Introduction: Wartime rape is probably as old as the war itself.

Wartime rape can differ from other forms of sexual violence, such as intimate partner rape, in that it is typically used as a weapon wielded by male soldiers of one country (or national, political, or cultural group) against typically unarmed female civilians of another.1 Rape is defined as the act of forcing somebody to have sex with you when they do not want to by threatening them or using violence.2 For centuries organized rape has been an integral aspect of warfare. Yet, remarkably, it has been absent from the classics on warfare, which have predominantly focused on regular warfare in which one army confronts another in a battle for the conquest or defence of a territory. Within the last two decades, however, there has been increasing interest in asymmetric warfare and accordingly in phenomena such as guerrilla tactics, terrorism and hostage taking, together with aspects of war related to identity, be it religious fundamentalism and holy war, ethnic cleansing, or war rape.3 War rape is perhaps the clearest example of an asymmetric strategy. SGBV during conflict can serve larger strategic purposes, functioning as a means of warfare with diverse yet predictable consequences. The strategic rape theory states that SGBV is a tool to subjugate populations, instil fear, curtail movement and economic activity, stigmatize women, undermine community and family structures, and contribute to bonding of perpetrators through the common act of rape, and in some cases, deliberately pollute the bloodline of the victimized population.4Rape cannot be understood as just a deplorable side-effect of war provoked by soldiers sexual frustration. Rape is, literally, a weapon of war. Recent scholarship suggests that wartime sexual violence varies widely, in both its form and severity across and within conflicts.5 Rape has been highly violent and widespread in some conflicts, such as in Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and DRC, and rare in other conflicts, such as in Israel-Palestine and El Salvador.6

1 2

J.L. Herman, Trauma and Recovery (New York: Basic Books, 1992). Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, 6th Edition 3 Kaldor, M. (1998), New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era, Cambridge: Polity Press. 4 T. Gingerich and J. Leaning, The Use of Rape as a Weapon of War in the Conflict in Darfur, Sudan (Boston, MA: Program on Humanitarian Crises and Human Rights, Franois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health, and Physicians for Human Rights, 2005); M. Eriksson, P. Wallensteen, and M. Sollenberg, Armed Conflict, 19892002, Journal of Peace Research, vol. 40, no. 5 (2003): 593607; M.B. Olujic, Embodiment of Terror: Gendered Violence in Peacetime and Wartime in Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina,Medical Anthropology Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 1 (1998): 3150. 5 Cohen, Dara Kay, andAmelia Hoover Green. 2012. Dueling Incentives: Sexual Violence in the Liberian Civil War and the Politics of Human Rights Advocacy. Journal of Peace Research 49 (3): 44558. 6 E.J. Wood, Armed Groups and Sexual Violence: When Is Wartime Rape Rare? Politics and Society, vol. 37, no. 1 (2009): 13161.

Selected Countries Where Wartime Rape occurred: In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) armed groups conflict often exhibited a unique profile or repertoire of violence. The Mai Mai group for example is a militia grou p direct role in perpetrating sexual violence in DRC and to examine motives and rationalizations for engaging in sexual violence. The Mai Mai (Swahili for water water) originally formed in the 1960s as part of the Mulelist Rebellion, when theneducation minister Pierre Mulele organized youth into militias to revolt against Mobutus government. Mulele used local medicine men to convince the young men that bullets would turn to water if shot at Mai Mai fighters. Beginning in 1993, many of these local militias reorganized to protect their communities from Mobutus army and the influx of foreign armed militias after the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Mai Mai militias soon became a powerful force in the eastern region of DRC, with an estimated 10,000 to 25,000 soldiers fighting with Kabila in the 199697 conflict. Soldiers defined sexual violence as forcing a woman to have sex against her will, noting that they had learned this definition mainly from listening to the radio. Rape for the Mai Mai seemed to have military origins (women as a spoil of war) as well as individual motivations (taking a woman because you desire her). In the first case, women were given as a reward; soldiers were ordered to abduct women, and these women were then given to soldiers, with higher ranking officers given precedence. During the 1994 conflict in Rwanda, rape occurred on a massive scale in the genocide that claimed the lives of between 500,000 and one million Rwandans.7 Rape and sexual violence were used during the Rwandan genocide as political and military tools to target female Tutsi civilians; the crimes, instrumentalities of war, often had little or no sexual component. Though low-level militia members and soldiers generally perpetrated these crimes, military and political leaders instigated, encouraged, oversaw, and, at times, personally committed rape and acts of sexual violence.8 Rwandan media sources spread propaganda, targeting Tutsi women for persecution by portraying them as femmes fatales, or seductive agents of the enemy.9 Although Tutsi women were typically the individual victims of rape or sexual violence, the crimes were part of a pattern of criminal activity, associated with the women witnessing the killing and/or torture of their relatives and the destruction of their homes.10 Rape was used to terrorise the entire Tutsi minority.

