Liberia Elects Africa's Woman President-What Does That Mean for the Women?

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia's elected President, was sworn into office on January 16. AWID explores some of the implications for Liberia - after a protracted, violent civil war - and for the women of Africa, who are celebrating their first woman head of state.

By Rochelle Jones

Peace, justice and reconciliation after 14 years of war, stamping out corruption and lawlessness and restoring decimated infrastructure and services are some of the issues that Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf will be taking on in her Presidency. No easy task for anyone, and yet Liberia's new President has another hat to wear - Africa's first elected woman head of state.

''Queen of Africa'' (1)
Being elected to the ranks of an historically paternalistic terrain of political administrations in Africa, should not be underestimated. In a recent interview she laughed when she recalled President John Kufuor of Ghana remarking that he doesn't consider her a woman, and attributed it to her determined presence in so-called ''male dominated'' fields such as finance (2). In reality, for years Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf has been passionately committed to human rights and a positive role model for Liberian women, even before Charles Taylor's infamous National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) staged an uprising against the government in 1989 and began a civil war that lasted 14 years. In 2002, for example, she co-authored Women, War and Peace: The Independent Experts' Assessment on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and Women's Role in Peace-building, a project of UNIFEM (the United Nations Development Fund for Women); and has served on the Boards of the International Crisis Group (ICG) and the Nelson Mandela Foundation (3).

So for women in Africa, the election of their first female head of state is a window of hope for the many other women holding administrative positions, struggling for a policy and legal environment that does not uphold or ignore cultural and social norms which subordinate women. It is also a moment of triumph for those who are marginalised under the rule of male-dominated systems of governance that allocate little funding for programs that address the needs of women.

An Opportunity for Liberian Women
For Liberia, it's one step at a time, with Johnson-Sirleaf's victory marking the end of one struggle for women, but the beginning of many more. Amrita Basu's study on the relationship between social movements and party politics has found that one of the biggest challenges in confronting gender inequalities through the party system is that ''parties draw on women's participation as individuals, not as members of a group that has suffered discrimination.'' (4). Juxtaposing this in the context of Liberia, even though Johnson-Sirleaf is now President, she is still operating in a ''male-dominated'' arena, and acting as an individual. In this regard, it will be vital for women's groups in Liberia to mobilise on issues that affect them and maintain open channels of communication between civil society groups and the government.

Mobilisation should not be anything new for women in Liberia. During the civil war, and despite the fact that women were beaten, mutilated, raped and disempowered, women found ways and means to fight back and organise. Stripped of their livelihoods, families and self-determination, some women chose to join armed resistance struggles such as the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), so they could feed themselves and their families with the provisions provided by the combatants (5). Many young girls had no choice. In 2004, Human Rights Watch published a report that described how another armed faction - Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), ''abducted girls, trained them to use guns and other weaponry, and sexually assaulted many to the point of death''. Children formed over 70% of combatants in Liberia during the war (5).

Others who were lucky to avoid combat, organised non-violently to lead an initiative for international intervention: ''In 2000 the Mano River Union Women Peace Network (MARWOPNET) was founded by women from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, recognising that there would be no peace in Liberia without peace in the region. MARWOPNET put forth an initiative to mediate the conflict and disagreement between Guinea and Liberia and dispatched a delegation to appeal to the feuding heads of states in the region.'' (5)
One Liberian woman living in the US, for example, describes how women were integral to the current ?fragile' peace that Liberia now enjoys: ''They held prayer vigils, begged the combatants to lay down their guns, and petitioned the heads of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to convene peace talks in Accra, Ghana in July of 2003 - the talks that gave rise to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which brought an end to our civil conflict.'' (6).

With the existence of a fragile peace in Liberia at present, and with so many women and children left emotionally, physically and psychologically scarred, similar kinds of solidarity and organisation will be vital for women's rights and gender equality in Liberia's future. Basu has argued that in Sri Lanka, which experienced a similar protracted war with women combatants and peace advocates, what brought women into the public sphere was the strong role of women's civil society organisations, including separatist groups, human rights and peace groups. Future government policies under Johnson-Sirleaf will need to identify with different groups, as well as women as a collective body, focusing on common needs such as counselling and education (literacy for women in Liberia in 2003 was only 37% (5)), reproductive health and HIV/AIDS, and addressing all forms of gender-based violence, which typically increases in the fragile, interim period at the end of a war. One of the major issues facing young women is the cost of education - and many are engaging in sexual ?transactions' to pay for their schooling (6).

Johnson-Sirleaf has said that she would like to initiate a national dialogue like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission regarding the atrocities committed during the war, so the country could ''strike a balance between forgiveness and demands for justice'' (7), but it will be a difficult road ahead with her plans of engaging members of the opposition in governance processes, so as to avoid eruptions along old fault lines. UNIFEM has engaged with the Ministry of Gender and Development in Liberia to ensure that legislation setting up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will investigate gender-based crimes (5).

Local women's groups in Liberia, such as the Women in Peace building Network (WIPNET), the Mano River Union Women's Peace Network (MARWOPNET), the National Women's Commission of Liberia (NAWOCAL), the Association of Female Lawyers of Liberia (AFELL) and the Liberian Female Law Enforcers Association (LIFLEA) to name a few, continue their work in ''peace advocacy, micro-credit, skills training, trauma healing, advocacy on sexual and gender-based violence, legal advice and representation, leadership programs, and research and activities relating to the reintegration of female ex-combatants'' (5). Johnson-Sirleaf's targeted engagement with local women's organisations, however, will be key in the process of rebuilding women's lives and forging new pathways of gender equality and women's rights in Liberia.

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Notes:
(1)Crowds were shouting ''Queen of Africa'' at Johnson-Sirleaf's inauguration ceremony on January 16 ? see Polgreen, Lydia. 2006. Africa's
first elected Head of State takes office. New York Times, January 16, 2006. Available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/16/international/africa/16cnd-liberia.htm...
(2)Hartill, Lane. 2005. Liberia's 'Iron Lady' Goes for Gold. Washington Post: Wednesday, October 5, 2005. Available from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/04/AR200510...
(3)From http://www.womenwagingpeace.net
(4)Basu, Amrita. 2005. Women, Political Parties and Social Movement in South Asia ? Occasional Paper 5 in a series published by the United Nations
Research Institute for social Development (UNRISD). Available from www.unrisd.org/publications/opgp5
(5)UNIFEM, 2005. Gender Profile of the conflict in Liberia. Available from www.womenwarpeace.org
(6)Doe-Anderson, Jestona. 2005. Overcoming Subordination: The struggle of women in Liberia continues. The Perspective, January 18, 2005. Available
from: www.theperspective.org
(7)Interview with Spiegel, Dec 2005. Liberia's Desire for Peace. Available from:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,druck-391250,00.html