Fact Sheet
Sexual violence in conflict
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Sexual violence in war zones is a global crime affecting women, men and children in many parts of the world. A recent United Nations report points to recent cases of such violence in 21 countries. As Zainab Bangura, the United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence, has underlined: “It doesn’t matter whether she comes from Bosnia, she comes from Colombia or Syria or Central Africa, the pain that a woman feels who has been raped is the same.”
The UN study identifies armed groups, militia and government security forces as responsible for using rape as a tool in conflict zones. It also links sexual violence with local economies, noting that rape is used to gain control of territories with natural resources, including minerals, which are used by groups to further fuel conflict, as well as human trafficking and illegal drug trade. Rape has also been documented as a trigger for mass flight, which further makes women, and especially youth, vulnerable to abuses. Some parents trying to protect daughters push them to early and forced marriages, which has led to cases of human trafficking and sexual slavery.
Impunity for sexual violence remains prevalent. Under-reporting of sexual assaults is due to a limited capacity to safely monitor and report, as well as the result of fear of stigmatization and reprisals by the survivors. The UN has urged governments “to work to develop a comprehensive protection and service response for survivors” of sexual violence, including reproductive health services, HIV awareness and response services, and assistance in psychosocial, legal and livelihood aid.
Clearly, ending conflict-related sexual violence is of fundamental importance to international peace and security. This fact sheet produced by SDA and
Friends of Europehighlights the extent of the problem worldwide. The data we have collected from an array of sources is by no means complete or comprehensive. But it should help promote understanding of a crime which is too-often under-estimated and under-reported.
Cause for alarm – and action
Rape committed during war is often intended to terrorize the population, break up families, destroy communities, and, in some instances, change the ethnic make-up of the next generation.
Sometimes it is also used to deliberately infect women with HIV or render women from the targeted community incapable of bearing children.
In Rwanda, between 100,000 and 250,000 women were raped during the three months of genocide in 1994.
UN agencies estimate that more than 60,000 women were raped during the civil war in Sierra Leone (1991-2002), more than 40,000 in Liberia (1989-2003), up to 60,000 in the former Yugoslavia (1992-1995), and at least 200,000 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 1998.
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, in force since July 2002, includes rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or "any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity" as a crime against humanity when it is committed in a widespread or systematic way. Arrest warrants
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issued by the ICC include several counts of rape as both a war crime and a crime against humanity.
Africa:
Africa:
Africa:
Africa:
Countries where sexual violence in conflict has occurred include: Algeria, Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, the DRC, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe
The American Journal of Public Health published in 2011 found that in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1,152 women are raped every day – a rate equal to 48 per hour. That rate is 26 times more than the previous estimate of 16,000 rape, making the state the ‘rape capital of the world’.
During the Liberian civil war, between 1999 and 2003, about 49 percent of women between ages fifteen and seventy experienced at least one act of sexual violence from a soldier or armed militia member. In Sierra Leone, about 64,000 internally displaced women experienced war-related sexual violence between 1991 and 2001.
In the Rwandan genocide, Human Rights Watch observers have suggested that between 200,000 and 500,000 women were raped.
Asia:
Asia:
Asia:
Asia:
Countries where sexual violence in conflict has occurred include: Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, India, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, East Timor, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands
In 2002, the Shan Human Rights Foundation and the Shan Women’s Action Network published a report documenting 173 incidents of sexual violence that involved 625 girls and women in Shan state between 1996 and 2002 perpatrated by the Burmese Army.
Rape during the Cambodian Genocide was aimed at specific ethnic groups and persecuted by the Khmer Rouge as enemies. The Vietnamese minority was found to have been more often targeted by the military of the Khmer Rouge with Vietnamese women raped and subsequently killed.
During the Bangladesh War in estimates of the 1971 genocide put the death toll between 300,000 and 3 million Bangladeshis, with between 200,000 to 400,000 women raped by Pakistani forces over a period of nine months, a rate of violence comparable to more recent conflicts such as Rwanda.
