From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
During war and armed conflict, rape is frequently used as a means of
psychological warfare in order to
humiliate
the enemy. Wartime sexual violence may occur in a variety of
situations, including institutionalized sexual slavery, wartime sexual
violence associated with specific
battles or
massacres, and individual or isolated acts of sexual violence.
Rape can also be
recognized as
genocide or
ethnic cleansing
when committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
targeted group; however, rape remains widespread in conflict zones.
There are other international legal instruments to prosecute
perpetrators but this has occurred as late as the 1990s. However, these legal instruments have so far only been used for
international conflicts, thus putting the
burden of proof in citing the international nature of conflict in order for prosecution to proceed.
Definition of rape
The perpetrator invaded the body of a person by conduct
resulting in penetration, however slight, of any part of the body of the
victim or of the perpetrator with a sexual organ, or of the anal or
genital opening of the victim with any object or any other part of the
body."
and
The invasion was committed by force, or by threat of
force or coercion, such as that caused by fear of violence, duress,
detention, psychological oppression or abuse of power,
against such person or another person, or by taking advantage of a
coercive environment, or the invasion was committed against a person
incapable of giving genuine consent.
The concept of "invasion" is intended to be broad enough to be
gender-neutral and the definition is understood to include situations
where the victim may be incapable of giving genuine consent if affected
by natural, induced or age-related incapacity.
Causes
Lawlessness
during wars and civil conflicts can create a culture of impunity
towards human rights abuses of civilians. Among some armies,
looting
of civilian areas is considered a way for soldiers to supplement their
often meager income, which can be unstable if soldiers are not paid on
time. Some militias that cannot afford to adequately pay their troops
promote pillaging as a compensation for victory, and rape of civilians
can be seen as a reward for winning battles.
According to
UNICEF, "systematic rape is often used as a weapon of war in
ethnic cleansing," having been used in various armed conflicts throughout the twentieth century alone, including
Bosnia,
Cambodia,
Uganda, and
Vietnam. In 2008, the
United Nations Security Council
argued that "women and girls are particularly targeted by the use of
sexual violence, including as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate,
instil fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a
community or ethnic group."
Dara Kay Cohen argues that some militia groups use
gang rape to bond soldiers and create a sense of cohesion within units, particularly when troops are recruited by force.
Amnesty International argues that in modern conflicts rape is used deliberately as a military strategy. Amnesty International describes war rape as a "weapon of war" or a "means of combat"
used for the purpose of conquering territory by expelling the
population therefrom, decimating remaining civilians by destroying their
links of affiliations, by the spread of AIDS, and by eliminating
cultural and religious traditions.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak characterizes "group rape perpetrated by the conquerors" as "a metonymic celebration of territorial acquisition".
Evidence provided by Cohen also suggests that some militaries that use
child soldiers use rape as a maturation ritual to increase the tolerance of troops for violence, especially in
patriarchal societies that equate masculinity with dominance and control. Some
refugees and
internally displaced people
experience human trafficking for sexual or labour exploitation due to
the breakdown of economies and policing in conflict regions.
In some conflicts, rape is used as a means of extracting information to
force women and girls to give up the location of arms caches. In
discussing gang rape as a means of bonding among soldiers, Cohen
discusses the viewpoint of "
combatant socialization",
in which military groups use gang rape as a socialization tactic during
armed conflict. By using gang rape during armed conflict, militia group
members:
- Prompt feelings of power and achievement;
- Establish status and a reputation for aggressiveness;
- Create an enhanced feeling of masculinity through bonding and bragging;
- Demonstrate dedication to the group and a willingness to take risks.
While war rape may not be an apparent tool or weapon of war, it does
serve as a primary tool to create a cohesive military group.
Gender
Feminist Opinions
Susan Brownmiller was the first historian to attempt an overview of rape in war with documentation and theory.
Brownmiller's thesis is that "War provides men with the perfect
psychological backdrop to give vent to their contempt for women. The
maleness of the military—the brute power of weaponry exclusive to their
hands, the spiritual bonding of men at arms, the manly discipline of
orders given and orders obeyed, the simple logic of the hierarchical
command—confirms for men what they long suspect—that women are
peripheral to the world that counts." She writes that rape accompanies
territorial advance by the winning side in land conflicts as one of the
spoils of war, and that "Men who rape are ordinary Joes, made unordinary
by entry into the most exclusive male-only club in the world."
Kelly Dawn Askin observes that increasingly, the victims of war are
civilians. An estimated 45 million plus civilians died during
World War II. Male and female civilians may be subject to
torture, but many studies show that war rape is more frequently perpetrated on women than men.
This may be due to the reluctance of men to come forward with
accusations of being raped, and also an institutional bias amongst NGOs,
who frequently focus resources on female victims. However rape against women is also underreported.
Perpetrators of sexual violence against women and children "commonly
include not only enemy civilians and troops but also allied and national
civilians and even comrades in arms."
The victims of war rape are usually "civilians", a category first recognized in the 19th century.
Although war rape of women is documented throughout history, laws
protecting civilians in armed conflict have tended not to recognize
sexual assault on women. Even when laws of war have recognized and
forbidden sexual assault, few prosecutions have been brought. According
to Kelly Dawn Askin, the laws of war perpetuated the attitude that
sexual assaults against women are less significant crimes, not worthy of
prosecution. War rape has until recently been a hidden element of war, which according to
Human Rights Watch
is linked to the largely gender-specific character of war rape – abuse
committed by men against women. This gender-specific character has
contributed to war rape being "narrowly portrayed as sexual or personal
in nature, a portrayal that depoliticizes sexual abuse in conflict and
results in its being ignored as a
war crime."
"To the victor go the spoils" has been a war cry for centuries, and women classed as part of the spoils of war. Furthermore, war rape has been downplayed as an unfortunate but inevitable side effect of sending men to war.
Also, war rape has in the past been regarded as a tangible reward to
soldiers (who were paid irregularly), and as a soldier's proof of
masculinity and success.
In reference to war rape in ancient times, Harold Washington argues
that warfare itself is imaged as rape, and that the cities attacked are
its victims. He argues that war rape occurs in the context of
stereotypes about women and men, which are part of the basic belief that
violent power belongs to men, and that women are its victims.
Rape of men
The
rape of men by other men is also common in war. A 2009 study by Lara Stemple found that it had been documented in conflicts worldwide; for example, 76% of male political prisoners in 1980s
El Salvador and 80% of concentration camp inmates in
Sarajevo
reported being raped or sexually tortured. Stemple concludes that the
"lack of attention to sexual abuse of men during conflict is
particularly troubling given the widespread reach of the problem". Mervyn Christian of Johns Hopkins School of Nursing has found that male rape is commonly underreported.
According to a survey published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association in 2010, 30% of women and 22% of men from the eastern part of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo reported that they had been subject to conflict-related sexual violence.
Despite the popular perception that rape during conflict is primarily
targeted against women, these figures show that sexual violence
committed against men is not a marginal occurrence. The lack of
awareness for the magnitude of the rape of men during conflict relates
to chronic underreporting. Although the physical and psychological
repercussions from rape are similar for women and men, male victims tend
to demonstrate an even greater reluctance to report their suffering to
their families or the authorities.
According to
The Guardian,
"Both perpetrator and victim enter a conspiracy of silence and why male
survivors often find, once their story is discovered, that they lose
the support and comfort of those around them. In the patriarchal
societies found in many developing countries, gender roles are strictly
defined. […] Often, […] wives who discover their husbands have been
raped decide to leave them. They ask me: 'So now how am I going to live
with him? As what? Is this still a husband? Is it a wife?' They ask, 'If
he can be raped, who is protecting me?'".
Gender roles within social hierarchies are concerned with the
question of agency in the conduct of physical violence. Men are expected
to exert violence, while women are victimized by it. In conflict
situations, rape against men dissolves this relationship and puts men in
the ‘receiving’ role of the victim. Similarly, the ‘penetrating’ role
of men as opposed to the ‘receiving’ role of women in conventional
sexual intercourse illustrates this constructed power relationship.
Hence, male rape victims experience the worst possible ‘humiliation’
with regards to the ingrained social roles they are traditionally
expected to fulfill. Moreover, their stigmatization takes on
particularly severe dimensions within conservative social environments
in which homosexual intercourse – regardless of consent – is punished
harshly. For example,
Ugandan male rape victims explain their choice to not speak out with the fear of being branded homosexuals. As
homosexuality is widely condemned in Uganda,
male victims of sexual violence often struggle to get proper support
because they are accused of being gay. In certain cases, gender roles
concerning violence and sexual conduct are so deeply ingrained that the
mere existence of male rape is denied.
History of laws against sexual assault during war
Prosecution of rapists in
war crime tribunals
is a recent development. However, the lack of explicit recognition of
war rape in international law or applicable humanitarian law may not be
used as a defense by the perpetrator of war rape.