Human Rights Watch (1996), Shattered Lives: Sexual Violence during the Rwandan Genocide and its Aftermath, available at http://hrw.org/reports/1996/Rwanda.htm [hereinafter Shattered Lives]. The violence was directed predominantly toward the Tutsi minority group and Hutu majority moderates and was perpetrated by Interahamwe Hutu militia members, Rwandan Armed Forces ( Forces Armes Rwandaises) soldiers, and other civilians. Doctors have attested to the high prevalence of rapes, in particular, after examining numerous victims immediately following the genocide. Id. 8 Shattered Lives, supra 8. 9 Prosecutor v. Nahimana, Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgment and Sentence, 1079 (Dec. 3, 2003). 10 Press Release, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch Applauds Rwanda Rape Verdict: Sets International Precedent for Punishing Sexual Violence as a War Crime (Sept. 2, 1998), available at http://www.hrw.org/press98/sept/rrape902.htm assessed on 01/11/2013.

The case of Bosnia, however, presents a significantly more complex picture. Regarding victimhood, for instance, in some cases family members were forced to rape one another or to witness a family member being raped. On the side of the aggressor, there is evidence to suggest that rape was used as a rite of initiation. Being forced to rape, soldiers or fellow Serbs were forced into a brotherhood of guilt. Those who refused were humiliated and in some cases castrated or even killed. In Bosnia, rape was used to recreate clear-cut distinctions between hitherto intermingled groups: Serbs, Muslims and Croats. Even though rape is often enforced upon them by a third party, both victims and perpetrators find it difficult to face each other after the event.11 During the war in Bosnia a considerable number of rapes were reported. Some were raped in their own houses, others in brothels, and still others in rape camps. Particularly horrifying is the practice of forced impregnation that occurred in some rape camps set up in Brcko, Dboj, Foca, Gorazde, Kalinobik, Vesegrad, Keatern, Luka, Manjaca, Osmarka and Tronopolje.12 Women in some camps were continuously raped until a doctor or a gynaecologist established pregnancy13 and held in captivity until abortion was no longer possible.14 Nature and Psychological Consequences of Wartime Rape: a) Individual Trauma on the rape victim: Victims are often raped multiple times and gang raped, which can cause a much higher degree of physical and physiological injuries, and often lead to death. Due to unwanted pregnancies, many women who have abortions through non-sterile procedures, non-medical methods, and thus risk death, infection, scarring or sterilization. Physical injuries may include gynecologic, rectal, and internal hemorrhaging. The long-term physical effects of rape include pregnancy and sexual transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS. Rapes are often carried out with guns, branches, bottles and other objects, which are intentionally used inflict additional pain on the victim. The violent nature of rapes and the frequent use of objects increases the long-term and permanent physical damages such as fistulas, in which the an abnormal opening is produced between the vagina, the bladder and/or rectum. Women who are pregnant often miscarry, others are rendered infertile due to the extent of damage the rape inflicted on their bodies.15

11

Askin, K.D. (1997), War Crimes against Women: Prosecution in International War Crimes Tribunals , The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. 12 Skejlsbk, I. (2001), Sexual Violence and War: Mapping Out a Complex Relationship , European Journal of International Relations 7(2): 21137. 13 Fisher, S.K. (1996) Occupation of the Womb: Forced Impregnation as Genocide , Duke Law Journal 46(1): 91134. 14 Salzman, T.A. (1998) Rape Camps as a Means of Ethnic Cleansing: Religious, Cultural, and Ethical Responses to Rape Victims in the Former Yugoslavia, Human Rights Quarterly 20(2): 34878. 15 Clifford, Cassandra, (2008), Rape as a Weapon of War and its Long-term Effects on Victims and Society, Budapest, Hungary.

