Members of Nirjatan Birodhi Ekya Manch (forum for atrocities on women), protest against the rise in crime against women in Assam on Anti-Atrocities Day in Guwahati last year.

Insurgency, militancy or whatever name is given to the low-intensity warfare in India?s Northeast is part and parcel of life in the region. Violence is the natural byproduct of insurgency.

The after-effects of violence are both tangible as well as intangible. Very often the state formulates strategies to address the visible effects of violence by paying compensation to the victims or their next of kin in case of death. But while material compensation addresses the immediate financial needs, the psychological, social and economic needs of victims who have survived deaths do not receive adequate attention. Much less the plight of women who become targets of a different kind during times of conflict. Northeast Network, an NGO working in the region, has systematically documented the impact of insurgency on women.

While insurgency affects life in general, it has very devastating effects on women, but lack of documentation of the tremendous physical, psychological and mental sufferings undergone by women in conflict situations makes it difficult for the state to make appropriate interventions. Very often when peace returns, even temporarily in a certain conflict area, there is a tendency to forget the insidious effects that violence has had on women and children. Everyone believes that life goes back to normal, but does it really? What about women who are raped by state and non-state actors? What about the women who live in relief camps for years with no outlet for their sexuality, no access to traditional livelihoods, no access to reproductive healthcare and above all, no privacy.

When talking about insurgency or violence, it is easy to picture men, young and old, carrying scars of gunshots, or, as happened recently in Karbi Anglong, being butchered like animals, their throats slit, their arms and legs cut to pieces and their stomachs incised, the entrails out in the open. What is the impact of such horror on women and children? Why do women need special attention in conflict situations? Why are women targets of both security forces and non-state actors (militants)? The following paragraphs will clarify the points I am trying to make.

Cultural symbols

Wherever and whenever there is a situation of violence in any state, women become the first targets of both state and non-state actors because they are seen as the cultural identity of the group. Non-state actors, as terrorists are called, impose dress codes and other norms of behaviour on their women. Hence women are told to be the vanguards of their culture. This cultural uniqueness becomes the bandwagon for putting forward their claims to a separate homeland. This aspect has been very blatantly illustrated by the insurgents of Manipur and Assam.

Since women are the symbols of culture in every society in the Northeast, state forces deployed to fight insurgency in the region also direct their attention to women. They feel that if they are to deal a body blow to an insurgent movement, they must defile the defenders of culture, namely the women. So, women are ruthlessly raped and outraged. Such acts result in further suppression of women as society and non-state actors start regulating their movements and set timings within which they are allowed to move around and beyond which they cannot venture out of their homes. Also some areas become out of bounds for women. Social mobility of women is thus severely restricted.

When a married woman is raped, she suffers multiple trauma because her family members, including here husband, consider her defiled. She develops a guilt feeling and has to live with that guilt since there is hardly any support system. Centres for counselling victims of rape and trauma are not in place in the Northeast. The woman has no one with whom to share her plight.

Relief camps

Victims of violence very often spend months and even years in relief camps. The examples of Kokrajhar and Karbi Anglong immediately come to mind. In such situations, a woman has to suppress her sexuality. Since the situation is abnormal, sexual relations with the husband are erratic. The woman loses her reproductive rights because she cannot even prevent an unwanted pregnancy. Hence she is compelled to give birth to a child in very adverse circumstances. This compounds the problems of poverty and bad health, which are the characteristic of relief camps. Another phenomenon is that during times of conflict, militants try to exercise control over the sexuality of women, including their reproductive rights. A close watch is kept over women by the militants to see who they are socialising with. There are several instances where women are told they have to propagate the race and cannot practice family planning.

Women in relief camps are deprived of their livelihood and are unable to take up alternative income-generating activities. The state has not evolved a policy to address this lacunae. The state feels that if the inmates of a camp are fed and clothed, they should be alright. But what the state does not realise is that women do not enjoy living on doles. They want to be self-sufficient. They want to do something for a living. Women of the region are skilled weavers.

In conflict situations, the girl child is often asked to sacrifice her education on grounds that it is unsafe to venture out of the camps to attend schools. Personal security is cited as an example. Relief camps do not have facilities for education. Economic reasons also compel families to stop the education of their children, particularly daughters. But it is also true that many schools in the vicinity of the conflict are taken over by security forces for their temporary shelter. This further reduces the opportunities for education of girls. Nagaland is a good example of this form of educational exclusion.

Women who lose their husbands or sons to conflicts have no option but to take over the reins of the family. This change in role compels them to take up some kind of employment to generate resources for the family. This burdensome role can be very stressful. There are several female-headed households in the region. We might think that women cope very well in adverse situations, but the reality is that children grow up missing one parent and never knowing what a father?s love is like. They often have to drop out of school to supplement the family income. This creates a psychological and mental block that affects them throughout their lives. No school or state institution has emerged to help deal with the hidden trauma that such children suffer.

Patriarchy

Patriarchy reasserts itself very strongly during times of conflict. Men see themselves as guardians of their wives, sisters and daughters. Should anyone of them be raped, men consider it a personal loss of honour to themselves. In Nagaland, the-re are instances where men have co-mmitted suicide because they had to watch their sisters being raped by security forces. A sense of guilt follows and depression is the natural outco-me. As stated above, women then forfeit their social mobility as they can no longer move around after dark.

In poverty-stricken areas, the demand for sex work from women also increases. In a situation like Manipur or Nagaland, where HIV-AIDS is already rampant, illicit sexual intercourse without any protection for the women increases her vulnerability to the disease. Along the highways, women who have foodstalls as a means of livelihood are most vulnerable to HIV-AIDS because they associate with groups of clients who are by nature sexually active and mobile.

In the light of the above argume-nts, it is time that the state recognises the special needs of women in situat-ions of armed conflict.

We live in a more gender-sensitive environment and it is important that governments articulate policies that are more enli-ghtened and that treat women as imp-ortant stakeholders in development rather than as recipients of government munificence.