RAPE AS A WEAPON OF WAR: A MULTI-PERSPECTIVE ANALYSIS BY - SHILPA KHANDELWAL
AUTHORED
BY - SHILPA KHANDELWAL
Assistant Professor,
Modi Law College, Nayagaon Rawat Bhata Road, Kota,
Rajasthan.
Abstract:
Across Human history, conflict in one
form or the other has remained the bedrock of civilizations. Conflict affects
both men and women, although,
differently and has tendency to violate the human rights. Since women have
remained one of the most vulnerable
groups in human society they have been victimized through ages, particularly in
situations of conflict and war. Across time
and space women have been subject to humiliation through different tactics.
Among the brutalities that have been employed
by oppressors on women rape has remained the dominant one. Rape as a
weapon of war has both physical and psychological implications. It is used to dominate, disperse and instill fear
among the women as well as the societies. This paper focuses on why rape is being used as a weapon of war
and how it tends to affect women in particular and society in general. This
paper also examines the steps
that have been taken by international organizations to tackle this issue.
Keywords
- Women, conflict, war, rape, international organizations.
INTRODUCTION
Any situation of armed conflict or war has
mostly remained a male activity. Usually men take up arms and fight and thus
assume the roles of combatants. Women
mostly are left at home to take care of the family. In most of the cases women
are not directly involved in the
fighting yet they have been specifically targeted and suffer a lot. While armed
conflicts have the tendency to harm to
anyone, men, women, girls and boys may face very different dangers. People get
displaced and are forced to leave their homes
and possessions in the process of running for the safety. Depending on the nature of conflict people
may be forced to flee a number of times, seldom able to reestablish
stability within family or involve
in normal livings. Without any basic security women are much prone to the sexual
violence[1]. Women neither start the wars nor get
directly involved in them yet they
have been at greater risk of violence. Thus armed conflict and displacement can
bring different forms of violence against women
with them. These may include casual acts of sexual assault both by enemy and
friendly forces or mass rape as a deliberate
tactic of genocide. Some groups of women and girls have been
predominantly susceptible in conflict and displacement conditions. These include some particular ethnic
groups, unaccompanied women and children, children in foster care arrangements
and lone heads of household. Some forms of violence, resulting from the conflict situation are:
·
Mass rape, military
sexual slavery, forced
prostitution, forced
marriages and forced pregnancies.
·
Multiple rapes and gang rape and the rape of young girls.
·
Sexual assault associated with violent physical assault.
·
Resurgence of female
genital mutilation with the communities under attack, as a
way to reinforce cultural identity.
Nature
of the assault to be referred to as rape: Rape, as a tool of war, has
undoubtedly remained effective, as it is not just an attack on the individual but an attack which utilizes social and
gender stigmas leading societal breakdown. As a weapon of armed conflict it demoralizes and destabilizes
entire communities, it weakens ethnic communities/ties and affects populations
with exploitation of reproductive
rights and abilities of its victims.[3] Rape, one of the sexual violence acts, is a penetrative sexual
assault. Penetration may occur using any object or a part of human body. It not
only includes vaginal copulation but
also oral penetration. The International Criminal Court for Rwanda defined rape
as, “a physical invasion of a sexual
nature, committed on a person under circumstances which are coercive”. Sexual
violence and rape can also include elements that are considered as crimes under international law. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia held that rape could constitute torture
when the particular conditions of torture were fulfilled. The International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda held
that rape could constitute genocide when the particular conditions of genocide
were fulfilled.[4]
RAPE AS A WEAPON OF WAR IN HISTORICAL
AND MODERN TIMES
The history of rape as a weapon of war dates
back to the ancient times. The references related to such can also be found in
Bible and some other ancient works,
such as Homer’s Iliad. Women were often abducted as rewards of war and then
they were either murdered or forced
to marry their captors/rapists. This was most prevalent in present day Gulf
world, during the times Old Testament
was reveled (as Christian accounts suggest). There are also references in the
ancient Greeks and Romans scriptures that suggest,
they would rape and enslave the women after they had conquered a city[5]. In Contemporary world there are a vast number of documented examples
that could be offered in support of this claim. During world war second it is
alleged that Nazi forces committed
rape in the territories they occupied. Credible
documented sources suggest that the Jewish women were very vulnerable
to rape during Holocaust. One of the most shocking examples of massive and state organized
programs of rape of women
during wartime was the case of ‘comfort women’. Comfort women were the women,
who were forced into sexual slavery
by Japanese forces in occupied territories. It is estimated that around 200,000
Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese and Filipino
women and girls were forced to serve as sex slaves in Japanese military
brothels. In the infamous Nanking Massacres Japanese
soldiers committed rape on a large scale by using around 20,000 women and girls
as sex slaves. (Wartime sexual violence).