Laws and customs of war prohibit offenses such as "inhuman treatment"
or "indecent assaults", adding to this domestic military codes and
domestic civil codes (national law) may make sexual assault a crime.
More recent
humanitarian law concerns the maltreatment of civilians and "any devastation not justified by military necessity".
Pre-modern European era
One of the first references to the "laws of war", or "traditions of war" was by
Cicero,
who urged soldiers to observe the rules of war, since obeying the
regulations separated the "men" from the "brutes". Conquering the riches
and property of an enemy was regarded as legitimate reason for war in
itself. Women were included with "property", since they were considered
under the lawful ownership of a man, whether a father, husband, slave
master, or guardian. In this context, the rape of a woman was considered
a property crime committed against the man who owned the woman.
The ancient Greeks considered war rape of women "socially
acceptable behavior well within the rules of warfare", and warriors
considered the conquered women "legitimate booty, useful as wives,
concubines, slave labor, or battle-camp
trophy".
In the Middle Ages, and until the 19th century, this attitude and
practice prevailed, and the legal protection of women in war time
related indirectly to the legal protection women were granted in peace
times. In medieval Europe, women were considered as an inferior gender
by law. The Catholic Church sought to prevent rape during feudal warfare through the institution of
Peace and Truce of God
which discouraged soldiers from attacking women and civilians in
general and through the propagation of a Christianized version of
chivalry ideal of a knight who protected innocents and did not engage in lawlessness.
According to
Fadl, Medieval
Islamic military jurisprudence laid down severe penalties for those who committed rape.
The punishment for such crimes were severe, including death, regardless
of the political convictions and religion of the perpetrator.
In 1159,
John of Salisbury wrote
Policraticus
in an attempt to regulate the conduct of armies engaged in
"justifiable" wars. Salisbury believed that acts of theft and "rapine"
(property crimes) should receive the most severe punishment, but also
believed that obeying a superior's commands whether legal or illegal,
moral or immoral, was the ultimate duty of the soldier.
In the 15th and 16th century, despite considerations and
systematization of the laws of war, women remained objects available to
the conquering male in any way whatsoever. The influential writer
Francisco de Vitoria
stood for a gradual emergence of the notion that glory or conquest were
not necessarily acceptable reasons to start a war. The jurist
Alberico Gentili
insisted that all women, including female combatants, should be spared
from sexual assault in wartime. However, in practice war rape was
common.
It is suggested that one reason for the prevalence of war rape
was that at the time, military circles supported the notion that all
persons, including women and children, were still the enemy, with the
belligerent having conquering rights over them.
In the late Middle Ages, the laws of war even considered war rape as an
indication of a man's success in the battlefield and "opportunities to
rape and loot were among the few advantages open to... soldiers, who
were paid with great irregularity by their leaders....triumph over women
by rape became a way to measure victory, part of a soldier's proof of
masculinity and success, a tangible reward for services rendered....an
actual reward of war".
During this period in history, war rape took place not
necessarily as a conscious effort of war to terrorize the enemy, but
rather as earned compensation for winning a war. There is little
evidence to suggest that superiors regularly ordered subordinates to
commit acts of rape.
Throughout this period of history war became more regulated, specific,
and regimented. The first formal prosecution for war crimes did not take
place until the late Middle Ages.
Early modern European era
Hugo Grotius,
considered the father of the law of nations and the first to conduct a
comprehensive work on systematizing the international laws of war,
concluded that rape "should not go unpunished in war any more than in
peace".
Emmerich van Vattel
emerged as an influential figure when he pleaded for the immunity of
civilians against the ravages of war, considering men and women
civilians as non-combatants.
In the late 18th century and 19th century, treaties and war codes
started to include vague provisions for the protection of women: The
Treaty of Amity and Commerce (1785) specified that in case of war "women
and children....shall not be molested in their persons". Article 20 of
the Order No. 20 (1847), a supplement to the US Rules and Articles of
war, listed the following as severely punishable "Assassination, murder,
malicious stabbing or maiming, rape". The Declaration of Brussels
(1874) stated that the "honours and rights of the family....should be
respected".
In the 19th century, the treatment of soldiers, prisoners, the wounded, and civilians improved and core elements of the
laws of war were put in place.
However, while the customs of war mandated more humane treatment of
soldiers and civilians, new weapons and advanced technology increased
destruction and altered the methods of war.
The
Lieber Code
(1863) was the first codification of the international customary laws
of land war and an important step towards humanitarian law. The Lieber
Code emphasized protection of civilians and stated that "all rape...[is]
prohibited under the penalty of death", which was the first prohibition
of rape in customary humanitarian law.
During the 20th century, international legal procedures attempted
to prevent and prosecute perpetrators of war rape. Similarly,
individual states developed laws pertaining to war rape's victims and
perpetrators.
After
World War I, the
Commission of Responsibilities, set up in 1919 to examine the atrocities committed by the
German Empire and the other
Central Powers
during the war, found substantial evidence of sexual violence and
subsequently included rape and forced prostitution among the violations
of the laws and customs of war. Efforts to prosecute failed.
World War II
While the Nuremberg Tribunals failed to charge Nazi war criminals
with rape, witnesses testified about it occurring. Previous war crimes
trials had prosecuted for sex crimes, hence war rape could have been
prosecuted under customary law and/or under the IMT (International
Military Tribunals) Charter's Article 6(b): "abduction of the civilian
population....into slavery and for other purposes" and "abduction
unjustified by
military necessity." Similarly, it would have been possible to prosecute war rape as crime against humanity under Article 6(c) of the
Nuremberg Charter:
"other inhumane acts" and "enslavement". However, notwithstanding
evidence of sexual violence in Europe during World War II, a lack of
will led to rape and sexual violence not being prosecuted at the
Nuremberg Tribunals.
The
International Military Tribunal for the Far East did convict Japanese officers "of failing to prevent rape" in the
Nanking Massacre, which is known as the "Rape of Nanking".
The tribunal, in Tokyo, prosecuted cases of sexual violence and war
rape as war crimes under the wording "inhumane treatment",
"ill-treatment," and "failure to respect family honour and rights."
According to the prosecution, in excess of 20,000 women and girls were
raped during the first weeks of the Japanese occupation of the Chinese
city of
Nanking.
The War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo included accounts of sexual violence
crimes in the trial testimonies as well as public records. On a national level, a commander of the
14th Area Army,
General Yamashita, was convicted for, inter alia, "rape under his command." Some 35 Dutch
comfort women brought a successful case before the Batavia Military Tribunal in 1948.
It is well known that brutal mass rapes were committed against
German women; both during and after World War II. According to some
estimations over 100,000 women were raped by Soviet soldiers in Berlin
during and after The Battle of Berlin.
The phrase "from eight to 80" was used to describe potential
victims of Soviet mass-rape. "Red Army soldiers don't believe in
'individual liaisons' with German women," wrote the playwright Zakhar
Agranenko in his diary when serving as an officer of marine infantry in
East Prussia. "Nine, ten, twelve men at a time – they rape them on a
collective basis."
Rape was regarded by men in the Soviet army as a well-deserved form of
punishment, whether the civilians had anything to do with the war or
not. In total, historians estimate that over two million German women
were raped.
1949 Geneva Conventions
Common Article 3
of the 1949 Geneva Conventions provides that "violence to life and
person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment
and torture" and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular
humiliating and degrading treatment" are prohibited under any
circumstance whatsoever with respect to persons who are
hors de combat or who are not taking part of direct hostilities in internal conflicts.
Article 27 of the 1949
Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits wartime rape and enforced prostitution in international conflicts.
The prohibitions outlined in the 1949 Geneva Conventions were reinforced by the 1977
Additional Protocols I and
II to the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
1998–2007
In 1998, the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda established by the United Nations made landmark decisions defining
genocidal rape (rape intended to affect a population or culture as a whole) as a form of
genocide under international law. In the trial of
Jean-Paul Akayesu, the mayor of Taba Commune in
Rwanda, the Trial Chamber held that "sexual assault formed an integral part of the process of destroying the
Tutsi
ethnic group and that the rape was systematic and had been perpetrated
against Tutsi women only, manifesting the specific intent required for
those acts to constitute genocide."
Under her presidency of the Rwanda Tribunal,
that body rendered a judgment against the mayor of Taba Commune which
found him guilty of genocide for the use of rape in "the destruction of
the spirit, of the will to live, and of life itself."
The Akayesu judgement includes the first interpretation and application by an international court of the 1948
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The Trial Chamber held that rape (which it defined as "a physical
invasion of a sexual nature committed on a person under circumstances
which are coercive") and sexual assault constitute acts of genocide
insofar as they were committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or
in part, a targeted group, as such. It found that sexual assault formed
an integral part of the process of destroying the Tutsi ethnic group and
that the rape was systematic and had been perpetrated against Tutsi
women only, manifesting the specific intent required for those acts to
constitute genocide.
