Looking war in the face

Mah Bibi, Afghanistan, 2001

Image by ©Nick Danziger/nbpictures.com

Ten years after photographing 11 women in various conflict zones for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Nick Danziger tried to track them down to see what had become of their lives.

The result of his efforts is on view at the Imperial War Museum in London.

Only one had died. Mah Bibi, who had originally fled from her village age 10 when the Taliban attacked. Her testimony in 2001 was painful: “This morning we had nothing to eat. So we ate grass.”

Overall, though, what’s remarkable – apart from their survival – is the women’s lack of desire for revenge. “None of these women ever spoke to me of revenge,” writes Danziger, ”but all hoped for justice and peace.”

Little chance of that.

“In some cases,’ he writes, “‘peace’ has come to the country but the war hasn’t ended for these women. Most continue to endure the legacy of their traumatic experience. Loss, disability, poverty and discrimination dominate their lives, often because of traditions imposed by their own communities."

Several even consider themselves comparatively lucky. Mariatu had both hands chopped off with a machete during the Sierra Leone civil war, but says, “Fortune has smiled on me.” With the help of the UN Children’s Fund she emigrated to Canada, trained as a social worker, wrote a book, The Bite of the Mango, and helps Unicef speak up for children in conflict zones. 

Another Sierra Leonean,  Sarah, was forced into sex slavery after her father, fiancé and brothers were murdered by rebels, and has been unable to return to her home because her village regards her as a pariah. She was promised reparations but when she talked to Danziger had not received a penny.

But “I’ve married a good man and given birth to another little girl” and she is learning a trade: “I want to become a hairdresser. Kadija is my model.”

Children are often a consolation, for former Colombian guerrilla Amanda (“I hope he’ll have a normal childhood and adolescence”,  though his father is missing, presumed dead) and for Nasrin, who lost part of her right leg when she stepped on a landmine, who is in constant pain, and who became impoverished after selling off her husband’s land to pay for his funeral. But help from the International Committee of the Red Cross – and from her children –has enabled her to live an independent life.

It is the women’s spirit and determination that stands out, as well as the cruelty of their attackers, even when it does not come in the form of direct physical assault on their bodies, such as the way that Israeli settlers pelted the home of Shinaz in the Occupied West Bank with rubbish. It had to be protected with wire netting.

It’s also worthy noting, at a time when many of us express cynicism about the usefulness of aid and intervention, that in many of these cases the assistance provided by organisations such as Unicef and the ICRC has been invaluable. In a world as awful as this, in which Olja, a Kosovo Serb, can describe herself as “relatively fortunate” because her husband’s remains have been identified, any help and support is not only of practical value but is evidence that not all sense of  humanity has been destroyed in the world. Looking at some of these women’s lives, we need such reassurance.

* Eleven Women Facing War, an exhibition of photographs and film by Nick Danziger, is at the Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ, until 24 April. Info: http://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-london