The Intensification of Liberian Women's Social Reproductive Labor in

the Coronavirus Pandemic: Regenerative Possibilities

Author(s): Erica S. Lawson, Florence Wullo Anfaara, Vaiba Kebeh Flomo, Cerue Konah Garlo
and Ola Osman
Source: Feminist Studies , 2020, Vol. 46, No. 3, Feminist Analysis of COVID-19 (2020), pp.
674-683
Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.15767/feministstudies.46.3.0674

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Erica S. Lawson, Florence wullo Anfaara,
Vaiba Kebeh Flomo, Cerue Konah Garlo, and Ola Osman

The Intensification of Liberian

Women’s Social Reproductive Labor
in the Coronavirus Pandemic:
Regenerative Possibilities

In Liberia, a post-conflict country of five million people, the coronavi-

rus pandemic has intensified women’s social reproductive labor to insti-
tutionalize peace, security, and gender equality. The challenges facing
Liberian women are partly rooted in the conditionalities imposed by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), civil wars, and the extraction of nat-
ural resources to enrich local “warlords” and international investors, all
of which have eroded the health infrastructure as well as public trust.
Traditional Marxist analyses of such challenges largely center commod-
ity finance, private property, and labor for wages. Given that women are
typically unable to benefit from capitalism in these ways, this commen-
tary explores how we think about women’s social reproductive labor.
Broadly informed by this question, we discuss the strategies that
Liberian women have used to manage the coronavirus pandemic, how
these strategies exemplify and extend women’s reproductive roles, and
how women view the fallout from the virus as a threat to their fragile
peace gains. We locate our examination at the site of gendered work in
Peace Huts. These are community councils largely managed by Liberian
women for transitional justice, security, and peace-building goals. This
commentary is based on research in progress to document women’s social
reproductive labor in Peace Huts. The quotes presented are excerpted
from recent conversations with Liberian women about the virus’s impact

674 Feminist Studies 46, no. 3. © 2020 by Feminist Studies, Inc.

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Lawson et al. 675

on their lives, including those who provide or use Peace Hut services,
many of whom are at the forefront of pandemic containment.
Feminist political economy interrogates gendered social reproduc-
tive labor and its contributions to capitalist modernity, even as it is under-
valued. Women’s social reproductive labor, largely unpaid and invisible,
sustains families and households, provides care for children, the elderly,
and the sick, and “cushion[s] ‘crisis shocks’ whether associated with finan-
cial crashes, conflict outbreak or humanitarian disasters.” 1 Feminist schol-
ars further address how capitalism generates different forms of gendered
debt traps for women, as they try to earn a living in informal sectors
where their income-generating activities are precarious.2
Our thinking is framed by Nancy Fraser’s critique of a narrow view
of capitalism, which focuses solely on the economy, to an expanded
reading of it as an “institutionalized social order” that relies on, while
simultaneously denying, the centrality of reproductive labor to its oper-
ationalization.3 Further, informed by the argument that social reproduc-
tive labor is essential to “the protection and strengthening of communities
and intimate relations,” we understand this type of work as central to Libe-
rian women’s mass protests against the fourteen-year civil war (1989–
2003).4 The continued and strategic deployment of this labor holds poli-
ticians and citizens accountable for maintaining peace, and importantly,
women identify connections between peace building and containing the
spread of the coronavirus.5 In other words, because women rely more
closely on community and social networks, they are invested in protect-
ing these assets with their labor.

1. Shirin M. Rai, Jacqui True, and Maria Tanyag, “From Depletion to Regen-
eration: Addressing Structural and Physical Violence in Post-conflict Econ-
omies,” Social Politics 26, no. 4 (2019): 565.
2. Genevieve LeBaron and Adrienne Roberts, “Toward a Feminist Political
Economy of Capitalism and Carcerality,” Signs 36, no. 1 (2010): 19–20.
3. Nancy Fraser, “Critique of Capitalism: What Should Socialism Mean in the
21st Century,” June 11, 2020, Institute for Critical Social Inquiry, New School,
New York, YouTube Video, 1:21:90, https://www.criticalsocialinquiry.org
/photosvideos.
4. Rebecca Hall, “Caring Labours as Decolonizing Resistance,” Studies in Social
Justice 10, no. 2 (2016): 220.
5. Helene Cooper, “Liberia’s Women Warn Male Presidential Candidates: Keep
the Peace,” New York Times, October 9, 2017, https://nyti.ms/2yTP6lg.

