Women in Laos Clean Up Unexploded US Cluster Bombs

Love|Peace Decades after about 90 million cluster bombs were dropped into Laos by the US — in a bombardment heavier than than Germany and Japan combined in the Second World War — about one-third lay unexploded in the country. Laos had the misfortune of being part of the Ho Chi Minh trail.

In an excellent article in the London Times, the focus isn’t the 12,000 people killed or maimed by tripping on unexploded cluster boms. In Women at the deadly end of the cluster-bomb debate, we learn just that — one-third of the bomb defusers are women in a country with traditonal gender roles.

“Our female employees are a role model for girls and women in rural areas,” says David Hayter, director of MAG’s (Manchester, England’s Mines Advisory Group) Laos operations. “It is also useful when we talk to female members of communities to find out which land they need cleared. Men and women have different roles in Laos, and their UXO clearance needs might be different. For example, women and children usually collect water, but men undertake construction tasks.”

Read on MagInternational.org.