Mass Wartime Rape

Rape culture extends across the globe. In 2012, a group of men gang-raped a young woman and assaulted her friend aboard a moving bus in New Delhi, India. The crime was horrific. And yet, there were some within the country who chose to blame the victims instead of the perpetrators. Asaram Bapu, a self-realized saint from India with approximately 40 million disciples said, “The victim’s daughter is as guilty as her rapists…She should have called the culprits brothers and begged before them to stop…This could have saved her dignity and life. Can you clap with one hand? I don’t think so” (Herald). Then in 1995, during the Bosnian War and the Bosnian genocide, the violence assumed a gender-targeted form through the use of rape. It is estimated that 50,000 women were raped. A year prior during the Rwandan genocide, known as the 100-day genocide, it is estimated that 500,000 women were raped. During the times when these genocides were taking place, rape and sexual violence was seen as just another part of war, but not seen as a crime. Thousands and thousands of women were raped and will never obtain the justice they deserve for their perpetrators’

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

Twenty years after the largest mass murder on European soil since the Third Reich, one question still remains unanswered. How did this happen when the eyes of the world were watching? Why were death squads able to, unchecked, massacre more than 8,000 men and boys in a UN protected “safe zone”? According to eyewitness accounts of survivors, “They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity” (International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia). The sole male survivor in his entire family, Mevludin Oric recounted how he lay for hours under the corpse of his nephew pretending to be dead while death squads searched the killing fields. “I closed my eyes...And for a few seconds before the expected shot, I wonder what it is like in heaven, or in hell.”(NBC)

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

The Bosnian, Srebrenica, and Herzegovina land was involved in an ethical war where ethnic cleansing was seen as a way to solidify the breaks in that region (“Bosnian Genocide”). The trigger of this ethnic war was the break-up of Yugoslavia from one country to three (Bosnia, Srebrenica, and Herzegovina) in 1990 (“Bosnian Genocide”). This rupture of Yugoslavia resulted in the massive dispute between Muslims, Serbs, and Croatians (Bennett). Not long after the war began, the Serbs began executing the Bosnian Muslims through ethnic cleansing, in order to fill the fissure that was created in 1990. The mass execution lasted three years and nine months, and did not end until the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened in 1995 (Bennett); by that time, an unforgettable 70,000 Bosnian citizens were executed by the Serbs (Perl 71). If NATO had intervened sooner, perhaps thousands of lives could have been saved and this haunting genocide may have had less of an impact on the world.

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.

In the short preview article I read written by Andrew Cockburn for the National Geographic magazine begins telling the story of Cockburns travel to Prijedor, Bosnia where he had a scheduled interview with the notorious slave trafficker Milorad Milakovic who awaited for him calmly in his residency guarded by tigers and young buffed, tattooed men patrolling and guarding his estate. In the interview when discussing the amount of women fleeing the country because of economical insecurities, Milakovic responded by expressing his opinion of wanting to legalize prostitution. Milorad Milakovic also openly expressed his business in buying women for his brothels.

Jews were systematically murdered in the deadliest genocide in history, which was of part of a border aggregate of acts of oppression and killing of various ethnic and political groups in Europe and under the coordination of the Schutzstaffel, also known as SS. With the direction from the highest leadership of the Nazi party, and every arm Germany's bureaucracy was involved in the logistic and the carrying out of the mass murders.

However, starting in 1994, NATO led air strikes (“GENOCIDE – BOSNIA”), thereby deterring the Serbian movement. Even so, Srebrenica became bombarded with shells by Serb troops led by Ratko Mladic in July 1995, a date that has since been associated with the name “Bosnian genocide ” (“GENOCIDE – BOSNIA”). Many have drawn parallels between the brutal actions of this genocide with the Nazi actions of the Holocaust: shootings killing thousands, forcibly relocating residents, concentration camps, and for females—rape (“Bosnia-Herzegovina 1992-1995”). Men and men were separated in this torture process and while men were sent to concentration camps, women were sent to rape camps (Krkljes). The genocide violated many UN Declaration of Human Rights articles including Articles 3, 7, 5, 13, and 15. Article 3 was violated because non-Serbs were deprived of the right to life; Article 5 violated since genocide is an example of inhumane treatment; Article 7 violated because non-Serbs were discriminated against; Article 13 violated since Bosnian Serbs drove out Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks; and Article 15 violated since “ethnic cleansing” stripped non-Serbs of their home in

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

In the summer of 1995, near the end of the Bosnian Genocide, Serbian forces once again attacked, this time in Srebrenica. The U.N. had declared the area a “safe haven,” but the Serbians came in anyway. They repeated their usual actions, sending women and girls to rape or concentration camps, and killing men and boys on the spot. The approximation of “Bosniaks killed by Serb forces at Srebrenica range from around 7,000 to more than 8,000” (History.com). The Serbians had no remorse, and killed anyone they felt did not fit under the pure Serbian title. The attack on Srebrenica “was the single largest massacre in Europe since World War II” (Bosnian

In his “Safe Area Gorazde” Joe Sacco describes his experience visiting a Muslim enclave during the Bosnian War of 1991-1995. Tragically, this work is based on testimonies of residents of Gorazde, allegedly a UN-protected area where Bosnian Muslims are able to take refuge to avoid the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Serbian army. Gorazde is anything but protected which Sacco demonstrates throughout the book by ridiculing the UN and the US who are able to and responsible for protecting the residents of such enclaves, but instead turn a blind eye to what was going on. “…the U.N. extended safe area status to other Bosnian enclaves, including Gorazde. But the U.N. had yet to work out what the concept

These shows that most of time males are the victims of assaults not females. According to Russell Wynne in his article "Sexual Violence against Men and Boys," Sexualised violence against men and boys can emerge in any form of conflict – from interstate wars to civil wars to localised conflicts – and in any cultural context. Both men and boys are vulnerable in conflict settings and in countries of asylum alike. Both adult men and boys are most vulnerable to sexual violence in detention. In some places over 50% of detainees reportedly experience sexualised torture. However, both adult men and boys are also vulnerable during military operations in civilian areas and in situations of military conscription or abduction into paramilitary forces. Boys, meanwhile, are also highly vulnerable in refugee/IDP settings. He also starts with a wonderful quote “It is well known that armed conflict and sexual violence against women and girls often go hand in hand. What is less widely recognised is that armed conflict and its aftermath also bring sexual danger for men and boys.” This explains that society considers sexual violence against women’s and girls more rapidly than that of men’s and

Theoretical frameworks and sources concerning rape during instances of genocide are primarily divided between four main fields of assessment. Concerning the Armenian genocide, two theories have dominated the discussion of the rape which occured in the Armenian

Analyze Rape as a tool of war under light of decisions by ICTY and the ICTR?