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676 Lawson et al.

Liberian women are extended a degree of cultural respect for moth-

erhood, and this facilitates some support for women’s political partici-
pation in the society.6 Furthermore, they view their social reproductive
work as regenerative with the potential to advance transitional justice
and post-conflict recovery centered in a care-focused economy.7 As such,
Liberian women’s reproductive labor is a site of struggle against a capi-
talist agenda advanced by IMF policies, which result in misplaced prior-
ities with respect to post-conflict reconstruction and resistance to how
neoliberalism undermines African societies.
Indeed, scholarship documenting how IMF policies have eroded
economies, and specifically healthcare systems and expenditures, in low-in-
come countries is well established.8 The IMF’s emphasis on debt repay-
ment, decentralization, deep cuts to public services, and the exposure of
fragile markets to global trade has weakened many African states.9 An
examination of IMF conditionalities on sixteen West African countries,
including Liberia, from 1995–2012 revealed that IMF policies impeded
the countries’ ability to hire, retain, and adequately compensate health
professionals.10 African countries struggle against “brain drain” and the
loss of health professionals, many of whom emigrate to richer countries
for better opportunities.11
Even when countries are rich in natural resources, these are exploited
to benefit international actors and local elites, thus further eroding the
possibility for a robust tax base to fund public services such as education
and healthcare. With the complicity of the international community
and investors, former Liberian President and warlord Charles Taylor

6. Filomena Chioma Steady, Women and Leadership in West Africa: Mothering

the Nation and Humanizing the State (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011),
25, 158.
7. Rai, True, and Tanyag, “From Depletion to Regeneration,” 576–77.
8. Thomas Stubbs, Alexander Kentikelenis, David Stuckler, Martin McKee,
and Lawrence King, “The Impact of IMF Conditionality on Government
Health Expenditure: A Cross-national Analysis of 16 West African Nations,”
Social Science & Medicine 174 (2017): 220.
9. Brook K. Baker, “The Impact of the International Monetary Fund’s Macro-
economic Policies on the AIDS Pandemic,” International Journal of Health
Services 40, no. 2 (2010): 347.
10. Stubbs, et al., “The Impact of IMF Conditionality on Government Health
Expenditure,” 223.
11. Michael A. Clemens and Gunilla Pettersson, “New Data on African Health
Professionals Abroad,” Human Resources for Health 6, no. 1 (2008): 1–2.

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Lawson et al. 677

permitted the extraction of resources such as timber and diamonds to

fund wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Profits generated from these illicit
deals benefited “unscrupulous investors, foreign firms, local strongmen
and Taylor cronies.” 12 Such uses of global trade to fund wars are exam-
ples of what Naomi Klein defines as disaster capitalism, whereby inves-
tors swoop in to profit from natural or human-generated catastrophes,
leading to the displacement of already precarious populations.13
Today, efforts to contain COVID-19 come on the heels of the Ebola
Virus Disease (EVD), which intensified Liberian women’s caring labor
and rolled back fragile peace gains. COVID-19 is reminiscent of the EVD
crisis that women faced not long ago; the economic conditions that
exacerbated EVD are also similar today. During the Ebola crisis in 2014,
the IMF announced US$430 million to help fight the disease in Liberia,
Sierra Leone, and Guinea.14 Yet, there is evidence that stringent condi-
tionalities imposed by the IMF over decades created the circumstances
that exacerbated these countries’ structural inability to contain Ebola.
Further, the lack of trust in government among Liberians ham-
pered the containment of Ebola; many people did not believe the public
service information and protective strategies communicated by the gov-
ernment. It is tempting to view mistrust as mere ignorance or as a wari-
ness rooted in unfounded fears. But there is evidence to suggest that
years of resource exploitation for the benefit of a select few, including
local authorities and traditional chiefs, has led to suspicion of these
groups among marginalized Liberians.15 Indeed, community members
have made the connection between the devastation of local economies
and the erosion of the public health system due to protracted conflicts
and the emergence of hemorrhagic diseases such as Ebola.
During the Ebola crisis, women extended their social reproductive
roles to care for the sick and dying, in some cases losing their own lives or
livelihoods. This occurred, in part, because of the government’s failure

