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The Role Of Rape In The Armenian Genocide

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Historical writing regarding rape, specifically rape as it occurs in warfare, has only relatively recently become an area of focus for analyzation and deconstruction, much less in how it was employed during the Armenian genocide. The occurrence of rape during these events have chiefly been of finding and establishing that wartime rape as it occurs in the Armenian genocide was directive of attempting to eradicate the group as a whole due in part to the establishment of women as propogrators of their specific groups; the Ottoman Armenians. In order to achieve this, the weapon of rape becomes tactical due to its destructive capabilities in not only harming the singular person as it causes pain and humiliation but also due to the culture regarding rape as it is thought of causing a pain and humiliation to the group as a whole due to group identity. …show more content…

In 2008 rape and other forms of sexual violence became an official punishable offense by the United Nations General Assembly. Scholars such as Katharine Derderian in her analysis Common Fate, Different Experience: Gender-Specific Aspects of the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1917 states that wartime rape theory is sumararily used when discussing or analyzing the genocides of Yugoslavia and Rwanda, however the theories developed out of the genocide can be applied in instances of the Armenian genocide as its own theory regarding rape seemed more in-tune with dismissing wartime rape as a natural occurrence and by-product of conflict.
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

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