Responding to sexual violence in armed conflict

Ending sexual violence in conflict and beyond

The erosion of women's sexual and reproductive rights

This summarizes proceedings of a Scientific Research Planning Meeting on Sexual Violence and HIV transmission, convened by the Social Science Research Council on 19–20 March 2012 at the Greentree Foundation in New York. The Meeting brought together an interdisciplinary group of basic, clinical, epidemiological and social science researchers and policy makers with the aim of: (1) examining what is known about the physiology of sexual violence and its role in HIV transmission, acquisition and pathogenesis; (2) specifying factors that distinguish risks throughout the maturation of the female genital tract, the reproductive cycle and among post-menopausal women; and (3) developing a research agenda to explore unanswered questions. The Meeting resulted in a consensus Research Agenda and White Paper that identify priorities for HIV research, policy and practice as it pertains to the role of sexual violence and genital injury in HIV transmission, acquisition and pathogenesis, particularly among women and girls.

Since the 1998 Rome Statute recognised widespread and systematic acts of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) as an act of genocide, a war crime and crime against humanity, the last decade has seen historic recognition that egregious acts of sexual violence merit international political and legal attention (UN General Assembly, 1998). Notably, there are now no fewer than seven United Nations Security Council resolutions on the cross-cutting theme of Women, Peace and Security.1 This significant international attention on sexual violence in armed conflict was further heightened with the launch of the United Kingdom’s Prevention of Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI) in May 2012 by Foreign Secretary William Hague. Thus far, the PSVI has prompted a G8 Declaration (April 2013), a Security Council Resolution,2 the United Nations General Assembly Declaration of Commitment to End Sexual Violence in Conflict (September 2013) supported by 150 states and a new International Protocol on the Documentation and Investigation of Sexual Violence in Conflict (June 2014) (UK FCO, 2014). These actions illustrate the high-level political actions being taken to address sexual violence in conflict around the world. Yet current research on the early warnings of ‘widespread and systematic’ sexual violence in conflict discounts the relevance of structural gender inequality in the prevention of these atrocities.

Preface: On the Duty to Face Sexual Violence and Conflict The Honourable Michaelle Jean. Acknowledgments. Sexual Violence in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies: Situating International Agendas and their African Contexts 1. Seeing Sexual Violence in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies: The Limits of Visibility Doris Buss 2. The Political Economy of War: What Women Need to Know Meredeth Turshen Sexual Violence and Conflict: Civil Society Perspectives on Patterns, Causes and Solutions 3. Sexual Violence Patterns, Causes, and Possible Solutions: An Interview with Kudakwshe Chitsike, Research and Advocacy Unit, Zimbabwe and Jessica Nkuuhe, Independent Consultant, Uganda Doris Buss 4. Sexual Violence Patterns, Causes, and Possible Solutions: An Interview with Julienne Lusenge, Solidarite Feminine pour la Paix Integrale (SOFEPADI), Democratic Republic of Congo Sexual Violence and Harm: From Conflict to Post-Conflict Societies 5. Gendered Insecurity and the Enduring Impacts of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) in Northern Uganda Rebecca Tiessen and Lahoma Thomas 6. Through War to Peace: Sexual Violence and Adolescent Girls Donna Sharkey 7. Ritual and Reintegration of Young Women Formerly Abducted as Child Soldiers in Northern Uganda Christine Mbabazi Mpyangu 8. Considering Gender Relations and Culture in the Psychosocial Adaptation of Individuals and Communities Affected by Sexualised Violence in African Conflicts Sophie C. Yohani Representing Harms and the Trouble with (Victim) Categories 9. Sexual Violence, Female Agencies, and Sexual Consent: Complexities of Sexual Violence in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide Jennie E. Burnet 10. The Representation of Rape by the Special Court for Sierra Leone Valerie Oosterveld 11. Justice and Reparations for Rwanda's Enfants Mauvais Souvenirs Sandra Le Courtois 12. On Transitional Justice Entrepreneurs and the Production of Victims Tshepo Madlingozi The Gender of Security 13. A Gendered Reading of Security and Security Reform in Post Conflict Societies Fionnuala Ni Aolain, Naomi Cahn and Dina Haynes 14. Security Sector Reform in Africa: A Lost Opportunity to Deconstruct Militarised Masculinities? Yaliwe Clarke 15. Women Peacekeepers and UNPOL Officers in the Fight Against Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Post-Conflict Zones Sophie Toupin Post-Conflict Development and International Agendas 16. Development and Its Discontents: Ending Violence Against Women in Post-Conflict Liberia Pamela Scully 17. International Assistance to Combat Sexual Violence in the Congo: Placing Congolese Women at the Heart of the Process! Denis Tougas

Sexual violence has been associated with several recent conflicts and their aftermath, including – but not limited to – con-flicts in Bosnia (1992–1995), Colombia (1964-present), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (1996-present), East Timor (1976–1999), Liberia (1989–1996, 1999–2003), and Rwanda (1994). Recent efforts by the international community have sought to address wartime sexual violence. In March 2007, the United Nations Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict body was launched to coordinate efforts across 13 United Nations entities and increase ef-forts to end sexual violence during and in the wake of armed conflict. In January 2010, United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, appointed Margot Wallstrom as his Special Representative on sexual violence in conflict. Further, in December 2010, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1960, which called for com-mitments to “enhance data collection and analysis of incidents, trends and patterns of rape and other forms of sexual violence” to improve targeting and policy response.

