Rape

Citation:

Schulz, Phillip. 2018. "Displacement from Gendered Personhood: Sexual Violence and Masculinities in Northern Uganda." International Affairs 94 (5): 1101-19. 

Author: Phillip Schulz

Abstract:

This article empirically deconstructs the gendered effects of sexual violence on male survivors' masculinities in northern Uganda. Throughout the growing literature on the topic, the effects of wartime gender-based violence against men are widely seen as compromising male survivors' masculine identities, commonly framed as ‘emasculation’ by way of ‘feminization’ and/or ‘homo-sexualization’. Yet exactly how such processes unfold from survivors' perspectives remains insufficiently explored, nor has existing scholarship critically engaged with the dominant analytical categories and their associated terminologies. This article seeks to engage with both of these gaps. First, I identify normative and analytical shortcomings of the ‘emasculation’/‘feminization’ paradigm. Drawing on Edström, Dolan and colleagues, I propose an alternative reading to analyse the effects of sexual violence on gender identities. Second, I argue that the impact of sexual violence on masculinities is a layered process, compounded through numerous sexual and gendered harms and perpetuated over time. In northern Uganda, this process is composed of intersecting gendered harms that subordinate male survivors along gendered hierarchies, and that signify survivors' perceived inabilities to provide, protect and procreate—as expected of them by local constructions of hegemonic masculinity. I therefore emphasize that sexual violence against men strikes at multiple levels of what it means to be a man, which is important to understanding and addressing these layered gendered harms in the aftermath of the violations.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Conflict, Gender, Men, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Men Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Uganda

Year: 2018

Citation:

Krasniqi, Vjollca, Ivor Sokolic, and Denisa Kostovicova. 2020. "Skirts as Flags: Transitional Justice, Gender and Everyday Nationalism in Kosovo." Nations and Nationalism 26 (2): 461-76.

Authors: Vjollca Krasniqi, Ivor Sokolic, Denisa Kostovicova

Keywords: art, gender, nationalism, transitional justice, Kosovo

Annotation:

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Gender Hierarchies, Gender Equality/Inequality, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts, Reparations, Transitional Justice, War Crimes, Nationalism, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, Rape Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Kosovo

Year: 2020

Citation:

Sklavou, Konstantina. 2019. "Violence against Women in Armed Conflicts: Pre, During and Post." Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience and Mental Health 2 (4): 254-8. 

Author: Konstantina Sklavou

Abstract:

The article will briefly present the problem of violence against women in armed conflict. Violence during war varies in extent and takes distinct forms, sometimes is widespread and yet in other conflicts is quite limited. In conflicts violence takes different forms, sexual slavery, torture in detention, rape, humiliation, discriminations etc.  However sexual and gender-based violence in armed conflicts lacks visibility and is not fully understood as it is often labeled as a woman›s only issue and normalizing rape and sexual assault contains the risk of permitting sexual violence and legitimizing its use as a weapon of war.

Keywords: gender, violence, ethnicity, armed conflicts, human rights, immigrants, refugees

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexual Slavery, SV against Women, Torture, Violence

Year: 2019

Citation:

Gray, Harriet. 2018. "The ‘War’/‘Not-War’ Divide: Domestic Violence in the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative." The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 21 (1): 189-206.

Author: Harriet Gray

Abstract:

While recognising the importance of policy designed to tackle conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence, scholars have increasingly critiqued such policies for failing sufficiently to apprehend the multiple forms of this violence – from rape deployed as a weapon of war to domestic violence – as interrelated oppressions located along a continuum. In this article, I explore a connected but distinct line of critique, arguing that sexual and gender-based violence policies are also limited by a narrow understanding of how gender-based violences relate to war itself. Drawing on an analysis of the British Government’s Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, I identify a key distinction which emerges between those types of sexual and gender-based violence which are considered to be part of war, and those which are not. This division, I suggest, closes down space for recognising how war is also enacted within private spaces.