Rape first became recognized as
crime against humanity when the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia issued arrest warrants in 1993, based on the
Geneva Conventions and Violations of the Laws or Customs of War. Specifically, it was recognized that Muslim women in
Foča (southeastern
Bosnia and Herzegovina) were subjected to systematic and widespread gang rape, torture and
sexual enslavement by
Bosnian Serb soldiers, policemen, and members of paramilitary groups after the takeover of the city (April 1992).
The indictment was of major legal significance and was the first time
that sexual assaults were investigated for the purpose of prosecution
under the rubric of torture and enslavement as a crime against humanity.
The indictment was confirmed by a 2001 verdict by the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia that rape and sexual
enslavement are crimes against humanity. This ruling challenged the
widespread acceptance of rape and sexual enslavement of women as
intrinsic part of war. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia found three Bosnian Serb men guilty of rape of
Bosniak
(Bosnian Muslim) women and girls (some as young as 12 and 15 years of
age), in Foča, eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. Furthermore, two of the men
were found guilty of the crime against humanity of sexual enslavement
for holding women and girls captive in a number of de facto detention
centres. Many of the women subsequently
disappeared. However, Justice Richard Goldstone, chief prosecutor at the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, commented that "rape has never been the concern of the international community."
United States law specifies that rape in wartime is punishable by death or imprisonment under Article 120 of the United States'
Uniform Code of Military Justice and Section d(g) of the
War Crimes Act of 1996.
However a total ban on abortion is a requirement of US humanitarian aid
for war victims, with no exceptions for rape, incest, or to save the
life of the mother.
In September 1999, the United Nations published a
"Report of
the International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons
Responsible for Genocide and Other Serious Violations of International
Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of Rwanda and Rwandan
Citizens Responsible for Genocide and Other Such Violations Committed in
the Territory of Neighboring States between 1 January and 31 December
1994". The report states that on 2 September 1998, Trial Chamber I
of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, composed of Judges
Laïty Kama, Presiding, Lennart Aspegren and Navanethem Pillay, found
Jean Paul Akayesu guilty of 9 of the 15 counts proffered against him,
including genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide and
crimes against humanity, murder, torture, rape, and other inhumane acts.
The Tribunal found Jean Paul Akayesu not guilty of the six remaining
counts, including the count of complicity in genocide and the counts
relating to violations of Common Article 3 to the
Geneva Conventions and of Additional Protocol II thereto.
On 2 October 1998, Jean Paul Akayesu was sentenced to life imprisonment
for each of the nine counts, the sentences to run concurrently. Both
Jean Paul Akayesu and the Prosecutor have appealed against the judgement
rendered by the Trial Chamber.
United Nations actions on sexual violence in conflict
Some of the delegates to the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict held in 2014
In 2008, the
U.N. Security Council adopted
resolution 1820,
which noted that "rape and other forms of sexual violence can
constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act
with respect to genocide".
In April 2010, the first Special Representative,
Margot Wallström
of Sweden, established the Office and served as the United Nations’
spokesperson and political advocate on this issue. In September 2012,
Zainab Hawa Bangura of Sierra Leone took over as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.
The six priorities of the office are
- to end impunity for sexual violence in conflict by assisting
national authorities to strengthen criminal accountability,
responsiveness to survivors and judicial capacity;
- the protection and empowerment of civilians who face sexual violence
in conflict, in particular, women and girls who are targeted
disproportionately by this crime;
- to mobilize political ownership by fostering government engagement
in developing and implementing strategies to combat sexual violence;
- to increase recognition of rape as a tactic and consequence of war
through awareness-raising activities at the international and country
levels;
- to harmonise the UN's response by leading UN Action Against
Sexual Violence in Conflict, a network of focal points from 13 UN
agencies that amplify programming and advocacy on this issue in the
wider UN agenda;
- to emphasize greater national ownership.
The Office has eight priority countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina;
Central African Republic (CAR); Colombia; Côte d'Ivoire; Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC); Liberia; South Sudan and Sudan. While six of
the eight priority countries are in Africa, this problem is widespread
and the Office of the Special Representative is engaged on this issue in
Asia and the Pacific (in Cambodia for residual cases from the Khmer
Rouge period) and the Middle East (Syria).
In 2013, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed
Resolution 2122,
which supported abortion rights for girls and women raped in wars,
"noting the need for access to the full range of sexual and reproductive
health services, including regarding pregnancies resulting from rape,
without discrimination." United Nations Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon
had recommended to the U.N. Security Council earlier in 2013 (in
September) that girls and women raped in war should have access to
"services for safe termination of pregnancies resulting from rape,
without discrimination and in accordance with international human rights
and humanitarian law." In March 2013 Ban Ki-moon had also recommended
to the Council that women raped in war have access to abortion services.
Effects
Physical effects
A
recent study lists the physical injury to the victims of war rape as
traumatic injuries, sexually transmitted diseases, maternal mortality,
unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and persistent gynecological
problems are of major concern. Because war rapes take place in zones of conflict, access to
emergency contraception, antibiotics, and abortion are limited. Infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is not uncommon.
In certain war gang rape instances, the objective of infecting women
interned in rape camps was the systematic effect of HIV soldiers
specifically selected to spread HIV/AIDS to the gang raped.
Psychosocial workers with International Rescue Committee (IRC) help rape survivors in South Kivu DRC
War rape may include physical rape of the male organ. Gang rape and
rape with human objects or physical objects, such as fists, sticks,
rods, and gun barrels are also methods used in war rape. Women victims
may suffer from
incontinence and
vaginal fistula as a result of these particularly violent instances of rape.
Vaginal fistula is a medical condition of vaginal abnormality where
there is hole in the vagina in close proximity to the colon (anus or
rectum) or bladder. In some cases, it is a birth defect, in others it is a result of
female genital cutting
(FGM) and rape. In extreme instances of violent rape in war, the walls
of the vagina are torn or punctured, resulting in severe pain and
debilitating incontinence (urinary complications) and bowel containment. Violent rape is also a cause of obstetric fistula which is a hole in the female organ and birth canal.
Physical effects may also include bone breakage such as
backbreaking and cranial cracks, causing future disability, visual and
hearing impairment, and mental incapacitation.
Psychological effects
Victims and survivors of war rape are at very high risk of psychosocial problems.
The short-term psychological injuries to the victims include feelings of fear, helplessness,
sadness, disorientation,
isolation,
vulnerability, and
desperation.
If left untreated, the psychological effects of sexual assault and rape
can be devastating, sometimes even deadly. Causes of death as the
result of sexual violence include
suicide
and murder. Murder of sexual assault and rape victims may be
perpetrated by the rapist or as part of an honor killing by family
members of the victim.
Long-term psychological injuries may include
depression,
anxiety disorders (including
post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS)), multiple
somatic symptoms,
flashbacks,
on-going trauma, chronic insomnia, self-hatred, nightmares, paranoia,
difficulty re-establishing intimate relationships, shame, disgust,
anger, and persistent fears.
They could have trouble sleeping, experience changes in their appetite,
or develop full-blown emotional problems, including posttraumatic
stress disorder, depression, substance abuse, or dependence. Individuals
who have experienced sexual assault are at risk for other day-to-day
problems, including arguing with family members and having problems at
work. Lack of medical psychological support resources also puts victims
of war rape at further disadvantage.
Refugee women are also at a disadvantage of receiving adequate
assistance to deal with the psychological consequences of war rape - not
only do they lack legal representation, they also may lack protection
from the perpetrators of the violent act.
Furthermore, there is an increase in dislike of refugees and asylum
seekers which is another obstacle in the psychological healing process
of victims seeking assistance outside of their countries that may still
be under civil strife.
Psychological support and counseling sessions given by individuals not
part of the ethnic, linguistic, or community may incite difficulties in
communication between patient and caregiver. As a result, adequate
emotional and psychological support to the victims is not fully
developed, affecting the long-term healing potential for the patient.
Psychosocial and societal effects
In
addition to the physical and psychological damages resulting from rape,
sexual violence in the context of war often disrupt the linkages
between the rape victims and their communities. Thus, the phenomenon of
war rape can structurally affect entire societies, which is closely
linked to the logic underlying the strategic use of rape as an
instrument in armed conflicts. Raping ‘enemy’ women also constitutes an
act of abuse and humiliation against the men of the community the
victims were representative of.
Besides the psychosocial effects on women as the most frequent victims of wartime rape,
children born of rape
are faced with distinct social stigmas. The existence of taboos around
the issue of war rape can also be an obstacle to post-conflict
reconciliation.
