“CHASED AWAY FROM HOME”: BUSH WIVES OF SIERRA LEONE, PATRIARCHY AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE.

The eleven years long war in Sierra Leone ended in January 2002, but some of the young girls and women who were abducted and made wives of rebel fighters remained with or returned to their ex-abductor-husbands. The experiences of the returners (commonly known as bush wives) have fallen between the analytical gaps of the two most relevant approaches to gender justice: feminists’ theories on transitional justice and women’s human rights regimes.

The research seeks to prove that the bush wives who stayed or returned to their bush husbands did not consent to these new unions but were compelled to do so because of societal coercive patriarchal norms and attitudes. By analysing the bush wives’ experiences from the existing literature and their voices, the thesis attempts to identify what transitional justice means to victims of sexual violence.

The research found that patriarchy was a major contributory factor to the discriminatory post-conflict experiences of the bush wives. The findings supported the main argument of this thesis which is that the transitional justice processes accommodated, reinforced and exacerbated existing injustices, such as entrenched customary law practices.

Keywords: Patriarchy, Customary Law, Transitional Justice, Gender Equality, Bush wives.