Sexual Violence And Armed Conflict

Sexual violence is a particular brand of evil that women have endured—more than men—during armed conflicts, through the ages. It is a menace that has continued to challenge the conscience of humanity—especially in our times. At the international level, basic laws aimed at preventing it are not in short supply. What is needed is a more conscious determination to enforce existing laws. This book explores ways of doing just that; thereby shoring up international legal protection of women from sexual violence in armed conflicts.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of women become victims of sexual violence in conflict zones around the world; in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone, approximately 1,100 rapes are reported each month. This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the causes, consequences and responses to sexual violence in contemporary armed conflict. It explores the function and effect of wartime sexual violence and examines the conditions that make women and girls most vulnerable to these acts both before, during and after conflict. To understand the motivations of the men (and occasionally women) who perpetrate this violence, the book analyzes the role played by systemic and situational factors such as patriarchy and militarized masculinity. Difficult questions of accountability are tackled; in particular, the case of child soldiers, who often suffer a double victimization when forced to commit sexual atrocities. The book concludes by looking at strategies of prevention and protection as well as new programs being set up on the ground to support the rehabilitation of survivors and their communities. Sexual violence in war has long been a taboo subject but, as this book shows, new and courageous steps are at last being taken Ð at both local and international level - to end what has been called the “greatest silence in history”.

In the mid 1970s, at the peak of the women’s movement, feminist activism and research opened the door to questions that are still pressing today. While sexual violence has gained public awareness and become a subject in academic debate, efforts to understand and strategies to prevent this form of violence remain inadequate. Who are the perpetrators? How is sexual violence tied to other forms of violence? What are the consequences for individual victims and societies? Compiled by the International Research Group ‘Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict’ (SVAC), this volume takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding wartime sexual violence. Its enquiry employs four key relationships: War/Power, Violence/Sexuality, Gender/Engendering and Visibility/Invisibility. Through these, the authors identify gaps in existing knowledge to develop a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the field. This volume is the result of long-standing cooperation. The International Research Group ‘Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict’ (SVAC) is a network of interdisciplinary scholars and NGO experts founded in October 2010. Sociologists, philosophers, historians, literary and legal scholars as well as NGO professionals from Europe, the US, Asia and Africa bring together empirical and theoretical studies focusing on sexual violence in different theatres of armed conflict. The group compares source material and promotes the systematic development of research questions and methods.

"In it's first part, the Global Overview, the report profiles documented conflict-related sexual violence in 51 countries - in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East - that have experienced armed conflict over the past twenty years. The second part of the report, entitled Implications for the Security Sector, explores strategies for security and justice actors to prevent and respond to sexual violence in armed conflict and post-conflict situations"--P. 4 of cover.

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and freely available to read online.Drawing on historical and contemporary case studies, this book delves into visual and text-based materials to unpack gender-based violence(s) perpetrated and experienced by both sexes within and beyond the conflict zone.

'Rape Loot Pillage' offers a new framework for understanding conflict-related sexual violence based on feminist international political economy. By looking at patterns of contemporary conflict this book proposes a new typology of wartime sexual violence that ties the 'value' of this violence to the politico-economic objectives of the perpetrators in different conflict contexts.

Sexual violence in conflict is not simply a gross violation of human rights—it is also a security challenge.

Since the 1990s, sexual violence in conflict zones has received much media attention. In large part as a result of grassroots feminist organizing in the 1970s and 1980s, mass rapes in the wars in the former Yugoslavia and during the Rwandan genocide received widespread coverage, and international organizations—from courts to NGOs to the UN—have engaged in systematic efforts to hold perpetrators accountable and to ameliorate the effects of wartime sexual violence. Yet many millennia of conflict preceded these developments, and we know little about the longer-term history of conflict-based sexual violence. Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones helps to fill in the historical gaps. It provides insight into subjects that are of deep concern to the human rights community, such as the aftermath of conflict-based sexual violence, legal strategies for prosecuting it, the economic functions of sexual violence, and the ways perceived religious or racial difference can create or aggravate settings of sexual danger. Essays in the volume span a broad geographic, chronological, and thematic scope, touching on the ancient world, medieval Europe, the American Revolutionary War, precolonial and colonial Africa, Muslim Central Asia, the two world wars, and the Bangladeshi War of Independence. By considering a wide variety of cases, the contributors analyze the factors making sexual violence in conflict zones more or less likely and the resulting trauma more or less devastating. Topics covered range from the experiences of victims and the motivations of perpetrators, to the relationship between wartime and peacetime sexual violence, to the historical background of the contemporary feminist-inflected human rights moment. In bringing together historical and contemporary perspectives, this wide-ranging collection provides historians and human rights activists with tools for understanding long-term consequences of sexual violence as war-ravaged societies struggle to achieve postconflict stability.