During the last stages of world war second, Soviet soldiers reportedly raped
more than two million German women and as per hospital statistics between 95,000 to 130,000 women were raped in Berlin alone.[6] Serbian paramilitary troops also used rape as a
way to encourage Bosnian Muslim women to run away from their land .According to International criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia around 20,000 to 50,000 women and girls of Bosnian identity,
ranging between the age six to
seventy years, were repeatedly raped and held captives for many years during
1990s by Serbian forces in the camps
particularly designated for it.[7] Women in Rwanda were subjected to sexual
violence on a large scale during 1994
genocide. Rape was committed by the members of infamous Hutu militia groups, by
soldiers of Rwandan Armed Forces and
by other civilians. Military and political leaders at national and local levels
directed as well as encouraged the killings and
sexual violence in order to achieve their goal i.e. the destruction of the
Tutsi as a group. Though the exact number of women raped will never be known but the testimonies from survivors confirm
that rape was tremendously common and women were raped individually, gang raped, raped with sharpened objects or
gun barrels and also held in sexual slavery.[8] Democratic Republic of Congo besides
suffering from the civil war suffers
from other war; a war on women .According to UN more than two million women
have been raped in Congo since 1998,
designating DRC as ‘the worst place in the world to be a women’[9].
WHY RAPE IS USED IN ARMED CONFLICT
SITUATION AND WARS
‘’It is more dangerous to be
a woman than to be a solider
in modern conflict -Patrick Cammaert, Former
Deputy Commander of the UN mission
to the Democratic Republic
of Congo.
Rape is neither incidental nor private. It
normally serves a tactical purpose in war and acts as an essential tool for accomplishing specific
military objectives. It is an attack directed against personal
identity and cultural integrity. The saying goes that ‘’rape is as old as war itself’’ and the bodies of
women have been used in the battlefield for hundreds of years around the world.
But the Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda wars in 1990s were defining moments
because the term ‘’rape as a weapon of war’’ was brought out as rape was committed tactically and deliberately
used as a war tactic.[10] Rape as a weapon of war has been one of the
most humiliating offences, which leaves permanent scars not only on victim’s body but also on the mind and soul. Rape,
as a tool of war is used tactically and deliberately to derive some goals. It could be used to conquer, expel or control women and
the communities. Sometimes rape is
used deliberately to dispel
one group of people and empty the land of its settled population. The
attack may be highly gendered while men get killed; women are raped and subjected to other kinds
of sexual violence.[11] In the conditions of ethnic competition and enmity, rape takes on yet another form
i.e. a tool of ‘’ethnic cleansing’’. The Bosnian women were repeatedly raped by
Serbs in the infamous rape camps till
they were pregnant and it was too late for abortion. It is alleged that the aim
was to impregnate them with the
children of mixed ethnicity, thus, destroying the Bosnian ethnic identity by
diluting bloodlines. Thus the systematic rape
served two military objectives: humiliation of the enemy and ethnic destruction.
