Sexual violence has long been used in wars as a way to inflict terror upon the enemy, a way to assert power and control over the opposition.
According to feminist activist Susan Brownmiler;
Wherever armed conflicts have been fought on the land, women have been raped.
Dehumanising, rather than taking a gun to one’s head- aim, shoot, and it’s over, rape overwhelmingly leaves victims with both mental scars (PTSD), and physical scars, as they’re forced to live within the crime scene that is their body, for the rest of their lives…
In some cases, women are raped by soldiers as part of the genocide itself, as this BBC report suggests…
‘About 25 girls and women aged 14 to 24 were systematically raped during the occupation in the basement of one house in Bucha. Nine of them are pregnant. Russian soldiers told them they would rape them to the point where they wouldn’t want sexual contact with any man, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children.’
Because wartorn countries where such violations take place are often LEDCs (less economically developed countries), and therefore its citizens tend to be poorer, most women who do fall pregnant in such countries have no choice but to have the baby. (Abortion isn’t an option, in many cases, like it is in the West). This adds even more pain to an already excruciatingly painful situation…
Women are forced to mother children whose fathers raped them. Women are forced to be reminded of that fact, every single day, something which doesn’t just have an emotional impact on the mother, by the way, but so too on the child when/if they grow up realising how they were conceived.
And in many cases, it’s no accident (that they were conceived)…
As the BBC report above states, Russian soldiers raped women, ‘to prevent them from having Ukranian children.’
Rape is used, not just to inflict terror, but also to contribute to genocide. How so? By forcibly changing the ethnic makeup of a population.
The Russian soldier who raped the Ukrainian woman, for example, who subsequently fell pregnant and gave birth to a half-Russian, half-Ukrainian baby… Whilst this doesn’t mean anything, whilst the baby will most likely grow up having no association, no knowledge even, of their Russian roots, psychologically, in the Russian’s mind, it is ‘one-upmanship.’
‘If we’re not going to win the conflict with guns, invading Ukraine through airstrikes, we will win it through rape, invading Ukraine by forcing Ukrainian women to give birth to our (Russian) babies.’
And it’s not just Ukraine where this is happening, either, it’s happening globally, and has been happening globally, for decades…
In Rwanda, between 100,000 and 250,000 women were raped during the three months of genocide in 1994.
Furthermore, recent conflicts in Africa have also seen terrible sexual violence. Up to 120,000 women and girls were reportedly raped or sexually abused during the 2020–2022 Tigray war in northern Ethiopia, and this year in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, thousands of women and children are said to have been raped by M23 rebels.
And, for a more recent example, as this Guardian article reports, there are ‘reasonable grounds to believe sexual assaults including rape and gang-rape took place during the 7 October attacks by Hamas.’
‘Based on the first-hand accounts of released hostages, the mission team received clear and convincing information that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment occurred against some women and children during their time in captivity. In some cases, rape was conducted in front of an audience, such as partners, family, or friends, to increase the pain and humiliation for all present.’
Despite being classified as a war crime since 1998, a UN report, also published in 1998, highlights how armies have long considered rape, ‘one of the legitimate spoils of war’, ‘unavoidable’, ‘just one of those things…’
The question then, is why?
Why is rape used as a war crime?
Why has war become, not soldier against soldier, but soldier against civilian?*
*Against unarmed, eternally harmed civilian…
‘Rape is no accident of war, but a tool of terror.’
Rape in war is about power, not sexual desire.
Soldiers aren’t ‘selective’ about who they will or won’t rape. Whilst women and girls are overwhelmingly the victims of sexual assault, men and boys are not excluded either. Because, when it’s all about power, power (them) vs vulnerability (us), their only goal is to inflict the maximum damage on ‘us.’
As quoted from the Guardian article linked above, the aim of rape is
‘to increase the pain and humiliation for all present.’
An example of just how far soldiers will go to inflict the maximum damage can be seen in Russia when, last year, a Russian soldier forced a four-year-old girl (yes, four years old)… to perform oral sex on him whilst her parents watched. The mother, 22 years old, was raped, and her husband sexually assaulted. They were then forced to have sex with each other in front of the soldiers.
^ ( Clearly, this was not about sexual desire, but about power).
As an Amnesty International campaign from 2009 highlights;
Rape is cheaper than bullets.
(and that it is).
Cheaper and far, far more damaging.
Rape might not kill you as a gun to your head would, but it does take life away from you, making it impossible to live… And so, ultimately, you end up swapping living for surviving, with every day feeling like Groundhog Day as you’re left to go over and over what happened to you in your head, over and over and over it, with no escape…
Written below is a poem, based on research I have conducted into victims of rape as a war crime, that I hope does them justice. It’s called;
‘When I talk to God, but the sky is empty.’
When the war has ended
and the soldiers have gone home,
when they tell us to smile,
but we can’t,
so we don’t.Because the birds might be singing
but all we can hear
is the sound of him breathing,
pounding,
round,
down,
in,
out,
of our fucking ears.again.
reliving it.
again.
This isn’t living,
this is just surviving,
every day that passes
wishing that we could throw the towel in…
‘I can’t do this anymore’
…
Getting down on our hands and knees praying,
heart feeling like it’s breaking
(can’t escape it)
‘cuz we’ve got kids at home playing,
innocent kids,
just as much the victim
(they can’t help who their dad is).And that makes us feel guilty for feeling like this.
We feel guilty
that every time we see them,
we see him,
hear him,
breathing,
pounding,
round,
down,
in,
out,
of our fucking ears.again.
reliving it.
again.
This isn’t living,
this is just surviving,
every day that passes wishing that we could throw the towel in…
‘I can’t do this anymore’
…
Getting down on our hands and knees praying,
asking God;‘Why couldn’t it have been me instead?’
A gun to the head
would’ve been easier
than this.’‘God.’
Ha,
what God?
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