Stigmatization and isolation
Psychosocial consequences
of war rape describe how the linkages between victims and the society
are altered as a result of sexual abuses during war. Both during and
even more in the aftermath of conflict, when abuses become known,
victims of war rape risk finding themselves in situations of social
isolation, often abandoned by their husbands and rejected by their
communities
The ordeal is thus not over with the survival of the act of abuse but
has a long-term effect that can only to a limited extent be dealt with
by the victims themselves. The process of re-victimization captures how
victims of sexual violence continue to "receive additional hurt after
the direct cause of victimization has disappeared" with stigmatization and exclusion being among the main sources of re-victimization.
This is particularly relevant in
patriarchal societies,
where female sexuality is linked to male honour, virginity is a core
value, and where a culture considers ethnicity transmitted through male
genes. Given the ethnic dimension of sexuality, rape can become a means of ethnic cleansing or
genocide, as has been claimed in relation to systematic instances of rape in Rwanda and Bosnia. In this context, "rape as a weapon of war is not an individual issue, but a societal one."
In a number of countries, the targeted infection of women with HIV,
which creates further suffering for victims experiencing social
exclusion and
discrimination for having HIV/AIDS.
Impact on children born out of rape
War
rape can have an equally strong and long-term effect on the children
that are born as a result. On the one hand, these children may not be
immediately identified and might find out about their origins only at a
later point in their lives. In turn, if the children themselves but even
more their environment knows about the 'war babies',
they risk being regarded as 'other' by the communities they are born
into. Recurring patterns in countries including Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Uganda,
Sierra Leone
and Rwanda show how children born of war rape and to mothers who don't
want them have to face struggles with regard to issues related to
identity – both in an administrative as well as in a personal sense –
and are sometimes restricted in their
rights to education, non-discrimination and even physical security.
Unwanted children born of rape are potentially more vulnerable in a
psychological as well as in a physical way and cases of abandoned
children are reported from various contemporary conflict and
post-conflict societies.
Impact on post-conflict reconciliation
The
societal consequences of war rape can equally have a negative impact on
post-conflict reconciliation and the judicial follow-up on wartime
crimes, including rape. Given the stigmatisation of victims and their
isolation or fear thereof, they might prefer to remain silent with
regard to the violations they have suffered. Indeed, underreporting of
cases of rape during armed conflict is a practical challenge
post-conflict communities have to face that is pointed to by a number of
actors, including the
United Nations Secretary-General, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as well as international
NGOs.
As
Human Rights Watch reported with regard to war rape during the
Rwandan Genocide,
victims "expressed dismay at the fact that they were being urged to
forget what happened to them in the name of peace and reconciliation".
The fear of consequences and threat of exclusion felt by the victims
makes it difficult to establish clear figures of war rape incidents and
to hold perpetrators accountable for the crimes they have committed, as
has been claimed with regards to war rape in
Darfur:
"Underreporting of cases may be attributed to the stigma associated
with rape, shame and fear of reprisal, denial that rape occurs,
intimidation by many Government officials and the inability to access
some conflict-affected areas".
This points to another difficulty victims of war rape have to deal with
at the societal level. The perpetrators of rape are often officials or
otherwise affiliated with the state's institutions, which might make
reporting of assaults appear useless.
Psychiatric care
Disrupted
healthcare sectors is a term the World Health Organization describes
for medical facilities that are destroyed or partially destroyed in war
torn areas.
Health care facilities are essential for the establishment of support
systems for rape victims. Psychological support units are also hampered
by the lack of material resources available to the medical community
on-ground. Medical practitioners and health-care workers face daunting
challenges in conflict and post-conflict area. As the WHO explains, "healthcare delivery fragments and deteriorates, memory and knowledge are eroded, and power disperses".
War-torn societies in immediate post-conflict zones have broken medical
infrastructure such as: destroyed or partially destroyed hospitals (or
clinics); non-functioning hospitals; poor, scarce or inadequate medical
supplies, lack of running water, and scarce or lack of electricity.
Dismantling weapons from armed rebels and other groups are prioritized
in immediate post-conflict situations which in effect de-prioritizes the
immediate physical and psychiatric care that war rape victims are in
urgent need of. "If we do not have the capacity to prevent war, we have a
collective responsibility to better understand and treat its
psychiatric, medical, and social consequences."
Access to psychological health services further causes inequity for
survivors of war rape who are at the margins of society living in
chronic poverty or located in rural regions. Healthcare and psychiatric care is a key component to the healing processes of war rape.
History
Antiquity
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The
practice of raping the women of a conquered group has remained a feature
of warfare and conquest from the second millennium B.C. to the present.
It is a social practice which, like the torture of prisoners, has been
resistant to "progress," to humanitarian reforms, and to sophisticated
moral and ethical considerations. I suggest this is the case because it
is a practice built into and essential to the structure of patriarchal
institutions and inseparable from them. It is at the beginning of the
system, prior to class formation, that we can see this in its purest
essence.
|
”
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The
Greek and
Roman armies reportedly engaged in war rape, which is documented by ancient authors such as
Homer,
Herodotus, and
Livy. Ancient sources held multiple, often contradictory attitudes to sexual violence in warfare.
The Bible:
"For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the
city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women taken..."
Zechariah 14:2 "Their little children will be dashed to death before their eyes. Their homes will be sacked, and their wives will be taken."
Isaiah 13:16
The Torah:
The Torah in Deuteronomy 21:10–14 allows the taking of a female captive
only within the context of marriage. The female captive must be brought
to the home and, following the month in which she is given to mourn, the
man must decide to either take her as a wife or set her free. According
to Rabbi Yohanan in the Jerusalem Talmud, only after deciding to marry
the female captive are sexual relations permitted. This in effect
prohibits rape in the process of war, but does not prohibit forced
marriages and marital rape.
Middle Ages
The
Vikings (Scandinavians who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late 8th century to the early 11th century),
have acquired a reputation for "rape and pillage". Viking settlements
in Britain and Ireland are thought to have been primarily male
enterprises, with a lesser role for Viking females. British Isles women
are mentioned in old texts on the founding of Iceland, indicating that
the Viking explorers had acquired wives and concubines from Britain and
Ireland.
Some historians dispute the Vikings' "rape and pillage" image, arguing
that exaggeration and distortion in later medieval texts created an
image of treacherous and brutal Northmen.
Female slavery and war rapes were also common during the medieval
Arab slave trade,
where prisoners of war captured in battle from non-Arab lands often
ended up as concubine slaves (who are considered free when their master
dies) in the
Arab World. Most of these slaves came from places such as
Sub-Saharan Africa (mainly
Zanj), the
Caucasus (mainly
Circassians), Central Asia (mainly
Tartars), and Central and Eastern Europe (mainly
Saqaliba). Historian Robert Davis claims that the
Barbary pirates also captured 1.25 million slaves from Western Europe and North America between the 16th and 19th centuries.
The Mongols, who established the
Mongol Empire across much of Eurasia, caused
much destruction during
their invasions. Documents written during or after
Genghis Khan's
reign say that after a conquest, the Mongol soldiers looted, pillaged
and raped. Some troops who submitted were incorporated into the Mongol
system in order to expand their manpower. These techniques were
sometimes used to spread terror and warning to others.
Early modern period
Second Manchu invasion of Korea
In the
Second Manchu invasion of Korea when
Qing forces invaded the Korean
Kingdom of Joseon,
many Korean women were subjected to rape at the hands of the Qing
forces, and as a result they were unwelcomed by their families even if
they were released by the Qing after being ransomed.
European colonial era
Dutch Formosa (Taiwan)
Multiple
Taiwanese Aboriginal
villages in frontier areas rebelled against the Dutch in the 1650s due
to acts of oppression, such as when the Dutch ordered that aboriginal
women be turned over to them for sex, and when they demanded that deer
pelts and rice be given to them by aborigines in the Taipei basin in
Wu-lao-wan village, sparking a rebellion in December 1652. Two Dutch
translators were beheaded by the Wu-lao-wan aborigines and in a
subsequent fight 30 aboriginals and two additional Dutch people died,
after an embargo of salt and iron on Wu-lao-wan. The aboriginals were
forced to sue for peace in February 1653.
Dutch women were kept as sexual slaves by the Chinese after the Dutch were expelled from Taiwan in 1662. During the 1662
Siege of Fort Zeelandia in which Chinese
Ming loyalist forces commanded by
Koxinga besieged and defeated the
Dutch East India Company and conquered Taiwan, the Chinese took Dutch women and children prisoner. The Dutch missionary
Antonius Hambroek, two of his daughters, and his wife were among the Dutch prisoners of war who were being held captive by
Koxinga.
Koxinga sent Hambroek to Fort Zeelandia demanding that he persuade them
to surrender or else Hambroek would be killed when he returned.