BackgroundConsideration for men as survivors of sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict settings has gained some prominence in the last decade. There remains a paucity of empirical data on forms of sexual violence from the survivors’ perspective, and no study has considered the context of the 2013 South Sudan conflict specifically.MethodsThis paper reports the findings of an exploratory qualitative study on the forms of sexual violence perpetrated against men in conflict and post-conflict settings, with the survivors as the main participants. A purposive sampling technique was used to recruit 26 South Sudanese male sexual violence survivors who have resettled in two refugee resettlement communities in Uganda since the onset of the 2013 South Sudan conflict. In-depth semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data from the male survivors. Six humanitarian aid workers who support sexual violence survivors also participated as key informants. Thematic data analysis was performed on the qualitative data.ResultsThe 26 survivors reported experiencing eight direct and two indirect forms of sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict settings. The direct forms include (1) striping men naked; (2) male rape; (3) exchange of sex for favours; (4) forcing men to rape other people; (5) genital mutilation; (6) genital beating; (7) insertion of objects into men’s anus, and (8) taking men as wives. The indirect forms were forcing men to witness the rape of a female relative and forcing men to cheer or assist during the rape of other people.ConclusionTo maximize positive health outcomes for survivors, stakeholders must consider both direct and indirect forms of male-directed conflict-related sexual violence in policy and practice.

Sexual violence and intimate partner violence are exacerbated by armed conflict and other humanitarian crises. This narrative systematic review of evidence for interventions to reduce risk and incidence of sexual and intimate partner violence in conflict, post-conflict and other humanitarian crises, updates and expands our review published in 2013. A search of ten bibliographic databases for publications from January 2011 to May 2020 used database specific key words for sexual/intimate partner violence and conflict/humanitarian crisis. The 18 papers, describing 16 studies were undertaken in conflict/post-conflict settings in 12 countries. Six intervention types were reported: i) personnel; ii) community mobilisation; iii) social norms; iv) economic empowerment; v) empowerment; and vi) survivor responses, with the most common being economic empowerment (n = 7) and gendered social norms interventions (n = 6). Combined interventions were reported in nine papers. Four studies identified non-significant reductions in incidence of sexual/ intimate partner violence, showing an evident positive trend; all four evaluated gendered social norms or economic empowerment singly or in combination. Evidence for improved mental health outcomes was found for some economic empowerment, social norms and survivor interventions. Some evidence of reduced risk of sexual violence and intimate partner violence was identified for all intervention types. Qualitative studies suggest that experiences of social connection are important for women who participate in programming to address sexual and intimate partner violence. Interventions with multiple strategies appear to hold merit. Achieving and demonstrating reduced sexual and intimate partner violence remains challenging in this context. Future research should continue to explore how social norms interventions can be most effectively delivered, including the impact of including mixed and same sex groups. Work is needed with local partners to ensure programs are contextually adapted.

This article examines the production of knowledge about sexual violence in the postcolonial warscape of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with a particular eye on the politics of statistics. Over the last decade, ‘hard numbers’ have become central to ‘knowing’ sexual violence in conflict, including in DRC. Statistics depicting the exceptional scale of sexual violence in DRC were core to its making as the ‘rape capital of the world’. Given the challenges of quantifying this sensitive issue, sexual violence statistics are nevertheless imbued with striking, if misleading, reliability. In this piece, I explore how sexual violence statistics in DRC are produced and consider what they can and cannot convey. Subsequently placing DRC in historical context, I highlight eerie resonances of this contemporary emphasis on sexual violence with the country’s colonial past. Doing so, I join postcolonial scholars in calling attention to colonial durabilities that shape the knowledges that are not only accepted, but perhaps expected, in a region long cast under a deeply and intimately sexuo-racialised gaze. Notably, this gaze is one that depicts the ‘Congolese woman’ as always-already a victim, and the ‘Congolese man’ as always-already defined by presumed ‘perpetratorhood’. Affirming the importance of such analytical vigilance vis-à-vis sexual violence statistics in particular, this article concludes by calling for concurrent authorial vigilance on the part of critical scholars. Indeed, we must ensure that efforts to complicate dominant narratives of sexual violence in DRC do not undermine, silence, or deny the experiential realities encoded in the knowledges we critique.

