“The trendlines for conflict-related sexual violence are worsening,” the United Nations special representative on the issue, Pramila Patten, warned this summer, highlighting “new waves of war’s oldest, most silenced and least condemned crime”. Greater awareness has not translated into more than very rare and limited accountability for a weapon unleashed primarily against women and girls, though also against men and boys. Wartime sexual violence is neither ubiquitous nor inevitable. Commanders can and do prohibit and prevent it. Yet it remains widely used by warring parties and repressive regimes.
Last week, Amnesty International reported that Iranian security forces used rape and sexual violence against women, men and children as young as 12 during nationwide protests last year. Two days before, the UN heard graphic accounts of rape and other sexual violence, including the mutilation of women’s genitals, in the 7 October attacks by Hamas in southern Israel, with testimony from first responders and recorded evidence from a survivor of the festival massacre.
UN experts have cited widespread reports of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces systematically using rape and sexual violence “as tools to punish and terrorise communities” in the war in Sudan. A recent estimate suggested that as many as 100,000 women were raped or assaulted during the two-year civil war centred on Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, with the vast majority from the Tigrayan community. And last year, a UN report on sexual violence in Ukraine described Russian soldiers targeting victims aged from four to 80. Ms Patten said they were using rape as a “military strategy”.
The misconception that sexual violence is about “the spoils of war” has long been refuted. It is used to terrify, humiliate and reinforce the power of the perpetrator – as in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib. It frequently targets not only individuals but their communities. Survivors suffer afterwards not only from trauma and physical injury but from rejection by their partners and ostracisation. Even when Yazidis created new ways to overturn centuries of tradition and allow survivors of Islamic State attacks to rejoin their communities, they did not accept the children born of rape.
Prosecutions for rape have fallen far short of what is needed; the international criminal court has just overhauled its policy on gender-based crimes. Almost a decade ago, Britain’s then foreign secretary William Hague made ending sexual violence in conflict a priority. But since he left office, the initiative has lacked leadership and its funding has fallen, though the Independent Commission for Aid Impact has seen some improvements.
Any serious attempt to redress these crimes must also ensure that survivors and those working on their behalf are properly supported. In 2019, the UN watered down a resolution on rape in combat, excluding references to sexual and reproductive health due to opposition by the Trump administration. UN experts warned recently of a significant regression in rights for women and children in and after conflict, including gender-sensitive asylum and protection procedures. The UK’s failure when it comes to survivors seeking refuge is grim. Sexual violence in conflict is not inevitable and nor is impunity for such crimes. But tackling it requires real and sustained international commitment to action, with survivors and their needs at its heart.