Hambroek returned to the Fort, where two of his other daughters were
being held prisoner. He urged the commander of the Fort not to
surrender, and returned to Koxinga's camp. He was then executed by
decapitation, and in addition to this, a rumor was spread among the
Chinese that the Dutch were encouraging the native Taiwanese aboriginals
to kill Chinese, so Koxinga ordered the mass execution of Dutch male
prisoners in retaliation, in addition to a few women and children who
were also being held prisoner. The surviving Dutch women and children
were then turned into slaves. Koxinga took Hambroek's teenage daughter
as a concubine,
and Dutch women were sold to Chinese soldiers to become their wives,
the daily journal of the Dutch fort recorded that "the best were
preserved for the use of the commanders, and then sold to the common
soldiers. Happy was she that fell to the lot of an unmarried man, being
thereby freed from vexations by the Chinese women, who are very jealous
of their husbands." In 1684 some of these Dutch wives were still being held captive by the Chinese.
Some Dutch physical features like auburn and red hair among
people in regions of south Taiwan are a consequence of this episode when
Dutch women became concubines of the Chinese commanders.
The Chinese took Dutch women as slave concubines and wives and they
were never freed: in 1684 some were reportedly still living, in Quemoy a
Dutch merchant was contacted and an arrangement to release the
prisoners was proposed by a son of Koxinga but it came to nothing. The Chinese officers used the Dutch women who they received as concubines. The Dutch women were used for sexual pleasure by Koxinga's commanders.
This event in which Dutch women were distributed to the Chinese
soldiers and commanders was recorded in the daily journal of the fort.
A teenage daughter of the Dutch missionary Anthonius Hambroek
became a concubine of Koxinga, she was described by the Dutch commander
Caeuw as "a very sweet and pleasing maiden".
Dutch language accounts record this incident of Chinese taking Dutch women as concubines and the fate of Hambroek's daughter.
The topic of the Chinese taking the Dutch women and the daughter of
Antonius Hambroek
as concubines was featured in Joannes Nomsz's play which became famous
and well known in Europe and revealed European anxieties about the fate
of the Dutch women along with their sense of humiliation after being
subjected to defeat at the hands of non-Europeans.
The title of the play was "Antonius Hambroek, of de Belegering van
Formoza" rendered in English as "Antonius Hambroek, or the Siege of
Formosa".
Indian Rebellion
Along
with the origins of the mass media in the 19th century, accusations of
war rape were occasionally used as propaganda by European
colonialists in order to justify the colonization of places which they had previously conquered. The most notable example of this may have occurred during the
Indian Rebellion of 1857, known as "
India's First War of Independence" to the Indians and as the "Sepoy Mutiny" to the British, where Indian
sepoys rebelled against the British
East India Company's
rule in India.
While incidents of rape committed by Indian rebels against English
women and girls were generally uncommon during the rebellion, they were
exaggerated to great effect by the British media in order to justify
continued British colonialism in the Indian subcontinent.
At the time, British newspapers had printed various apparently
eyewitness accounts of English women and girls being raped by Indian
rebels, but with little physical evidence to support these accounts. It
was later found
that most of these accounts were false stories which had been created
in order to paint native Indian people as savages who had to be
civilized by British colonialists, a mission sometimes known as
The White Man's Burden. One such account published by
The Times,
regarding an incident where 48 English girls as young as 10–14 had been
raped by the Indian rebels in Delhi, was criticized as a false
propaganda story by
Karl Marx, who pointed out that the story was written by a clergyman in Bangalore, far from the events of the rebellion.
Boxer Rebellion
During the
Boxer Rebellion, the Chinese Boxers did not commit rape against foreign women and just killed them, but the Western forces of the
Eight-Nation Alliance
went on a killing, looting, and raping rampage against Chinese
civilians. Thousands of women were raped by the invading troops, and the
number of women who killed themselves was in the thousands.
A western Journalist, George Lynch, said "there are things that I must
not write, and that may not be printed in Great Britain, which would
seem to show that this Western civilization of ours is merely a veneer
over savagery."
All of the nationalities engaged in looting and rape. Luella Miner
wrote that the behavior of the Russian and French was particularly
appalling. Chinese women and girls committed suicide in order to avoid
being raped. The French commander dismissed the rapes, attributing them
to the "gallantry of the French soldiers".
German South-West Africa
World War I
Rapes were allegedly committed during the Imperial German advance through Belgium in the first months of the war. After the war
Harold D. Lasswell dismissed them as propaganda in his 1927 Freudian-oriented study, "Propaganda Technique in the World War".
In September 1914, the French government set up a commission, that was
also seen in Belgium to investigate reports of rape committed by German
soldier, however as historian Ruth Harris has documented the
investigations were more to fuel narratives of nationalism and cultural
hatred towards Germany. The individual stories of the women that were
impacted were used to justify the war and to market it to the civilians.
World War II
The
sometimes widespread and systematic occurrence of war rape of women by
soldiers has been documented. During World War II and in its immediate
aftermath, war rape occurred in a range of situations, ranging from
institutionalized sexual slavery to war rapes associated with specific
battles. The Judge Advocate General's office reports that there were 971
convictions for rape in the U.S. military from January 1942 to June
1947, which includes a portion of the occupation.
Asia
Japanese army
The term "
comfort women"
is a euphemism for the estimated 200,000, mostly Korean, Chinese,
Japanese, Taiwanese and Filipino women who were forced to serve as sex
slaves in Japanese military brothels during World War II. In the
Nanking Massacre, Japanese soldiers sexually assaulted female civilians who were trapped in the city of
Nanjing when it fell to the Japanese on 13 December 1937.
Chuo University professor Yoshiaki Yoshimi states there were
about 2,000 centers where as many as 200,000 Japanese, Chinese, Korean,
Filipino, Taiwanese, Burmese, Indonesian, Dutch and Australian women
were interned and used as sex slaves.
Australian army
"A former prostitute recalled that as soon as Australian troops arrived in
Kure
in early 1946, they 'dragged young women into their jeeps, took them to
the mountain, and then raped them. I heard them screaming for help
nearly every night'."
US Army
It has been claimed that some U.S. military personnel raped Okinawan women during the
Battle of Okinawa in 1945. Following the war there were 1,336 reported rapes during the first 10 days of the occupation of
Kanagawa prefecture.
Despite being told by the Japanese military that they would
suffer rape, torture and murder at the hands of the Americans, Okinawans
"were often surprised by the comparatively humane treatment which they
received from the American enemy." According to
Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power by
Mark Selden, the Americans "did not pursue a policy of torture, rape, and murder of civilians as Japanese military officials had warned."
Soviet Red Army
Soviet
Red Army troops looted and terrorized the people of
Mukden located in
Manchuria,
the northernmost province of China. A foreigner witnessed Soviet
troops, formerly stationed in Berlin, who were allowed by the Soviet
military to go into the city of Mukden "for three days of rape and
pillage". The Soviet Army's influence in the region was affected for years to come.
Europe
British
The
Italian statistics record eight rapes and nineteen attempted rapes by
British soldiers in Italy between September 1943 and December 1945.
Various sources, including the
Special Investigation Branch as well as evidence provided by Belgian reporters, said that rape and
sexual harassment by British troops occurred frequently following the
invasion of Sicily in 1943.
Although far from the scale of those committed by the
Wehrmacht or
Red Army,
rapes of local women and girls were committed by British troops during
the last months of WWII in Germany. Even elderly women were targeted.
Though a high-profile issue for the
Royal Military Police,
some officers treated the behaviour of their men with leniency. Many
rapes were committed by men who were either under the influence of
alcohol or suffering from post-traumatic stress, but there were cases of
premeditated attack, like the assault on three German women in the town
of Neustadt am Rübemberge, on 16 April 1945, or the attempted
gang rape of two local girls at gunpoint in the village of Oyle, near
Nienburg,
which ended in the death of one of the women when, whether
intentionally or not, one of the soldiers discharged his gun, hitting
her in the neck.
There were also reports of "sexual assault and offences" committed by British soldiers against children in
Belgium and the
Netherlands,
and a number of men were convicted of these crimes while they were
fraternizing with Dutch and Belgian families during the winter of
1944–45. On a single day in mid-April 1945, three women in
Neustadt were raped by British soldiers. A senior British Army
chaplain
who followed the troops reported that there was a "good deal of rape
going on". He then added that "those who suffer [rape] have probably
deserved it." In the summer of 1945, two drunken British soldiers
stormed into a farmhouse in
Klagenfurt
with a drawn revolver when there were only two women present. The older
of the two women was forced to go upstairs while the other, an
18-year-old girl, was raped by one of the soldiers.
German forces
Rapes were committed by Wehrmacht forces on Jewish women and girls during the
Invasion of Poland in September 1939;
they were also committed against Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian and
Russian women and girls during mass executions which were primarily
carried out by the
Selbstschutz
units, with the assistance of Wehrmacht soldiers who were stationed in
territory that was under the administration of the German military; the
rapes were committed against female captives before they were shot.
Only one case of rape was prosecuted by a German court during the
military campaign in Poland, and even then the German judge found the
perpetrator guilty of
Rassenschande (committing a shameful act against his race as defined by the
racial policy of Nazi Germany), rather than rape. Jewish women were particularly vulnerable to rape during
The Holocaust.