Europe:
Europe:
Europe:
Europe:
In Eastern Bosnia there existed a systematic campaign of rape as a weapon of war. ICTY estimates put the number of women raped at up to 35,000, the majority of them Bosnian Muslims. Due to the religious and cultural shame surrounding rape in Bosnia, however, an accurate number has not been ascertained and it is estimated that as many as 60,000 women were raped between the period of 1992-1995.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the The International Criminal Tribunal for the The International Criminal Tribunal for the The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found several key former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found several key former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found several key former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found several key reasons behind the use of rape as a
reasons behind the use of rape as a reasons behind the use of rape as a reasons behind the use of rape as a weapon of war:
weapon of war:
weapon of war:
weapon of war:
For ethnic cleansing: Testimonies exist from Bosnian women who had soldiers tell them, while raping them, that they wanted to get them pregnant or force them to have children who would look ethnically different from their mother
To humiliate: Many women were raped in front of their children and husbands, who were forced to watch at gunpoint; there are also a fair number of accounts of women who were raped, it was clearly not about impregnating them but about demeaning them and their families). Thousands of males were forced to engage in sexual acts with other males.
To instil fear: Public rape was used to prompt the
“flight or expulsion of entire Muslim communities,”
according to a 2006 U.N. Population Fund briefing paper. Many women were raped, sometimes repeatedly, in front of family members in their homes.
To gain information: Women have testified that before being raped they were asked for the whereabouts of men hiding in the forests.
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As part of looting: Rape often occurred alongside theft of private property, the U.N. Commission of Experts found in their final report on sexualized violence in the former Yugoslavia
Peer pressure: Some Bosnian-Serb soldiers said their peers forced them to rape when they did not wish to participate.
HIV as a weapon of War HIV as a weapon of War HIV as a weapon of War HIV as a weapon of War
In recent conflicts armed militias and combatants have started using HIV as a weapon of war according to evidence from the Rwandan genocide, and the on-going conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As already stated, one striking phenomenon of modern-day wars is the “wilful” transmission of HIV.
In Rwanda, HIV infected Hutu militia men were instructed to rape all women in the society with the objective of killing the Tutsi population slowly over time. In 2000 the UNAIDS estimated that 270,000 children in Rwanda had lost their mother or both parents to HIV/AIDS.
Bibliography
Conflict—related sexual violence, United Nations http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2014/181&referer=http://www.un.org/en/
sc/documents/sgreports/2014.shtml&Lang=E
Unspeakable Crimes Against Children , Save the Children http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Unspeakable%20crimes%20against%
20children.pdf
War on women: Time for action to end sexual violence in conflict, Nobel Women’s Initiative http://www.nobelwomensinitiative.org/wp-content/archive/stories
Conference_Ottawa_Women_Forging_a_New_Security/war-on-women-web.pdf
Conflict and Health, http://www.conflictandhealth.com/content/7/1/16
Women under Siege, Women’s Media Center;
http://www.womenundersiegeproject.org/conflicts/profile/bosnia
Rape as a crime of war: A medical perspective, http://www.womens-rights.org/Publications/JAMA%2093.pdf
Breaking the silence, The Economist,
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21588131-can-new-campaign-persuade-pentagon- reconsider-its-attitude-breaking-silence
Rape within the US Military Rape within the US Military Rape within the US Military Rape within the US Military
During the war in Iraq, over 206,000 US women served in the Middle East theatre as of 2010.
According to several studies of the US military funded by the Department of Veteran Affairs, 30%
of serving US military women are raped while serving on tours of duty, 71% suffer some form of sexual assault, and 90% are sexually harassed.
The Pentagon announced in May 2013 that reported incidents of sexual assault in all branches of the armed forces rose almost 6% in 2012, to 3,374. There were 26,000 cases of sexual assault last year, up from an estimated 19,000 cases in 2010. Of the 3,374 incidents reported, just 302 went to trial, leading to 238 convictions.
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