Meet the Tank Girls Taking on al-Shabab
Saturday October 29, 2016
Al-Shabab militants had overrun three similar forward-operating bases in the last year, killing more than 100 soldiers. They had also attacked dozens of other bases, including one just six miles from their post in Arabiska. But this morning was a quiet one — hence Uwimana’s test drive in the T-55 tank. She stood on a metal seat as the machine jerked forward, spewing smoke from its massive treads and rolling through sand so deep it threatened to swallow the vehicle whole.
Uwimana is one of roughly 500 women in the Ugandan contingent of AMISOM, the 17,000-strong African Union force tasked with battling al-Shabab and securing the troubled Horn of Africa nation so that a political process can take root. They serve as drivers, gunners, and technicians in the motorized infantry division — roles that women were barred from in the U.S. military until as recently as last year. But in Somalia, female peacekeepers have been serving in these positions for years.
This
is remarkable not only because al-Shabab is among the region’s most
dangerous terror groups, but because Somalia is generally one of the
most dangerous places in the world to be a woman, according to various
rankings and polls. Somalia has the highest prevalence of female genital
mutilation in the world at 95 percent, among the highest maternal
mortality rates at 1,600 deaths per 100,000 live births, and, though
official statistics are unreliable, anecdotal evidence suggests that
sexual assault remains an inescapable threat for most women across the
country.
But the fact that AMISOM features so many women in
combat roles is neither a matter of oversight, nor desperation. It’s a
strategic gambit. The female peacekeepers have an unspoken but very
clear mandate: to prevent their male colleagues from perpetrating sexual
violence against civilians and to help nurture faint stirrings of
gender equality in Somalia.
After a bumpy swing around the base’s
green Hesco barriers, Uwimana’s tank gunner, Lt. Cpl. Lehi Chebet,
calls down for the tank’s driver to cut the engine, her voice nearly
drowned out by its roar. The vehicle lurches to a halt and the
fresh-faced tank gunner nimbly maneuvers her way out of its small
opening, giving a short nod. The machine is ready.
For nearly
three decades, Somalia has been the world’s default example of a failed
state. After the collapse of dictator Siad Barre’s regime in 1991, the
country fell under the sway of a patchwork of local warlords whose
bloody inter-clan fighting destroyed infrastructure and crops and
produced one of the worst famines the world has ever seen. Out of this
chaos came the terrorist group al-Shabab, which pledged allegiance to al
Qaeda and seized control of large swaths of the country, including
parts of the capital, Mogadishu.
AMISOM first deployed to Somalia
in 2007 under an African Union Peace and Security Council mandate to
protect Somali infrastructure and government officials as well as to
deliver humanitarian aid. Since then, the mission’s size, mandate, and
geographical presence have dramatically increased. AMISOM’s mission is
now more counterinsurgency than peacekeeping. Its troops have pushed
al-Shabab militants out of most urban areas and into sparsely populated
regions like Lower Shabelle, where the two forces are engaged in a
deadly game of cat and mouse.
Deploying female peacekeepers has
been a part of the U.N.’s official strategy to fight sexual violence
since 2000, when the Security Council passed Resolution 1325 on Women,
Peace, and Security. The logic behind that resolution, which called for
greater female participation in peacekeeping missions as well as new
safeguards to prevent gender-based violence, was simple: Women are
generally more comfortable speaking with female authorities, so
deploying female blue helmets should make it easier for women to report
cases of sexual violence and enhance the ability of missions like AMISOM
to investigate such cases. The presence of female soldiers within
peacekeeping battalions is also thought to make sexual violence against
civilians less likely.
But beyond the U.N.’s impressive claim,
made in a study of Resolution 1325’s implementation last year, that "not
a single female peacekeeper has ever been accused of sexual
exploitation and abuse on mission,” there is little more than anecdotal
evidence to support the idea that female peacekeepers are an effective
antidote to sexual violence.
"There is this idea that women
are a civilizing influence, that maybe some men would be ashamed in
front of their female colleagues to be engaged in that kind of
behavior,” said Mary Schwoebel, a professor of conflict resolution
studies at Nova Southeastern University in Florida who has trained
Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia. "But unless women are commanders and
have the power to do something about it, I’m not sure that makes any
difference.”
Sixteen years after the resolution was approved,
women still account for only 3 to 4 percent of all U.N. peacekeepers.
According to Pablo Castillo-Diaz, a peace and security analyst at U.N.
Women, a United Nations agency dedicated to gender equality, "many of
them are in support roles, such as clerical support jobs, even if they
have been trained to be much more in contact with the population or in
protection tasks.”
The proportion of women in AMISOM’s Ugandan
contingent is only slightly higher than the U.N. average of 6.6 percent.