Rapes were also committed by German forces stationed on the
Eastern Front,
where they were largely unpunished (as opposed to rapes committed in
Western Europe); the overall number of rapes is difficult to establish
due to the lack of prosecutions of the crime by German courts.
Wehrmacht also established a system of military brothels, in which
young women and girls from occupied territories were forced into
prostitution under harsh conditions. In the
Soviet Union women were kidnapped by German forces for prostitution as well; one report by
International Military Tribunal writes "
in the city of Smolensk
the German Command opened a brothel for officers in one of the hotels
into which hundreds of women and girls were driven; they were
mercilessly dragged down the street by their arms and hair."
French army
French
Senegalese troops too, known as
Senegalese Tirailleurs, who landed on the island of
Elba
on 17 June 1944, were responsible for mass rapes, though their
behaviour was considered less brutal than that of the French North
African troops in continental
Italy.
US Army
Secret wartime files made public in 2006 reveal that
American GIs committed 400 sexual offenses in Europe, including 126 rapes in the United Kingdom, between 1942 and 1945.
A study by Robert J. Lilly estimates that a total of 14,000 civilian
women in Great Britain, France and Germany were raped by American GIs
during World War II.
It is estimated that there were around 3,500 rapes by American
servicemen in France between June 1944 and the end of the war and one
historian has claimed that sexual violence against women in liberated
France was common. In the 2007 publication
Taken by Force,
sociology and criminology professor J. Robert Lilly estimates US
soldiers raped around 11,040 women and children during the occupation of
Germany. Many armed soldiers committed gang rapes at gunpoint against female civilians and children. According to German historian
Miriam Gebhardt, some 190,000 women were raped by American soldiers in Germany
Though this has been reverified as not being a scientific estimate, but rather an arbitrary guess.
Red Army
During the war, German women were victims of brutal mass rapes committed against them by Soviet soldiers. Polish sources claim that mass rapes were committed in Polish cities that had been taken by the
Red Army. It is reported that in
Kraków,
the Soviet occupation was accompanied by the mass rape of Polish women
and girls, as well as the plunder of all private property by Soviet
soldiers. Reportedly the scale of the attacks prompted communists
installed by the Soviets to prepare a letter of protest to
Joseph Stalin, while masses in churches were held in expectation of a Soviet withdrawal.
At the end of World War II,
Red Army soldiers are estimated to have raped around 2,000,000 German women and girls.
Norman Naimark writes in
"The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949"
that although the exact number of women and girls who were raped by
members of the Red Army in the months preceding the capitulation, and in
the years following it, will never be known, their numbers are likely
to be in the hundreds of thousands, quite possibly as high as the two
million victims estimated by Barbara Johr, in
"Befreier und Befreite". Many of these victims were raped repeatedly.
A female
Soviet
war correspondent described what she had witnessed: "The Russian
soldiers were raping every German female from eight to eighty. It was an
army of rapists." The majority of the rapes were committed in the
Soviet occupation zone and an estimated two million German women were
raped by Soviet soldiers.
According to historian William Hitchcock, in numerous cases women were
victims of repeated rapes with some women being raped as many as 60 to
70 times. A minimum of 100,000 women are believed to have been raped in
Berlin, based on surging abortion rates in the following months and on hospital reports written at the time, with an estimated 10,000 women dying in the aftermath. Female deaths resulting from rapes committed by Soviet soldiers stationed in Germany are estimated to total 240,000.
Antony Beevor describes it as the "greatest phenomenon of mass
rape in history", and he has concluded that at least 1.4 million women were raped in East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia alone.
According to Natalya Gesse, Soviet soldiers raped German females who
were anywhere from eight to 80 years old. Soviet women were not spared
either.
Antony Beevor
estimates that up to half of all rape victims were victims of gang
rapes. Naimark states that not only did each victim have to carry the
trauma with her for the rest of her days, it also inflicted a massive
collective trauma on the East German nation. Naimark concludes "The
social psychology of women and men in the Soviet zone of occupation was
marked by the crime of rape from the first days of the occupation,
through the founding of the
GDR in the fall of 1949, until, one could argue, the present." German women who became pregnant after being raped by
Soviet
soldiers in World War II were invariably denied the right to an
abortion so they would be further humiliated by being forced to carry
an unwanted child. According to the book
Berlin: The Downfall, 1945 by
Antony Beevor,
some 90% of raped Berlin women in 1945 contracted venereal diseases as
the result of these consequential rapes and 3.7% of all children born in
Germany from 1945 to 1946 had Soviet fathers. The history of this
particular aspect of the mass-rape of German women by Soviet troops was
considered a taboo subject until 1992.
Korean War
North Korean nurses captured by South Korean and US soldiers. Captured North Korean women were sometimes raped by US soldiers.
During 11 months of 1952 in the 110,000-man logistics branch of
Chinese Volunteer Army, there were 41 men charged with rapes, also there were adultery, sodomy, murder and traffic accident killings.
Vietnam War
There were rapes and sexual atrocities commmited by American servicemen and South Korean troops in
Vietnam war.
Indonesia
Indonesian invasion of
East Timor and
West Papua caused the murders of approximately 300,000 to 400,000 West Papuans and many thousands of women raped.
1971 genocide in Bangladesh
During the
Bangladesh Liberation War
in 1971, numerous women were tortured and raped by Pakistani army.
Exact numbers are not known and are a subject of debate. Most of the
women were captured from
Dhaka University and private homes and kept as sex-slaves inside the Dhaka Cantonment. Australian Doctor Geoffrey Davis was brought to Bangladesh by the United Nation and
International Planned Parenthood Federation
to carry out late-term abortions on rape victims. He was of the opinion
that the 200,000 to 400,000 rape victims was an underestimation. On the
actions of Pakistan army he said "They’d keep the infantry back and put
artillery ahead and they would shell the hospitals and schools. And
that caused absolute chaos in the town. And then the infantry would go
in and begin to segregate the women. Apart from little children, all
those were sexually matured would be segregated...And then the women
would be put in the compound under guard and made available to the
troops…Some of the stories they told were appalling. Being raped again
and again and again. A lot of them died in those [rape] camps".
Bangladeshi women have been raped during the Bangladesh
Liberation War in 1971 by the Pakistan army during night raids on
villages. Pakistani sources claim the number is much lower, though having not completely denied rape incidents. One work that has included direct experiences from the women raped is
Ami Birangana Bolchi ("I, the heroine, am speaking") by
Nilima Ibrahim. The work includes in its name from the word
Birangona
(Heroine), given by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman after the war, to the raped
and tortured women during the war. This was a conscious effort to
alleviate any social stigma the women might face in the society. How
successful this effort was is doubtful, though.
In June 2005, the
United States Department of State organized a conference titled "South Asia in Crisis: United States Policy, 1961–1972" where
Sarmila Bose,
published a paper suggesting that the casualties and rape allegations
in the war have been greatly exaggerated for political purposes. This
work has been criticized in Bangladesh and her research has been
attacked by expatriate Bengalis.
During the war Bengali nationalists also indulged in the mass
rape of ethnic Bihari Muslim women, since the Bihari Muslim community
had remained loyal to the cause of a United Pakistan.
Anthony Mascarenhas, published a newspaper article in June 1971,
in The Sunday Times, London on 13 June 1971 titled "Genocide". The
article was the first that exposed the brutal crackdown by the Pakistan
army. It also highlighted the rape of Bihari women and other atrocities committed against them by Bengalis. The Sunday Times editor
Harold Evans
wrote "He'd been shocked by the Bengali outrages in March, but he
maintained that what the army was doing was altogether worse and on a
grander scale,".
1974 to 1992
It has been reported that in
Peru, throughout the 12 year
internal conflict, women were frequent victims of sustained war rape perpetrated by government security forces and the
Shining Path. It has also been reported that during the August 1990
invasion of Kuwait, an estimated 5,000
Kuwaiti women were raped by
Iraqi soldiers, and at least
one American POW was raped by Iraqi troops.
Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
The
Soviet forces abducted Afghan women in helicopters while flying in the
country in search of mujahideen. In November 1980 a number of such
incidents had taken place in various parts of the country, including
Laghman and Kama. Soviet soldiers as well as KhAD agents kidnapped young
women from the city of
Kabul and the areas of Darul Aman and Khair Khana, near the Soviet garrisons, to rape them. Women who returned home were considered 'dishonoured' by their families.
Impact
Former Yugoslavia
Evidence of the magnitude of rape in
Bosnia and Herzegovina prompted the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to deal openly with these abuses.
The issue of rape during armed conflict was brought to the attention of
the United Nations after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s,
in conjunction with the Bosnian war. Reports of sexual violence during the
Bosnian War (1992–95) and
Kosovo War (1996–99), part of the
Yugoslav wars, a series of conflicts from 1991 to 1999, have been described as "especially alarming".
