Analyzing Rape Regimes at the Interface of War and Peace in Peru

Abstract

Using the political conflict in Peru as a case study, the author argues that the thesis that rape is a weapon of war obscures other rape regimes during political conflict. These include rape as consumption, opportunistic rape, rape by neighbors or family members, forced prostitution and rape in the aftermath of war. Neglect of forms of sexual violence that do not fit the rape-as-a-weapon-of-war script seriously impedes the transformative potential of processes of transitional justice, as it allows for the continuation of (sexual) violence against women that perpetuates hierarchies based on gender, race and class.