Silenced Victims Of Wartime Sexual Violence

The condemnation of wartime sexual violence as a gross violation of human rights has received widespread support. While rape and other forms of sexual violence have attracted considerable local and international attention, this often excludes wartime sexual violence among women belonging to so-called ‘perpetrator’ war-torn nations. This book explores the silence surrounding women’s experiences of wartime sexual violence within academic, legal and public discourses. Olivera Simić argues that the international criminal law and feminist legal discourse on wartime sexual violence can construct a problematic victim hierarchy that excludes and misrecognises certain women’s experiences of sexual violence during and after armed conflict. The book focuses on the experiences of Bosnian Serb women, where the collapse of the former Yugoslavia led to brutal war and gross human rights violations throughout the 1990s. Two decades after the war, women in Bosnia and Herzegovina are still facing the legacies of the violence in the 1990s. Through this case Simić argues that while all women survivors of rape face problems of stigma, shame and lack of political visibility, their legal and symbolic status differ according to their ethno-national identity. Drawing on interviews with Bosnian Serb women survivors of rape in Bosnia and Herzegovina, feminist activists, local media, documentary and archival sources, the book examines ‘post-conflict justice’ as it is seen, lived and interpreted by women who belong to ‘perpetrator’ nations and will be of great interest and use to researchers, students and practitioners within post-conflict law and justice, international criminal law, security studies and gender studies.

The condemnation of wartime sexual violence as a gross violation of human rights has received widespread support. While rape and other forms of sexual violence have attracted considerable local and international attention, this often excludes wartime sexual violence among women belonging to so-called 'perpetrator' war-torn nations. This book explores the silence surrounding women's experiences of wartime sexual violence within academic, legal and public discourses. Olivera Simic argues that the international criminal law and feminist legal discourse on wartime sexual violence can construct a problematic victim hierarchy that excludes and misrecognises certain women's experiences of sexual violence during and after armed conflict. The book focuses on the experiences of Bosnian Serb women, where the collapse of the former Yugoslavia led to brutal war and gross human rights violations throughout the 1990s. Two decades after the war, women in Bosnia and Herzegovina are still facing the legacies of the violence in the 1990s. Through this case Simic argues that while all women survivors of rape face problems of stigma, shame and lack of political visibility, their legal and symbolic status differ according to their ethno-national identity. Drawing on interviews with Bosnian Serb women survivors of rape in Bosnia and Herzegovina, feminist activists, local media, documentary and archival sources, the book examines 'post-conflict justice' as it is seen, lived and interpreted by women who belong to 'perpetrator' nations and will be of great interest and use to researchers, students and practitioners within post-conflict law and justice, international criminal law, security studies and gender studies.

This collection offers a new reflection on rape in war time through 15 case studies, ranging from Greece to Nigeria. It questions the specificity of rape as a universal transgression, its place in memories of war, its legacies, including children born from rape, and the challenge of writing about intimate violence as both a scientist and a human.

Reports of sexual violence in armed conflict frequently appear in political discussions and news media, presenting a stark contrast to a long history of silence and nonrecognition. Conflict-related sexual violence has transitioned rapidly from a neglected human rights issue to an unambiguous security concern on the agendas of powerful states and the United Nations Security Council. Through interviews and primary-source evidence, Kerry F. Crawford investigates the reasons for this dramatic change and the implications of the securitization of sexual violence. Views about wartime sexual violence began changing in the 1990s as a result of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and then accelerated in the 2000s. Three case studies—the United States' response to sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1820 in 2008, and the development of the United Kingdom’s Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative—illustrate that use of the weapon of war frame does not represent pure co-optation by the security sector. Rather, well-placed advocates have used this frame to advance the antisexual violence agenda while simultaneously working to move beyond the frame’s constraints. This book is a groundbreaking account of the transformation of international efforts to end wartime sexual violence.

Donna Seto investigates why children born of wartime sexual violence are rarely included in post-conflict processes of reconciliation and recovery. The focus on children born of wartime sexual violence questions the framework of understanding war and recognizes that certain individuals are often forgotten or neglected. This book considers how children are neglected sites for the reproduction of global norms. It approaches this topic through an interdisciplinary perspective that questions how silence surrounding the issue of wartime sexual violence has prevented justice for children born of war from being achieved. In considering this, Seto examines how the theories and practices of mainstream International Relations (IR) can silence the experiences of war rape survivors and children born of wartime sexual violence and explores the theoretical frameworks within IR and the institutional structures that uphold protection regimes for children and women.

A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. Although wartime sexual violence against men occurs more frequently than is commonly assumed, its dynamics are remarkably underexplored, and male survivors’ experiences remain particularly overlooked. This reality is poignant in northern Uganda, where sexual violence against men during the early stages of the conflict was geographically widespread, yet now accounts of those incidents are not just silenced and neglected locally but also widely absent from analyses of the war. Based on rare empirical data, this book seeks to remedy this marginalization and to illuminate the seldom-heard voices of male sexual violence survivors in northern Uganda, bringing to light their experiences of gendered harms, agency, and justice.

A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. Although wartime sexual violence against men occurs more frequently than is commonly assumed, its dynamics are remarkably underexplored, and male survivors’ experiences remain particularly overlooked. This reality is poignant in northern Uganda, where sexual violence against men during the early stages of the conflict was geographically widespread, yet now accounts of those incidents are not just silenced and neglected locally but also widely absent from analyses of the war. Based on rare empirical data, this book seeks to remedy this marginalization and to illuminate the seldom-heard voices of male sexual violence survivors in northern Uganda, bringing to light their experiences of gendered harms, agency, and justice.

Why is it that men and boys have been and still are violated in human conflict, be it in conventional war, insurgencies or periods of civil and ethnic strife? Above all, why, throughout history, have victims, perpetrators and society as a whole refused to acknowledge this violation, and why do episodes of male-on-male rape and sexual abuse feature so rarely in accounts of war, be they official histories, eye-witness accounts or popular narratives? Is there more to this elision of memory than simply shame? Is there more to it than the victor's desire to violate the enemy body? Amalendu Misra's startlingly original research into male sexual violence explores the meaning and role of the male body prior to its abuse and how it is altered by violation in wartime. He examines the bio-political contexts of conflict in which primarily men and occasionally women sexually violate men; he details the inadequate legal safeguards for survivors of such events; and in unearthing and analysing an ignored aspect of war, he inquires whether such violence can ever be deterred.