The Rwandan genocide also represents this tactic
at its most vicious. Hutu attackers raped thousands of Tutsi women, sometimes
they were allegedly raped by HIV infected men
in order to infect the victims, with the aim of destroying the population. Women are attacked because they represent
the honor of the community
and reproduce the culture. Since in most of the communities ethnic identity of a child is determined by the ethnicity of
the father, a child fathered by an attacker from another community will belong
to the attacker’s community, so that it creates social and cultural crisis
for the whole community. Thus a child born of rape by the enemy is a constant
reminder of the humiliation.[12] Rape was carried out in Democratic Republic
of Congo for number of reasons. Firstly, men raped and carried out the acts of sexual violence for their own
pleasure, secondly rape was committed by the militia group to spread fear among the population and thus terrorize
the communities and thirdly rape was used as a tool of ethnic cleansing. Many
soldiers brutally raped the Congolese
with the intention to sever the bloodline so that later on the women become
infertile and thus unable to
reproduce.[13] Rape is often used as a predecessor to
murder, where those who survive only serve as a regular reminder to those around them of the catastrophes of war.
Victims are rejected by both families
as well as the communities which
place the victims in the state of victimization and isolation. While many
sophisticated weapons may be used in modern warfare
there is one weapon which all men carry and use during war i.e. manhood. Men
use their bodies as weapons to attack. Rape
as a tool of war not only affects individual but also whole family and the
community in which they live.[14] In addition
rape of women carries with itself a message, a man to man communication i.e.
telling the other side that they are unable and
powerless to protect their women folk thus hurting their manly pride. Rape
carried out during conflict situation or war can be regarded as the ultimate symbol of humiliation by the enemy
group. Thus, rape of their women is seen as the degradation of masculinity by the men. It not only leads
to infinite sufferings of the women but it has its effect on the men as well.[15]
POST RAPE EFFECTS
Rape has a long-lasting intense physical,
social and psychological impact. The physical wounds suffered in most form of
conflicts are usually visible,
treated medically and finally healed. In contrast sexual violence may result in
major physical injury and severe internal
wounds; it is far less likely to be treated than other wounds. Not only physically mature women are raped
but also children whose bodies haven’t
matured yet, who as a result
may sustain terrible internal injuries. When a women
is raped it invades her most intimate
space. Raped women live with high levels of anxiety and pain. They find it
difficult to carry out day to day normal tasks and interact with others.[16]
PHYSICAL HEALTH
Rape has serious physical as well as mental
health consequences for survivors. Physical consequences include injury,
infection, unwanted pregnancy and
HIV. Mental health effects can also be serious. They include anxiety,
post-traumatic stress disorders, depression
and even suicide. Rape can involve severe injury to woman’s or girl’s body
including scratches and tears which may need
stitching. Antibiotics are required to prevent infection. Post exposure HIV
prevention can prevent HIV infection. But all
these treatments require that the survivors have access to a health
clinic where essential apparatus as well as trained personnel is available. But chances of getting the
treatment in poor war torn areas are very less and very less people get the
medical treatment they need. Thus, many survivors go without treatment
suffering physically.[17]
CONCERNS OF THE
CHILDREN BORN OF RAPE
The community stigmatizes and socially
punishes the children born of the rape and their mothers as well. Children are
rejected by their mothers and communities as they are viewed as the enemy because of their paternity
and the conditions of their conception.
The mother of child faces a lifetime of
turmoil over the conception, whether to raise the child, give up the child for
adoption or terminate the pregnancy.
Many pregnant survivors seek abortions but obtaining an abortion during war
times is very difficult. Women who
give up their child for adoption often live with trauma of carrying and giving
birth to the enemy’s child and they also live
with grief of separation and loss.[18] Children
born as a result of rape face countless struggles of identity and social difficulties both internally and
externally. In many communities such as Rwanda, where thousands of children
were born of rape as a weapon of
war, are labeled with names
such as unwanted children, children
with bad memories. Such children
carry with them the burden of their
traumatic conception. They see themselves as source of mistake; wretchedness
and even evil as they see themselves genetically connected to the rapist father and
thus are often prone to violence.[19]
PHYCHOLOGICAL EFFECT
The mental health results of rape can be
devastating especially if rape is carried out in presence of or by a family
member or neighbors. In Sierra Leone
a common form of attack involved compelling parents or children to watch or even take part in the rape of women and girls in their own families and villages. This was done to
intimidate the community and impart extreme trauma
on members of the family. The trauma is very difficult to cope up if the rape
is carried out in public and accompanied by severe humiliation. Besides being a continued trauma to the individual, it also affects individual’s relations
with the community.
