Boko Haram - Women and the war on Boko Haram: wives, weapons, witnesses

Praise for Women and the War on Boko Haram

This is a significant book on Boko Haram, analysing the role of women and girls in the insurgency in north-east Nigeria, and the gendered impacts of the enormous humanitarian crisis which the conflict has produced.

Adam Higazi, University of Amsterdam

An original, innovative, and much-needed addition to the growing literatures on both women and conflict in Africa and the Boko Haram insurgency.

Brandon Kendhammer, Ohio University

Provides an important corrective to the general reporting on women associated with Boko Haram. As Matfess persuasively argues, improving the position of women and increasing gender equality in north-eastern Nigeria will surely support efforts to bring peace to the region.

Elisha Renne, University of Michigan (Emerita)

African Arguments

Written by experts with an unrivalled knowledge of the continent, African Arguments is a series of concise, engaging books that address the key issues currently facing Africa. Topical and thought-provoking, accessible but in-depth, they provide essential reading for anyone interested in getting to the heart of both why contemporary Africa is the way it is and how it is changing.

African Arguments Online

African Arguments Online is a website managed by the Royal African Society, which hosts debates on the African Arguments series and other topical issues that affect Africa: http://africanarguments.org

Series editors

Adam Branch, University of Cambridge

Richard Dowden, Royal African Society

Alex de Waal, Executive Director, World Peace Foundation

Alcinda Honwana, Open University

Managing editor

Stephanie Kitchen, International African Institute

Editorial board

Emmanuel Akyeampong, Harvard University

Tim Allen, London School of Economics and Political Science

Akwe Amosu, Open Society Institute

Breyten Breytenbach, Gore Institute

Peter da Costa, journalist and development specialist

William Gumede, journalist and author

Abdul Mohammed, InterAfrica Group

Robert Molteno, editor and publisher

Titles already published

Alex de Waal, AIDS and Power: Why There is No Political Crisis Yet

Tim Allen, Trial Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Lords Resistance Army

Raymond W. Copson, The United States in Africa

Chris Alden, China in Africa

Tom Porteous, Britain in Africa

Julie Flint and Alex de Waal, Darfur: A New History of a Long War

Jonathan Glennie, The Trouble with Aid: Why Less Could Mean More for Africa

Peter Uvin, Life after Violence: A Peoples Story of Burundi

Bronwen Manby, Struggles for Citizenship in Africa

Camilla Toulmin, Climate Change in Africa

Orla Ryan, Chocolate Nations: Living and Dying for Cocoa in West Africa

Theodore Trefon, Congo Masquerade: The Political Culture of Aid Inefficiency and Reform Failure

Lonce Ndikumana and James Boyce, Africas Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent

Mary Harper, Getting Somalia Wrong? Faith, War and Hope in a Shattered State

Neil Carrier and Gernot Klantschnig, Africa and the War on Drugs

Alcinda Honwana, Youth and Revolution in Tunisia

Marc Epprecht, Sexuality and Social Justice in Africa: Rethinking Homosexuality and Forging Resistance

Lorenzo Cotula, The Great African Land Grab? Agricultural Investments and the Global Food System

Michael Deibert, The Democratic Republic of Congo: Between Hope and Despair

Adam Branch and Zachariah Mampilly, Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change

Celeste Hicks, Africas New Oil: Future Fortune or Resource Curse?

Morten Jerven, Africa: Why Economists Get it Wrong

Theodore Trefon, Congos Environmental Paradox: Potential and Predation in a Land of Plenty

Paul Richards, Ebola: How a Peoples Science Helped End an Epidemic

Louisa Lombard, State of Rebellion: Violence and Intervention in the Central African Republic

Kris Berwouts, Congos Violent Peace: Conflict and Struggle Since the Great African War

Forthcoming titles

Odd-Helge Fjelstad, Wilson Prichard and Mick Moore, Taxing Africa

Celeste Hicks, The Trial of Hissne Habr

Ebenezer Obadare, Religion and Politics in Nigeria

Published by Zed Books and the IAI with the support of the following organizations:

The principal aim of the International African Institute is to promote scholarly understanding of Africa, notably its changing societies, cultures and languages. Founded in 1926 and based in London, it supports a range of seminars and publications including the journal Africa .

www.internationalafricaninstitute.org

Now more than a hundred years old, the Royal African Society today is Britains leading organization promoting Africas cause. Through its journal, African Affairs , and by organizing meetings, discussions and other activities, the society strengthens links between Africa and Britain and encourages understanding of Africa and its relations with the rest of the world.

www.royalafricansociety.org

The World Peace Foundation , founded in 1910, is located at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. The Foundations mission is to promote innovative research and teaching, believing that these are critical to the challenges of making peace around the world, and should go hand in hand with advocacy and practical engagement with the toughest issues. Its central theme is reinventing peace for the twenty-first century.

www.worldpeacefoundation.org

About the author

Hilary Matfess is a research analyst, working on issues of governance, security and gender. She is a PhD candidate at Yale University in the Political Science Department and a contributor to the Nigeria Social Violence Project at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and has previously worked as a Senior Program Officer at the Center for Democracy and Development in Nigeria. Her work has been featured in International Security , Foreign Affairs , Newsweek and The Washington Post .

WOMEN AND
THE WAR ON
BOKO HARAM

WIVES, WEAPONS, WITNESSES

HILARY MATFESS

Women and the War on Boko Haram: Wives, Weapons, Witnesses was first published in 2017 by Zed Books Ltd, The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London SE11 5RR, UK

www.zedbooks.net

Copyright Hilary Matfess 2017.

The rights of Hilary Matfess to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Typeset in Haarlemmer by seagulls.net

Index: Rohan Bolton

Cover design: Jonathan Pelham

Cover photo Chris de Bode/Panos

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78699-146-1 hb

ISBN 978-1-78699-145-4 pb

ISBN 978-1-78699-147-8 pdf

ISBN 978-1-78699-148-5 epub

ISBN 978-1-78699-149-2 mobi

To my parents, who always say yes, and rather than no, but BBKF.

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