Sexual Assault as a Weapon of War: History and Prevention
by Faye-Harry Lois
For ages, sexual assault and sexual violence have been used as a tool during war. Belligerent parties have used sexual assault as a tool to punish, terrorize and destroy populations. In some cases, it was employed as a strategy to pursue objectives. In other cases, commanders allow their soldiers to rape women and girls as a form of reward.
The prevalence of sexual violence in warfare is well-documented and permeates world history for as long as war and conflict has been documented.
According to Gottschall (2004), its use was illustrated in ancient texts such as Homer’s Iliad and the Old Testament of the Holy Bible (e.g. Zechariah 14:2). In the 13th Century, Genghis Khan established specific policies which encouraged the use of rape warfare as he expanded his empire. Khan infamously proclaimed that one of the greatest pleasures in life was to ravage the daughters and wives of one’s enemies. Rape was later employed as a strategic weapon by members of both the Allied and Axis armies during World War II as a means to terrorize civilian populations and demoralize their respective enemy troops. The most atrocious example within this era was the infamous Japanese campaign which became known as the Rape of Nanking. After killing about half of the city’s approximated 600,000 residents, Japanese Imperial Army soldiers gang-raped between 20,000 and 80,000 Chinese females of various ages. Therein, fathers were forced to rape their daughters and sons their mothers, generally under threat of death, while other family members watched. Ostensibly, this was a calculated employment of psychological warfare aimed at reducing the cohesion of family units and the community as a whole so that Japanese authority would not be resisted.
In the second half of the 20th century, cases of rape were documented in more than 20 military and paramilitary conflicts.
In the 1990s, rape was used as an instrument of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia and as a means of genocide in Rwanda. In the former case, women belonging to subjugated ethnic groups were intentionally impregnated through rape by enemy soldiers; in the latter case, women belonging to the Tutsi ethnic group were systematically raped by HIV-infected men recruited and organized by the Hutu-led government.
In the late 20th century, in part because of the prevalence of rape in the Balkan and Rwandan conflicts, the international community began to recognize rape as a weapon and strategy of war, and efforts were made to prosecute such acts under existing international law. The primary statute, Article 27 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (1949), already included language protecting women “against any attack on their honour, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault”; this protection was extended in an additional protocol adopted in 1977.
In 1993 the United Nations (UN) Commission on Human Rights (replaced in 2006 by the UN Human Rights Council) declared systematic rape and military sexual slavery to be crimes against humanity punishable as violations of women’s human rights. In 1995 the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women specified that rape by armed groups during wartime is a war crime.
In a resolution adopted in 2008 the UN Security Council affirmed that “rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide.”
In 2009 UN officials and several human rights and aid organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Oxfam, reported a large number of rapes of males in eastern Congo. The attacks, estimated in the hundreds, were believed to be in retaliation for joint military operations between Congo and its former rival Rwanda.
Sexual assault as a weapon of war has been in existence ever since mankind’s existence.
It takes its form in several ways such as gang rape and attacks with objects and weapons, which are inserted in the victims’ vagina or anus, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, and sexual torture.
Wartime rape affects both men and women. Men can be victims, and women can be perpetrators.
Effects of Sexual Assault on Victims
Victims are often raped multiple times and gang raped. This causes physical injuries and leads to death.
It causes unwanted pregnancies and many women will have abortions through non-sterile processes and non-medical methods thus risking death, infection and scarring.
Physical injuries include gynecologic, rectal and internal haemorrhaging, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.
Since weapons are used to inflict pain on victims, the frequent use of these objects can cause fistulas.
Already pregnant women can miscarry and many others are rendered infertile due to the extent of the damage done.
There is an increased rate of suicide (especially among women of child bearing years), cervical cancer (which is directly linked to the STI HPVS), AIDS and unintentional injuries. This destabilizes economies since the creation of high level of health issues placed on a nation recovering from conflict will significantly strain the healthcare system. It not only strains the health care system but also the financial stability of the nation and the victims’ families.
Victims are forced to rape other victims, men to rape men, family members to rape each other, adding to the torment feelings of homosexuality and incest to the psychological scars left behind.
Psychological effects include social difficulties or dysfunction, disassociated blame, isolation, fear of intimacy, sexual dysfunctional, post-traumatic stress disorder, rape trauma syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder), eating disorders, self injury, self blame, panic attacks, flashbacks, sleeping disorders, Acute stress disorders, etc.
Many of these psychological effects are life long and can be manifested into physical effects.
The longest lasting effect of rape as a weapon of war is the number of children it bears and the ripple effect it has, as children are consequences on both the victim and the society.
The mother of a child born of rape faces a lifetime of turmoil over the conception, regardless of her decision to raise the child, give the child up for adoption or terminate the pregnancy.
A mother who keeps the child is often tormented and pulled between the decision of love and hate.
A mother who gives a child up for adoption lives with the trauma of carrying and giving birth to her attacker’s chold, she also lives with the grief of separation and loss.
Women who terminate the pregnancies struggle with the feelings of hate and shame regarding the conception and may also face guilt and mental anguish for loss of a child or due to conflict of moral and religious beliefs.
The children which flood the orphanages may never be adopted.
Children who spend their lives at orphanages and foster homes are more susceptible to abuse.
There is social stigma placed on both mothers and children.
Prevention of Sexual Assault as a Weapon of War
Avoiding the use of force and military intervention as every armed conflict must ultimately be ended through a negotiated political settlement.
Policy makers must understand and address rape as a systematic predictable tactic of warfare. Creation of policies and programs that counter negative social norms like stigma. This promotes positive social norms that prevent sexual violence like gender equality.
Root causes of armed conflicts and violent extremism.
Government must meet their obligations under international law to protect the civil and political rights of all, regardless of identity.
Provision of food aid, health care, shelter and protection from violence.
Peace processes with a central role for women leadership should be designed.
Specific training to deal with sexualized violence should be implemented.
Local law enforcement should be supported and enhanced.
Sexual assault as a weapon of war is highly devastating but we can disarm and eliminate rape as a weapon of war in our lifetime. We will disarm and eliminate rape as a weapon of war in our lifetime.
