'The home stress': the role of soldiers' family life on Peacekeeping missions, the case of Sierra Leone/ Maggie Dwyer & Osman Gbla

Through the case of the Sierra Leonean deployment on the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), this study argues that family-related stress is an often-overlooked challenge in peacekeeping deployments. Using in-depth interviews with Sierra Leonean soldiers who were part of the deployment, military decision makers, and foreign advisors, this article lays out specific factors that created family-related tensions and contributed to lowered morale for Sierra Leonean peacekeepers. It demonstrates that the family-related stress on deployment is not only an issue of family separation, it is entangled with the historic trajectories of the armed forces and the sending country's socio-economic conditions. The focus on Sierra Leone highlights the additional and unique burdens that soldiers and their families may endure in troop contributions from lower-income countries.

PEACEKEEP, MILITARY