Small-Scale Wars in the Northern Parts of Ghana: A Case Study of the Forced Migration during 1994 Nanumba-Konkomba Wars and its Effects on Women

Abstract

This study is a part of an on-going research project on violence against women in Ghana. It is based on the Ghanaian newspapers’ coverage of the 1994 Nanumba-Konkomba ethnic conflict and small war in the Northern Region of Ghana. Additionally, the study benefits from oral history collected from female victims of the war. Framed as a case study and defined by the 1994 Nanumba-Konkomba ethnic clash, the most violent and tragic to date, the study illustrates that the intermittent ethnic conflicts, their consequent wars, and forced migrations adversely impact women in the region the most. Overall, the principal subject matter of the study, which is the adverse effects of the ethnic wars on women, fills a major gap in the emerging historiography on ethnic conflicts in northern Ghana and contributes to our understanding of gender and wars in postcolonial Africa as a whole.