Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 08:28, 15 January 2014

Genocidal rape is a term used to describe the actions of a group who have carried out acts of mass rape during wartime against their perceived enemy as part of a genocidal campaign. During the Yugoslav civil war and the Rwandan genocide the mass rapes that had been an integral part of those conflicts brought the concept of genocidal rape to international prominence. While war rape has been a recurrent feature in conflicts throughout history, it has usually been looked upon as a by-product of conflict, and not an integral part of military policy.

Instances of mass rape during wartime which have been defined as genocidal rape were the mass rapes during the Bangladesh liberation war, the rapes during the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia, and the rapes during the Rwandan Genocide.

Genocide debate

Scholars argue that the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide should state that mass rape is a genocidal crime. Other scholars argue that genocidal rape is already included in the definition under article two of the convention. Catherine MacKinnon argues that the victims of genocidal rape are used as a substitute for the entire ethnic group, that rape is used as a tool, with the target being the destruction of the entire ethnic group.

Siobhan Fisher has argued that forced impregnation and not the rape itself constitutes genocide. She says, "Repeated rape alone is still ‘just’ rape, but rape with the intent to impregnate is something more." Lisa Sharlach argues that this definition is too narrow because these mass rapes should not be defined as genocide based solely on those raped having being forcibly impregnated.

Documented instances

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) it is estimated that in 2011 alone there were 400,000 rapes. In the DRC the genocidal rape is focused on the destruction of family and communities. An interview with a survivor gave an account of gang rape, forced cannibalism of a fetus taken from an eviscerated woman and child murder.

In the ongoing War in Darfur the Janjaweed militias have carried out actions described as genocidal rape, with not just women, but children also being raped, as well as babies being bludgeoned to death and the sexual mutilation of victims being commonplace.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War the Imperial Japanese Army during the Battle of Nanking carried out a genocidal rape known as the Rape of Nanking, described by Adam Jones as "one of the most savage instances of genocidal rape". The violence saw tens of thousands of women gang raped and killed.

During the Rwandan genocide the violence took a gender specific form, with women and girls being targeted in a systematic campaign of sexual assault. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 were victims of rape. Those who survived the genocidal rape found themselves stigmatised, and for many they also discovered they were infected with HIV. This has resulted in these women being denied their rights to property and inheritance as well as their employment chances being restricted. The first woman charged and convicted for genocidal rape was Pauline Nyiramasuhuko.

In 1996 Beverly Allen wrote Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia in which the term genocidal rape was first introduced, she used the term to describe the actions of the Serbian armed forces who had a policy of rape with the intention of genocide. In her book she compares genocidal rape to biological warfare. During the conflict in Bosnia Allen gave a definition of genocidal rape as "a military policy of rape for the purpose of genocide currently practiced in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia by the Yugoslav army the Bosnian Serb forces and the irregular Serb forces known as Chetniks" Coverage of the mass rapes during the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Serbian forces in the 1990s began the analysis over the use of rape as being a part of genocide. Catherine MacKinnon argues that the mass rapes during the conflict "were a simultaneous expression of misogyny and genocide", and argues that rape can be used as a form of extermination.

Footnotes

1. "...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

   (a) Killing members of the group;

   (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

   (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

   (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

   (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2"

2. "It is also rape unto death, rape as massacre, rape to kill and to make the victims wish they were dead. It is rape as an instrument of forced exile, rape to make you leave your home and never want to go back. It is rape to be seen and heard and watched and told to others: rape as spectacle. It is rape to drive a wedge through a community, to shatter a society, to destroy a people. It is rape as genocide"

References

1. Totten 2007, pp. 159–160.
2. ^ Miller 2009, p. 53.
3. Fisher 1996, pp. 91–133.
4. Sajjad 2012, p. 225.
5. Sharlach 2000, p. 90.
6. Sharlach 2000, pp. 89–102.
7. Totten 2007, p. 159.
8. MacKinnon 2006, pp. 209–233.
9. ^ Sharlach 2000, pp. 92–93.
10. Bisaz 2012, pp. 90–91.
11. ^ Poloni-Staudinger 2012, p. 21.
12. Joeden-Forgey 2010, p. 74.
13. Rothe 2009, p. 53.
14. Jones 2006, p. 329.
15. Eftekhari 2004, p. 7.
16. De Brouwer 2010, p. 19.
17. Fielding 2012, p. 25.
18. Card 2008, pp. 176–189.
19. Allen 1996, p. 131.
20. Vetlesen 2005, pp. 196–200.
21. Russell-Brown 2003, p. 1.

Bibliography

• Allen, Beverly (1996). Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0816628186. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Bisaz, Corsin (2012). The Concept of Group Rights in International Law: Groups as Contested Right-Holders, Subjects and Legal Persons. Martinus Nijhoff. ISBN 978-9004228702. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Card, Claudia (2008). "The Paradox of Genocidal Rape Aimed at Enforced Pregnancy". The Southern Journal of Philosophy. S1 (46): 176–189. doi:10.1111/j.2041-6962.2008.tb00162.x. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• De Brouwer, Anne-Marie (2010). "Introduction". In Anne-Marie De Brouwer, Sandra Ka Hon Chu (ed.). The Men Who Killed Me: Rwandan Survivors of Sexual Violence. Douglas & McIntyre. ISBN 978-1553653103. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Eftekhari, Shiva (2004). Rwanda, Struggling to Survive: Barriers to Justice for Rape Victims in Rwanda. Human Rights Watch. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Fielding, Leila (2012). Female Génocidaires: What was the Nature and Motivations for Hutu Female. GRIN Verlag. ISBN 978-3656324409. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Fisher, Siobhán K. (1996). "Occupation of the Womb: Forced Impregnation as Genocide". Duke Law Journal. 46 (1). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Joeden-Forgey, Elisa Von (2010). "Gender and Genocide". In Donald Bloxham, A. Dirk Moses (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199232116. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Jones, Adam (2006). Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415353847. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Miller, Sarah Clark (2009). "Atrocity, Harm, and resistance". In Andrea Veltman, Kathryn Norlock (ed.). Evil, Political Violence, and Forgiveness: Essays in Honor of Claudia Card. Lexington. pp. 53–76. ISBN 978-0739136508. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• MacKinnon, Catherine A. (2006). "Genocide Rape Is Different Than War Rape". Center on Law & Globalization. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Poloni-Staudinger, Lori (2012). "Rape as a Weapon of War and Genocide". Terrorism and Violent Conflict: Women's Agency, Leadership, and Responses. Springer. ISBN 978-1461456407. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

• Rothe, Dawn (2009). State Criminality: The Crime of All Crimes. Lexington. ISBN 978-0739126721. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Russell-Brown, Sherrie L. (2003). "Rape as an Act of Genocide". Berkeley Journal of International Law. 21 (2). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Sajjad, Tazreena (2012). "The Post-Genocidal Period and its Impact on Women". In Samuel Totten (ed.). Plight and Fate of Women During and Following Genocide (Reprint ed.). Transaction. pp. 219–248. ISBN 978-1412847599. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Sharlach, Lisa (2000). "Rape as Genocide: Bangladesh, the Former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda". New Political Science. 1 (22). doi:10.1080/713687893. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Totten, Samuel (2007). Dictionary of Genocide. Greenwood. ISBN 978-0313329678. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

• Vetlesen, Arne Johan (2005). Evil and Human Agency: Understanding Collective Evildoing. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521673570. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Use dmy dates from August 2013
• Crimes against women
• Genocide