While many women and girls can arguably be described primarily as victims, their willingness to participate in atrocities, even if their primary motivation for joining the fighting was to feed and protect their families, should not be glossed over.21 One group of female combatants, the Women’s Artillery Commandos (WAC), comprised young women who fought alongside the LURD. A Liberian health minister was quoted as saying that female combatants were preferred because, “they don’t get drunk
and they take their mission very seriously.”
While many women ex-combatants reported surviving sexual violence at the hands of both the LURD and forces associated with Charles Taylor’s regime prior to joining the WAC, they were, in turn, capable of facilitating sexual violence against women. One woman interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that she and other female soldiers purposefully captured female prisoners in order to provide women for male soldiers to have sexual relations with, whether through choice or by force. The girl soldiers described how they sought out female prisoners in order to provide a different target for possible rape and other sexual assaults from their male companions.
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