Paper short abstract:

Through retracing the history of the international involvement of several South Sudanese women in Sudan’s peace process, this article reflects on the different roles of women’s involvement in peace efforts, from women’s perspectives to that of the international community and of armed groups.

Paper long abstract:

This paper traces the history of several South Sudanese women and their international involvement in advocating for peace and the defense of human rights in the South. In doing so, this paper highlights different types of engagement through their participation to international conferences and workshops, through the creation of non-governmental organizations abroad, through lobbying and ultimately through their association to the peace talks.

Furthermore, this paper also shows that this international involvement of a few women followed a particular timeline that was connected to an increasingly favorable international context, both for these women and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). Their international engagement and visibility thus replied to both local and international needs. It provided the SPLA with more international respectability and the internationally-led peace process with gains of apparent legitimacy.

Therefore, contrary to these women's discourse of non-partisan peace efforts and that of the international community promoting women's role as peacemakers, this international involvement was hardly neutral. Rather, due to the high social backgrounds of these women and their links to armed groups, their international engagement functioned as a social and political stepping-stone for access to government positions in the post- war context. Their international involvement therefore contributed to the consolidation of social classes in South Sudan that were restructured during the war, and distinguished them from "ordinary" women who remained in South Sudan during the war.