And Uganda consistently ranks near the bottom of the U.N. Development
Program’s Gender Inequality Index. But with more than 30 percent of
those women serving in combat positions, the likelihood that they will
eventually attain leadership positions is much higher.
Many of
these women not only aspire to be commanders, they view themselves as
pioneers in a new generation of female fighters on the front line.
Ugandan Pvt. Scovia Nagun Mafabo, who drives a tank-like infantry combat
vehicle known as a BMP, said there were no female BMP drivers when she
arrived at the Kampala Armoured Warfare Training School in 2012. "But
when I arrived, they said let us see if these girls can also manage and
they selected four of us to train with the men,” she said. "After we
successfully finished the course and qualified to be drivers, the school
said, ‘From today we are going to be training more girls.’ Now we have
trained six more girls in BMP.”
Still, the number of Ugandan
women training and serving in combat roles has begun to grow only
recently, meaning that it will be a decade or more until they ascend the
ranks to positions of power. And even when there are more female
officers, many fear it won’t do much to change the hyper-masculine
culture that prevails in most militaries that contribute peacekeeping
troops.
"[Military] culture is not being changed by women; it’s
changing women,” Schwoebel said. "The culture is a really macho, sexist
culture, and it’s not going to change easily. So to succeed as a woman
and get promoted to higher echelons, you have to adopt a character or
traits that are also macho.”
This might be true in places like
Arabiska, the remote forward operating base where Uwimana and Chebet
work beside only a few female colleagues. But in Uganda’s main AMISOM
base in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, where the largest group of
female soldiers is stationed, women have carved out a space where
femininity becomes its own form of camaraderie.
"You see this is
our place; here we can just relax,” Cpl. Maimuna Kahindo, who drives a
non-armored vehicle transporting equipment and personnel, said recently
as she and seven other female soldiers kicked back in a women-only
dormitory on AMISOM’s massive razor-wired complex at the airport in
Mogadishu. Kahindo, who is stocky with a wide, infectious smile, plopped
down on a bed made up with green-and-pink plaid sheets in their
shipping-container-turned-barracks. She and the other soldiers were
debating the merits of a jar of hair cream with a picture of a woman
suggestively tilting her head on the label. The consensus was that
nothing — not even the contents of the jar — could help their hair in
Somalia’s oppressive heat.
Eventually tiring of the
conversation, Kahindo turned on the large stereo next to her bed and a
popular Nigerian pop song filled the room. She stood and started swaying
to the beat, elbows hugging her hips, as the women on the bed cheered
her on. One chorus in, Oliver Basalirwa, another driver, joined Kahindo
and began crooning along to the song.
Kahindo laughed. "You see,”
she said, still rocking her hips to the music. "Here we are just at
peace. Mogadishu, it is not too bad, yeah?”
Driving through the
Somali capital, it’s easy to forget that just a few years ago these
streets were the front lines of the war against al-Shabab. These days,
humid air from the Indian Ocean wafts over the shiny blue windows of
brand-new office buildings and young girls jump around poorly painted
but brightly colored playgrounds. The restaurant at the Beach View
Hotel, a faded yellow building sandwiched between a wall of Hesco
barriers and a white sand waterfront, is packed once again, only four
months after an al-Shabab attack there killed at least 20 people.
Mogadishu’s
peace is tenuous. In July, two suicide bombers tried to breach the
AMISOM base where Kahindo and Basalirwa are stationed, killing 14
people. But for a country that has been at war for a quarter century,
the change in the city feels dramatic. It just hosted its second annual
international book fair, drawing hundreds of visitors and showcasing
more than a dozen local and international authors. Residents can now
stroll down the street and grab a slice of brick-oven pizza or watch a
3-D movie at the Pizza House Cinema.
Although most of the
country outside the capital remains dangerous, the relative calm in
Mogadishu has allowed a national discussion about gender roles and
women’s rights that was impossible during the height of the war. The
Parliament has drafted and debated — though not passed — a bill that
would criminalize sexual violence for the first time, and the National
Leadership Forum, which is overseeing preparations for the country’s
upcoming general election, has endorsed a 30 percent quota for women in
Parliament.
Peacetime has many obvious benefits for Somali women;
among the hardships of wartime, they were disproportionately affected
by sexual violence and inadequate access to health care. But there are
some who worry that the end of war could mean a step backward for women.
Women routinely became heads of households out of necessity during the
war, and many started businesses in order to survive.
"You can always
say conflict is an opportunity for gender roles to change,” said Tanya
Chopra, a contractor with U.N. Women in Somalia. "In some areas women of
Somalia have been more economically engaged because their husbands are
fighting or have died, and women are wondering now if … they will have
to go back to being in the house and have to give up their economic
engagement.”
