Framing Rape: Patriarchy, Wartime, and the Spectacle of Genocidal Rape

Abstract

Clearly, epidemic occurrence of genocidal as has happened in numerous war-torn countries and countries embattled by ethnic conflict-requires an urgent thinking-through of issues at stake and context in order to understand what a proper response and resolution should be. Because of richness and density of this text, it is impossible to address all strands that Bergoffen has woven together to defend and illuminate implications of judgment of International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in trial of three Bosnian-Serb soldiers, namely that recognizing that genocidal rape is a violation of human rights affirms dignity of vulnerable body. Bergoffen's first few chapters describe situation of women who were raped in contexts of ethnic cleansings of former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. She begins by pointing to trials that were authorized by UN Security Council; she then reflects on judgment of International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR): namely, that these rapes were against humanity, the second most egregious international criminal offense.As Bergoffen points out: ICTR judgment against one of rapists linked criminality of rape to criminality of genocide, and that rape, like torture, was a criminal genocidal tactic (6). In case of ICTY's trials, ICTR verdict was acknowledged, and link between rape and genocide was also acknowledged. The ICTY ruling went even further in several ways: First, coercive tactics against rape need not include physical violence . . . [and] rape could not be identified as a species of torture (7); second, ICTY convicted Bosnian-Serb soldiers of crimes against humanity; and third, ICTY ruling that rapes and associated such as sexual enslavement and assault violated women's right to sexual thereby constructing the right to sexual integrity (6-7).For Bergoffen, these rulings are path-breaking in that they go above and beyond simple understanding of human rights violations as those of liberal conceptions of human rights, namely of right to autonomy and self-determination. Rather, these rulings transform our understanding of magnitude of depth of injury and violation, by pointing to rape within context of genocide rather than ethnic cleansing. Bergoffen points to depth of implications of classifying rape within former rather than latter category. To locate rape within context of ethnic cleansing closes off possibility that scope of act has an effect on community's future viability; it also precludes acknowledgment that forced relocation has long-standing effects on its viability (20).1Let me address fact that locating of rape within context of genocide changes nature and scope of recognition of violation of rape. To understand rape within context of genocide is to understand, not only elements of coercion, power, and violation, but also of humiliation and dehumanization, as well loss of right to cultural determination, sexual self-determination, viability of one's self-chosen community. Bergoffen quotes Claudia Card's notion of social death as one of intrinsic factors in genocide-in order to illustrate its relevance in resituating impact of rape as a human rights violation. I think it is helpful to bring up Bergoffen's description of Card's notion here: To equate genocide with physical annihilation (qua ethnic cleansing), we miss unique evil of genocide-social death. According to Card, our singular and collective identities are inextricably linked. We are who we are through bonds we forge with each other as members of a common culture. Our shared histories, traditions and languages anchor meanings of our lives. Tactics that destroy these bonds produce social death. …