Women in the hills of Manipur have been silently braving the frontline of conflicts and all sorts of human rights violations that affects them directly as well as indirectly. In any conflict situation, women and girls becomes more vulnerable even when the entire community suffers the consequences of the spillover of the conflict.

It is estimated that close to 90 per cent of current war casualties are civilians, the majority of whom are women and children, compared to a century ago when 90 per cent of those who lost their lives were military personnel.

In Churachandpur district of Manipur, women and girls, no doubt, are the most affected by the decades of violence and instability both from the state as well as non-state actors. The appalling statistic of women as victims is also the same in Chandel district.

Very recently, with the state sponsored military operation that was designed to flush out the militants from different parts of Manipur, women ultimately emerged as the silent bearer of the burden brunt. They composed the larger number of affected people who were displaced, traumatised, rape, and molested. Unfortunately, the record also shows women and girls who were also maimed and paralysed by landmines.

After many breadwinners in the family have fallen prey to weapons of civilian destruction, be it small arms, landmines and IEDs, women took the responsibilities of shouldering the role and responsibilities of the head of the family.

Imagine the situation of woman like Rami, wife of (L) Hrangkunglien, who was killed on December 29,2005 in Thanlon sub-division after stepping on the landmine. Rami is now compelled to play the role of a father and mother to her six young children. Rami also lost one of her sons, Alfred Lalditum (14) to landmines in June 2006 on the same date that his father died. That reduced her children to six from seven.

There are many other women who are nursing, if not the absence, their handicapped husband and children. They are assuming the key role of ensuring family livelihood in the midst of chaos and destruction. In the midst of absence and patriarchal ignorance. Societal ignorance. Government’s ignorance. And everyone’s ignorance. But they are the pillar of the life that follows.

The deserted Lungthulien village, Tipaimukh, in February 2006, was not a desired place for refuge at night. It was visibly dormant with fears and tears. The remaining souls who did not flee to Mizoram fumed with anger and helplessness. The question and concern for security suddenly becomes a big quest. That is when I found myself making new room for regrets. Sometimes helplessness is regretting.

One breadwinners I met shiver in anger. He told us he could not even think of leaving the village because the family was too poor. Two of his daughters were raped. He was always reduced to tears. His wife and children watched him in utter surprise. Surprise that the family’s pillar was melting.

Gasping for words in the big space where everything seem to be absent. The absence in that space compelled me to interrogate whether I am still man or human. When, whatever little I was and I am fades to a corner, where I was further reduced to become smaller, the remainder was all that I could summon to wrap the being I must be.

The little remainder in the little man was put to test. The mighty man is a strong myth. And man is a mite. That corner, pregnant with the absence of everything, is a place I did not desire to belong. However, that is reality for them as well as for me. The villagers gruesome experience weakened me like nothing ever before.

The self is too small. Too little. Too lonely. The mighty David and Goliath, although famed for their courage and bravery, have thousands of martyrs standing behind them. Achilles too. But what about our suffering women? They turned back to find themselves alone.

When the strong weary arms with revealing veins were uncontrollably drying their eyes, the bearer of the lost rib, woman again, towered with hope and strength. I saw that in Tipaimukh villages. The Eves of David and Goliath.

In that situation, where hope fades, she was the only visible being one can find to rely on. He was true, “It is not good for man to be alone.” Man cannot. He will never be alone. I wonder how and why man dare call her a “weaker” creature.

She was designed with His own hands. She was breathed to life with the one rib out of sleeping Adam. She was a creation of the best rib in His own hands. In Lungthulien, when the 36 ribs turned brittle, the last one that was stolen after the week lorded with the Word, it was her. I don’t know if it was another Columbus wrong findings again to call her weaker, but what I have, for few good times, experienced has negated and deconstructed the notion and belief of the existence of “weaker sex.”

When hopelessness and anger had silenced him, the “weaker sex” surfaced to represent the voice and identity of the Tipaimukh Adams who were victimised on all front. If all the might, strength and courage are stuffed into what “man” is, I tell you, she is a man. She owns that. She fanned her man alive with strength and courage.

Clothed him from the naked absence of everything. Man never realised that he was naked. She made him regained his lost senses and reason. She is not just a wife with the womb. She is life in herself. When loss multiplies in abundance, innocence raped, and blood flows to only dry, she came to the rescue. She speaks out. She fed us. She bears all the pain to speak more. Words will find them soon. For any man is her son. The stolen rib is stronger.

However, the absence of women at the peace-negotiating table or in any decision-making process is undeniable even when they are in the frontline of all forms of victimisation. There are reports and cases of them getting harassed and victimised by the authorities in their quest to get the promised compensation and other Leviathan’s promises that was made for their departed loved ones.

Then, there are hundreds of women and girls who were displaced by the threats, tensions and insecurities that gripped their villages. As a rule of thumb, more than 75 per cent of displaced people are women and children, and in some refugee populations they constitute 90 percent. This displacement further exposed women and girls to various unwanted environments where they continue to step into another chapter of conscious and unconscious victimisation.

The talk about peace, justice, rights, etc are a mute tirade for the suffering women who are further disgraced and humiliated by the State as well as the perpetrators. The space for respect of women is lost. The State as well as different institutions again failed in the confidence building process and other healing process that ought to wrap the aftermath of their sufferings.

When progress and development are transforming the lives of women in different parts of the world, our women are transformed to a reduced state where they suffer as victims and are also burdened with the changing role and responsibilities, that of the head of family.

There is a demanding need to examine conflict from a gender perspective. These conflicts weaken social relations and decreases communication and cooperation between the victims as well as the state and other institutions. Suffering women in Manipur, as a group, are structurally disadvantaged, have less access to resources, and have to carry the burden of reproductive work too.

Their rights are often given less weight than those of men and they are marginalised in decision-making processes. Today our suffering women require empowerment gained through their rights at least as victims. They need collective support. You and me. The government. Church and other NGOs. Media. And they need hope.

All the more there is a need to stress and ascribe importance to women’s human rights, coping strategies in conflict by taking into account security and protection of women. War and conflicts touched women’s life and shatter them. It never lifts them.