SV against Women

Citation:

Goldblatt, Beth, and Sheila Meintjes. 1997. “Dealing with the Aftermath: Sexual Violence and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.” Agenda, no. 36, 7–18.

Authors: Beth Goldblatt, Sheila Meintjes

Abstract:

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has completed its task of holding human rights violation hearings. Thousands of people have faced the Commission and the nation to tell their stories and air their pain. Many, who have listened to this testimony for the past two years, will understandably believe that the story of our past has now been completely told. It has not - violence against women is one of the hidden sides to the story of our past. While certain women bravely recorded their experiences, many others have not been able to come before the TRC. This has implications not only for our understanding of our history but also for current attempts to heal our society. In this article we suggest that past and present violence against women is located on a continuum. The process of rebuilding our society involves helping women survivors to deal with their trauma. The process of creating a new society based on human rights and justice demands serious efforts to create a society where women are free from fear and able to participate fully as citizens of the society. This article first examines the role of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in dealing with the issue of sexual violence against women and the evidence that did and did not emerge. The article then tries to explore the relationship between political and other sexual violence and the relationship between public and private violence. This leads us towards a preliminary understanding of the gendered nature of South African society both during and in the aftermath of apartheid. Finally, the article proposes certain reparation measures as the means to ensure positive social reconstruction. These must go hand-in- hand with state action to protect women's safety in terms of rights in the Bill of Rights, such as the right to bodily integrity and the right to citizenship. Such rights must however, be asserted and given content by women's organisations and others committed to gender equality.

Topics: Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Justice, TRCs, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 1997

Citation:

Thomas, Dorothy Q., and Regan E. Ralph. 1994. “Rape in War: Challenging the Tradition of Impunity.” SAIS Review 14 (1): 81–99.

Authors: Dorothy Q. Thomas, Regan E. Ralph

Abstract:

Despite the prevalence of rape in conflicts throughout the world, wartime rape often has been mischaracterized and dismissed by military and political leaders, with the result that this abuse goes largely unpunished. The fact that rape is committed by men against women has contributed to its being portrayed as sexual or personal in nature, a portrayal that depoliticizes sexual abuse in conflict and results in it being ignored as a human rights abuse and a war crime. Documentary efforts reveal where and how rape functions as a tool of military strategy. Soldiers rape to subjugate and punish individual women and to terrorize communities and drive them into flight. Whenever committed by a state agent or an armed insurgent, whether a matter of policy or an individual incident of torture, wartime rape constitutes an abuse of power and a violation of international law.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Gender, International Law, Justice, Impunity, International Tribunals & Special Courts, War Crimes, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Rights, Human Rights, Sexual Violence, Male Perpetrators, Rape, SV against Women

Year: 1994

Citation:

Stanley, Penny. 1999. “Reporting of Mass Rape in the Balkans: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose? From Bosnia to Kosovo.” Civil Wars 2 (2): 74–110. 

Author: Penny Stanley

Abstract:

The reporting of incidents of mass rape from the Bosnian conflict, particularly during the period 1992–94 evoked an upsurge of interest in the subject of rape during war. The broadsheet press was used as a medium through which significant voices aired their views and provoked debate over ‘rape in war’. This articles examines the reactions of the British and American broadsheet newspapers to rape in Bosnia and looks at the ways in which rape was represented in the press. It poses the question of why, given the experience of mass rape in Bosnia, have we witnessed similar sexual violence in Kosovo?

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Sexual Violence, Male Perpetrators, Rape, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, SV against Women Regions: Europe, Balkans Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo

Year: 1999

Citation:

Schiessl, Christoph. 2002. “An Element of Genocide: Rape, Total War, and International Law in the Twentieth Century.” Journal of Genocide Research 4 (2): 197–210.

Author: Christoph Schiessl

Abstract:

The rape of women during wartime and genocide serves several functions. Beyond the purely sexual aspect, soldiers use rape not only to dominate and demoralize women, but also their male relatives, friends, and neighbors. In addition, a group power develops that has no comparison to civilian life, enlarging the power of men alone. Despite attempts to limit total war and genocide in the 20th c., until the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda were formed in the 1990s, rape did not play an overly important role in international law regarding warfare. The Hague Conventions and the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials did not even mention violence against women, until the Fourth Geneva Convention finally included rape into its regulations.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Gender-Based Violence, Genocide, International Law, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts, Sexual Violence, Male Perpetrators, Rape, SV against Women

Year: 2002

Citation:

Marsh, M., S. Purdin, and S. Navani. 2006. “Addressing Sexual Violence in Humanitarian Emergencies.” Global Public Health 1 (2): 133-46.

Authors: M. Marsh, S. Purdin, S. Navani

Abstract:

Sexual violence is a by-product of conflict commonly seen, but poorly addressed, in humanitarian emergencies. Reports reveal that extraordinary numbers of women and girls suffer physical, psychological, and social consequences of sexual violence during conflict, when fleeing conflict, and during displacement. All sectors of the humanitarian community have a role to play in the prevention of and response to sexual violence. Improvements are needed: in the short-term to meet the needs of survivors of sexual violence; in collecting data related to sexual violence in humanitarian emergencies; and, perhaps most importantly, to address the widespread tolerance for high rates of sexual violence in humanitarian settings.

