Gendered Lens

It focuses on examining how violence impacts members of a specific gender, but most often focuses on its unique impacts on women. Authors such as Moon focus on how prostitution (including cases of forced prostitution in Japan) impact women specifically, as well as Moon and MacKinnon pointing to rape as a specific and horrific example of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV). However, as Jones notes, gendering genocide has specific implications for men as well. We find that men of “military” age are proportionally more often the victims of direct violence, particularly as it pertains to our two cases in Serbia and

According to ICRtoP, the Democratic Republic of Congo is reported to be the “rape capital of the world” with an estimated 15,000 rape cases in the Congo’s eastern provinces alone. Rape is a tool of war used by the various armed forces in the Congo in order to “create instability in

When the war ended, most “comfort women” were simply abandoned. The “comfort women” have been hidden victims for over half a century. Having been victims of sexual violence, where a woman’s chastity is upheld as more important than life itself, many of these women have blamed themselves and kept their sufferings from family members and the community, fearing tainting of the family name.

During the Rwandan genocide, some rapes occurred recurrently throughout a timespan. “Sexual enslavements occurred when a woman was detained, typically in the house of an Interhamwe, and subjected to repeated sexual assaults over a period of days,” (Mullins 727). These kinds of rapes belong in their own category because of the added element of confinement and intent to continually rape and therefore, harm. An Interhamwe soldier named Rafiki, personally sought out one Tutsi woman whom he had

While war in the DRC already created unpleasant outcomes, such as poverty and corruption, it also created cruel type of a weapon, humiliation and rape of women beside the guns and bombs. Meger asserts in her article that the majority of the rape crimes involve gang rapes, “with an average of 4.5 attackers per victim,” and they also tend to be systematically preplanned (127). Women depicted in Ruined are examples of rape victims. Salima’s story in particular demonstrates how violent and unforgiving it can be out in there. She was gang raped when she was in her garden and her attackers even ended up killing her infant. Not only was she brutally assaulted, but also neglected and abandoned by her husband and the village, which left her nowhere to turn to. Salima sees Mama Nadi’s bar as a place to live, but in an entirely new way of

(Adetunji) In 2007 at least 400,000 women from 15-49 were raped that year. (Adetunji) Between January and September of 2014 11,769 cases of sexual and gender based violence. (Brogeland) After raping Ndazimo 3 weeks later they came back for her daughter. They raped her so bad that she died. It is like the soldiers have no regrets. Sometimes they kidnap children. Mapenzi said. "It appears they have been kidnapped during the night and returned battered and bruised the following day." (Brogeland) Even though the war in Congo ended a while back a lot of the militias groups are still around. “That’s why I say we have become weapons of war in Congo, Masika says” (Schlanger)

There have been a lot of recent tragedies in Africa and a lot of attentions have been giving to the female victim. In this article Lara Stemple want the same attention to be giving to the male victims as well. As stated the reports of male rape in Congo has been made clear that wartime sexual violence is not limited to women and girls. As of now, the United Nation has the situation at hand and they overlook sexual assault of men and boy. Lara Stemple wants us to see the reason while sexual violence against men occasionally make the news. Sexual violence is ‘any violence, whether physical and/or mental, carried out through sexual means or by targeting sexuality’ (Lewis, 2009). An example is the sexual abuse and humiliation that took place in Iraq at the Abu Ghraib prison stunned the world.

Despite developments in human rights discourse and international law, abuses endure and there remains a certain poverty of explanations (Alison, 2007). Moreover, the fields of conflict resolution and peace studies have also historically been silent on the question of sexual violence and mass rape in armed conflict (Leatherman, 2007). The pressing problem of rape in wartime has, at long last, evoked worldwide concern (United Nations Security Council 2007). Accounts of the cruelty and massive amount of sexual violence committed by both government forces and members of the rebel groups have certainly alerted both global policymakers and advocate groups to the scope and lasting terror of sexual violence in the context of armed conflict and peace-building (Baaz & Stern,

