Rape as a Weapon of War

Abstract

This essay examines how rape of women and girls by male soldiers works as a martial weapon. Continuities with other torture and terrorism and with civilian rape are suggested. The inadequacy of past philosophical treatments of the enslavement of war captives is briefly discussed. Social strategies are suggested for responding and a concluding fantasy offered, not entirely social, of a strategy to change the meanings of rape to undermine its use as a martial weapon.

Extreme War Rape in Today’s Civil-War-Torn States: A Contextual and Comparative Analysis

“…(p. 326). There are a plethora of in-depth analyses focused on militarism and military masculinities, patriarchal structures, and other gender oppressions and inequities that have contributed substantially to our understanding of war rape [see, for example, 1,17,20,22,24,42,46,51,56,57,59,60,68]. But, Jefferson's reference to ''some of the most horrific'' sexual violence in today's wars suggests the need for a complementary analysis--specifically, one that considers conditions in today's civil wars and civil-war-torn countries that might facilitate particularly pervasive and vicious forms of war rape.…”

“He Would Kill Me With His Penis”: Genocidal Rape in Rwanda as a State Crime

“…Thirdly, in societies where lineage membership is determined via patrilineal parentage, the children in question are members of the father's and not the mother's ethnic group. In effect, this can change the symbolic ethnic group membership of a community and further work towards the elimination of a population (Bracewell 2000;Card 1996;Salzman 1998).…”

“…In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, this practice is seemingly omnipresent. Both genocidal events in the former Yugoslavia exhibited systematically structured and coordinated sexual assaults (Card 1996;Salzman 1998). In the Darfur region of Sudan, numerous media and human rights organizations have presented calls for action to stop wide-spread rapes throughout the region, especially those being committed by the…”

Engaging Men in the Fight against Gender Violence

“…When used systematically as a weapon of war, rape is an effective instrument of expulsion or dispersion, aimed first at the individual victim and second at the men socially connected to her (Card, 1996). Women are commonly raped in the presence of their husbands, families, and even in public, communal spaces (Amnesty International, 2004a).…”