Rape

Citation:

Woodward, Rachel, and Claire Duncanson, eds. 2017. The Palgrave International Handbook of Gender and the Military. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Authors: Rachel Woodward, Claire Duncanson

Annotation:

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, DDR, Domestic Violence, Ethnicity, Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gender Mainstreaming, Health, Mental Health, International Organizations, Intersectionality, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Militarism, Militarization, Non-State Armed Groups, Political Economies, Race, Peacekeeping, Security Sector Reform, Sexuality, Sexual Violence, Rape

Year: 2017

Citation:

Tanabe, Mihoko, Alison Greer, Jennifer Leigh, Payal Modi, William W. Davis, Pue Pue Mhote, Conrad M. Otterness Jr., and Parveen Parmar. 2019. "An Exploration of Gender-Based Violence in Eastern Myanmar in the Context of Political Transition: Findings from a Qualitative Sexual and Reproductive Health Assessment." Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters 27 (2): 112-25.

Authors: Mihoko Tanabe, Alison Greer, Jennifer Leigh, Payal Modi, William W. Davis, Pue Pue Mhote, Eh May Htoo, Conrad M. Otterness Jr. , Parveen Parmar

Abstract:

In March 2011, the Myanmar Government transitioned to a nominally civilian parliamentary government, resulting in dramatic increases in international investments and tenuous peace in some regions. In March 2015, Community Partners International, the Women’s Refugee Commission, and four community-based organisations (CBOs) assessed community-based sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services in eastern Myanmar amidst the changing political contexts in Myanmar and Thailand. The team conducted 12 focus group discussions among women of reproductive age (18–49 years) with children under five and interviewed 12 health workers in Kayin State, Myanmar. In Mae Sot and Chiang Mai, Thailand, the team interviewed 20 representatives of CBOs serving the border regions. Findings are presented through the socioecological lens to explore gender-based violence (GBV) specifically, to examine continued and emerging issues in the context of the political transition. Cited GBV includes ongoing sexual violence/rape by the military and in the community, trafficking, intimate partner violence, and early marriage. Despite the political transition, women continue to be at risk for military sexual violence, are caught in the burgeoning economic push–pull drivers, and experience ongoing restrictive gender norms, with limited access to SRH services. There is much fluidity, along with many connections and interactions among the contributing variables at all levels of the socioecological model; based on a multisectoral response, continued support for innovative, community-based SRH services that include medical and psychosocial care are imperative for ethnic minority women to gain more agency to freely exercise their SR rights.

Keywords: conflict, Intimate partner violence, sexual violence, sexual and reproductive health, Trafficking, early marriage, gender-based violence

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Conflict, Domestic Violence, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Health, Reproductive Health, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, Sexual Violence, Rape, Trafficking Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Myanmar, Thailand

Year: 2019

Citation:

DeCarlo, Josephine. 2019. "Female Crimes Against Humanity." In The Encyclopedia of Women and Crime, edited by Frances P. Bernat and Kelly Frailing. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.

Author: Josephine DeCarlo

Abstract:

Crimes against women have long been ignored or given diminished priority within justice systems whether those systems were local, national, or international. However, as the world strives for gender equality, the international justice system has begun to recognize the distinctive repercussions for female victims, and how women can be targeted as an identified people group. Through the help of advances within diverse fields (including psychology, sociology, applied criminology, etc.), we have also come to better analyze the motivation(s) behind gender crimes and the circumstances under which they are committed. Through closer analysis of the motivations and circumstances regarding crimes against women, we have further developed and expanded concepts such as crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. (While some notable trials are covered, for the sake of concision, not all are included.) Additionally, we have ascertained that one's sexuality can be utilized as a weapon or strategy of war.

Keywords: gender crimes, genocide, human rights, rape, sexual violence, torture, war crimes

Topics: Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Genocide, International Law, International Criminal Law, Justice, Crimes against Humanity, War Crimes, Rights, Human Rights, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexuality, Torture

Year: 2019

Citation:

Brittain, Victoria. 2003. "The Impact of War on Women." Race & Class 44 (4): 41-51.

Author: Victoria Brittain

Annotation:

Topics: Armed Conflict, Conflict, Gender, Women, International Organizations, NGOs, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women

Year: 2003

Citation:

Baaz, Maria Eriksson, and Maria Stern. 2018. “Curious Erasures: The Sexual in Wartime Sexual Violence.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 20 (3): 295-314.

Authors: Maria Eriksson Baaz, Maria Stern

Abstract:

Wartime sexual violence is especially egregious precisely because it is a sexual form of violence that causes particular harms. Yet, curiously, and in contrast to feminist theory on sexual violence more generally, the sexual has been erased from frames of understanding in dominant accounts of wartime rape. This article places the seeming certainty that “wartime rape is not about sex (it’s about power/violence)” under critical scrutiny and poses questions about the stakes of the erasure of the sexual in explanations of conflict-related sexual violence. It argues that the particular urgency that accompanies this erasure reflects the workings of familiar distinctions between war and peace, as well as efforts to clearly recognize violence and separate it from sex. Erasing the sexual from accounts of wartime rape thus ultimately reinscribes the normal and the exceptional as separate and reproduces a reductive notion of heterosexual masculine sex (in peacetime) that is ontologically different from the violence of war.

Keywords: sexual violence, wartime, peacetime, rape, feminist theory, sexuality

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Gendered Discourses, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexuality, Violence

Year: 2018

Citation:

Engle, Karen. 2014. “The Grip of Sexual Violence: Reading UN Security Council Resolutions on Human Security.” In Rethinking Peacekeeping, Gender Equality and Collective Security, edited by Gina Heathcote and Dianne Otto, 23–47. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Author: Karen Engle

Abstract:

The issue I would like to pose in this chapter is about the grip of sexual violence on human security discourse. I do not want to address the violence itself, but to consider why many feminist — and even non-feminist — discussions about human rights and security have become inextricably connected to concerns about sexual violence, primarily but not exclusively against women. I consider here the United Nations (UN) Security Council resolutions on what is termed ‘human security’, and debates and media around them. I do so because I believe they are representative of an escalating emphasis on the horrors of sexual violence more generally within international human rights and humanitarian law, discourse and advocacy.

