Sexual Violence as a Weapon of Subjugation
What can we do to keep civilians safe and rape-free during war?
Last week Israeli government representatives and celebrities like Cheryl Sandberg spoke out at the United Nations about the sexual violence against women during Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel on October 7th.
Israel has accused the United Nations of not coming out soon enough in condemnation of the sexual acts of violence committed on that day with some claiming an anti-Israeli bias as the reason.
Regardless of how you feel about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, we should all be able to agree what was done to civilians on that day was deplorable and should be completely condemned. What was done in particular to the women was barbaric.
I feel the same deplorable thoughts about the ethnic cleansing the Israeli settlers are committing in the West Bank with a complicit Israeli government having their backs. Both Israelis and Palestinians must find a path to peace with a fair and equitable two-state solution, but that is not the purpose of my article today.
I would like to further explore the use of sexual violence against civilians, a majority of them women, in conflict zones and what the United Nations and other international governmental organizations are doing to not only denounce them but also to prevent and prosecute them.
Are organizations like the United Nations and the International Criminal Court doing enough in prevention and holding those criminal accountable for their actions? Is there justification from Israel in their criticism of the United Nations?
Sexual violence as a weapon of war is unfortunately as old as time. It is often used as a means to instill fear and control over the civilian populations in war hoping as a result surrender will occur more quickly.
It may also be used as a means of genocide by using extreme sexual violence to injure and sterilize women permanently.
It may be done as a strategy of war planned by the aggressor’s leaders. It could be a practice that is condoned by the invaders’ leaders, or it could be committed opportunistically by the individual.¹
Not every conflict in the world has included widespread sexual violence, and while the victims are disproportionately women, men and children can also be impacted.
For example, while sexual violence was common in the civil wars in Sierra Leone and East Timor, they were much less common in the civil wars in El Salvador and Sri Lanka.²
Organizations such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC) have put out clear guidelines about sexual violence in conflict. In 1998, the ICC adopted the Rome Statute making rape, sexual violence, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, and forced sterilization crimes against humanity that could be prosecuted under internal law³.
It started to recognize and prosecute these crimes in the 1990s with the civil wars in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, but before that time, these crimes were often not reported, and even if reported, the perpetrators faced no consequences for their actions.
In 2008 and 2009, the United Nations Security Council passed two resolutions, 1820 and 1880, declaring rape and sexual violence war crimes, and countries and non-state actors that do not prevent or prosecute these crimes from happening when engaging in war will be prosecuted themselves for those same offenses.⁴
As of 2022, the ICC has prosecuted seventeen cases of sexual violence in conflict with fifteen convictions. That’s less than one per year on average since the ICC adopted the Rome Statute. Is that a good record so far? I think not!
Regarding prevention, the United Nations relies on countries and non-state actors to respect resolution 1880 while conducting war or for the ICC to prosecute those countries and non-state actors who break the resolution. How has this worked so far? Have we seen a decrease in sexual violence as a tool in war? NO!
In the past few years, we have witnessed continued war zone conflicts in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Haiti, Ukraine, Israel, and others. In all of these countries, cases of sexual violence were reported and are under investigation.
It seems the level of sexual violence against women in recent conflicts has become even more brutal and barbaric. What does breaking a woman’s pelvic bone say about the emotional hate and frenzy in these soldiers’/terrorists’ minds worked up by their leaders?
The United Nations and the ICC must do more to keep civilian women, children, and men safe from the enemy! They are both sleeping on the job!
The UN Women for Gender Equality has condemned them all but how long did it take for them to do so after evidence was found? In the case of Ukraine, evidence of sexual violence in Bucha by Russia was first revealed on April 1, 2022⁵, and the UN Women for Gender Equality put out a statement strongly condemning those acts on April 11, 2022⁶, only 10 days later.
Reuters reported on October 14th that Israel described evidence of sexual violence by Hamas⁷, however, it took the UN Women for Gender Equality until December 1, 2023⁸, to put out a statement condemning the acts. That was 48 days later?
What caused the delay from the UN Women for Gender Equality? I don’t have the answers, but Israel makes a good case for its criticism. In my opinion, it greenlights this behavior from happening in the future.
What other state or non-state actors might believe they are exempt from criticism in the future because they target “the right” civilians instead of seeing all civilians as innocent?
Sexual violence against civilians in war continues to be perpetrated by both state and non-state actors, most recently witnessed in Ukraine and Israel, regardless of the risk of punishment by the United Nations or the International Criminal Court.
What can be done to reduce the risk of these crimes occurring in the future? I believe it must start with the United Nations recognizing and condemning these crimes immediately and punishing those actors by banishing them from the United Nations and the community of nations.
The ICC should also be setting some better examples by prosecuting many more cases than they have been willing to tackle, even in absentia.
Is there the will in either organization to do more? I don’t have a lot of confidence.
References:
¹Five things to know about sexual violence in conflict zones (icrc.org)
²Sexual Violence Is Not an Inevitable Cost of War | United States Institute of Peace (usip.org)
⁴Sexual Violence as a War Tactic — Security Council Resolution 1888: Next Steps | United Nations
⁶UN Women for Gender Equality Calls for End of Rape as War Tactic in Ukraine (newsweek.com)
⁷Israeli forensic teams describe signs of torture, abuse | Reuters
⁸UN Women statement on the situation in Israel and Gaza | UN Women — Headquarters