If the trauma of rape is accompanied by unwanted pregnancy or the fear
of HIV infection, it is even more difficult for the victims to recover and deal with day to day life.[20] The sense of structure and safety of
survivor may be crushed by the number of
traumas she has experienced. Rapes may be combined with physical abuse,
torment, starvation, verbal abuse and other forms of humiliation with the intention of increasing the trauma to the
survivor. Psychotic symptoms, sexual dysfunction, and self-harming behavior are common among the survivors.
Rape has been associated with the development of borderline personality
disorder or complex PTSD. Elevated
levels of substance abuse, depression, eating disorders, and anxiety have been
noted. Survivors are also likely to
experience other types of psychosocial distress, including isolation;
difficulty relating to others; low self-esteem or self- worth; and feelings
of objectification, guilt, and self-blame[21].
EFFECT ON COMMUNITY
The consequences of wartime rape aren’t only
at the individual level but also at societal level. Community experiences
severe trauma when it witnesses rape
and atrocities committed against
their women. The community enters into shock and grief as it loses its
mothers, sisters, daughters through rejection by community and families,
physical death or devastating impact of psychological
and physical wounds. In cultures with
strong customs and taboos about virginity, sex and sexuality rape is characterized as disgraceful. The victim
is viewed by community as being dirty and damaged. Thus women are re
–victimized, ill- treated and
isolated which not only affects the individual but also the community as a
whole. This leads to destabilization of community
and family structure.[22] Message of rape is given by the survivors
to their families and communities which
may both demoralize and frighten them. Rape acquires deeper meaning during war
and ethnic conflict i.e. rape may be carried
out with the purpose to destroy the raped women’s culture and community. The
deconstruction of culture may be considered
as the key purpose of rape warfare. Rape is considered an assault not only on
the individual but on the community as well.
When more and more women are traumatized it leads to the disintegration of
social structure of the community. The body of
female acts as a symbolic representation of the community. Rape of women
damages the physical and personal integrity of the group. The rape of women in a community can be regarded as the
rape of the body of that community.[23] In communities
where sexual violence has been targeted along tribal or ethnic lines it can
have long term impact on such societies, which
may be very difficult to heal. In many contexts, conflict related sexual violence
normalizes gender based violence, even aftermath
the conflict or war. The most distressing effect that sexual violence has on a
community is the way it damages the social
capital on which the communities stand. At times whole villages can be
displaced because of the fear of mass rape. Even if villages are not displaced, sexual violence destroys the fabric
of a community in a way that few weapons can.[24]
MEASURES TAKEN TO PROHIBIT RAPE AS A WAR CRIME.
International humanitarian law applies
during conflict and war to protect people and regulate the means of warfare. One
of the important of these laws are those formulated and ratified at the Geneva Convention of 1949 which applies to both state and non-state actors. The Geneva Convention offers women a special status which
includes prevention of sexual violence.[25] The Geneva Convention 1949 was the first multilateral international agreement to both clearly
mention and forbid rape. The protections were made available not
only to those participating in the armed conflict but also against the
civilians and also against those who
stayed out of action. The Convention by granting special status to the women
states that, ‘’women shall be especially
protected against any attack on their honor in particular against rape,
enforced prostitution or any form of indecent
assault’’. The international criminal tribunal for Rwanda and
International criminal tribunal for Yugoslavia, established in 1990, served as a milestone in recognizing rape
as a war crime. In earlier trials
held in Nuremburg and Tokyo sexual violence was highly overlooked. The jurisprudence of acts of sexual violence
was advanced by these tribunals by developing legal doctrine under international humanitarian law and
by prosecuting these crimes. The ICTR
found Jean Paul Akayesu (leader of Taba community)
guilty for ordering and aiding the acts of sexual violence carried against
Tutsi women. The verdict was ground- breaking
as it was for the first time that an international court found an individual
guilty of rape as a crime of genocide.[26] The International Criminal Court also
recognized rape and other forms of sexual violence as international crimes and established special measures for
protection of victims and witnesses during the prosecutions.[27] Women in conflict settings was recognized as a vulnerable group by UN Declaration
on the elimination of violence against women, 1994. The Declaration defines violence against women as “any act of
gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering
to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of
liberty, whether occurring in public
or in private life,” which should be understood as including ‘’physical, sexual
and psychological violence
perpetrated or condoned by the State, wherever it occurs’’. The 1995 Beijing
Platform of Action included women and armed
conflict among its twelve critical areas of concern, and specified forms of
sexual violence against women that violated the human rights of women in situations of armed conflict,
in particular murder,
systematic rape, sexual slavery and forced pregnancy.[28]
The United Nations
Security Council has done much in recent years to raise awareness and take action
against sexual violence.
