Reference :
V-P-NG-E-00980
Date :
08/2017
Caption :
Borno State, Maiduguri, Teachers Village camp for internally displaced persons. This 70-year-old-woman comes from Baga, a fishing community near the Chadian border. After being displaced in fighting, she was moved with her family members to the camp.
Confidentiality level :
public
Publication restrictions :
reserved users only
Description :
She cares for four of her orphaned grandchildren. Of her own children, two of her daughters died, she says, due to illnesses contracted while displaced, and three of her children died of natural causes. Her remaining son and husband went missing during the fighting. She presumes they are dead. She has been in the camp for the past two years and seven months. Conditions are difficult. Often there is not enough food, and she, with the youngest children, must go into town to beg. "I have no son, I have no daughter and I have no husband. Some of them died not because of the conflict while the others died due to shock of the attack or while fleeing. That is how they died. People were saying that my husband was alive, but he too is nowhere to be found. As I am now, I do not have anything, these grandchildren are all that I have", she says.
ICRC web site, article of 11.10.2018: Women and war. Men make war; women live with the consequences. At least that is the way it is largely perceived.
Women live and react to those consequences, but they are hardly passive victims. They grieve, they fight against the suffering, and many find they are forced to re-invent themselves, shedding an old identity and forging a new one shaped by war.
A new feature by National Geographic, supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross, takes a closer look at how women react to and deal with the disruption that conflict brings to family and work life.
In the project, A Woman's War, we break open the stereotype of "women as victim" and explore the multiple, complex, sometimes conflicting roles women play in conflict: fighters, humanitarians, mothers, daughters, laborers, community leaders and survivors.
"I believe that women are agents for change. I believe that women are major sources of stability in conflict-affected areas and that they hold together not only their families but their communities," said Mary Werntz, the deputy director of operations at the International Committee of the Red Cross. "My hope is that we all, humanitarians included, are able to look at women in their complete forms and not just as victims of something."
The lives documented are diverse. Photographer Robin Hammond visited a war he knows well – Iraq – as well as conflicts that seldom make global headlines, in the Philippines and southern Nigeria. Identities continue to be shaped by war even when the guns falls silent, so Hammond also travelled to Peru to see old scars that have not yet healed.
Working on gender is complex. It combines power and privilege, community rituals and expectations. Conflict tends to exacerbate existing inequalities. What happens when the family bread winner – often a male – goes off to war or is killed by the violence? Societal roles shift; women may be given an opportunity they previously didn't have.
"I think in many conflict situations women are forced into being the ones in charge of the family," Werntz said. "Women may have to take care of the agricultural areas. They may have to move into the work force. They have to look after the kids' education."
Resolution :
6192x8256
Orientation :
portrait
Colour/B&W :
colour
