This desk report explores how West African community-based armed groups (CBAGs) facilitate women’s engagement with politics, create avenues for female expressions of anger, commitment to community values and national identity, and enable women to push for change in their communities by opening spaces for female participation. Assessing the formal and informal contributions women make to armed community mobilization and hybrid security reveals opportunities for gender-specific engagement and cautions that unidimensional considerations of where and how women intersect with conflict and security have the potential to undermine violence reduction and post-conflict peacebuilding efforts.

 

Suggested citation:

Thomas, Jakana. Duty and Defiance: Women in Community-based Armed Groups in West Africa. Washington, D.C.: RESOLVE Network, 2021. https://doi.org/10.37805/cbags2021.1.

Also available in French.