for others sake, I am not living my life.	Lead life on (others?) interest
Not accepting all culture as it is I don’t accept out culture as it is because there are certain things that I think are not fair to females. And rejecting these things helps me in many ways. For example, in my culture, it is not good for females to go to a hotel alone and ear. I don’t accept this but do go to hotel or where-ever when I get hungry at workplace or whenever there is no food at home	Accepting culture as it is
Don’t worry for minor problemsI don’t want to get worried about everything. Because worrying by itself cannot be a solution by itself. Getting worried is a sign of hopelessness. In my married life or workplace, I may get problems.	One who worries for minor problems
The one who works hard to get needs Working hard is very important because it helps me not to be dependent on others. It also helps me to live better income and by that I can live a better life. I worked very hard to get educated and I got a job and now I am economically independent. If I didn’t have work, I would not be now economically independent and having job. Any way to be hopeful that things can be arranged if working hard.	Gets satisfied with limited needs
Source: author’s own

A second example also captures a participant’s construction of the impact that being a fighter has had on her construction of self, in comparison with others. From this, we can see a similar pattern to the first grid. This woman constructs herself as accepting the equality of women and men, of having political knowledge as being reasonably educated and successful and standing up for her rights. This contrasts with her mother for example, who is constructed as accepting the inequality of men and women, of not standing up for her rights, as lacking in political knowledge. ‘A man I know’ is constructed as being somewhere in the middle of all these constructs (3). Interestingly, ‘A woman who was never a fighter’ is constructed as being more similar to ‘My mother’ while ‘My female fighter friend’ is constructed as similar to ‘me currently’. ‘My husband’ is also placed in the position of accepting equality, standing for his rights, having political knowledge, but only a 3 in terms of being educated, having a good way of life, and being successful. Also interesting is she positioned herself as ‘successful’ within the fighters, and less so (2) currently.

Table 6: Example 2: Repertory grid of female ex-combatant-constructs and rating scale
Construct	Me before fighters	Me during fighters	Me currently	My mother	A man I know	A woman never a fighter	My female fighter friend	My husband	Opposite pole
Equality	5	1	1	5	3	5	1	1	Inequality
They can stand for their rights (have rights)	5	1	1	5	3	5	1	1	They do not care about their rights
Successful person	5	1	2	3	3	3	3	2	Not successful
Political knowledge	5	2	1	4	3	5	2	1	Does not have knowledge of politics
Educated, having a good way of life	4 3	3 3	2 4	3	3 3	3 3	3 3	3 3	Illiterate/bad way of life
Respecting others	3	1	1	1	3	3	1	1	Disrespects others/believes in his superiority
Source: author’s own

After the elicitation of each participant’s individual constructs, four themes emerged as central in the self-constructions of female ex-combatants; these were equality, knowledge of politics and political struggle, self-confidence and independence, and being educated.

Equality

The construct of ‘equality’ emerged in the repertory grids of all six women. Each was asked ‘Why is this (construct) important to you’? It became clear that the principle of ‘equality’ is something women have internalised and it infiltrates how they approach every aspect of life, from decision-making on a day to day level within the family to decision-making about larger family issues such as family planning, to the social and political development of the country. One woman explained:

I prefer this (equality) because accepting ideas from one side is not good. Taking example from my married life, I don’t want my husband to be superior so that he will make every decision to me. For instance, if my husband wants to have a child, it is not only his choice but I have to agree at this point.

For other women, ‘equality’ was important in terms of being able to access resources that were automatic for men and more difficult for women, such as education and work. One woman gave an example that demonstrates how the issue of ‘access’ is subtle and fundamental in everyday life. She worked in a Government office in the city centre. She said sometimes, if she did not have time to prepare food to bring with her, she would go to a restaurant close to her workplace and have something to eat there. However she explained, as a woman, to enter and eat in a restaurant on your own, is culturally not accepted. She gave this example as a testament to her principles of equality and her defiance of the cultural restrictions on females, and the norms and cultural values that restrict women’s access to resources of all kinds.

For another woman, equality is important as it means a woman can ‘decide for herself, by herself’ and nobody will pressurise her. This shows a sense of resistance or defiance; a stand against pressurising forces that may want or expect something different—or more traditional—for her. From women’s interviews, this sense of pressure, conflict and resistance was a central part of their relationship with civilian life on their emergence from the military.

One woman defined equality as important for her as a potential source of opportunity and support: “If there is equality for both men and women, if I can have equality with men, I can get as good access as them. I can lean on them in the rearing children and doing in the household”. As in feminist literature everywhere, it is in the domestic sphere that women feel the burden of inequality most fundamentally. Women defined the polar opposite of ‘equality’ as ‘inequality’, as ‘accepting the superiority of men’ or as ‘accepting the inferiority of women’. Two women linked their constructions of equality with the broader political agenda of social development. One participant said equality was important in development; “(The) equality of both men and women is important for the economic, social and political development of the country. I have equal rights with men, I can participate in many things. As women are part of the society, they should have equal rights for the development of the country”. The link between the personal and the political is explicit in women’s constructions of themselves and their view of their social world.

Self-confidence

Women constructed themselves as ‘self-confident’, and the polar opposite of self-confidence was ‘lack of confidence’. This emerged in four of the six repertory grids. On being asked ‘Why is this important to you’; self-confidence for participants meant women had confidence in their ability, in their right to speak up for their rights, and in their decision-making and problem solving. One woman explained:

Self-confidence, it is important for all. I am not the one who is suspicious/ not sure of everything I do. When I decide to say something or do something, it is with confidence that is it possible for me to do it. I am not that much dependent on others to come up with better ideas or better solutions.

