• Peacebuilding and reconstruction

Peacebuilding and reconstruction

This report focuses on how the female fighters of the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG) in Guatemala fared in the demobilisation and reintegration process that began in 1997, and to what degree the women became socially and politically active afterwards. The study seeks to explain why there are quite varying levels of post conflict social and political activity among these women in 2006, ten years after the peace accord between the Guatemalan government and the URNG was signed.

The report concludes that three types of factors were particularly decisive in shaping the female fighters’ capability and capacity for post conflict social and political activity:

• women’s background in terms of education and skills: women with higher education that occupied most of the politically important positions in the URNG among the ex female fighters
• the duration of the participation in the guerrilla and the new skills they learnt during this period
• the character of the demobilization and reintegration process itself: the female fighters that opted for collective reintegration were in general more socially active than the women that reintegrated individually, as the cooperatives offered many possibilities for social activity and participation and as these women also had arrangements to look after their children

The report stresses that important lessons can be drawn from the research in terms of improving the quality of demobilisation and reintegration processes in general so that these may contribute to a higher capability and capacity among ex female fighters to participate in post conflict peacebuilding activities. Some of the recommendations are:

• it is important to listen to how female combatants’ describe their own dreams and demands for the future during the demobilization and reintegration phase
• since ex female combatants with education are most likely to be involved post conflict peacebuilding, efforts should be made to ensure they can continue their studies
• living in a community with ex-combatants increases women's possibilities to become socially and politically active
• transition periods in demobilisation and reintegration processes should be longer, particularly in the case long armed conflicts
• attention should be paid to providing psyco-social assistance to both female and male combattants

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