War, Social Dislocation and the Double Appropriation of Women’s Human Security in Sierra Leone

This article combines the human security and the impoverishment, risk and reconstruction paradigms to document the threats to survival, development, and wellbeing evident by widespread poverty, strained social cohesion, and other recurrent multiple threats to human security in post-conflict Sierra Leone. Against this backdrop, the Bondo secret society whose central rite of initiation is female circumcision and which among other functions is the gateway to leadership has achieved hegemonic status as a vote bank. The double appropriation of the gendered symbolic power and the social cohesion and mobilization skills of Bondo initiates by Soweis and politicians pose severe threats to women’s human and reproductive rights, and stalls development. The prevention of modifiable causes of insecurity, the strengthening of international norms, support of Sierra Leonean social resilience and institutions that protect individuals from threats are required to improve human security.