During the past year, the UK Government has become the lead advocate for a perhaps surprising foreign policy goal: ending sexual violence in conflict. The participation of government representatives from more than 120 countries in a London Summit in June 2014 was the clearest manifestation of this project. This article offers an early assessment of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI) and situates it within the history of global action against sexual and gender-based violence from UN Security Council Resolution 1325 onwards, with a particular focus on three key developments. First, the PSVI has embraced the already common understanding of rape as a ‘weapon of war’, and has stressed the importance of military training and accountability. This has exposed the tensions within global policy between a focus on all forms of sexual violence (including intimate partner violence in and out of conflict situations) on the one hand, and war zone activities on the other. Second, the Initiative has placed great emphasis on ending impunity, which implicates it in ongoing debates about the role of international and local justice as an effective response to atrocity. Third, men and boys have been foregrounded as ignored victims of sexual and gender-based violence. The PSVI has been crucial to that recognition, but faces significant challenges in operationalizing its commitment and in avoiding damage to existing programmes to end violence against women and girls. The success of the Initiative will depend on its ability to navigate these challenges in multiple arenas of global politics.

Though the occurrence of rape in the conduct of war is by no means historically new, research into its causes and functions has only really begun in the past couple of decades. War rape is a difficult phenomenon about which to generalise, considering the variances in context and actors involved. This article, however, attempts to synthesise existing literature through the analysis of a case study that can enhance our understanding of rape as a weapon of war and the contextual conditions that facilitate its use. Applying this theoretical framework to the extreme war rape occurring in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), this article offers insight into understanding the function of sexual violence in the ongoing conflict in the DRC. In particular, this article argues that the use of rape as a weapon in the Congo's bloody war must be understood in relation to both social constructs of masculinity and the politics of exploitation that have shaped much of the country's history.

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BackgroundOutcomes of sexual violence care programmes may vary according to the profile of survivors, type of violence suffered, and local context. Analysis of existing sexual violence care services could lead to their better adaptation to the local contexts. We therefore set out to compare the Médecins Sans Frontières sexual violence programmes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in a zone of conflict (Masisi, North Kivu) and post-conflict (Niangara, Haut-Uélé).MethodsA retrospective descriptive cohort study, using routine programmatic data from the MSF sexual violence programmes in Masisi and Niangara, DRC, for 2012.ResultsIn Masisi, 491 survivors of sexual violence presented for care, compared to 180 in Niangara. Niangara saw predominantly sexual violence perpetrated by civilians who were known to the victim (48%) and directed against children and adolescents (median age 15 (IQR 13–17)), while sexual violence in Masisi was more directed towards adults (median age 26 (IQR 20–35)), and was characterised by marked brutality, with higher levels of gang rape, weapon use, and associated violence; perpetrated by the military (51%). Only 60% of the patients in Masisi and 32% of those in Niangara arrived for a consultation within the critical timeframe of 72 hours, when prophylaxis for HIV and sexually transmitted infections is most effective. Survivors were predominantly referred through community programmes. Treatment at first contact was typically efficient, with high (>95%) coverage rates of prophylaxes. However, follow-up was poor, with only 49% of all patients in Masisi and 61% in Niangara returning for follow-up, and consequently low rates of treatment and/or vaccination completion.ConclusionThis study has identified a number of weak and strong points in the sexual violence programmes of differing contexts, indicating gaps which need to be addressed, and strengths of both programmes that may contribute to future models of context-specific sexual violence programmes.

Conflict-related sexual violence has been the focus of significant international activism and policy attention. International legal norms and frameworks have evolved to recognize it as a war crime, and a representation of sexual violence as a “weapon of war” is now widely endorsed. This article examines how international norms about conflict-related sexual violence are adopted and utilized in multiple ways in the armed conflict in Kachin state in northern Myanmar. Throughout decades of civil war, international norms on sexual violence have constituted key resources for international advocacy and awareness raising by local women’s rights activists. Further, activists have drawn on international norms to effect changes in gendered relations of power within their own communities. However, international norms on sexual violence in conflict have also been effectively used as tools for ethno-nationalist identity politics, rallying support behind the armed insurgency and mobilizing women’s unpaid labor in the service of war. Thus, international norms on conflict-related sexual violence have simultaneously opened up space for women’s empowerment and political agency and reproduced gendered forms of insecurity and marginalization. Exploring these contradictions and complexities, this analysis generates novel insights into the politics of international norms in contexts of armed conflict.

One of the most shocking aspects of civil war is the prevalence of sexual violence committed by armed groups. Recent research identifies many of the factors driving this horrific phenomenon. What is generally lacking, however, is an understanding of the factors that can prevent conflict-related sexual violence. We argue that women’s economic rights are key. Women’s economic rights provide women with the ability to flee dangerous war zones, work in less vulnerable environments, and access to safe housing. We test our claims using a global sample of civil conflicts from 1989 to 2019. We find evidence that the presence of robust women’s economic rights is associated with significantly lower levels of observed sexual violence in civil conflicts, even after controlling for a variety of potential confounders. Additionally, we probe the possibility of egalitarian gender norms driving our results by examining the relationship between women’s political empowerment and conflict-related sexual violence. We find no relationship between women’s political empowerment and conflict-related sexual violence. Importantly, we continue to find a negative relationship between women’s economic rights and conflict-related sexual violence even when accounting for women’s political empowerment, suggesting women’s economic rights have an independent effect on conflict-related sexual violence. Our findings highlight the importance of enhancing women’s economic rights in the global fight against wartime rape. Providing women with greater economic agency has the potential to curb sexual violence in conflicts around the world.