Another said:

If I have confidence in my self, I will not depend on others in any decision. And this leads me to be successful in everything. If I have confidence, I can do what ever I want to do.

One construct of one of the participants was “Decide by yourself”, of which the opposite was “depend on others for the decision”. This is similar to the ideas being expressed by other women as self-confidence. For this participant, she constructed it as deciding about birth control, family planning and other things.

Deciding for yourself is advantageous. For example, if I have the ability to decide for myself, say, if my husband wants me to give birth, but I don’t want; this will be done by agreement between me and him.

Political knowledge or knowledge of political struggle

Three participants included political knowledge, or knowledge of fighting or knowledge of political struggle as constructs in their meaning systems. The women said knowledge of political struggle was the opposite of ‘does no know about politics’ or ‘having no knowledge or experience about fighting’, or ‘having no knowledge of political struggle’. One explained what it meant for her as follows:

If I have experience of knowledge of fighting, I become successful in destroying my enemy. If I have the skill and know-how of fighting, I can destroy my enemy easily.

This may also be part of the basis of self-confidence. Political knowledge was constructed as the opposite of ‘being ignorant’. For half the women, it was part of their core constructions of themselves.

Being educated/independent

Being educated was constructed as being linked with being independent, and economic independence in particular, and with having an awareness of what is going on politically. One woman explained, “If I am educated, I become independent in everything. If I am educated, I would have a good job, and good way of life. Economically, I become independent. Even I know about everything that is going on in my country.” As with other constructs, women linked their education and independence with broader societal development, thus integrally linking the personal with the political.

If I am economically independent it will be advantageous for myself as well as for my country. If an individual’s country is economically independent by itself, this shows the development of the country, and this leads the independence of the country.

Economic independence is also linked with equality and self-confidence, as the person who is economically independent is also free.

It is obvious that everyone prefers economic independence. I have economic independence so that I allocate the income I get in a way that it furthers my interest. If I were not economically independence, I would be dependent on my husband not only financially but also for other things. My husband would have been the one to decide for my own life. I wouldn’t have freedom to go wherever I like and so on.

Repertory grid analysis with female non-combatants

As a point of comparison, the repertory grids of two women who were never fighters are shown here.

The first interviewee is referred as G. She is a 27 year old woman, who is engaged in selling tea and bread for the daily labourers on a street corner. Her husband is dead and she has a child. She went to school to grade 8. G believes that men are superior to women in every way. The woman she admires most is her childhood friend, who has been to Dubai and has been to improve the life condition of her family.

From her grid, we can see the constructs are those that are closer to the traditional characteristics of females identified by Tsegay , such as nurturance and caring values. She explained her construct of ‘Sharing good and bad times’ as “It is good to have someone around or to be there for someone in good or bad times; and being able to improve one’s life and the life of one’s family, and being diligent. Being urban emerged as a core construct in the grids of all four non-combatant women. For this woman it meant, it “allows cleanliness, being better dressed, better house keeping, better food”. An analysis of her repertory grid indicates, ‘me before’ and ‘My mother’ are constructed as being similar. ‘Me now’ is urban (1), somewhat diligent (2), but not able to improve one’s life or the life of one’s family (4).

Table 7: Example 3: Non ex-combatant woman: Constructs and rating scale
Construct	Husband	Female friend	Man I know	Rural woman	My mother	Me currently	Me before	Opposite pole
Sharing good/bad times	2	3	1	3	2	3	4	Not being there in good/bad times
Being able to improve one’s life and the lives of others	3	1	3	2	4	4	4	Not being able to improve life/life of family
Being diligent	2	1	2	2	4	2	3	Not being diligent
Being urban	1	1	5	5	5	1	5	Being rural
Source: Author’s own

Table 8: Example 4: Non ex-combatant woman: Constructs and rating scale
Construct	Admired	Hus-	Female	Man I	Rural	My	Me	Me	Opposite
	woman	band	friend	know	women	mother	currently	before
Being more knowledgeable	1	2	4	3	4	5	3	5	Being less knowledgeable
Being allowed the chance to be educated	1	2	4	1	5	5	5	5	Not allowed chance to be educated
Being urban	1	1	1	3	5	5	1	5	Being rural dweller
Being popular	1	3	5	3	5	5	5	5	Being unknown
Being unmarried	1	5	1	5	5	5	1	5	Being married
Source: Author’s own

A second interviewee is referred as B, is a 23-year-old woman. She is engaged in peddling different items like socks, cigarettes, soft papers, and so on. She knows how to read and write.

The constructs that emerged in this woman’s repertory grid were:

As can be seen from an analysis of her grid, she constructed herself as being urban (1), as being somewhat knowledgeable (3), as being unmarried, which she linked with not being dependent, and being unknown (5). All of these contrasted with an admired woman, for her, the most famous singer in the country, Aster Awoke, whom she constructed as rating 1 on all the constructs. This indicates someone who has many fantasies of how she would like her life to be, and her reality does not match how she would like her life to be.

In summary, the self-constructions of female ex-combatants and women who were never combatants differ significantly and in consistent ways. Each set of constructs emerges from women’s experiences and expectations of their lives. In general, female ex-combatants are more aware of women’s rights; expect equality in their relationships in society; construct themselves as politically-aware, self-confident and independent. Non-combatant women construct themselves as ascribing to more traditional values for women; as not confident in their competence to bring about the kind of life they would like; and as valuing being an urban dweller as opposed to living in the rural area, which emerged as the most consistent and strongly-felt construct for these women.