Women and War Economies

This pioneering book examines the experiences of women in war economies, analyzing women’s roles as actors, perpetrators, collaborators and victims of these. In today’s armed conflicts, lines between fighting, crime and pillage merge; with warring parties engaging in large-scale illicit enterprises – both to profit, and to generate funds required to sustain insurgencies. These economies, fed and sustained by conflict, are known as ‘war economies’.

Orly Stern rethinks dominant paradigms about war economies using a gendered lens, offering important new perspectives that have the potential to inform future thinking on armed conflict. Chapters provide insights into women’s experiences in criminal activities that are fueled and enabled by armed conflict, including natural resource extraction, human trafficking, smuggling, kidnapping for ransom, and the drug trade. To illustrate the phenomenon discussed, the book explores detailed case studies, such as the activities of the Somali militant group al-Shabaab and the Islamic State’s sex slave trade. The book makes a vital contribution to scholarship on women’s economic participation in conflict, revealing how gender norms impact on and shape war economies.

This interdisciplinary book is an essential resource for students and academics in conflict studies, gender studies, criminology and international law. Policymakers and practitioners working in peacebuilding and conflict economics will also benefit from its novel perspectives.