The public display of sexual crimes committed against WSV victims has yet another aspect to compound the consequences of their rape and captivity. The associated media articles, almost always very detailed in nature, arouse issues in regards to the cultural notions of honor. In honor-based societies, such as the Yezidi community and many communities in Nigeria, women and girls carry a heavy burden of upholding the honor of the family, clan and tribe. One way in which honor is lost is through sexual relations outside the context of a family-approved marriage, whether consensual or through rape. The injury of rape among women and girls in an honor based society, is often compounded by violence related to her loss of honor and therefore family status. Honor killings in the Yezidi community have occurred in the past (Hague et al, 2013) and the fear is that not only will girls and women who return from ISIS captivity have the psychological and physical problems associated with sexual assault, but will be shunned or even killed because they are in violation of their community’s cultural standards. Nigerian women and girls are also at risk for so called honor killings and face many of the shame consequences of public shaming and being ostracized from their family and communities following rape (Caprioli et al, 2009).

An “honor killing” is an epitomized murder committed against a woman for actual or perceived “immoral” behavior that is deemed to have breached the ‘honor code’ of a household or community. It is the perpetrators' belief that the victim has brought shame or dishonor upon the family name or societal standard. These so-called ‘’honor codes’’ are the product of condoning deep-seated patriarchal societal and ethnic injustices, where women are compelled to assume all responsibility for upholding the morality of an entire culture. It is the most extreme case of gender-based violence. Honor killings are the ultimate sanction against women who are deemed to have offended the collective morality of a group. Typical behaviors or suspicion of actions

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman and is one of the least developed countries in the world. A 2011 American Journal of Public Health report found that more than 400,000 women surveyed in 2007 reported that they were raped in the previous twelve months, adding up to 1,150 rapes per day. In a 2007 survey, 1.69 to 1.80 million women between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine reported being raped in their lifetime. Members of the Congolese army, rebel groups, militias, and other groups continue to use sexual violence against women and children as a systematic tactic of war to destroy communities. Sexual violence in the DRC is worse today than in Rwanda during the genocide.

Therefore, by highlighting the weakness in this linear and static relationship between women’s subordinate status and vulnerability he calls into question the practice of privileging women and children in the international discourse on gender-based violence. Therefore, the assumption that women’s subordinate status will necessarily be followed by vulnerability and violence must be re-examined because it has limited our understanding of vulnerability in conflict zones and consequently, certain groups of people are undermined in terms of offering protection and support

As disturbing new reports of male rape in Congo made clear, wartime sexual violence isn’t limited to women and girls. But in its straightforward effort to get rid of rape during conflict. The United Nations continues to overlook a significant amount of people ending wartime sexual assault of men and boys as well.

Sexual violence is about being in power and has been used throughout the world as a tool to humiliate and disempower others. These such acts are done from the majority of males, who aim to cause physical, psychological or sexual harm on a female victim, for their own personal gain or satisfaction. It is a dehumanizing experience and a profound violation of a human being. The effects on a person’s mental well being can be dramatically altered, resulting in mental illnesses, destroying their lives forever. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, brutal rape has become a large battle to fight by the “Raise Hope for the Congo,” Campaign. By identifying the problem at hand, which is the excessive amount of sexual cruelty

A: It is universally accepted that violence against women in areas of armed conflict is an abuse of basic human rights. However, despite efforts led by the United Nations and the governments of different countries plagued by this issue, little has been done to resolve this atrocity. There are many different categories that the aforementioned can be placed into, but perhaps the most abhorrent violation of human rights is the use of systemic abuse of women in wartime as a strategy to win a conflict. An example of such a strategy is the systematic mass rape of a society’s women, with the goal in mind of separating families, demoralizing civilians, and infecting them with various STDs.Often times, such women are cast out from their homes and societies because of their “impurity.” Especially during a time when there is already a dearth of resources and medical help due to the intensity of the armed conflict taking place, this cultural practice of neglecting sexually abused women contributes heavily to the suffering of women from this