Topics: Gender, Women, Humanitarian Assistance, Sexual Violence, SV against Women

Year: 2006

Citation:

Card, Claudia. 1997. “Addendum to ‘Rape as a Weapon of War'.” Hypatia 12 (2): 216–8.

Author: Claudia Card

Abstract:

Learning about martial sex crimes against men has made me rethink some of my ideas about rape as a weapon of war and how to respond to it. Such crimes can be as racist as they are sexist and, in the case of male victims, may be quite simply racist.

Annotation:

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Health, Reproductive Health, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Race, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Men, SV against Women, Weapons /Arms

Year: 1997

Citation:

Žarkov, Dubravka. 2007. The Body of War: Media, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Break-Up of Yugoslavia. Durham: Duke University Press.

Author: Dubravka Žarkov

Abstract:

In The Body of War, Dubravka Žarkov analyzes representations of female and male bodies in the Croatian and Serbian press in the late 1980s and in the early 1990s, during the war in which Yugoslavia disintegrated. Žarkov proposes that the Balkan war was not a war between ethnic groups; rather, ethnicity was produced by the war itself. Žarkov explores the process through which ethnicity was generated, showing how lived and symbolic female and male bodies became central to it. She does not posit a direct causal relationship between hate speech published in the press during the mid-1980s and the acts of violence in the war. Instead, she argues that both the representational practices of the “media war” and the violent practices of the “ethnic war” depended on specific, shared notions of femininity and masculinity, norms of (hetero)sexuality, and definitions of ethnicity.

Tracing the links between the war and press representations of ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, Žarkov examines the media’s coverage of two major protests by women who explicitly identified themselves as mothers, of sexual violence against women and men during the war, and of women as militants. She draws on contemporary feminist analyses of violence to scrutinize international and local feminist writings on the war in former Yugoslavia. Demonstrating that some of the same essentialist ideas of gender and sexuality used to produce and reinforce the significance of ethnic differences during the war often have been invoked by feminists, she points out the political and theoretical drawbacks to grounding feminist strategies against violence in ideas of female victimhood. (Amazon)

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Combatants, Female Combatants, Ethnicity, Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies, Media, Sexuality, Sexual Violence, SV against Men, SV against Women, Violence Regions: Europe, Balkans Countries: Croatia, Serbia, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2007

Citation:

Longombe, Ahuka Ona, Kasereka Masumbuko Claude, and Joseph Ruminjo. 2008. “Fistula and Traumatic Genital Injury from Sexual Violence in a Conflict Setting in Eastern Congo: Case Studies.” Reproductive Health Matters 16 (31): 132–41.

Authors: Ahuka Ona Longombe, Kasereka Masumbuko Claude, Joseph Ruminjo

Abstract:

The Eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is currently undergoing a brutal war. Armed groups from the DRC and neighbouring countries are committing atrocities and systematically using sexual violence as a weapon of war to humiliate, intimidate and dominate women, girls, their men and communities. Armed combatants take advantage with impunity, knowing they will not be held to account or pursued by police or judicial authorities. A particularly inhumane public health problem has emerged: traumatic gynaecological fistula and genital injury from brutal sexual violence and gang-rape, along with enormous psychosocial and emotional burdens. Many of the women who survive find themselves pregnant or infected with STIs/HIV with no access to treatment. This report was compiled at the Doctors on Call for Service/Heal Africa Hospital in Goma, Eastern Congo, from the cases of 4,715 women and girls who suffered sexual violence between April 2003 and June 2006, of whom 702 had genital fistula. It presents the personal experiences of seven survivors whose injuries were severe and long-term, with life-changing effects. The paper recommends a coordinated effort amongst key stakeholders to secure peace and stability, an increase in humanitarian assistance and the rebuilding of the infrastructure, human and physical resources, and medical, educational and judicial systems.

Keywords: fistula, traumatic genital injury, sexual violence, conflict and crisis settings, Democratic Republic of Congo

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, Health, Reproductive Health, Sexual Violence, SV against Women Regions: Africa, Central Africa Countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Year: 2008

Citation:

Nelson, Sara. 1996. “Constructing and Negotiating Gender in Women’s Police Stations in Brazil.” Latin American Perspectives 23 (1): 131–48.

Author: Sara Nelson

Topics: Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Security, Security Sector Reform, Sexual Violence, SV against Women Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Brazil

Year: 1996

Citation:

Jeffreys, Sheila. 2007. “Double Jeopardy: Women, the US Military and the War in Iraq.” Women’s Studies International Forum 30 (1): 16–25.

Author: Sheila Jeffreys

Abstract:

This article argues that women in the military are in double jeopardy. They face the danger of rape from their male colleagues as well as the ordinary dangers of being killed or wounded by the enemy. They are used to send messages from one masculine military to another in their very bodies. This is particularly clear in the case of Lynndie England and the Abu Ghraib tortures where her womanhood, and sexual use of her by her comrades, were used as weapons to humiliate Iraqi prisoners. This sexual violence from their own side is the result of the fact that militaries are founded upon an aggressive masculinity that is vital to enable warfare to continue. For this reason the argument that it is important from the point of view of equal opportunities for women to be in all areas of the military, including the frontline, falls down. If aggressive masculinity is the necessary foundation of the military rather than being an unfortunate hangover of patriarchy, then women cannot be equal in this institution. Women's organizations should not be using the language of women's rights in calling for the subjection of women to these forms of violence.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, Male Perpetrators, Rape, SV against Women, Violence, Weapons /Arms Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2007