Bombshells with Black Faces: Examining the Intersection between Terrorism, State Failure, and Sexual Gender Based Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

At the time of this writing there exist a handful of studies that examine the relationship between fragile states and the emergence of political violence; few that restrict their research to the study of Africa, and even fewer that assess the impact this relationship has on women. In conflict ridden societies, where the state has collapsed and there are fledgling political infrastructures, there has been a gross negligence in the protection of women and girls. In failed states, women are overwhelmingly the victims of rape and other gender based violence, and while studies have examined this phenomenon, there are no existing studies that evaluate the impact exposure to violence has on women’s attitudes towards certain socio-political issues. I mainly raise the question that in societies where women are made to feel powerless through sexual dominance and violence, is there a propensity for these women to support and engage in acts of terrorism and political violence? The female terrorism literature points to the victimization and powerlessness of women as the major impetus that motivates females to engage in acts of terrorism. Consequently, using sub-Saharan Africa as the unit of analysis, where state failure and gender based violence are pandemic, I evaluate the attitudes of women who have been victimized and their support for the use of political violence. The argument is that women who have been sexually victimized are more likely to blame the state for failing to protect them, and as a consequence are likely to support the use of terrorism and political violence against the state. This is an important avenue of research because it raises the question that if the increasing trend of sexual violence in sub-Saharan Africa remains, will the international community soon see an emergence of terrorist threats from sub-Saharan Africa, with female faces?