Stop Violence Against Women
- Violence Against Women in Armed Conflict
Like most violence that occurs in the course of armed conflict, violence against women is not accidental. It is a weapon of war, a tool used to achieve military objectives such as ethnic cleansing, spreading political terror, breaking the resistance of a community, rewarding soldiers, intimidation, or to extract information. Many forms of violence that women suffer during armed conflict are gender specific in both nature and result. Recent investigations have clearly demonstrated that in any number of conflict situations, the targeting of victims and the forms of the abuse carried out during armed conflict were based on gender as well as other identity markers, such as ethnicity or race. This was evident, for example, when Rwandan Tutsi women were raped in the thousands, many of them also mutilated, before being killed during the1994 genocide by Rwandan Hutus.
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The abuse of women in armed conflict is rooted in a global culture of discrimination that denies women equal status with men. Social, political and religious norms identify women as the property of men, conflate women’s chastity with family honor and ethnic identity, and legitimize the violent appropriation of women’s bodies for individual gratification or political ends.
Legal Standards for International Human Rights
- General Recommendation No.19 of the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (CEDAW), asserts “gender-based violence... is... violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or [because violence] affects women disproportionately…” Therefore, women who experience infringement upon their human rights due to armed conflict are not under an equal protection of the law.
- Article 27 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, in response to the aggressive reprisal upon women during World War II, states, “Women shall be especially protected against any attack on their honor, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault.” It further denounces these actions based upon “nationality, race, religious beliefs, age, marital status or social condition.”
- Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, addressing cases of non-international armed conflicts, prohibits acts against non-combatants including “murder of all kinds,” “violence to life and person,” torture, the taking of hostages, and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.”
- Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, addressing civilian and/or military authorities who involve themselves in cases of international armed conflicts, as well as colonial domination and racist regimes, states women “shall be protected in particular against rape, forced prostitution, and any other form of indecent assault.”
- The Jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda recognizes rape and other forms of sexual violence by combatants in the conduct of armed conflict as war crimes. When rape and sexual violence are committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, they are considered crimes against humanity and in some cases may constitute an element of genocide.
Impact of Armed Conflict on Women
While armed conflict affects women in a number of forms that
are conflict-specific, certain trends are prevalent across
conflicts and regions. It is important to note that most women
suffer the impacts of war in multiple ways:
Rape and other Types of Physical Violence
Rape by soldiers of vanquished women has occurred during wartime
for centuries. Although rape as a weapon of war violates the
Geneva Conventions and is identified as a war crime, women
continue to be raped in modern day conflicts. While sexual
violence during wartime is often directly linked to armed
groups, military, or guerrilla fighters, not all violence
is committed at the hands of warring parties. Frequently,
the lack of law enforcement in war zones is exploited by civilians,
sex traffickers, or international peacekeepers looking for
amusement, business opportunities or revenge. Threats and
reprisals against those who reveal abuses, the existence of
special national legislation which prevents prosecution of
crimes committed during war, and laws granting amnesty to
wartime perpetrators as part of peace-making ‘deals’
all contribute to the impunity with which sexual crimes occur
during war.
In 1992, Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat women were detained by Bosnian Serb Forces in the town of Foca, in the former Yugoslavia. These women were taken every night to be raped and were denied medical care for injuries sustained from sexual abuse and beatings. A 12-year-old girl, detained for ten days in August 1992, was taken from the center ten times to be raped; her mother was taken twice. In February, 2001, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, three Bosnian Serb men were convicted of 33 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the rape of Bosnian Muslim women and girls in Foca.
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Trafficking and Sexual Slavery
According to the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish
Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, human
trafficking is the illegal recruitment, sale, transport, receiving
of, and/ or harboring of human beings through force, deceit,
coercion and abduction for the purpose of all forms of forced
labor and servitude (Article 3(a)). Women are particularly
vulnerable to this modern day form of slavery, due largely
to the persistent inequalities and discrimination they face
throughout the world. In many cases, victims of sex trafficking
are promised lucrative jobs in the country of destination,
but instead are sold into sexual slavery.
During wartime, the safety and economic situation of many women deteriorates so drastically that the offer of refuge and paid employment in another country may seem impossible to refuse, thereby heightening women’s vulnerability to being trafficked. Frequently aided by government, police, and military, traffickers encounter few deterrents. In all cases, coercive tactics, including deception, fraud, intimidation, isolation, threat and use of physical force, or debt bondage are used to control trafficked women.
Displacement
Displacement is the most common consequence of armed conflict
and women the most affected civilian population. United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that women and children
comprise 70-80% of the world’s refugee and internally
displaced population. In flight, as well as upon arrival in
an urban shantytown or refugee camp, women commonly experience
violence and abuse at the hands of warring parties, opportunistic
civilians or those who are supposed to be peacekeepers. Without
a viable social or economic support network and often without
male protection, displaced women are highly vulnerable to
violence.
In the Maela camp for internally displaced persons from the Rift Valley, Kenya, women were frequently raped by security personnel when they left camp in search for food or for work as day laborers. One woman reported, “even though we knew this was likely to happen, we continued to do this work because our children were hungry and we had no choice.”
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Economic Hardship
The economic impact of armed conflict manifests itself in
gender-specific ways. Women’s burdens in times of war
become especially heavy as they take responsibility for household
work and obligations, as well as supplement the finances of
absent male relatives. As a result, women’s usual functions
within the household become more difficult to carry out. If
women are forced to become the sole provider for their families,
the absence of an adequate infrastructure often leaves women
unable to feed their families or find paid work. In periods
of extreme hardship and faced with a chronic lack of resources
in order to provide for their families, women may feel compelled
to engage in work in the informal employment sector that place
them at increased health and security risks.
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Difficulty in Documenting Women’s Human Rights Abuses
Many victims of gender-based violence during armed conflict
are reluctant to talk about their suffering. Pressures from
parties of the conflict, the government, the family or community
all serve to intimidate many women into silence. Continuing
violence or conflict often prevents women from reporting.
In many regions reprisal, shame, and social stigma are attached
to certain types of violence against women, particularly rape.
Fear of the consequences of reporting sexual violence, such
as facing rejection, alienation, divorce, being declared unfit
for marriage, and severe economic and social repercussions
all discourage women from reporting the violence suffered.
Although less likely than men to be combatants, women constitute the greatest proportion of the adult civilian population killed in war and targeted for violence. Women suffer severe physical, economic, and psychological hardships during periods of armed conflict. Legal mechanisms for women’s protection in wartime are in place. Amnesty International calls on you to help us hold governments accountable for implementing these provisions and ensuring that women’s human rights are respected during times of armed conflict.
