As promised, we are now going to discuss the second half of the conference on Women in Armed Conflict hosted by the Mosaic Institute.

Multiple Roles of Women in Conflict

The last panel comprised of Jasteena Dhillion, a professor of Law at Humber College. Sandra Sukstorf is a Commander within the Canadian Armed Forces and Dr. Amarnath Amarasingam is a Post-Doctoral fellow at SSHRC and professor at Waterloo.

Dr. Dhillion spoke about her time working in Sri Lanka. She told us that in fact in Sri Lanka women were very much a part of the conflict. She also talked about women being used as dividers of community just like Ilana Landsberh-Lewis did while speaking of the DRC. Dr. Dhillion also highlighted the same strategies of war seen in the DRC used in Sri Lanka. She explained that many times women were raped and the children that they bore were of mixed ethnic groups. This obviously caused problems for women who were merely by standers in the conflict, as they no longer represented one side of the conflict and were made outcasts. We can see now that sexual violence and rape are obviously effective weapons of war.

This panel was particularly interesting because Sandra Suktorf discussed her experiences in the army, which she entered in the 80s during a time where women were not welcome. She discussed balancing her home life with her work and explained that she was able to handle both and has slowly seen a transition in more women becoming a part of our Canadian Forces. The interesting thing about her talk was that she explained that the most criticisms she got for her service, came from people (mostly women) who would question why she would leave her home to go out to war. Sandra explained that when a man would go off to join the forces or come home he would be treated as a hero and when she left and came home she was scrutinized. Of course that is changing in our current time but it is important to realize that negative attitudes towards women in the armed forces do not only come from within the army. Through her experiences we now understand that society at large has a huge role to play in affecting women’s role in the armed forces. This is something for all of us to think about in the future before making critical assumptions.

Dr. Amarasingam talked about ISIS and women’s roles in their current operations. He explained that women’s roles in ISIS is mostly related to logistical efforts and not combat. He said that when he spoke to members of ISIS (mostly male) they did not have any intentions of allowing women into combat roles just yet. Interestingly, women are mostly used to raise children who are going to be the future of the movement and are actually used to mobilize people through social media. What was most surprising was that most of these women use social media platforms like tumblr and twitter to engage with potential recruits. He gave us an example of an ISIS member who constantly uses tumblr to answer women’s questions about how joining ISIS works for women. She discusses the female role in the movement and explains that although women have no combat role they are the ones who are going to be raising the future generation of combatants. This is an incredible tactic to consider; that women are able to use the internet to promote ideologies is definitely a new trend. The important thing to note in Dr.Amarasingam’s speech is that he does say that women are not YET part of frontline combat. It will be interesting to see the direction women’s participation in ISIS will take in the near future.

To wrap up the conference, Dr. Kim Stanton, a lawyer and teacher among many other things, told us something I think we all need to be reminded of. She explained that although these issues are complex and there is much work that needs to be done, the important thing is that we are willing to do the work. As a PCJ student this was a poignant moment because she stated that the only time peace is no longer possible is when good people do nothing for it.

So let us run on a fuel of outrage and let us continue our movement for peace.