Mine action is seen as a predominantly male profession, and indeed it is. But there are a significant number of women working in, and benefiting from, demining and they give the usual macho world of explosives a different dimension. Flora, Joice and Joice, three women I've been working with in southern Sudan, are some of those who put the usual gender stereotypes to the test.
The Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the military arm of the southern Sudanese political party the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), spent decades fighting the northern Government of Sudan forces until 2005 when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed by the two factions. It was a gritty and determined conflict which left many dead, many displaced and a land scattered with landmines and items of Unexploded Ordnance (UXO).
The Mines Advisory Group (MAG) is a UK based NGO working in southern Sudan removing landmines and UXO and providing Mine Risk Education (MRE) to those living with the legacy of conflict. Amongst our many capable teams is MRE Team 1 (because they are number 1); Flora, Joice and Joice.
The three women have been working for MAG since operations began in 2004. Their work means going out into often inaccessible areas of Western Equatoria, close to the Ugandan border, fly camping for what can be weeks at a time, visiting remote communities and delivering MRE to the vulnerable people in the area. It's not easy. Southern Sudan is not a forgiving environment - it lacks infrastructure of pretty much any kind and the presence of landmines and UXO means that development is slow. They don't complain, though. They don't tell me how tough it is to leave their families for weeks on end, they don't tell me how tough it is travelling over rough terrain and sleeping in camps in the middle of nowhere, they don't tell me how they think gender is a social construct that hinders their progress and development within Sudan. Of course not - these women just get on with the business of delivering their messages which help their communities to understand how to live safely, or at least safer, with the remnants of conflict.
But then that's not surprising when you consider their lives before they worked for MAG and before there was peace. All three women worked for the SPLA, delivering supplies and foods to the front lines, walking for days in the rains without food, guns in hand, malaria and other waterborne diseases rife and none of the veritable luxuries that an international NGO can offer. For them working for MAG is good work which performs an important role in society and affords them the respect of their community in turn.
They wouldn't countenance my questions on whether being a woman makes life harder for them in Sudan or in the demining world. As Flora succinctly put it "Anything men do we need to be able to do." And I guess when you compare demining to serving with a rebel army fighting for autonomy, the idea that these women might find the atmosphere a little too macho or the work too onerous seems, well, slightly ludicrous really. MAG's Team 1 don't concern themselves with the language of gender equality, they just get on with their job.
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Postscript - Editor's note:
In stark contrast to the story of MAG's "Team 1" is this piece in today's UK Guardian on a "Miss Landmine" beauty pageant already staged in Angola and planned for Cambodia, two countries deeply affected by the ravages of war and the legacy of landmines. A distasteful "victim contest" or a valuable tool to bring the issue to the world's attention? That's the question the article posits, but the attitude of the pageant's founder is worrying; a Norwegian theatre director, he cheerfully admits "Here in Norway beauty pageants are regarded as the work of the devil. They're seen as very, very politically incorrect." Yet transposed to Angola, and "Miss Landmine" just becomes a useful headline-generating conceit; "I'm a great believer in counterpoint - a good old theatre trick". Even more uncomfortable is the pairing of victimhood and gender on such an obvious stage - one designed specifically to shine the spotlight. A contest of the suffering, or a useful awareness-raising exercise - what do you think?
