From Victims to Fighters: A Conversation about Rape in Conflict (Part 1
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“At some point, there was rape and nothing else. This becomes a normal part of your day” [1].
The possibility of sexual assault is something I think about daily. When I walk outside at night, when I’m alone in a stairwell, when I leave my windows open while I sleep. The prospect of being raped or assaulted has become a normal passing thought for myself and millions of others. Articles on this topic appear in the news almost daily, yet more often than not perpetrators live free while victims cope with the injustice inflicted upon them. I know to some I am seen as a target. I think about my friends who have been assaulted as children, as teenagers, as young people in their 20’s. The pain I feel for them and the fear of it happening to me is so real it’s almost tangible.
When I was 21, I began my last year of undergrad. When Nadia Murad was 21, she was kidnapped by IS militants. She was made a sex slave, bought and sold numerous times. She endured the practice of sexual Jihad, gang-rapes, and physical abuse over the course of three months [2]. Her experience as a survivor of conflict-related sexual violence is not in isolation, however. Her story is her own, but it also the narrative shared by thousands of others who have been abused. Murad may be a victim of heinous violence, but she is also a fighter and activist against human trafficking and the strategic use of sexual assault in warfare. This blog is the first of a 2-part series discussing the topic of conflict-related sexual violence. Part one will examine this concept on a broader scale while part two will highlight the specific efforts of survivors and allies actively fighting to end this crisis.
Sexual violence has consistently been used as a method to instill terror in communities ravaged by conflict. Across nations, cultures, and time, women and children have been seen as the most vulnerable populations and consequently exploited. Rape in particular has been utilized as a strategy by armed groups to displace villages, force communities to abandon resources, and commodify victims as spoils of war. Activists such as the recent laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize Nadia Murad of Iraq and Dr. Denis Mukwege of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have brought global attention to the crisis of conflict-related sexual violence through their work and personal experience.
The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres released a report on this issue spanning the period from January to December 2016. Published April 15, 2017, his work examines gender-based violence, specifically sexual violence, as a tool by militant groups to incite fear and use female bodies as currency in war [3]. The report defines conflict-related sexual violence as “rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage, and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls or boys that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict” [4]. Instances of strategic and mass rape targeting opposing ethnic, religious, and cultural groups serves to demonstrate how sexual violence is employed as a tactic of war [5]. Moreover, rape as an aspect of armed conflict furthers ideology focused on suppressing women’s autonomy and controlling their reproductive rights and sexuality [6].
Photo by ilham akbar fauzi on Unsplash
The report by Secretary-General Guterres serves as an important resource in the broader conversation on gender-based violence and sexual assault as it occurs in areas of conflict. Acknowledging the use of sexual assault as a tactic of war and genocide highlights the gravity and frequency of such crimes. The report’s formal assessment provides the opportunity to delve into serious dialogue regarding conflict-related sexual assault where previously such a topic had been avoided or ignored. Read the Secretary-General’s report here and stay tuned for the second part of this blog series where the specific efforts of Nadia Murad and Dr. Denis Mukwege will be discussed.
References
[1] “Nadia Murad — from Rape Survivor in Iraq to Nobel Peace Prize.” BBC News. October 05, 2018. Accessed October 09, 2018. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45759669.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Guterres, António. Report of the Secretary-General on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence. Report. United Nations. United Nations, 2017. 1–49.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
