Sexual violence as a weapon of war

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Sexual violence as an instrument to combat and humiliate the opponent is a practice and strategy of violent conflicts worldwide. A particularly inhuman feature is the targeted use of sexual violence against civilians. In most cases women are affected, but men are also raped. The practice is outlawed by all international conventions.

At the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century, the wars in Nigeria, Bosnia, Congo , Rwanda , Libya and Bangladesh systematically used sexualised violence against the majority of women as a strategy in military conflicts.

Aspects

strategy

A military order to exercise sexual violence against the opponent is rare. Rather, it is seen in many sexist military units as a desirable appearance of the fight. In many cases, it is difficult to prove that rape is on orders. However, the fact suggests that in many cases there is no individual rape, but rather group rapes very often, at least after consultation.

Exercise of power

The exercise of power and the humiliation of the opponent is a central motive in sexual violence as a means of war. Usually the form follows on from a patriarchal gender image. Rapes are a. used in the course of ethnic displacement. The men of the victorious camp use this form as an instrument to send a message to the men of the defeated camp: "You cannot protect your wives" as a message of humiliation.

expulsion

Rape is common in the course of ethnic or otherwise war-related displacement. They are a major cause of people fleeing. According to a study by the British Medical Journal , between 50 and 70 percent of women asylum seekers in the UK had witnessed rape, were raped or fled in fear of it.

Gender

Rape of women

The vast majority of women are victims of sexual violence in conflict.

The US historian Susan Brownmiller was the first scientist to provide an in-depth overview of the theory and history of rape and the like. a. Developed during the war and published in 1974 in the pioneering work on "Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape". Brownmiller's thesis is that war provides men with “the perfect psychological backdrop from which to express their contempt for women. The masculinity of the military - the raw power of weapons reserved exclusively for male hands, the spiritual attachment of men to weapons, the male discipline of command and obedience, the simple logic of hierarchical command - confirms for men what they assume anyway - Women have a peripheral position to the relevant world. ”Rape accompanies the territorial gain of the victorious side in territorial conflicts as one of the spoils of war. According to Brownmiller, men who rape are ordinary types who, due to the unusual situation, would become a “male-only club”.

Rape of men

Rape of men by other men is also a common practice in war and conflict. A study by Lara Stemple from 2009 found that rape of men in conflict can be proven worldwide. For example, 76% of male political prisoners in El Salvador in the 1980s and 80% of inmates in the Sarajevo concentration camp reported having been raped or sexually tortured. Stemple concludes that "the lack of attention to sexual abuse of men during a conflict is particularly worrying given the widespread scope of the problem." Mervyn Christian of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing found that male rapes are often undocumented and publicly underreported.

consequences

When people are raped at high and brutal levels, it affects the social fabric of entire societies. It often means the destruction of social cohesion. As a result, women who have been raped are not only burdened with the rape trauma, but are stigmatized and excluded from their own families and their own environment.

Traumatization

In most cases, the victims of sexual violence are severely traumatized. In addition to the sexual assaults, there is the trauma of war.

Stigma and humiliation

Depending on the social context, the victims are strongly stigmatized. The men in the “losing group” are often shaped by the same patriarchal mindset as the men in the winning group. In their minds, if a woman's body is so injured, the woman's honor is destroyed, and with it the honor of the whole family.

Social context

The act of rapists often finds its continuation in the social isolation of the victims. A continuation of sexualised violence in war is partly the sexual exploitation of the victims by Mafia structures, which force women into forced brothels . Such brothels existed in the Balkans after the Yugoslav Wars, for example .

Help

The doctor Monika Hauser points out that if the system of the social ostracism of the victims is broken and male as well as female, non-raped relatives of the victim would behave in an empathic and solidarity manner, the rape victims would be able to live better.

Legal Aspects

Since sexual violence as a weapon of war is an old phenomenon, it was banned early on by conventions. It violates martial law and human rights.

literature

  • Sarah K. Danielsson (Ed.): War and Sexual Violence: New Perspectives in a New Era. Ferdinand Schöningh, Leiden 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-70266-1 .
  • Njoroge, Fraciah Muringi (2016): Evolution of Rape As a War Crime and a Crime Against Humanity [1] .
  • Elizabeth D. Heineman (Ed.): Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: From the Ancient World to the Era of Human Rights. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2013, ISBN 978-0-8122-2261-6 .
  • Tuba Inal: Looting and Rape in Wartime: Law and Change in International Relations. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2013, ISBN 978-0-8122-4476-2 .
  • R. Branche, F. Virgili: Rape in Wartime. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2012, ISBN 978-0-230-36399-1 .
  • Nicola Henry: War and Rape: Law, Memory and Justice. Routledge, London 2010, ISBN 978-0-415-56473-1 .

Lecture

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ - Heinrich Böll Foundation: Sexual violence against women is a war tactic. Retrieved on August 3, 2020 (German).
  2. ↑ a b c tagesschau.de: Interview: Sexualized violence in war. Retrieved August 3, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Rape in war 'a deliberate military strategy' argue researchers. Retrieved August 3, 2020 .
  4. ↑ https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-may-11-oe-jacoby11-story.html
  5. ^ Lara Stemple, Male Rape and Human Rights , 60 Hastings LJ 605 (2009).
  6. ↑ How did rape become a weapon of war? December 8, 2004 ( bbc.co.uk [accessed August 3, 2020]).
  7. ↑ United Nations: Rape as a War Crime. Retrieved August 3, 2020 .
  8. ^ Customary IHL - Rule 93. Rape and Other forms of Sexual Violence. Retrieved August 3, 2020 .