Forced pregnancy

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A forced pregnancy is a pregnancy that was forced on the mother , for example in the context of slavery , a forced marriage or a genocide. Forced pregnancies can be punishable under international criminal law as war crimes , crimes against humanity or genocide .

slavery

The so-called "slave breeding" was one of the practices of the slave owners. Pregnancies were forced on slaves through rape in order to sell their children for profit or use them for work. The slaves were denied personal rights and they were considered the property and property of the slave owner.

United States

The ex-slave Maggie Stenhouse reported on her experiences in the USA :

“During the time of slavery there were 'disciples'. These were weighed and tested for strength. A slave owner could hire a breeder and lock him in a room with the young woman he wanted children from [and force her to have sexual intercourse]. "

genocide

Forced pregnancies are also used as a weapon of genocide . Forced pregnancies in conflict zones are the result of right-wing ideologies that propagate the extermination of the enemy group on the basis of their supposedly natural or genetically determined inferiority. Rape is propagated as a means of forcing female members of the enemy group offspring from their own group. For example, cases of forced pregnancy have been reported in the context of the genocide in Burundi , the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon and the genocide in Rwanda .

Democratic Republic of Congo

It is reported that around 400,000 rapes, often resulting in pregnancy, occurred in the context of the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo .

Rwanda

In the later stages of the Hutu power movement, the Tutsi were viewed as inferior people . Marriages between Hutu and Tutsi were rejected, but rape of Tutsi women was propagated. Surveys showed that the majority of female survivors of the genocide over the age of 12 had been raped in Rwanda.

Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina

In 2003 the lawyer Feryal Gharahi visited Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina on behalf of Equality Now and interviewed contemporary witnesses about the war in Kosovo . She reported:

“There were rape camps across the country. [...] Women told me stories full of hideousness - about how they were held in a room, raped again and again and told that this would continue until they would give birth to Serbian children. "

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Siobhan K. Fisher. 1996. Occupation of the womb: Forced impregnation as genocide. Duke Law Journal. Pp. 91-133
  2. ↑ Marable, Manning. 2000. How capitalism underdeveloped Black America: problems in race, political economy, and society. South End Press. P. 72
  3. ↑ Eddie Donoghue. 2008 Black Breeding Machines: The Breeding of Negro Slaves in the Diaspora. AuthorHouse. Pp. 134-36.
  4. ^ Work Projects Administration, Slave Narratives. 2004. A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 6, Kessinger Publishing. P. 154.
  5. ^ Charli Carpenter. 2007. Born of War: Protecting Children of Sexual Violence Survivors in Conflict Zones. Kumarian. Pp. 40-52
  6. ↑ Poloni-Staudinger, Lori; Candice D. Ortbals. 2012. "Rape as a Weapon of War and Genocide". Terrorism and Violent Conflict: Women's Agency, Leadership, and Responses. Jumper.
  7. ↑ Walsh, Annelotte. 201). The Girl Child. In: Lisa Yarwood. Women and Transitional Justice: The Experience of Women as Participants. Routledge. P. 59
  8. ^ Bosnia-Herzegovina: Mass Rape, Forced Pregnancy, Genocide. In: Equality Now. February 1, 1993, archived from the original on February 16, 2016 ; accessed on February 16, 2016 .