Topics: Media, International Law, International Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), International Organizations, Security, Human Security, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women

Year: 2014

Citation:

Crystal, Valerie, Shin Imai, and Bernadette Maheandiran. 2014. “Access to Justice and Corporate Accountability: A Legal Case Study of HudBay in Guatemala.” Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue Canadienne D’Études Du Développement 35 (2): 285–303.

Authors: Valerie Crystal, Shin Imai, Bernadette Maheandiran

Abstract:

This case study looks at the avenues open for addressing serious allegations of murder, rape and assault brought by indigenous Guatemalans against a Canadian mining company, HudBay Minerals. While first-generation legal and development policy reforms have facilitated foreign mining in Guatemala, second-generation reforms have failed to address effectively conflicts arising from the development projects. The judicial mechanisms available in Guatemala are difficult to access and suffer from problems of corruption and intimidation. Relevant corporate social responsibility policies and mechanisms lack the necessary enforcement powers. Canadian courts have been reluctant to permit lawsuits against Canadian parent companies; however, in Choc v. HudBay and Yaiguaje v. Chevron Corporation, Ontario judges have allowed cases to proceed on the merits of the case, providing an important, if limited, avenue toward corporate accountability.

Keywords: mining, Latin America, Chevron, HudBay, corporate social responsibility

Topics: Corruption, Development, Extractive Industries, Gender-Based Violence, Indigenous, International Law, Justice, Rights, Indigenous Rights, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women, Violence Regions: Americas, Central America, North America Countries: Canada, Guatemala

Year: 2014

Citation:

Fordham, Maureen. 2012. “Gender, Sexuality and Disaster.” In The Routledge Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction, edited by Ben Wisner, J. C. Gaillard, and Ilan Kelman. Oxon: Routledge.

Author: Maureen Fordham

Abstract:

In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, The Independent newspaper reported occurrences of the rape and sexual abuse of women and girls (Nguyen 2010). This is the most recent evidence at the time of writing that cases of gender-based violence are frequent and still at an unacceptably high level in disasters. This raises questions about why women, as compared with men, continue to be disadvantaged, abused or made vulnerable in disasters, and highlights the importance of recognising gender as of vital consideration in disaster management and in instigating measures for disaster risk reduction (DRR).

Topics: Environment, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Gender-Based Violence, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries Countries: Haiti

Year: 2012

Citation:

Sapir, Debarati Guha. 1993. "Natural and Man-Made Disasters: The Vulnerability of Women-Headed Households and Children Without Families." World Health Statistics Quarterly 46 (4): 227-33.

Author: Debarati Guha Sapir

Abstract:

Since 1980, over 2 million people have died as an immediate result of natural and man-made disasters and by 1992, the refugee population registered nearly 16 million people. This article reviews the human impact of disasters as a composite of two elements: the catastrophic event itself and the vulnerability of people. It also examines the specific case of women and children in the current world emergency context. It identifies four broad policy areas that affect women and children in disaster situations and discusses them with examples and field evidence. The first policy area addresses humanitarian assistance and armed conflicts, and armed conflict and international humanitarian law, the use of food as instrument of war, mines and civilian disability, and rape and sexual violence are discussed within this context. The second problem discussed is the issue of unaccompanied and abandoned children in terms of its magnitude and implications for relief response. Thirdly, the article examines the differential risks in emergencies for mortality and morbidity, specifically for women and children. Finally, it addresses certain policies and approaches to disaster rehabilitation which effectively mirror and reinforce inherent inequities in the affected society. The article notes that: (i) the largest proportion of disaster victims today arise from civil strife and food crises and that the majority of those killed, wounded and permanently disabled are women and children; and (ii) the ability of any country to respond effectively to disasters depends on the strength of its health and social infrastructure, and its overall developmental status. It concludes by identifying seven areas where concrete measures could be taken to improve the current situation.

Topics: Age, Youth, Armed Conflict, Displacement & Migration, Refugees, Environment, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Women, Girls, Boys, International Law, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), Humanitarian Assistance, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women

Year: 1993

Citation:

Mutlu-Numansen, Sofia, and Ringo Ossewaarde. 2015. “Heroines of Gendercide: The Religious Sensemaking of Rape and Abduction in Aramean, Assyrian and Chaldean Migrant Communities.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 22 (4): 428-442. 

Authors: Sofia Mutlu-Numansen, Ringo Ossewaarde

Abstract:

This study seeks to understand a diaspora community narrative of rape and abduction suffered during the genocidal massacre of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire and its aftermath. Based on interviews with 50 Aramean, Assyrian and Chaldean migrants in Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands, whose families are from the village of Bote, known as one of the ‘killing fields’ in southeast Turkey, the article explores the ways in which descendants remember the ‘forgotten genocide’ of Aramean, Assyrian and Chaldean communities in 1915. The research reveals that the descendants of survivors make sense of the sexual violence experienced in Bote mainly through a religious narrative and that, for them, the genocide is, in spite of all the sufferings the males had to go through, a feminized event. In their gendercide narrative, the abducted and raped women are identified as the ‘heroines’ of the genocide.

Keywords: Armenian genocide, feminization, gendercide, migration, narrative, post-genocide, sexual violence

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Conflict, Genocide, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Sexual Slavery, SV against Women, Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: MENA, Asia, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Turkey

Year: 2015