Keywords: armed conflict, conflict-related SGBV, domestic violence, gender, preventing sexual violence initiative, private sphere, PSVI, public sphere, sexual and gender-based violence, war, Women Peace and Security agenda

Topics: Armed Conflict, Conflict, Domestic Violence, Gender, Women, Gender Analysis, Gender-Based Violence, Households, Peace and Security, Sexual Violence, Rape Regions: Europe, Northern Europe Countries: United Kingdom

Year: 2018

Citation:

Banwell, Stacy Louise. 2019. "Forced Pregnancy versus Forcible Impregnation: A Critical Analysis of Genocidal Rape during War/Armed Conflict." Paper presented at the 75th American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, San Francisco, November 13-16.

Author: Stacy Louise Banwell

Abstract:

Forced pregnancy and forcible impregnation are contested terms in relation to genocidal rape. The International Criminal Court (ICC), for example, defines forced pregnancy as ‘the unlawful confinement of a woman forcibly made pregnant, with the intent of affecting the ethnic composition of any population’ (Rome Statute of the ICC, 2011). Whereas, The Holy See suggests that the Statute need only criminalize the act of forcibly making a woman pregnant and not the subsequent act of forcibly keeping her pregnant. Thus, they suggest the term forcible impregnation rather than forced pregnancy (Grey, 2017). This paper unpacks the implications of the ICC’s definition of forced pregnancy in relation to the rape and sexual slavery of Yazidi women in Iraq and Syria. Evidence suggest that ISIS engaged in a genocidal campaign against the Yazidis. Many women and girls were forcibly impregnated, resulting in unwanted pregnancies (Genocide Network, 2017; Human Rights Council, 2016). However, forced impregnation (as defined by the ICC) cannot be applied to this case. Drawing on Grey’s (2017) notion of ‘reproductive violence’ - violence that violates reproductive autonomy - I review international criminal law and the reproductive justice available to women and girls raped and impregnated by ISIS.

Keywords: law, rape

Topics: Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Girls, Genocide, Health, Reproductive Health, International Law, International Criminal Law, Rights, Reproductive Rights, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Iraq, Syria

Year: 2019

Citation:

Loken, Meredith, Milli Lake, and Kate Cronin-Furman. 2018. "Deploying Justice: Strategic Accountability for Wartime Sexual Violence." International Studies Quarterly 62 (4): 751-64. 

Authors: Meredith Loken, Milli Lake, Kate Cronin-Furman

Abstract:

Why do governments and militaries publicly condemn and prosecute particular forms of abuse? This article explores the Sri Lankan government’s decision to promote limited legal accountability for state-perpetrated rape committed in a country otherwise renowned for widespread impunity. We argue that rather than representing a turn against impunity, the symbolic stance against conflict-related sexual violence in a small number of high-profile cases served an explicitly politico-military agenda. The state deployed legal accountability in specific cases to garner political legitimacy among key domestic audiences. The Sri Lankan government drew on the symbolism of female victimhood to mobilize support at a time when support for military counterinsurgency was waning. We show that governments can uniquely instrumentalize sexual violence cases to establish moral authority and territorial legitimacy. Through an examination of the domestic legal response to state-perpetrated human rights abuses, we illustrate the many ways in which women’s bodies—and the law—can be mobilized in war to serve military ends.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, Governance, Justice, Impunity, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Rights, Human Rights, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Sri Lanka

Year: 2018

Citation:

Vojdik, Valorie K. 2019. "Sexual Abuse and Exploitation by UN Peacekeepers as Conflict-Related Gender Violence." In International Human Rights of Women, edited by Niamh Reilly, 405-21. Singapore: Springer Singapore.

