Children Born of Sexual and Gender‐Based Violence in Conflict: The International Criminal Court, Ecological Environments and Human Development

Abstract

Children born of sexual and gender‐based violence in conflict have slowly gained international attention, even featuring in international criminal justice processes, such as those at the International Criminal Court (ICC). These children suffer unique harms due to the circumstances surrounding their birth, with a burgeoning literature documenting the long‐term and multigenerational impact on their development. This article contributes to this existing literature by applying Bronfenbrenner's ecological model of human development to ICC responses to these children, yielding a more nuanced understanding of the ICC as part of the ecological environment in which child development occurs.

Securing the Future: Transformative Justice and Children ‘Born of War’

“…It challenges everything, and no one has really thought about them’ (2018: 57). Efforts to bring children ‘born of war’ to the attention of the UN and responsible state parties ‘is set against a backdrop in which their very existence has been shrouded in silence’ (Dowds, 2019: 226). To return to Special Representative Patten’s appeal, silence begets violence: ‘stigma can not only scar, it can kill’.…”

“I BROKE FREE” Youth Activism and the Search for Rights for Children Born of War in Bosnia

“…'Children Born of War' (CBOW) is the term that describes children who were born of a local mother and a foreign biological father during conditions of war, often as a result of sexual and gendered violence during semi-consensual or nonconsensual relationships (Children Born of War CHIBOW 2023). While UNICEF and the International Criminal Court (ICC) have vocally advocated for the rights of millions of such children of war in recent years (Dowds 2019), there is no international organization or national institution that systematically collects the relevant data, as the fates of millions of unsought babies remain unknown. This record makes legal recognition provided to children born of war in Bosnian local laws exceptional, a victory that likely would not have succeeded without the efforts of a small set of affected Bosnian activists.…”