Mary D. Phiri

A Vital Missing Target in Reconstruction Efforts in Eastern Drc: Women / Girls and the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration Process in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo Mary D. Phiri

Conflicts are known to present life-changing experiences that negatively change the face of affected societies demographically, socially, and economically. These changes also reflect a positive impact seen through the active roles females tend to portray in the face of household and communal structural entities in the face of the absence of male counterparts. Females are seen to embrace battlefronts, household and communal responsibilities normally ascribed to men. Africa has not been spared from such occurrences, with the never-ending conflict in the resource-endowed eastern DRC. Females in eastern DRC are known to be active agents in conflict, either undertaking combatant, support roles at the battle front, or as social victims, bearing the blunt of bodily abuses. Despite such events, limited numbers of post conflict reconstructions interventions have been known to build on the active agency of this particular group so as to enable both immediate and long-term remedial systems that promote empowerment that might enable both immediate and long term transformation of their livelihoods, including traditional gender roles.