Silence the guns, amplify women’s voices for peace to end rape in wartime - UN's Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict

[IwantToRetire]

Most cases, 95 per cent, involved women and girls. In 32 per cent of the incidents, children, overwhelmingly girls, were victims, while 21 cases were found to target lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex persons.

While the report conveys the severity and brutality of these incidents, she stressed that it does not reflect the global scale or prevalence of what is a chronically underreported, historically hidden crime.

“We know that for every survivor who comes forward, many others are silenced by social pressures, stigma, insecurity, the paucity of services and the limited prospects for justice,” she said.

Part of a press release at https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148891

Based on a speech which included:

In terms of global trends, the report documents how sexual violence has curtailed women’s access to livelihoods and girls’ access to education, amid record levels of internal and cross-border displacement. Women and girls face heightened levels of sexual violence in displacement settings, as returnees, refugees and migrants. For instance, in eastern DRC, the climate of interlinked physical and food insecurity has driven many displaced women and girls into prostitution out of sheer economic desperation. In Ethiopia, reports surfaced of sexual exploitation in exchange for food, as well as continued sexual enslavement in Tigray, in proximity to the compounds and barracks of arms bearers. Moreover, in many contexts, women with children born of wartime rape are often accused of affiliation with the enemy, excluded from community networks, and plunged into poverty. By contrast, sexual violence perpetrated with impunity remains profitable in the political economy of war. Conflict-driven trafficking in persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation continues to generate profits for armed and violent extremist groups. In Haiti, armed groups and criminal gangs continue to generate revenue through kidnapping, using the threat of sexual violence to extort ever-higher ransoms. Sexual violence remains part of the repertoire of political repression, used to intimidate and punish opponents, and as a tactic to silence women actively participating in public and political life, notably in Libya and Yemen. The report further records a discernible trend of digital threats in Myanmar, where online harassment and hate speech specifically targeted women associated with the resistance movement, and included the release of sexually explicit images and incitement to violence.

This year’s report highlights an unprecedented level of lethal violence used to silence survivors in the wake of sexual assault. In 2023, reports of rape victims being subsequently killed by their assailants surfaced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar, demonstrating the need to strengthen forensic capabilities, investigations, and accountability processes that ensure the protection of victims and witnesses. Frontline service providers and women human rights defenders were not spared. Armed actors threatened healthcare workers in Sudan, and reprisals against human rights defenders were reported in South Sudan, the DRC and elsewhere.

Full speech here https://www.un.org/sexualviolenceinconflict/statement/remarks-of-srsg-pramila-patten-at-the-security-council-open-debate-on-preventing-conflict-related-sexual-violence-through-demilitarization-and-gender-responsive-arms-control-new-yor

In terms of global trends, the report documents how sexual violence has curtailed women’s access to livelihoods and girls’ access to education, amid record levels of internal and cross-border displacement. Women and girls face heightened levels of sexual violence in displacement settings, as returnees, refugees and migrants. For instance, in eastern DRC, the climate of interlinked physical and food insecurity has driven many displaced women and girls into prostitution out of sheer economic desperation. In Ethiopia, reports surfaced of sexual exploitation in exchange for food, as well as continued sexual enslavement in Tigray, in proximity to the compounds and barracks of arms bearers. Moreover, in many contexts, women with children born of wartime rape are often accused of affiliation with the enemy, excluded from community networks, and plunged into poverty.

History seems to repeat this again and again…

Violence continues unabated.

Women and girls are normalised as collateral damage of contrived (e.g., war) and natural disasters.

What's also depressing is that those in power acknoweldge this periodically and same something must be done.

But it never is.

It continues, and 99% of the time news outlets dont report it.

This is 10 years ago.

Was very high profile and a large number of countries signed up to it.

There was a huge conference over 3 days in Docklands.

I doubt anybody even remembers it happens let alone that countries signed up to the campaign.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/plan-to-stop-rape-as-a-weapon-of-war

I think it's WHO that describes VAWG as a global public health problem.