During the Kosovo War thousands of Kosovo Albanian women and girls
became victims of sexual violence by Serbian paramilitaries, soldiers or
police man.Majority of rapes were gang rapes. Since the entry of the
NATO in the Kosovo War, rapes of Serbian, Albanian, and Roma women were committed by ethnic
Albanians sometimes by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, have also been documented.
It has been estimated that during the Bosnian War between 20,000
and 50,000 women were raped. The majority of the rape victims were
Muslim women raped by Serbian soldiers. Although men also became victim
of sexual violence, war rape was disproportionately directed against
women who were (gang) raped in the streets, in their homes and/or in
front of family members. Sexual violence occurred in a multiple ways,
including rape with objects, such as broken glass bottles, guns and
truncheons.
War rape occurred as a matter of official orders as part of ethnic
cleansing, to displace the targeted ethnic group out of the region.
During the Bosnian War, the existence of deliberately created
"rape camps" was reported. The reported aim of these camps was to
impregnate the Muslim and Croatian women held captive. It has been
reported that often women were kept in confinement until the late stage
of their pregnancy. This occurred in the context of a patrilineal
society, in which children inherit their father's ethnicity, hence the
"rape camps" aimed at the birth of a new generation of Serb children.
According to the Women's Group Tresnjevka more than 35,000 women and
children were held in such Serb-run "rape camps".
During the Kosovo War thousands of Kosovo Albanian women and
girls became victims of sexual violence. War rape was used as a weapon
of war and an instrument of systematic
ethnic cleansing;
rape was used to terrorize the civilian population, extort money from
families, and force people to flee their homes. According to a 2000
Human Rights Watch report war rape in the Kosovo War can generally be
subdivided into three categories: rapes in women's homes, rapes during
fighting, and rapes in detention. The majority of the perpetrators were
Serbian paramilitaries, but they also included Serbian special police or
Yugoslav army soldiers. Most rapes were gang rapes involving at least
two perpetrators. Rapes occurred frequently in the presence, and with
the acquiescence, of military officers. Soldiers, police, and
paramilitaries often raped their victims in the full view of numerous
witnesses.
Mass rape in the Bosnian War
During the
Bosnian War,
Bosnian Serb
forces conducted a sexual abuse strategy against thousands of Bosnian
Muslim girls and women which became known as a "mass rape phenomenon".
No exact figures on how many women and children were systematically
raped by the Serb forces in various camps were established, but estimates range from 20,000 to 50,000. Mass rape mostly occurred in eastern Bosnia (especially during the
Foča and
Višegrad massacres), and in Grbavica during the
Siege of Sarajevo. Numerous Bosnian Serb officers, soldiers and other participants were indicted or convicted of rape as a war crime by the
ICTY and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The events inspired the Golden Bear winner at the
56th Berlin International Film Festival in 2006, called
Grbavica.
Rwandan genocide
During the Rwandan genocide, from April until July 1994, hundreds of
thousands of women and girls were raped or became the victims of other
forms of sexual violence.
Although no explicit written orders to commit rape and other acts of
sexual violence have been found, evidence suggests that military leaders
encouraged or ordered their men to rape the
Tutsis, and they also condoned the acts which were already taking place, without making efforts to stop them. Compared to other conflicts, the sexual violence in
Rwanda
stands out in terms of the organised nature of the propaganda that
contributed significantly to fuelling sexual violence against Tutsi
women, the very public nature of the rapes and the level of brutality
towards the women. Anne-Marie de Brouwer concludes that considering the
massive scale and public nature of war rape during the
Rwandan genocide, "it is difficult to imagine anybody in Rwanda who was not aware of the sexual violence taking place." In 1998, the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
made the landmark decision that the war rape during the Rwanda genocide
was an element of the crime of genocide. The Trial Chamber held that
"sexual assault formed an integral part of the process of destroying the
Tutsi ethnic group and that the rape was systematic and had been
perpetrated against Tutsi women only, manifesting the specific intent
required for those acts to constitute genocide."
In his 1996 report, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on
Rwanda, Rene Degni-Segui stated that "rape was the rule and its absence
was the exception." The report also stated that "rape was systematic and
was used as a "weapon" by the perpetrators of the massacres. This can
be estimated from the number and nature of the victims as well as from
the forms of rape."
A 2000 report prepared by the Organisation of African Unity’s
International Panel of Eminent Personalities concluded that "we can be
certain that almost all females who survived the genocide were direct
victims of rape or other sexual violence, or were profoundly affected by
it".
The Special Rapporteur on Rwanda estimated in his 1996 report
that between 2,000 and 5,000 pregnancies resulted from war rape, and
that between 250,000 and 500,000 Rwandese women and girls had been
raped.
Rwanda is a patriarchal society and children therefore take the
ethnicity of the father, underlining the fact that war rape occurred in
the context of genocide.
Within the context of the Rwandan genocide, victims of sexual
violence were predominantly attacked on the basis of their gender and
ethnicity. The victims were mostly Tutsi women and girls, of all ages,
while men were only seldomly the victims of war rape. Women were
demonized in the anti-Tutsi propaganda prior to the 1994 genocide. The
December 1990 issue of the newspaper
Kangura
published the "Ten Commandments", four of which portrayed Tutsi women
as tools of the Tutsi community, as sexual weapons that would be used by
the Tutsi to weaken and ultimately to destroy the Hutu men. Gender based propaganda also included cartoons printed in newspapers that portrayed Tutsi women as
sex objects.
Examples of gender based hate propaganda used to incite war rape
included statements by perpetrators such as "You Tutsi women think that
you are too good for us" and "Let us see what a Tutsi woman tastes
like". Victims of war rape during the Rwandan genocide also included
Hutu women considered moderates, such as
Hutu
women married to Tutsi men and Hutu women politically affiliated with
the Tutsi. War rape also occurred regardless of ethnicity or political
affiliation, with young or beautiful women being targeted based on their
gender only. Sexual violence against men occurred significantly less
frequently, but it frequently included the mutilation of their genitals,
which were often displayed in public. The perpetrators of war rape during the Rwandan genocide were mainly members of the Hutu militia, the "
Interahamwe".
Rapes were also committed by military personnel within the Rwandan
Armed Forces (FAR), including the Presidential Guard, and civilians.
Sexual violence against women and girls during the Rwandan
genocide included: rape, gang rape, sexual slavery (either collectively
or individually through "forced marriages"), rape with objects such as
sticks and weapons often leading to the victim's death, sexual
mutilation of, in particular, breasts, vaginas or buttocks, often during
or following rape. Pregnant women were not spared from sexual violence
and on many occasions victims were killed following rape. Many women
were raped by men who knew they were HIV positive and it has been
suggested that there were deliberate attempts to transmit the virus to
Tutsi women and their families. War rape occurred all over the country
and it was frequently perpetrated in plain view of others, at sites such
as schools, churches, roadblocks, government buildings or in the bush.
Some women were kept as personal slaves for years after the genocide,
and they were eventually forced to move to neighbouring countries after
the genocide along with their captors.
The long-term effects of war rape in Rwanda on its victims
include social isolation (the social stigma attached to rape meant that
some husbands left their wives who had become victims of war rape, or
that the victims became unmarriageable), unwanted pregnancies and babies
(some women resorted to self-induced abortions),
sexually transmitted diseases, including
syphilis,
gonorrhoea and
HIV/AIDS (access to anti-retroviral drugs remains limited).
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, established in
1994 after the Rwandan Genocide, has only brought three perpetrators
before the Tribunal, with the first conviction in 1998.
Sri Lanka civilian war
During the
Sri Lankan Civil War,
multiple Human Rights Organizations have reported cases of rape,
violence and disappearance of women in the 1990s, claiming to be
committed by security forces. Government officials, including the
president, have denied the claims and agreed to co-operate with the
investigations and prosecute whomever they find guilty. The
UN Special Rapporteur, has reported that individual investigations and proceedings relating to these cases have commenced at the local
magistrates courts.
Philippines: Mindanao and Sulu
Bangladesh: Chittagong Hill Tracts
In the
Chittagong Hill Tracts Bengali settlers and soldiers have raped native
Jumma (
Chakma)
women "with impunity" with the Bangladeshi security forces doing little
to protect the Jummas and instead assisting the rapists and settlers.
Recent occurrences
Commenting on the rape of women and children in recent African conflict zones,
UNICEF
said in 2008 that rape was no longer just perpetrated by combatants but
also by civilians. According to UNICEF rape is common in countries
affected by wars and natural disasters, drawing a link between the
occurrence of sexual violence and significant uprooting of a society and
the crumbling of social norms. UNICEF states that in Kenya reported
cases of sexual violence doubled within days of recent post-election
conflict erupting. According to UNICEF rape was prevalent in conflict
zones in
Sudan, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
In
Eastern Congo, the prevalence and intensity of rape and other sexual violence is described as the worst in the world. A 2010 study found that 22% of men and 30% of women in Eastern Congo reported conflict-related sexual violence.
