Liberian women’s peacebuilding work in Peace Huts is a case study in social connectivity and gender-informed approaches to every-day peacebuilding. Most Peace Huts are managed by women who led the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace that helped end the country’s fourteen-year civil war from 1989-2003.
The women believed that Peace Huts provided an important space to protect fragile peace gains, and have been working to do this since the end of the war. In recent months, the Women in Peace Network (WIPNET) have been vocal supporters of President Joseph Boaki’s Executive Order to establish the Office of an Economic and War Crimes Court to pursue accountability and restitution for war-time atrocities. Many women who work in Peace Huts view this initiative as central to advancing the work of peacebuilding, reconciliation, and transitional justice. Their support for this court points to the unfinished business of peacebuilding work and the need for accountability to promote social healing.
Peace Huts are a gender-focused adaptation of the Palava Hut system, a centuries-old Liberian community-based forum for addressing intra-group conflicts and domestic disputes. The country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report (2009) recommended that Palava Huts – much like Gacaca Courts in Rwanda – could play an important, complementary role in the broader transitional justice process. But Palava Huts are largely led by men, with interests that may not align with women’s needs.
Women reclaimed this tradition by establishing Peace Huts in various communities to promote gender equality and resolve disputes through conflict resolution and mediation. Yet, they take seriously and insist on using the criminal justice system (instead of mediation) to prosecute crimes such as sexual gender-based violence.
Peacebuilding in Liberia is a multi-sector and societal responsibility. The Peace Building Office, for example, co-ordinates peacebuilding activities for the state. However, women in Peace Huts undertake a good deal of peacebuilding labour and they require crucial and sustained support to do this work.
What Women Do in Peace Huts
Women play multiple roles in Peace Huts all of which is connected to peacebuilding. First, they serve as first responders during crises in their communities. Our research shows that Liberian women, including those who work in Peace Huts, played a critical role in containing the Ebola epidemic in 2014, in some cases losing their own lives while caring for others.
They later drew on the lessons from that experience to help manage the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019. Women in Peace Huts believe that, left unaddressed, crisis can erode fragile peace gains and create conditions for renewed conflict. This view points to how peacebuilding is intertwined with social, religious, and economic challenges. Despite these challenges, women continue their work with limited or no formal support. The women in Peace Huts strive to mediate community conflicts, but sometimes they are unable to complete the resolution process. This is largely due to limited resources, including the lack of volunteers needed to assist in addressing multiple conflicts simultaneously.
Secondly, women in Peace Huts undertake collective healing and reconciliation work to promote social harmony. For example, some of these women were instrumental in assisting young men who committed atrocities to re-integrate into their communities. This included guiding them through rituals such as shaving their overgrown hair and reclaiming their birth names, rather than the monikers they were given while perpetrating violence. This took place in the broader complex context of reintegrating “child soldiers,” in consideration of family integration and educational and employment opportunities. Women also supported the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) to disarm combatants by leveraging the cultural trust accorded to mature women who are social and biological mothers.
Third, women in Peace Huts lead community dialogues about peacebuilding that include men, youth, and elders. These dialogues are informed by collectivity and reciprocity, principles that are central to African Indigenous knowledge systems and cosmology. These principles reflect debates in International Relations (IR) about how to prioritize local solutions to everyday problems instead of leaning heavily on external processes far removed from people’s lives. Women in Peace Huts also actively transmit memories of the war to younger generations to reinforce the value of mediation and conflict resolution. Our most recent (in progress) project with these women examines intergenerational storytelling for memory preservation.
Women’s Invisible Work in Peace Huts
Liberian women in civil society organizations shoulder the invisible yet essential work of sustaining families and communities. They remain largely invested in peacebuilding because they have the most to lose if these efforts fail. Women also work to implement the four pillars of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which emphasizes women’s full participation in conflict and post-conflict societies.
Our observations are less about associating women with natural inclinations toward peace and more about demonstrating how peacebuilding depends on gendered labor where protective social and economic infrastructures are weak or absent. This reality has taken on new urgency considering cuts to international aid – including USAID – exposing the fragility of societies and women’s peacebuilding initiatives that depend on such support.
Three Recommendations for Supporting Peace Hut Work
First, while support from external sources remains important, women in Peace Huts should receive support from state, local, and continental/regional bodies (e.g. the African Union) to sustain gendered approaches to peacebuilding work.
Second, women who work in Peace Huts must have a consistent voice at decision-making tables, including a strong say in women’s participation in political office where laws are made.
And third, as the women at the forefront of ending the civil war and leading Peace Huts are aging, efforts to preserve their memories through storytelling must be prioritized. Our current research focuses on this by documenting stories by women survivors of war and how they want their experiences to be remembered. This is important, not just for longevity, but for knowledge transmission for preventing war, healing emotional wounds, and promoting women’s full participation in Liberian society – all of which is central to women’s peacebuilding labour in Peace Huts.
Keywords: Liberia, Liberian, women, women’s peacebuilding, peacebuilding, peace, conflict, conflict resolution, peace huts, feminism
Erica S. Lawson
Erica S. Lawson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at the University of Western Ontario. Her teaching and research interests intersect with motherhood studies, maternal grief, critical race studies, black feminist studies, and feminist-informed peacebuilding interventions. With a focus on women’s mass mobilization to end the Liberian civil war (1989-2003), Erica Lawson’s research examines the role of gender construction in war, post-conflict recovery, and women’s multi-pronged activism to build a culture of peace and gender equity. She currently serves as the Project Director for “Commemorating the Experiences of Liberian Women Survivors of Conflict Related Sexual Violence (CRSV.” This is a SSHRC-funded, three-year (2024-2027) Partnership Development Grant (PDG) in collaboration with Liberian partners to document the experiences of women survivors of CRSV and how they envision memorialization towards collective healing
Vaiba Kebeh Flomo
Vaiba Kebeh Flomo is an outstanding peace and women’s rights activist, community mobilizer, feminist, trauma case worker, and leader, who works to promote the rule of law and to reduce violence amongst community people through training and dialogue. She provides trauma counseling with a key focus on women and youth who experience violence. Her work includes building women’s and community capacities through peace education, and community development to promote equal participation in decision-making processes. She is the co-founder of the Community Women’s Peace Initiative and the Liberian Women Mass Action for Peace, the movement that advocated for an end to the Liberian civil war, law reform, and policy implementation. Ms. Flomo is committed to ensuring that every girl child goes to school; she mentors young women to discover their potential and to take up leadership roles. Ms. Flomo is the Founder of “Kids for Peace”, Rock Hill Community Women’s Peace Council, and presently serves as an Advisor to the Young Women of Substance in District #6, Montserrado County. She continues to work with women and girls on SGBV, VAW, good governance, and economic empowerment through microcredit/village saving initiatives.
Cerue Konah Garlo
Cerue Konah Garlo is a feminist. She is a hands-on peacebuilding activist and civil society leader. She has extensive experience in designing, delivering, and evaluating capacity-building programs with a focus on women’s rights, community mobilization, and citizen participation. She has played a significant role in ensuring that women’s voices are heard, and their capacity developed to address post-conflict activities concerning women survivors. She has worked with women to prepare them for political participation through leadership training. Ms. Garlo recently retired from active work after serving as Senior Gender Specialist at the Carter Center Rule of Law Liberia Program. Ms. Garlo provided technical assistance and support to government, civil society, and women’s groups to ensure the implementation and enforcement of the freedom of information law is gender responsive and inclusive. Ms. Garlo has facilitated dozens of SGBV training for local and national government, civil society leaders, traditional and youth leaders.