Psychologically women may experience post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety, phobias, insomnia, flashbacks, nightmares, grief, and depression.16Women may also show a lack of interest in their environment, complete loss of self-esteem, deep helplessness, and despair. Self-loathing and rejection of ones body often results in self-injurious behaviour and suicidal tendencies. Common psychological defenses in traumatic rape include denial, suppression, depersonalization, distancing, and dissociation.17 As Pappas18 observed, wartime rape turns its victims into dissociative containers who disconnect from humanity and the external world b) Community trauma: Rape in war disrupts not only individuals but also social and community bonds. For the rape victims, it disrupts their sense of community; keeping this aspect of their lives secret ended up alienating them from other people. These women often expressed fear that they would be rejected by their partners and the rest of the community.19 Rape is especially stigmatizing in cultures with strong customs and taboos regarding virginity, sex and sexuality. Thus a victim may be viewed by society as being: unfaithful, dirty/unclean, traitors, damaged. Often victims suffer isolation, disownment, are prohibited from marrying; divorced, abandoned, abused, neglected and even killed due to the patriarchal nature culture of many countries where rape as a weapon of war is frequently used. In the Congo for example researchers state that rape as a weapon of war has now metastasized into a wider social phenomenon, which now reaches further than the conflict itself and domestic abuse and killings are increasing, seeming almost normal. Many women are left to support children alone, whilst living in fear of rape and being ostracized, as well as dealing with the traumatic recovery; a task that is often too much to bear. These consequences have a long-term effect on both the individual and the society as it leads to a destabilization of the community and family structure.20 c) Trauma on the Children born of rape: It has been estimated that tens of thousands of children have resulted from mass rape campaigns or sexual exploitation during times of war in the last decade alone. Born of war, these children are deeply affected by the social upheavals that brought about their conception, as well as their treatment by society on the basis of their biological origins.
16

Joachim, I. (2004b), Sexualised Violence in War and its Consequences, In Medica Mondiale (Ed.); Violence against Women in War: Handbook for Professionals Working with Traumatised Women (pp. 63-110). Cologne, Germany: Prisma, Saarbrucken. 17 Vlachova, M., & Biason, L. (Eds.). (2005), Women in an insecure world: Violence against women, facts, figures, and analysis, Geneva, Switzerland: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces. 18 Pappas, James, D. (2003), Poisoned dissociative containers: Dissociative defenses in female victims of war rape, available on http://books.google.co.ke/books assessed on 12/11/2013.
19

Giller J E., (1992), War, Women and Rape, London, England; School of Oriental African Studies, University of London: Thesis. 20 Rape as a Weapon of War and its Long-term Effects on Victims and Society, supra 16.

These war babies often face stigma, discrimination, abandonment and even infanticide as infants. Due to their extreme economic difficulty and lack of secure family networks, they may be particularly vulnerable to becoming street children or being trafficked. As older children they may be stateless, and efforts to secure their rights under international law may prove fruitless due to their ambiguous legal status. As adults, their ability to secure a sense of their own identity may be frustrated by legislation that impedes access to records about their birth parents. 21 After the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, hundreds of children conceived in mass rape campaigns were born to mothers who did not want them.22 Often forced to carry these children to term, most are said to have abandoned their babies23; those that have kept them face ostracism and severe poverty in post-war Bosnia.24 In Kosovo, forced pregnancy victims have reportedly been killed by their families or committed suicide, and at least one is known to have killed her child at birth.25 Local and international actors contest these babies ethnic identities and citizenship rights; as a result, their rights to education, family, identity and physical security may be severely curtailed26 The Humanitarian and International Community: Treaties and other international agreements provide the legal basis for the establishing prosecutions in cases of rape committed in wartime. Evidence of rape by soldiers was first introduced in the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, although it was not mentioned in any of the final judgments.27Rape was specifically identified as a war crime for the first time in the Tokyo War Crimes Trials after World War II, when commanders were held responsible for rapes committed by soldiers under their command.28 There have been some development in law with regard to rape have taken place during the twentieth century including; the first United Nations conviction exclusively focused on rape as a war crime in 1998; the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia making the first conviction the use of rape as a crime against humanity in 2001; the International and Article 7 of
21

R. Charli Carpenter, Wars Impact on Children Born of Rape and Sexual Exploitation: Physical, Economic and Psychosocial Dimensions Pittsburgh USA, University of Pittsburgh, available at http://people.umass.edu/charli/childrenbornofwar/Carpenter-WP.pdf 22 Grieg, Kai, (2001), The War Children of the World, (Bergen, Norway: War and Children Identity Project), available online at http://www.warandchildren.org assessed on 05/11/2013. 23 Stigalmeyer, Alexandra, (1994), Mass Rape: The War against Women in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 24 Toomey, Christine, (2003), Cradle of Inhumanity, Sunday Time, available online at http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/FMR15/fmr15.7.pdf, assessed on 05/11/2013. 25 Smith, Helena, (2000) Rape Victims Babies Pay the Price of War, available online at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/apr/16/balkans, assessed on 12/11/2013. 26 Carpenter, Charli, (2000), Surfacing Children: Limitations of Genocidal Rape Discourse, Human Rights Quarterly 22(2). 27 Trial of the Major War Crimes Tribunals Before the International Military Tribunal. Nuremberg, Germany: Secretariat of the International Military Tribunal 1947; 6:393, 404-407. 28 Pritcvhard RJ, Magbanua Zaide S, eds. Tokyo War Crimes Trial. New York, NY: Garland Publishing; 1981; 20:49, 784-785, 791-792, 815-816, 820-821