Author: Valorie K. Vojdik

Abstract:

For nearly 30 years, military and civilian peacekeepers across the globe have engaged in rape, sexual assault, forced prostitution, trafficking, and sexual exploitation of women and children. The mechanisms for policing and punishing peacekeeper SEA have been inadequate, creating a culture of impunity. Rather than treat sexual exploitation and abuse as a crime committed by individual peacekeepers, as the UN has done, the international community must situate peacekeeper SEA within the gendered structures of power that help perpetuate conflict-related violence against women and girls. Peacekeeper SEA is rooted in unequal gender relations and poverty, exacerbated by the social and economic dislocations of war. Peacekeeping troops often engage in masculinized social practices that encourage sexual exploitation and gender violence against women and children. With the rise of new peacekeeping economies, peacekeepers often fuel the growth of prostitution and survival sex, harming the individual victims while reinforcing the inequality of women in post-conflict societies. To address peacekeeper SEA requires dismantling the structures of gender inequality and empowering women. It also requires transforming the institutional norms and practices that encourage and enforce masculinized violence by peacekeeping troops.

Keywords: sexual exploitation and abuse, peacekeeping, militarized masculinities, gender inequality, post-conflict

Topics: Economies, Poverty, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, International Organizations, Justice, Impunity, Peacekeeping, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, SV against Women, Trafficking

Year: 2019

Citation:

Haglund, Jillienne, and David L. Richards. 2017. "Enforcement of Sexual Violence Law in Post-Civil Conflict Societies." Conflict Management and Peace Science 35 (3): 280-95.

Authors: Jillienne Haglund, David L. Richards

Abstract:

The climate of impunity in many post-civil conflict societies results in unprecedented levels of violence against women, making legal implementation and law enforcement particularly difficult. We argue that the presence of strong legal provisions mediates the negative influence of the post-civil conflict environment on violence against women. Specifically, we examine the role of strong legal protections on the enforcement of sexual violence legislation in post-civil conflict countries. To examine our hypothesis, we utilize an original dataset measuring the strength and enforcement of domestic legal statutes addressing violence against women for the years 2007–2010 in post-civil conflict countries. We find elements of civil conflict as well as domestic and international legal regimes to be reliably associated with the enforcement of violence against women laws and rape prevalence in post-civil conflict states.

Keywords: gender, gender-based violence, political institutions, post-civil conflict, violence against women

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women, Violence

Year: 2017

Citation:

Cooke, Miriam. 2019. "Murad vs. ISIS: Rape as a Weapon of Genocide." Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 15 (3): 261-85.

Author: Miriam Cooke

Abstract:

This article analyzes recent Iraqi texts, some authorizing and others condemning rape as a weapon of war. The focus is on Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) perpetrators of sexual violence, their Yazidi victims, and two women’s demands for reparative, restorative justice. Held in sexual slavery between 2014 and 2015, Farida Khalaf and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad published testimonials that detail their experiences. Determined to bring ISIS rapists to justice, they narrate the formerly unspeakable crimes that ISIS militants committed against them. Adjudicated as a crime against humanity at the end of the twentieth century, rape as a weapon of war, and especially genocide, no longer slips under the radar of international attention. This study argues that the Yazidi women’s brave decision to speak out may help break the millennial silence of rape survivors.

Keywords: ISIS, Yazidis, rape as a weapon of war, fatwa, Crimes against Humanity

Topics: Genocide, International Law, International Criminal Law, Justice, Crimes against Humanity, Reparations, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Non-State Armed Groups, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexual Slavery, SV against Women Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Iraq

Year: 2019

Citation:

Zaldivar-Giuffredi, Alessandra M. 2018. "Simone Gbagbo: First Lady of Cote D'Ivoire, First Woman Indicted by the International Criminal Court, One among Many Female Perpetrators of Crimes Against Humanity." ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law 25 (1): 1-31.

Author: Alessandra M. Zaldivar-Giuffredi

Annotation:

Topics: Gender, International Law, International Criminal Law, Justice, Crimes against Humanity, Sexual Violence, Female Perpetrators, Rape, Violence Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Côte D'Ivoire

Year: 2018