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Women in the Vortex of Violence and Forced Migration: The 1994 Nanumba-Konkomba Ethnic Conflict in Ghana

Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry, Shippensburg University

This study is based an on-going research project on violence against women in Ghana. It draws extensively on the Ghanaian newspapers' coverage of the 1994 Nanumba-Konkomba ethnic conflict and violence in the Northern Region of Ghana. Endemic ethnic incompatibility in the Northern Region had also led to violence, but on a lesser scale in 1980, 1981, 1987, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1996, 2001 and 2002. The study discusses and calls attention to the victimization and violence against women and children in the course of the outbreaks of ethnic violence and consequent forced migration in the area. Using the 1994 Nanumba-Konkomba ethnic clash, the most violent and tragic to date, as a case study, I elucidate that the recurring ethnic conflicts and violence that lead to forced migration have adverse impact on and marginalize women and children the most. Consequently, the recurring ethnic conflicts and forced migrations exacerbate the feminization of violence in the region and contribute to the impoverization and oppression of women.