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court explicitly mentions sexual violence as a war crime.29 Though these cases may be groundbreaking, they in no way compare to the scale of rapes committed, nor in many instances do the actual punishments received truly fit the crime. Continued silence on rape as a weapon of war places women as items of conquest and as spoils of war. In Rwanda for example, despite evidence of widespread rape during the genocide, the crime was addressed belatedly by the UN. Sexual violence was neither highlighted in the international media nor discussed by the UN Security Council in connection with the Rwandan conflict in any early reports. After delays in the United Nations (UN) post-genocide investigation of crimes of a sexual nature regarding the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, the Officer of the Prosecutor (OTP) at the Inter-national Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) finally began prosecuting these crimes. In 1996, the OTP secured a watershed judgment in Prosecutor v. Akayesu,30in which an ICTR trial chamber adopted broad definitions of rape and sexual violence and convicted on both grounds. However, subsequently, prosecutors have encountered much difficulty in procuring convictions against high-level criminals for crimes of rape and sexual violence, largely because of a lack of evidence directly linking the accused persons to the crimes committed.31 While rape as a weapon of war has continued in modern warfare it has little persecution in comparison with the scale for which it continues to be utilized. Hon Njoki Ndungu, the currently Kenyan Supreme Court Judge stated; Sexual violence is robbery that takes something that cant be given backwhy are penalties so lenient? Why does society accept and tolerate this crime?32 This continued silence weakens societies and places generations at risk. While the damage of rape can never be undone, placing adequate punishment on the crimes will help end its long running impunity. These are steps towards ending the impunity over the use of rape as a weapon of war, however considerable, must be taken on the national level. Additionally gender barriers must be torn down and victim support must be properly established to see substantial advances in not just prosecution, but prosecution befitting the severity of the crime committed.33

29 30

Rape as a Weapon of War and its Long-term Effects on Victims and Society, supra 16 Prosecutor v. Akayesu (Akayesu Judgment), Case No. ICTR-96-4-T, Judgment (Sept. 2, 1998). The full text of the ICTR judgments cited in this Note can be found at http://www.ictr.org under the CASES hyperlink. 31 Haffajee, L. Rebecca, Prosecuting Crimes of Rape and Sexual Violence at the ICTR: The Application of Joint Criminal Enterprise Theory, available online at http://www.law.havard.edu/....jlg/haffajee accessed on 23/11/2013 32 ACORD (Agency for Co-operation and Research in Development), (2007), Exposing Hidden War Crimes: Challenging Impunity for Sexual Violence in Times of Conflict available at http://www.acordinternational.org/index.php?module=uploads&func=download&fileId=59 accessed on 15/11/2013. 33 Rape as a Weapon of War and its Long -term Effects on Victims and Society, supra 16

Conclusion: Sexual violence is a weapon of war, an instrument of terror that hurts and punishes women and men of the other side, fractures communities, and forces women to flee their homes.... These crimes must not be hidden by silence and shame. Those responsible must be held accountable. Nicole Kidman, UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador. The tolerance and standardization of rape as a weapon of war has lead to its impunity, and thus increased its silence. Impunity regarding the increasingly brutalized use of rape as a weapon of war combined with its effectiveness, only provokes its use, for the perpetrators are less likely to be tried and punished for the use of this weapon, and if convictions do follow the punishment is disproportionate to the crime. In addition, very little focus has been paid to those who have been forced to witness such crimes, but were not physically victimized themselves. At current, data and studies on the affects of rape as a weapon on the rapist, either short or long term, are difficult to find. It is clear that this data would prove substantial in the prevention of its use, as well as understanding the long-term effects on civil society. The beginning of the end of the use of rape as a weapon of war is to combat gender inequalities and stereotypes in cultures while in peace time, as a method to prevent and curb the use of rape as a weapon of war. Removing the stigma of rape is the first and foremost crucial step to see that the ripple effects do not continue to haunt our global society in future generations and centuries. As Nelson Mandela stated: Safety and security dont just happen: they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. We owe our children the most vulnerable citizens in any society a life free from violence and fear. In order to ensure this, we must become tireless in our efforts not only to attain peace, justice and prosperity for countries but also for communities and members of the same family. We must address the roots of violence. Only then will we transform the past centurys legacy from a crushing burden into a cautionary lesson.34

34

WHO 2002, World Report on Violence and Health, Geneva, Switzerland, available at http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/world_report/en/summary_en.pdff, assessed on 09/12/201.3