Gender and sexual violence in genocide

Abstract

Gender and sexual violence have always been an important component of genocide, as the deliberate use of such violence inflicts on the group conditions of life that destroy the possibility of its own survival as a community. This chapter explores how an evolving notion of gender and sexual violence has expanded our understanding of forms, dimensions, and consequences of genocidal violence. It surveys the literature, both theoretical and empirical, that over the past thirty years has put gender at the center of analysis and revealed that the production of genocidal ideologies is gendered; gendered are the experiences of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders; and gendered are the notion and the reality of vulnerability before, during and after a genocide, with a devastating impact on everybody, whether women or men, or gender-nonconforming individuals. These scholarly developments on gender violence and genocide are key to design policies of prevention, intervention, and reparation.