Involve more women while negotiating peace deals in rural communities

Recent humanitarian reports from the International Organization for Migration and UNICEF, state that Nigeria continues to record hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) across conflict-affected states, with women and children constituting well over half of displaced populations. In many IDP camps, women are the primary caregivers, income earners, and emotional anchors of families […]

Recent humanitarian reports from the International Organization for Migration and UNICEF, state that Nigeria continues to record hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) across conflict-affected states, with women and children constituting well over half of displaced populations.

In many IDP camps, women are the primary caregivers, income earners, and emotional anchors of families shattered by violence while children, especially girls, face interrupted education, early marriage risks, malnutrition, and psycho-social trauma.

While public discourse often focuses on armed actors and political leaders, the human cost of these conflicts is borne most heavily by women and children.

Yet paradoxically, the voices of women—the very people who sustain families and communities during conflict—are often absent when peace deals are negotiated.

If peace agreements are to succeed in rural communities, women must be fully involved in designing, negotiating, and sustaining them.

There are communities that share historical experiences, cultural diversity, and common security challenges such as Benue, Plateau, and Nasarawa, extending into parts of Kaduna, Taraba, Kogi, and Adamawa.

Violence in one area quickly spills into another; displacement and migration patterns cross state boundaries.

Within this complex landscape, women play indispensable roles that often go unnoticed.

Sustainable peace demands inclusive processes that address root causes—land governance, climate pressures, migration patterns, youth unemployment, and identity politics. Women experience these issues not as abstractions but as daily realities affecting food security, family survival, and community cohesion.

So, when women are absent from peace deals, agreements risk collapsing under the weight of unresolved social fractures but when women are present—actively shaping, monitoring, and sustaining peace—agreements are more likely to endure.

Involving women is not an act of charity or political correctness. It is a pragmatic strategy for building resilient communities.

When violent clashes erupt between farmers and pastoralists, the immediate images are often of burnt houses and fallen men.

Yet behind these images lies a quieter, more enduring tragedy. Women lose husbands, sons, farmlands, markets, and access to ancestral homes. They experience sexual and gender-based violence, economic dislocation, and the heavy burden of caring for traumatised children.

In the Benue and Plateau communities I have worked with, women recount fleeing at night with infants strapped to their backs, unsure of whether they would ever return home.

Beyond physical displacement, there is social displacement—the erosion of trust between neighbours who once traded together and attended each other’s ceremonies.

For many women, conflict means becoming widows overnight, sole providers without land titles or capital, navigating relief systems that often overlook their voices.

Globally, evidence increasingly shows that peace agreements are more durable when women are involved in negotiations and implementation.

Through my work with conflict-affected communities in Benue and surrounding states, including engagements supported by the Middle Belt Brain Trust, I have observed that women often serve as informal negotiators even when not formally recognised.

During training sessions in rural communities, women consistently propose practical peace building measures: joint farming initiatives, shared market days, youth engagement programmes, and early-warning communication networks.

They emphasise protecting schools and ensuring safe return corridors for displaced families—priorities sometimes overlooked in elite negotiations.

Where women have been included in community peace committees, compliance with local agreements has improved.

They monitor implementation closely because they bear the consequences when agreements fail.

Despite their potential contributions, women face structural and cultural barriers, patriarchal norms that confine them to domestic spaces and limit their public voice; limited access to education and legal literacy, reducing confidence in formal negotiations; economic dependency, which undermines bargaining power and security risks, including threats and intimidation for speaking publicly.

To ensure women’s involvement is impactful rather than decorative, deliberate measures are required:

For instance, mandating women’s representation in local and state peace committees; training in mediation, negotiation skills, trauma healing, and legal frameworks; economic empowerment, that is access to land rights, micro-credit, and cooperative structures that enhance independence.

In a farming community in Plateau State, a woman who participates in a local peace dialogue group explained:“When men are angry, they stop talking to each other. But women still meet in the market. We greet, we ask about children, and slowly the tension reduces.”

In several communities where dialogue initiatives have been introduced, women have acted as trusted messengers—carrying information between groups, calming rumours, and encouraging restraint when tensions rise.

Through storytelling, songs, and everyday conversations within families, women transmit narratives that either fuel resentment or encourage reconciliation.

A woman from Plateau State explained this quiet form of diplomacy saying, “Men may stop talking when there is conflict. But women still meet in the market. We greet each other and ask about our children. Slowly the tension begins to reduce.”

The understanding is that these everyday interactions create informal channels for dialogue and trust-building.

Peace agreements negotiated without women often fail to address everyday realities—such as access to farms, market safety, education for displaced children, and protection from gender-based violence.

If Nigeria is serious about sustainable peace at the grassroots, women’s participation must move from the margins to the centre of peace processes.

This means including women in formal peace negotiations and local conflict resolution committees; supporting women’s networks as platforms for early warning and dialogue; strengthening economic programs that enable women to rebuild livelihoods across divided communities and providing leadership and mediation training for women in conflict-prone areas.

Peace is not merely the absence of gunfire. It is the rebuilding of relationships, trust, and shared futures.

If we truly seek lasting peace in the rural communities in Nigeria, women must move from the margins of peace processes to the center of them. Without their voices, peace agreements may be signed. But with their participation, peace can endure.

 

Prof Angya, a former vice chancellor, contributed this piece from Abuja