Since fighting broke out in 1998 tens of thousands of people have been raped in the
Democratic Republic of Congo. It is estimated that there are as many as 200,000 surviving rape victims living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo today.
War rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo has frequently been
described as a "weapon of war" by commentators. Louise Nzigire, a local
social worker, states that "this violence was designed to exterminate
the population." Nzigire observes that rape has been a "cheap, simple
weapon for all parties in the war, more easily obtainable than bullets
or bombs." The rape of men is also common. Men who admit they were raped risk
ostracism by their community, and criminal prosecution, because they may be seen as homosexual, which is a crime in 38 African countries.
Despite the peace process launched in 2003, sexual assault by
soldiers from armed groups and the national army continues in the
eastern provinces of the country.
Evidence of war rape emerged when United Nations troops move into areas
previously ravaged by war after the peace process started. Gang rape
and rape with objects has been reported. The victims of war rape may
suffer from
incontinence and
vaginal fistula as a result of particularly violent rape.
Witness accounts include an instance of a woman who had the barrel of a
gun inserted into her vagina, after which the soldier opened fire.
Incontinence and vaginal fistula leads to the isolation of war rape
victims from her community and access to reconstructive surgery is
limited in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Darfur region in Sudan
A 19 October 2004
UN News Centre article
[233] titled "
UNICEF adviser says rape in Darfur,
Sudan continues with impunity" reported:
Armed militias in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region are
continuing to rape women and girls with impunity, an expert from the
United Nations children’s agency said today on her return from a mission
to the region. Pamela Shifman, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) adviser
on violence and sexual exploitation, said she heard dozens of harrowing
accounts of sexual assaults – including numerous reports of gang-rapes –
when she visited internally displaced persons
(IDPs) at one camp and another settlement in North Darfur last week.
"Rape is used as a weapon to terrorize individual women and girls, and
also to terrorize their families and to terrorize entire communities,"
she said in an interview with the UN News Service. "No woman or girl is
safe."
In the same article Pamela Shifman was reported to have said that
every woman or girl she spoke to had either endured
sexual assault herself, or knew of someone who had been attacked,
particularly when they left the relative safety of their IDP camp or
settlement to find firewood.
Iraq War
Male prisoners of war may be subject to rape and sexual violence. Sexual violence against male prisoners of the
Iraq War gained wide publicity after graphic photos documented such abuses on male Iraqi prisoners by US guards at
Abu Ghraib prison, where prisoners were forced to humiliate themselves.
2011 – present Iraqi insurgency
The
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has employed sexual violence against women and men in a manner that has been described as "
terrorism".
ISIL has utilized sexual violence in order to undermine a sense of
security within communities, as well as to raise funds through the sale
of captives into sexual slavery. According to
The Wall Street Journal, ISIL appeals to
apocalyptic beliefs and claims "justification by a
Hadith that they interpret as portraying the revival of slavery as a precursor to the end of the world". In late 2014, ISIL released a pamphlet on the treatment of female slaves.
The New York Times said in August 2015 that "[t]he systematic rape of women and girls from the
Yazidi
religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and
the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group
announced it was reviving slavery as an institution."
2011 Libyan civil war
Afghan Taliban
In 2015, Amnesty International reported that the Afghan Taliban had
engaged in mass murder and gang rapes of Afghan civilians in Kunduz.
Taliban fighters killed and raped female relatives of police commanders
and soldiers. The Taliban also raped and killed midwives who they
accused of providing reproductive health services to women in the city. One female human rights activist described the situation:
When
the Taliban asserted their control over Kunduz, they claimed to be
bringing law and order and Shari’a to the city. But everything they’ve
done has violated both. I don’t know who can rescue us from this
situation.
Rape in contemporary peace operations by UN peacekeepers
In
contemporary conflict zones, international organizations, particularly
the United Nations peacekeepers, have been involved in maintaining peace
and stability in the area as well as distribute humanitarian aid to the
local population. At present there are 16 Peace Operations directed by
the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. The peacekeepers are
mainly composed of military personnel (but to a less number also the
police) sent by governments of various member-states.
However, over the course of their involvement in the field,
peacekeepers have also been accused and at times found guilty of
committing rape and other forms of sexual violence to the local
population, in particular to women and children. Among all international
staff in the conflict zone, United Nations peacekeepers (handled by the
Department of Peacekeeping Operations) have been most frequently
identified as the perpetrators of rape.
Motivations for rape and sexual abuse by peacekeepers
Like
traditional military ventures, peacekeepers are deployed in highly
unstable areas similar to war zones, where there is absence of the rule
of law, disintegration of society and great psychological and economic
hardships.
Having an image of wealth and authority, peacekeepers can easily
exercise power over the local population, which is often abused.
Moreover, as members of their respective country's militaries,
peacekeepers also carry with them in the peace operations the
"hyper-masculine culture" that encourages sexual exploitation and abuse. The motivations for rape differ from the traditional perpetrators
(government and rebel forces) in that rape is not part of a war strategy
that contributes to fulfilling the organization's mission, but rather
more as means to relieve the perpetrators’ sexual urges most often
related to the military culture.
Apart from putting the victim under the threat of physical violence,
perpetrators induce sexual acts from the victim through payment, and
granting or denying humanitarian aid.
Cases of rape and sexual abuse in peace operations
UN peacekeepers’ involvement in rape was found as early as 1993 during the
Bosnian genocide,
where peacekeepers were found to regularly visit a Serb-run brothel in
Sarajevo that housed Bosniak and Croat women who were forced to become
prostitutes. According to the Outlook, sexual misconduct by Indian soldiers and officers on UN duty in Congo raised disturbing questions. In recent years, several UN soldiers in
Haiti
have been accused and convicted of raping boys as young as 14 years. In
one instance, BBC News reports that Uruguayan soldiers raped a young
man. In another instance, Uruguayan UN soldiers were recently convicted
of raping a Haitian boy, sparking protests that called for the
withdrawal of UN peacekeeping forces. In Congo in 2004, peacekeepers from
Uruguay,
Morocco,
Tunisia,
South Africa and
Nepal have faced 68 cases of rape, prostitution and
pedophilia. The investigation resulted in the jailing of six Nepalese troops.
In Sudan, the Egyptian contingent was accused of raping six women when
the civilians took shelter at the peacekeepers’ headquarters in order to
flee from the fighting. Allegations of rape of young women and children have also been launched against UN peacekeepers in
South Sudan. In
Mali, four UN peacekeepers from
Chad were involved in the rape of a woman. Members of the Moroccan contingent faced rape charges during the course of their duties at the UN mission in
Ivory Coast.
Punitive measures
The
most common challenge in reprimanding perpetrators is the significant
underreporting of the issue mainly due to three reasons. First, the
victims do not report or file complaints due to fears of revenge from
the offender(s), denial of aid and the social stigma against rape
victims in the victims’ own community. Second, UN higher officials previously dismissed such allegations as "boys will be boys".
Third, fellow peacekeepers are accustomed to the "wall of silence" in
the spirit of brotherhood characteristic of military culture but also to
protect the reputation of their sending government. As a consequence, whistleblowers are often stigmatised.
However, if there would indeed be reports, the UN instituted the
Conduct and Discipline Teams (CDTs) to conduct an investigation
referring the allegations for serious offense to the Office of Internal
Oversight Services (OIOS).
When found guilty, the course of the specific disciplinary action is
dependent on the employee status of the offender. UN civilian staff and
personnel have functional immunity that can only be waived by the UN
Secretary-General. In the case of military personnel, they are subject
to the jurisdiction of their respective sending governments.
The usual practice for offending soldiers has been to repatriate the
personnel and prosecute them in their home country. In several cases,
punitive measures are imposed such as demotion or dishonorable
dismissal. However, very few among guilty personnel have faced criminal
charges in their home countries after repatriation.
Rape camp
A rape camp is a detention facility that is designed for or turns into a place where authorities regularly rape the detainees.
Rape camps set up by the Bosnian Serb authorities have been extensively documented in the Bosnian War.
Notable examples
Forced prostitution and sexual slavery in war
Forced prostitution and
sexual slavery
are distinct as forms of war rape, as they entail more than the
opportunistic rape by soldiers of women captives. Instead, women and
girls are forced into sexual slavery, in some cases for prolonged
periods. This is defined by the UN as "the status or condition of a
person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of
ownership are exercised, including sexual access through rape or other
forms of sexual violence".
War time forced prostitution takes several forms ranging from
individual trafficking by armed forces to the institutionalization of
the act of rape by military or civil authorities. The term ‘forced
prostitution’ is often used in the press to refer to men and women
displaced by war who are forced to engage in prostitution to survive.
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