Gender-Based Violence During the Armenian Genocide

Abstract

This paper analyses atrocities during the Armenian genocide through a gendered lens. Asking to what extent men and women have been differently affected by gender-based violence, Carpenter’s framework is applied that specifically recognises men’s often-overlooked victimisation of gender-based violence. The application concludes that men were, just like women, victims of gender-based violence during the Armenian genocide, but that the rationales behind the targeting of women and men greatly differed. It follows that, while Carpenter is right in arguing that gender-based violence against women and men cannot be prevented separately from each other, as the gender roles naturalising the violence depend on one another, the mainstreaming of gender in atrocity-prevention and treatment should still safeguard female-tailored sexual violence prevention and treatments, given their remaining higher victimisation and the additional underlying rationales for their victimisation that do not apply to men. Keywords: Armenian Genocide, Atrocity-Prevention, Gender-Based Violence