Part 3

The alarming rate of widespread and systematic nature of sexual violence against women during armed conflict in recent years elicited cries from various organizations and women’s groups which caused the United Nations Security Council to act by passing Resolution 1820. Various reasons account for this high rate and horrendous nature of sexual violence against women. Generally, in times of war, the climate of lawlessness and violence allows for all kinds of crimes including sexual violence to take place with impunity. Aside this, other factors lead to the high occurrence of sexual violence in times of armed conflict.

Sexual violence as a strategy or weapon of war

Sexual violence can be used as a strategy or a weapon of war. It is a means of depressing and proving the subjugation of the enemy. Rape intimidates and hurts the identity and pride of the enemy, to which the victim belongs.[i] Since the rape of a woman in a communal society is likely to affect not only the victim but the family and ultimately the community as a whole, it becomes part of the attempt to destroy the defeated people or nation.[ii] Sexual violence is also used as an effective means to terrorize and demoralize members of the adversary group, thereby forcing them to take flight.[iii] In the 1990s, mass rape was used as a weapon of war during the Balkan wars where “it is estimated that upward of 20,000 Bosnian, Croat and Serb women were raped, often gang raped, and sometimes sexually enslaved and forcibly impregnated in so-called ‘rape camps’, by armies and paramilitary groups”.[iv] Also, it is reported that during the 1994 genocide that took place in Rwanda, there was mass rape by the Hutu militia against Tutsi women with the purpose of destroying the Tutsi minority.[v] As ammunitions are used to kill the enemy, so has sexual violence against women during war as described, become a way to destroy the enemy.

Sexual violence as a means of ethnic cleansing

Women are increasingly subjected to sexual violence during armed conflicts for the purpose of ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing is the process of evacuating or forcing out certain ethnic groups from geographic areas.[vi] This can be done through forced impregnation, the prevention or termination of births, or the infliction of severe physical or mental suffering.[vii] In the case of the war in the Former Yugoslavia, the purpose of using rape was for ethnic cleansing. The intention was for the Serbs to gain complete territorial control of the area by raping and forcefully impregnating Muslim women.[viii] Sometimes the Muslim women were subjected to sexual violence “with the express purpose of enforced pregnancy” and also the rapists are explicit in using sexual violence as a tactic in ethnic cleansing.[ix] Forced impregnation is also used in Darfur for ethnic cleansing where sexual violence is employed by the Janjaweed militia men to fill the region with Arab babies.[x] It is stated that, “[m]en may fight the battles, but women—because they are key to the survival of an ethnic group—are always targets in a campaign of genocide. Destroy the women and you destroy the race or ethnicity”.[xi]

Propaganda

The treatment an individual or a group receives from another can depend on the kind of conception that the other forms about the individual or group. One factor that contributes to sexual violence targeted at women during armed conflict can be the use and spread of propaganda about women of the enemy side. For instance, during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Tutsi women were targeted for sexual violence because of a propaganda that said that Tutsi women “loved to sleep around” and also “looked down on Hutu men”.[xii] Labeling Tutsi women as more beautiful and giving them a “sexist preconception” also led to the “horrid treatment” they received during the genocide.[xiii]

Patriarchy

Women suffer sexual violence even before the eruption of armed conflict and it only aggravates during situations of armed conflicts when there is lawlessness. This can be due to the system of patriarchy. Patriarchy is a system backed by the ideology which privileges maleness and masculinity over femaleness and femininity. This system tends to place more power and control in the hands of males. It is argued that if rape cuts across almost all cultures and all times in history, then a “patriarchal ideology of rape has developed, allowing the act to evolve into a principal weapon of power over women”.[xiv] This ideology is mainly revealed during wartime, rendering rape a means to control the body of a woman, “a triumph of physical strength and manhood”.[xv]

Militarization

In observation, there seems to be increased tolerance of violence during armed conflicts due to the breakdown in social order and the process of militarization put civilians especially women at greatly increased risk of sexual violence. In militarization process, military organizations must instill in soldiers a pattern of aggression which gets soldiers to behave as required. Military indoctrination often renders the combatants insensitive and degrades the opposition.[xvi] This process together with the breakdown in law and order in the society enable violence or crime to thrive easily during armed conflict. The aggression may lead to the commission of sexual violence against women. A report by the Special Rapporteur on violence against women stated that there is a high indication that the process of militarization which includes easy access to small weapons which happens before and during armed conflict, and also during the process of demobilization of “often frustrated and aggressive soldiers after a conflict”, could contribute to the upsurge of violence against women and girls”.[xvii]

In addition, a reason for sexual violence against women is that “access to women’s bodies and sexuality are often seen as ‘the spoils of war’ or part of the ‘services’ that are made available to combatants”.[xviii] Often, when an enemy is defeated in war, the victor takes possession of all kinds of property belonging to the enemy. In a way, women are considered to be part of the booty. This results in abusing the women particularly in the form of sexual slavery.

To be continued…


[i] Neill, K. G., “Duty, Honor, Rape: Sexual Assault Against Women During War”, Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 2 No. 1, ( 2000), p.5

[ii] Ibid. p.6

[iii] Report by Mcdougall G. J. Special Rapporteur CONTEMPORARY FORMS OF SLAVERY: Systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-like practices during armed conflict, E/CN.4/Sub.2/2000/21 (June 6, 2000), p.6

[iv]Report by Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, Rapporteur: Ms Miet Smet, Belgium, Group of the European People’s Party, Sexual violence against women in armed conflict, Parliamentary Assembly, European Council Document 11916, (2009), p.2

[v] Katayama L., Rape as a Weapon-In Darfur as elsewhere, systematic rape is used as a means of ethnic cleansing, posted February 22, 2005 on www.motherjones.com/politics, accessed May 28, 2010

[vi] Neill, K. G., “Duty, Honor, Rape: Sexual Assault Against Women During War”, Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 2, No. 1, (2000), p.7

[vii] Report by Mcdougall G. J. Special Rapporteur CONTEMPORARY FORMS OF SLAVERY: Systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-like practices during armed conflict, E/CN.4/Sub.2/2000/21 (June 6, 2000), p.7

[viii] Price, L., “Sexual Violence and Ethnic Cleansing: Attacking the family”, Thinking Differently: A reader in European Women’s Studies, edited by Gabriele Griffin  and Rosi Bradiotti, (London: Zed Books, 2002), p.261

[ix] Ibid. p.261

[x] Katayama L., Rape as a Weapon-In Darfur as elsewhere, systematic rape is used as a means of ethnic cleansing, posted February 22, 2005 on www.motherjones.com/politics, accessed May 28, 2010

[xi] Why rape was a key part of Genocide in Rwanda, available at http://clg.portalxm.com/library/keytext.cfm?keytext_id=128, retrieved June 29, 2010

[xii] Wilson S., Major Research Report Topic: Sexual Violence against Women in War. Research Report topic: The Effects of Sexual Violence Against Women in War:  A Case Study of Rwanda (no date), p.2

[xiii] Ibid. p.2

[xiv] Neill, K. G., “Duty, Honor, Rape: Sexual Assault Against Women During War”, Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 2, No. 1, (2000), p.2

[xv] Ibid. p.2

[xvi] Update to final report by Mcdougall G. J. Special Rapporteur on  Contemporary Forms of Slavery-systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-like practices during armed conflict, E/CN.4/Sub.2/2000/21 6 June 2000, p.7

[xvii] Report of the Special Rapporteur (Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy) on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Integration Of The Human Rights of Women and The Gender Perspective-Violence against women (E/CN.4/2001/73) (January 23, 2001), p.18

[xviii] Op. cit. p.6

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