Sexual Violence: An Inevitable Aspect Of Armed Conflict
When the matter of conflict between two or more countries, or within a country is discussed, the topics that usually surrounds these discussions are the topics of economy, ammunition, advantages of a country, disadvantages of a country, biological and nuclear weapons etc. but the topic that still remains untouched is the topic of sexual violence during these conflicts. It wasn’t until the chain of Yugoslavian events in 1990s that the topic of sexual violence was recognized by the international entities. In the armed conflict of Yugoslavia, detention camps were being set up by Bosnian Serb campaign, specifically for the purpose of raping women.The sexual atrocities committed here were so heinous and large in number that it caught the attention.
The term “spoils of war” means the profits that are extracted after winning a war and women are considered to be a part of that profit as women are always looked upon as a property. This thought of women being a property is still deeply rooted in every society and whenever there is war situation women are the one who are affected the most after the dust of the war has settled. Another reason is that the women are always associated with the pride of men and community and those who cannot ‘protect’ them are considered as weak. Therefore, it destroys the pride and ego of these communities. These could be the reasons why and how sexual violence and armed conflicts are related.
While talking about sexual violence in armed conflicts it is not just limited to women, many men are as well affected by this but there are still some practices which are gender specific, for example, forced pregnancy is only limited to women. There are practices which seems like only women were forced into but men as well were forced into prostitution and sexual slavery. Examples of sexual violence against men could be anal rape, where soldiers were raped or were forced by their colleagues to rape them for ‘entertainment purposes’; enforced sterilization, includes castration and other forms of sexual mutilation; genital violence; enforced nudity; enforced masturbation and many more. Of course, I am not here trying to say men had their equal share because women have to deal with the greater consequences such as unwanted pregnancy and injuries to their reproductive health. Both go through a great level of physical and psychological impact but women bear much greater consequences than men.
SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN WORLD WAR I AND WORLD WAR II
In 1914, during the WWI, when the German soldiers entered the territory of Belgium and France, they raped many women publicly wanting to showcase the dominance they had over the territory. This was later used by the governments to spread their propaganda; it gave them the narrative of how the enemy entered their land and violated it. They used it to ignite the spark in people so that they could get more military admissions and fulfill the military requirements. This incident shows how insensitive the men were who raped the innocents and also how the government shaped it for their profits by calling it an inevitable aspect of wars. Similar incidents were reported by German refugees who faced sexual violence such as rapes and other forms of violence from East Prussia; in Galicia and Bukovina jews were targeted; Poland also faced the similar incidents from German. In the territories occupied by a troop, the women and children were not only raped by the threat of weapon but also by the offering of food in exchange for sex. The aftermath of these incidents was faced by the children who were the results of this dominance. It gave rise to feticide and abandoning of children after their birth, people of a country also looked upon these children as a danger to their own ‘original race’ which also gave rise to forced abortion and the children who were born were called as “enemy’s children”. The governments of some countries now stepped in here and declared abortion as illegal, again striping away the rights from women when they needed it the most and pushing them more towards mental trauma as if what they had already been through was not enough.
During the WWII, 1.4 – 1.9 million German women were raped and this number could be even higher as they were gang raped and also repeatedly raped. The motive of committing such rapes in WWII was also the same – to showcase the dominance over the occupied territory. Until this time rape was not recognized by the international law but in 1949, after witnessing the great amount of such cases ‘rape’ was included in the international law as the crime against humanity and peace. Like WWI, sexual violence for survival was experienced here also. Food and surviving the war conditions is always a great concern during such times. Many women were forced into prostitution for their survival and for protecting their loved ones, women were also forced into sexual slavery and also many times they were offered food in exchange for sex. Between 1931 – 1945, East Asian countries like Japan and Korea started the institution of military brothels. In these military brothels young girls and women were forced into sexual slavery and were given the name of “comfort women”. Around 50,000 – 200,000 women were abused in these brothels and the reason given by the government to start such an institution was to provide a sexual outlet to the military personnel to reduce the wartime rapes but instead it increased the number of rapes, venereal diseases and women were even abducted from their homes to work there.
SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN RUSSIA AND UKRAINE CONFLICT
People might think that incidents like this may not be active in these times but the recent events of Russia and Ukraine conflict tells us a different story. On 2 December 2022, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that there have been 86 reports of sexual violence including rape, gang rape, forced nudity and forced public stripping during the conflict. These cases were the ones who were reported, there could be more cases that were hidden and since then the number of such cases and incidents have only increased. Women and young girls, during the conflict, faced two-fold sexual violence i.e., one from the military personnels and another inside their own homes. 83 years old women described how she was raped by the Russian force in front of her physically disabled husband. A video was later released where a Russian soldier was castrating a Ukrainian prisoner. These two incidents are just the tip of the ice berg, there are many dozens of such incidents still coming up which are even more heart breaking and makes us stop believing in humanity.
CONCLUSION
I believe this aspect of armed conflict – sexual violence, is nothing but another result of the patriarchal society that goes back to centuries and we still live in. Because of this the women of a society are always considered as a property to men which is also a matter of pride to them and then violating other’s ‘property’ becomes a way for these men to demonstrate their power and dominance. The aspect of sexual violence during the armed conflicts is a never-ending story, let it be women, children or men, everyone in some or the other way has faced this problem throughout the history and will continue doing so. Countries often get into disputes with other countries or within the same country. Some are solved without much of a trouble and some take a darker turn resulting into wars and using of armed forces. As long as the conflicts exist, wars will be fought and associated with them is the inevitable aspect of sexual violence.
Author: Vedansh Jinde, in case of any queries please contact/write back to us at support@ipandlegalfilings.com or IP & Legal Filing
REFERENCES
- sexual-violence-and-armed-conflict-1998-UN-report.pdf
- indd.pdf
- Backgrounder Sexual Violence 2014.pdf
- Silenced Voices_ Sexual Violence During and After World War II.pdf
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women
- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/how-russian-soldiers-terrorise-ukraine-sexual-violence/
