Sexual violence in armed conflict is increasingly reported with state and non-state individuals. What strategies can help prevent such an affliction?
In the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the UN Secretary General’s In-Depth Study on Violence Against Women estimates between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped. In a war setting rape is often used to embarrass, control, displace, extract information and physically harm women according to the Human Rights Watch’s report, “Sudan, Darfur: Rape as a weapon of war: sexual violence and its consequences.” Many situations of systematic rape, in an attempt to control and destroy women’s sexuality, also serve to ethnically cleanse a minority population.
Today the incidence of violence against women is widespread among areas of war around the world, including Iraqi women raped by US military forces. Sexual violence in armed conflict consists of the use of psychological, physical and sexual abuse of women, often systematic. These include but are not limited to sexual slavery, exploitation and rape, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, and forced sterilization.
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About
Radha Patel is freelance consultant, working in international development and public administration. A San Francisco native, Radha is currently in New York working for the UNFPA. She enjoys hiking, kayaking and walking in nature when she has the opportunity. Radha finished her postgraduate education at Columbia University and the London School of Economics, respectively.
My expertise is on minority issues in Central and Southeast Europe and so my knowledge on this specific subject is limited. But I know that a component of the war in the former Yugoslavia was violence based on gender. Though I am not sure of any actual interventions during the war in that region, I do know there have been initiatives afterward.
Also the former Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice did a lot of work around how violence against women would be dealt with at the International Criminal Court—based on the Rwandan and Yugoslavian tribunals. That may be a good place to start in terms of talking about interventions. If anyone has more information about that work, it would be good to read about it.
A very important issue Radha. Chris Dolan has done some really interesting work in Northern Uganda looking at masculinity, power and violence - and the use of rape as a weapon in conflict. His work offers insights into how the rape of women, men and children can be viewed as a systematic strategy to humiliate and disempower opposition. If I have understood his conclusions well then part of the approach needed in developing strategies must look at masulinity and the sexual and social norms over societies. In societies with strong sexual and social norms (and lets face it which societies don't have strong sexual and social norms) rape can be the ultimate attempt to dehumanize individuals and destabilize communities. Chris talks about the need to support the development of multiple models of masculinity including those that are less sexist and heterosexit as a way to undermine the 'incentive' for armed forces to use such tactics in the first place. Such work is clearly long-term and complex but useful to think about all the same.
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Monday 30th November, 2009, 10:30pm
Great post Radha, thank-you for calling attention to this issue through this forum. There was an excellent piece in the Washington Times in September that addressed rape as a weapon of war in the Congo. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/08/special-section-rape-and-recovery-congo/
Haunting, devastating, and a topic that needs to be addressed. In my next post I begin to look at the gender identifies of nations and would like to now link this to the topic you have addressed.
Looking forward to continued conversation.
Tanya Rumble