UNSCR 1325(2000) It called on for
the member states to increase the participation of women in all areas of peace
and security process .It also
approved the uneven impact of armed conflict on women girls and called for
consideration of women’s and girl’s needs during and after the conflict.
UNSCR 1820(2008) Condemned sexual
violence as a weapon of war and declared rape and other forms of sexual
violence as war crimes. It also called for
an end to impunity of perpetrators.
UNSCR 1888(2009) established a special representative to the UN
secretary-general on sexual violence in armed conflict and outlined
a commitment by the council
to include protection from conflict-related
sexual violence in peacekeeping
mandates.
UNSCR 1960(2010) created an investigation
mechanism and called for an annual list of all governments and non-state armed groups
suspected of committing conflict-related sexual violence,
facilitating a name-and
shame campaign and sanctions.
UNSCR 2016(2013) aimed at strengthening the monitoring and prevention of sexual violence
in conflict.
UNSCR 2242(2015) called on the
United Nations to double the number of women in peacekeeping operations over
next five years.
UNSCR 2272(2016) called on the UN Security council to replace military or
police units when a contributing country fails to hold perpetrators of sexual violence and abuse accountable[29].
To fight sexual violence the work of various
UN agencies, in 2007, was put under one umbrella: UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict, uniting the work of
13 UN units. It is an intensive effort by the UN System to develop coordination
and accountability, strengthen
programming and advocacy, and support national efforts to prevent sexual
violence and respond efficiently to the needs of survivors.
In 2008, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched UNITE to End Violence against
Women — a movement to stop and eradicate violence against women and
girls in all parts of the world, in times of war and peace. The movement brings together a number of UN
agencies and joins forces with individuals, civil society and governments to
put an end to all forms of violence
against women.[30]
CONCLUSION
Rape has remained a very powerful tool that
has been used during wars and armed conflicts. As discussed above it has a
potential of leaving very devastating
impact and consequences on survivors and societies regardless of the time,
place and culture. Family structures
have been undermined and populations have been traumatized, as a result of rape
as a weapon of war. The wounds of rape
don’t heal they leave long lasting scars on families and communities. Large
number of cases of rape go unreported and unheard
because of strong taboos associated to this horrendous crime or due to shame,
lack of proper agencies to report to or the fear
of expulsion by the families and communities. The culture of silence that
follows the use of rape in war sometimes leads to death of the victim. Historically
very less steps have been taken to address the issues of rape committed against
women in time of wars and armed
conflict but at the same time it is also true that there has not been a
complete silence over the issue. Many measures
have been taken, at national and international level, to address the issue
including UN. But still much more needs to be
done to tackle this issue properly. The rape not only needs to be
reported but also the victims need to be provided with short and long term care including psychological
support, medical treatment, legal aid and punishing the perpetrators. The need
of hour is to take proper measures
so as to prevent and curb the use of rape as a tool of war so that further
generations don’t witness this crime. There is an earnest need to socialize soldiers
to behave as combatants and not as animals. The example has also to be set by the modern
civilized States to try and award stern punishment to the soldiers
found guilty of this horrendous crime and therefore
set an example for the future generations.
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