12. Patrick Johnston, “Timber Booms, State Busts: The Political Economy of
Liberian Timber,” Review of African Political Economy 31, no. 101 (2004): 449.
13. Naomi Klein, “Disaster Capitalism,” Harper’s Magazine, October 2007, 48–49.
14. Alexander Kentikelenis, Lawrence King, Martin McKee, and David Stuck-
ler, “The International Monetary Fund and the Ebola Outbreak,” The Lancet
Global Health 3, no. 2 (2015): E69.
15. Jeremy Allouche, “Ebola and Extractive Industry,” IDS Practice Paper in
Brief 21, Institute of Development Studies, February 2015, 2–3.

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678 Lawson et al.

to contain the disease and the international community’s slow response

to the outbreak. A United Nations report found that, “After Ebola quar-
antine measures were lifted in West Africa, women were slower than
men to recover their livelihoods and had a harder time securing loans to
rebuild their businesses.” 16
Today, facing near-collapse of the health infrastructure’s ability to
meet basic needs, Liberian women, once again, must marshal their labor
to contain the coronavirus. The women at the forefront of containment
activities belong to Peace Huts. Women established Peace Huts at the
end of the last civil war to continue their peace-building work and to
implement aspects of the formal peace agreement that ended the war.
Liberian women utilize Peace Huts to mediate domestic disputes, nego-
tiate child-care provisions between parents, work with the police when
appropriate to solve serious crimes related to sexual gender-based violence
(SGBV), support victims of these crimes through the courts, and promote
women’s participation in the political system. Peace Huts have estab-
lished susu groups (rotating, locally based savings and lending arrange-
ments) to offer financial assistance to women to start small businesses,
pay school fees, and otherwise support their families. Women in Peace
Huts understand all of these social reproductive activities as directly
tied to peace building, security, and gender justice.17
There are approximately twenty-one Peace Huts in Liberia, each
structured to address shared social problems (e.g., teen pregnancy, pov-
erty, ecological and resource exploitation) as well as other issues spe-
cific to different communities; they adhere to UN Security Resolution
1325, which calls for gender mainstreaming and women’s involvement in
all aspects of peace building in post-conflict societies. Some Peace Huts
receive limited funding from international organizations such as UN
Women; others receive nothing, and all compete for scarce resources.

16. Kai Schultz and Suhasini Raj, “For Indian Women, the Coronavirus Economy Is
a Devastating Setback,” New York Times, July 15, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com
/2020/06/09/world/asia/india-coronavirus-women-economy.html; United Nations,
“Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Women,” April 9, 2020, https://www.
unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publica-
tions/2020/policy-brief-the-impact-of-covid-19-on-women-en.pdf?la=en&vs=1406.
17. Erica S. Lawson and Vaiba K. Flomo, “Motherwork and Gender Justice in
Peace Huts: A Feminist View from Liberia,” Third World Quarterly 41, no. 11
(2020): 1863.

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Lawson et al. 679

A Peace Hut manager we interviewed explained how the Peace Hut is

structured using an example of how they attempt to address crimes:

For our Peace Hut, we have the leadership and we have ten women
under the Peace Hut. Then we have Animators in the communities,
where if an incident takes place, or a crime, they will take it to the
police station, or call the police. And the person that is responsi-
ble for the crime, either rape or domestic violence, will get moved to
the police station. Animators also monitor the case or take the sur-
vivor or victim to the hospital. There must be ten persons under the
Peace Hut every day. And we select women who know how to handle
rape, domestic violence, child support, and other cases in the com-
munity. Then we have Animators that report to the Hut every Thurs-
day to brief us.18
Women’s reproductive labor in Peace Huts is contoured by shared
material needs, political participation, and social involvement, thus
fashioning a context-specific understanding of feminist political economy
tied to an expanded view of transitional justice. Recognizing the multiple
and contextualized ways that Liberian women utilize their social repro-
ductive labor is not meant to suggest that they are not burdened by gen-
dered work. In fact, “As the paid and unpaid labor of women increases
to support households, and social infrastructure deteriorates because of
austerity policies and/or lack of investment, the pressures on women’s
health and well-being intensify.” 19
The people-centered labor that women perform mitigates the crises
that result from the very unfettered, profit-generating practices from
which they benefit the least. Indeed, care as social reproduction “refers
to . . . a range of activities and relationships that promote the physical
and emotional well-being of people who cannot or who are not inclined
to perform these activities themselves.” 20 This view of the politics of care,
when applied to Liberian women’s reproductive work, offers a glimpse into
a possible socially cooperative and regenerative future. Reproductive labor
in a care economy has the potential to advance a more holistic practice
of transitional justice encompassed within a people-focused framework
rather than the existing militarized approach to peace and security.

18. Interview with Peace Hut leader, Lawson and Flomo, “Motherwork and
Gender Justice in Peace Huts,” 1873.
19. Rai, True, and Tanyag, “From Depletion to Regeneration,” 570.
20. Eleonore Kofman, “Rethinking Care through Social Reproduction: Articu-
lating Circuits of Migration,” Social Politics 19, no. 1 (2012): 143.

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680 Lawson et al.

The Liberian government, like others around the world, imple-

mented measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus, including
the declaration of a state of emergency and the imposition of curfews.
When the first coronavirus case was confirmed, President George Weah
declared a “state of public health emergency.” Weah announced that all
public gatherings, including at schools, churches, and mosques, were
banned; gatherings, only if absolutely necessary, were limited to no more
than ten people. Also, a twenty-one-day partial lockdown was imposed
on Montserrado and Margibi counties where six cases emerged. Two
other counties, Nimba and Grand Kru, were partially locked down for at
least fourteen days.
Women who work in Peace Huts were at the forefront of stemming
the spread of the coronavirus. Those with previous Ebola containment
experience quickly gathered to promote awareness among community
members about this novel disease. They placed buckets with soap and
water in front of their homes to encourage handwashing, and at the
national level, women in Peace Huts launched a “Hand Wash Day” to call
public attention to health protocols, including wearing a mask in public
and social distancing, a difficult proposition in impoverished communi-
ties where people live and work in close proximity.
At the start of the outbreak, women in Peace Huts met in the Air-
field, a central gathering place in Monrovia, to remind the public to
practice health protocols.21 From the Airfield, women moved to strate-
gic points around the city carrying soap and water, and, with the use of
a megaphone, communicated messages to the public about the impor-
tance of following health protocols.
Women also utilized their community contacts and leadership
skills to provide correct information about COVID-19 in circumstances
where some Liberians believed the disease was a hoax. Additionally, they
engaged in activities such as setting up washing stations at major inter-
sections as well as distributing food and other essential items; they also
continued other aspects of their peace-building work, such as public

21. It is instructive to note that the Airfield was a prominent gathering place for
thousands of Liberian women who led mass protests to end the civil war;
here, they were in full view of former President Charles Taylor, who had to
pass the Airfield on his route to work each day.

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Lawson et al. 681

announcements against domestic violence and child abuse as well as

encouraging Peace Hut leaders to report these incidents to the police.
COVID-19 is among a number of global economic catastrophes in
recent years that have revealed the detrimental impacts of capitalism’s
built-in crisis mechanisms. However, unlike in countries such as the
United States, which have amassed enormous wealth in part by exploit-
ing weaker economies, women in Liberia cannot rely on their government
to spend billions of dollars to prop up their economy or to provide basic
income and quality healthcare. Consequently, the coronavirus pandemic
and Liberia’s lockdown measures had immediate impacts on women,
especially those who work in the informal microenterprise sector.
Among the number of hardships exacerbated by the virus we high-
light four. First, women experienced increased incidents of domestic vio-
lence in confinement in a country where sexual and gender-based vio-
lence is already extremely high. Second, the abrupt loss of income meant
that women were unable to purchase basic necessities such as medica-
tion and food. Also, confinement resulted in an increased consumption
of food. According to one community member, “I have seven children.
Before the virus, we ate five cups [of rice] per day, but now this has dou-
bled.” Women in search of food were forced to risk exposure to the virus
and had to draw heavily on susu cooperatives to survive:

Our market tables are closed, and our accounts are depleted. Some
of us took loans from susu clubs to do our small business/market
with the hope to improve our business, but COVID-19 made us to eat
all the money. Women also took loans from shop owners, susu clubs
and Money Exchangers to buy food for their families. Where will
women take money from to pay their children school’s fees when
schools re-open? 22

Third, the pandemic has threatened educational gains leaving

young women and men uncertain about the future:

For us as young women, C-19 has shifted our directions. My plan was
to celebrate my eighteenth birthday in college, but now I’m in stuck
and don’t know my way out. Sometimes I try to read but I also find it
difficult to concentrate, thinking about the reality that my loved ones
could come down with C-19. Fear continues to grow in me about the
virus, my education (when will I go to college?), the life of my family
(no one in my family should fall to C-19), and my own life (when will

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682 Lawson et al.

this be over?). Frankly, to conclude this conversation, hopelessness

has over-taken our ambitions, so when do we inspire the others?” 23

Fourth, fears and increasing mistrust are evident among commu-

nity members because of the nature of the virus:

The lack of trust has increased between community members and

their leaders. It broke down relationships among community people,
everyone was suspicious of his/her friend or relative. Every door was
shut; neighbors blaming neighbors for not sharing. . . . It has left our
communities vulnerable and [has] increased the fear that any com-
munity member can come down with C-19.

This is particularly alarming because community trust and goodwill are

foundational to women’s reproductive work in Peace Huts. It remains to
be seen how women’s reproductive work after the coronavirus will include
rebuilding community trust so that they can continue to build peace.
Women’s response to the virus and its connection with justice and
peace building raises important questions about how people-centered
political futures can be (re)imagined by prioritizing social reproductive
work instead of capitalist practices that destroy communities. Certainly,
the establishment of Peace Hut community councils across the country
are well positioned to identify local needs within an envisioned regen-
erative state that prioritizes “gender equality in post-conflict recon-
struction by recognizing women’s social reproductive work, facilitating
women’s political agency . . . as well as recognizing and redressing con-
flict-related harms such as gender-based violence.” 24
Peace Hut councils already undertake these initiatives. For exam-
ple, in addition to filling healthcare gaps, Peace Huts are involved in
mobilizing women to run for political office and are at the forefront of
advocating against gender-based harm through formal legal systems.
However, these regenerative activities are largely obscured and subject
to donor fatigue as well as competition for scarce resources among Peace
Hut communities. Furthermore, while enormous progress has been
made (Liberia was the first African country to elect a woman for presi-
dent), these efforts are undermined by the ruling class’s grip on political
and economic power in addition to the distraction of the international

24. Rai, True, and Tanyag, “From Depletion to Regeneration,” 575.

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Lawson et al. 683

community. Therefore, although results to date are mixed, women in

Peace Huts have made important gains; there is also widespread public
support for the Peace Hut model, which can be developed to advance
both transitional justice and economic recovery goals. Still, as scholars
note, there are wide gaps between the state’s investment in corporate
capitalism and its ability to support and sustain women’s regenerative
work.25
Women in Peace Huts expect that even after the coronavirus pan-
demic ends, there will be continued pressure on their reproductive labor
to manage these problems, which they view as central to transitional
and gender justice, peace, and security. With sustained support rooted
in a care economy that prioritizes local livelihoods, women in Peace
Huts are well positioned to achieve social transformation. Indeed, they
are already doing caring work on behalf of Liberian society in ways that
challenge a corporate-driven capitalism that values investments in pro-
duction to benefit a fortunate few.

25. George Klay Kieh, Jr., “The Political Economy of the Growth of the Libe-
rian Public Sector,” International Journal of Public Administration 39, no. 14
(2016): 1155.

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