Thousands of former female fighters sidelined by Aceh’s peace process are getting business start-up packages, helping them to play a full part in the region’s economic recovery. Report by Nabiha Shahab.

Banda Aceh at a glance looks no different from other provincial capitals in Indonesia. It is a bustling, colourful city filled with traditional shops and buzzing with tricycle taxis. A closer look reveals the ruins from the Indian Ocean tsunami, a legacy of the massive disaster in 2004 which claimed around 230,000 lives.

Aceh, the westernmost province of Indonesia is now at peace after decades of conflict. On 15 August, 2005, in the aftermath of the tsunami, the Indonesian government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement signed an accord in Helsinki ending 30 years of armed conflict. The predominantly Muslim province is now led by a former member of the resistance and the government’s focus is on reconciliation and economic growth.

In any conflict women, children and the elderly are caught in the crossfire. However, thousands of Acehnese women joined their men, some as informants and couriers, some to carry arms and fight battles. Asmanidar is 32 and a former fighter. She became a commander in the resistance 10 years ago, and used her parents’ brick factory as a meeting place for her fighter friends. “We cooked and got supplies for our friends in the hills, but never in our homes,” she says, “as the authorities already suspected our involvement”.

Asmanidar met her husband, also a fighter, during the conflict but she didn’t follow him when he gave himself up before the peace agreement was signed in 2005. Like many former female fighters, she was left out of the initial phase of reintegration. However, last year, Asmanidar started looking after her neighbour’s goats. When she heard there was an opportunity for former female fighters to receive European Commission aid, she asked for more goats of her own. Today her three children and eight goats spring around her feet. “All three of my children are a handful,” she says. “But for their sake I want to be a successful goat trader, maybe next time you come here I will be a goat trading boss and have 80 goats instead of eight.”

A few kilometres away, Rais Naiyah, a young mother of 23, says she was only 12 when she became an informant for the Free Aceh Movement. Her task was to buy clothes, medicine and other provisions for the fighters. As a schoolgirl, at first it was easy enough to pass through security without suspicion, but one day Rais was caught. The authorities didn’t have enough proof to convict her and she fled to Peurelak in the south to work as a housemaid. Now back in Aceh, Rais looks after her sixmonth- old daughter and, together with her husband, runs a motorcycle repair business. “We just moved our shop to this new spot and more people drop by to repair their motorcycles,” she explains. ”The EC aid helped a lot to complete our shop. I requested tyres, oil and other items. Now if people need tyres, we have them in stock.”

Rais and Asmanidar are two of more than 2,000 beneficiaries of a livelihood programme run by the NGO Terre des Hommes, Italy. They distribute aid to female ex-combatants, especially those who did not receive aid after peace was brokered in 2005. “Most women included in this project did not have a livelihood, many are illiterate so without the assistance they would not be engaged in any income generating activities”, says Akira Moretto, programme officer at Terre des Hommes.

According to the UN’s women’s agency UNIFEM, it is common for former women fighters to be undervalued or ignored during peacetime. “Reintegration of women ex-combatants is a crucial component for the stability of the peace process,” says Moretto, “as women hold an important role in households, in supporting husbands, and the wider communities they live in.” In spite of improvements to Aceh’s infrastructure following the tsunami, distributing the aid was no easy task, because many of the women live far from each other in remote areas. The project covers an area larger than the Netherlands and Luxembourg combined. The women will receive training in developing their business plans and they will also be linked up with local microfinancing institutions. “It is important for the women to be able to keep a record of their business. They have to understand that we will not be here for ever and they have to be able to develop their business on their own,” says Moretto.

Indonesia

Population 228.8 million Average life expectancy 70 years Average per capita income $3,580
Indonesia includes many ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups and sectarian tensions and separatism have led to violent confrontations undermining stability. With a substantial part of the world’s untapped resources in energy, minerals and agriculture, prosperity has risen for many in recent decades, but more than half the population live below the international poverty line. Indonesia is also dealing with the effects of the massive tsunami in 2004 and two major earthquakes.

Find out more at www.dfid.gov.uk/indonesia

Breakdown & recovery

A visible path to peace
“Reintegration of women ex-combatants is a crucial component for the stability of the peace process – as women hold an important role in households, in supporting husbands, and the wider communities they live in.”