Some, including Chopra, are looking to the female
soldiers in AMISOM to inspire Somali women to fight to retain their
wartime freedoms. They also hope that the presence of female AMISOM
officers in the street, in U.N. conference rooms, and in meetings with
top Somali officials will change men’s perceptions about gender roles.
"When
we say we have a leader who’s coming to meet you, [local leaders]
expect to see a male and they are surprised when they see a female.
Maybe because of the culture they thought as a female you can’t be a
leader,” said Ugandan Capt. Mercy Ruhinda. "But I think that is starting
to change, at least they see that women can be in leadership positions,
and we are trying to help address the problems here.”
But where many
see the presence of female AMISOM soldiers having the greatest impact
is in changing the mindset of young Somali girls. According to
Schwoebel, "It could have a great impact on young women in Somalia
because seeing women, especially from African countries, in these
positions, they become like role models to these young girls.”
Evidence
from previous missions suggests that the example set by female
peacekeepers can make a difference. In Liberia, for example, an
all-female Formed Police Unit from India was credited by the U.N. with
inspiring Liberian women to join the country’s police force, increasing
the percentage of female officers from 13 to 21 in the five years after
the Indian unit deployed in 2007. In Somalia, a similar trend is
emerging, perhaps inspired by the women of AMISOM and perhaps by a
24-year-old member of the diaspora, Iman Elman, who as a captain is the
highest-ranking woman of the Somali National Army (SNA). Elman was
raised in Canada following the slaying of her father, the prominent
human rights activist Elman Ali Ahmed, but returned to Mogadishu in 2009
to work at her mother’s center for victims of sexual assault, the Elman
Peace and Human Rights Center.
"A lot of girls I talked to
believed that they were physically incapable of doing what men could
do,” Elman said. "I remember Googling woman bodybuilders and showing
them the pictures because I wanted them to see that that wasn’t true.”
Elman
soon realized the only way to convince young women of their potential
would be to demonstrate it herself — by joining the military. When she
enlisted in the SNA at the age of 19, she was one of only two women in
her battalion of 350 soldiers. After a year of struggling through
intense verbal abuse from her male colleagues, Elman went on to serve on
the front lines of the war against al-Shabab, earning national
recognition for her accomplishments. Though the number of women in
uniform is still very low, she says, more young women are expressing
interest in joining Somalia’s nascent military force.
"There’s
been an influx of girls, young girls, joining the army, and the boys
are a bit more accepting of it than when I joined,” she said.
But
the SNA is still a long way from being considered a professional
fighting force. It’s estimated that 16,000 troops are poorly trained and
equipped, and they often go months without pay. That poses a host of
challenges for female troops like Elman that the women of AMISOM don’t
have to contend with. The Somali army doesn’t have proper barracks, let
alone reporting mechanisms or disciplinary procedures for gender-based
discrimination and abuse.
"We still don’t have a gender
department, we don’t have a human rights department,” Elman said. "When I
joined there wasn’t a single channel where I could lodge any complaints
about how the guys were treating me.”
Somali female soldiers
haven’t yet earned the same respect as their AMISOM counterparts, and
young SNA recruits still complain about sexual harassment and
mistreatment by their male colleagues, Elman said. But as AMISOM
prepares to withdraw from Somalia and hand combat operations over to the
SNA, perhaps as early as 2018, the role of female soldiers in both
forces has never been more important. Gender norms are changing as
Somalia inches toward peace, and women in uniform will play an important
role in safeguarding what little progress was made toward gender
equality during wartime — and leading the charge for full equality
during peacetime.
For now, peace and equality seem a long way
off. Though some stability has returned to Mogadishu, bombings and
targeted assassinations are still commonplace. Outside the capital,
al-Shabab still terrorizes huge swaths of the country and clan militias
do as they please in the absence of government control. The outlook for
women in these areas is grim; one out of every 12 women dies of
pregnancy related-causes and nearly half of all Somali girls are married
by the age of 18. Whether or not the government can wrest control over
these regions will not just be decisive for women. It may be decided by
women, since more of them are serving in uniform.
"Women raised
this country; they have been mediating peace throughout the war,” said
Leila Mohamoud Abdulle, a women’s rights activist in Mogadishu. Now
women have a chance to fight for peace on the frontlines and help build a
culture of respect and gender equality in the armed forces.
"If we want peace to last,” she said, "we are going to need the leadership from women.”
Meet the Tank Girls Taking on al-Shabab
It was 9:30 a.m., in a desolate corner of Somalia, and Lt. Cpl. Juliet Uwimana was taking her tank for a test drive. She and the rest of Uganda's Battle Group 18 had been in the war-torn Lower Shabelle region for only a week, but already the bat