Armed conflict, terrorism and feminized poverty in developing countries: the Nigerian example

Armed conflict and terrorism with their attendant impacts have found their ways into global vocabularies in contemporary times. Similarly, developing countries are not exempted from these threats to peace and stability at local and national levels. The problematique of this study is in two parts, first, while armed conflicts and terrorism discourses and their impact on women and girls have enjoyed generous scholarly attention in recent past, connections between both concepts and feminized poverty have been largely downplayed. Second, literature is replete with women largely presented as vulnerable during armed conflict and terrorism, while their roles as promoters and perpetrators of violence has not enjoyed robust scholarly attention. This paper identifies the intellectual dimension of feminized poverty as a major contributory factor to increased involvement of women in armed conflict and terrorism. It also argues that predominant negative impacts of these acts on women are traceable to intellectual poverty. Accordingly, the paper teases out the links between feminized poverty, armed conflict and terrorism. It also examines feminized poverty from social, political and intellectual dimensions and how identified problems may be tackled. Using methods of critical analysis and reflective argumentation, the paper exposes these transformations in conflict discourse drawing from the Nigerian experience.