Recognised for millenia. Handwringing for a century or more with many learned publications, reports, and gathering.

Signs of progress…

There has been some progress though. Crimes against civilians during war (rather than just other soldiers) began to be legislated against in the later part of the 20 century. And sexual violence in war is now at least seen as a war crime on a par with other crimes. It still happens. But it was only in the 90s that it really started being taken seriously as a crime that could be prosecuted.

Also, there are examples now of VAWG being something that is thought about by governments/charities on the spot. Going back a bit but Bangladesh (and the horrific crimes there) was actually a really good example of people doing things right - medical care (abortions) for pregnant women. Huge efforts to reintegrate women and change the narrative that being raped was a shame for a women (and reasonably successful too). Ukraine is another example where men and women are being open about being victims of crime, the government is very keen to get evidence of those crimes for future prosecutions and there is talk of reparations.

I don't want to be all sunshine and roses. It is horrific that those crimes are still happening, and that women are still being stigmatised for it. But it is one of those areas where we have made progress since the 90s.

I agree that there has been an increase in awareness, well at least media coverage. And I think the media struggles with how to report this without being sensational and respectful.

And its true that more aid agencies actually raise funds based on the claim that they help women and children who are more vulnerable in areas of conflict ie not just a war zone.

But then we hear that those very aid agencies are exploiting those women they say they are there to help.

Oh dear have just seen a major typo in my post above:

And I think the media struggles with how to report this without being sensational and respectful.

And I think the media struggles with how to report this without being sensational but being respectful.

This is a very long article and sadly only reflects that women are too easily victims of sexual violence in war and conflict.

But what is also depressing is the article shows how those with partisan views feel able to weaponise the reporting of this sexual violence, not to help and support women to get justice, but to in fact use acts of violence against women as legitimising their ongoing conflict.

It is also disturbing that it turns out very little actual information has been found that wasn't in fact discovered by the Israeli women who volunteered together to investigate what happened on 7 October when it became clear that at that time the Israeli Government and the religious groups who volunteer to (sorry this is upsetting) collect body parts after fighting, bombing etc., did not have the issue of sexual violence against women as something they should consider.

So, hoping that this wont turn this thread into a repeat of two sides attacking each other, but another indication that although technically high on the potlical agenda the realilty that in all conflicts women are raped and abused, most (male) politicians and armed combatant aren't genuinely interested in what has happened to women, but only to use what happened as propoganda to bolster their claims about how their side is morally better than the other side.

So failure to respect women's bodies in the aftermath of violence, lack of appropriate knowledge, and for survivors not only their reluctance to have to speak about what happened to them but also presure from families and communities not to admit that as women they had been violated means there is little chance of a factual account.

Although as feminists we know that whatever the conflict women will have been abused and worse.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n09/azadeh-moaveni/what-they-did-to-our-women

'Taboo': French women speak out on rapes by US soldiers during WWII

Aimee Dupre had always kept silent about the rape of her mother by two American soldiers after the Normandy landings in June 1944.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240506-taboo-french-women-speak-out-on-rapes-by-us-soldiers-during-wwii

I haven’t read the article yet, but is this the same people who took so long to recognise the sexual horror in Israel 7/10/23?

I think that cooment is just reproducing a spin of those who tried to politicise the situation.

Why the UN Women didn't comment on what happened on 7 October is that Israel refused permission for them to investigate. As the UN, they are meant to deal with facts.

Personally I would have thought that they could have issued a statement along the lines of we all know that the first casualties of war are women (and children). (There was a thread about this which you could search for.)

As to the article, if you read it, it explains who this situation got polticised.

And one of the reasons for that is that the Israeli state failed to even recognise, let alone provide services, that given this act of violence women would have (as they always do) suffered sexual violence.

It was only because a small group of Israeli feminists organised themselves that anything was known. But too late for "verifiable" facts.

What the article covers is how any number of vested interests then politicised the vaccuum of facts and the number of what turned out to be false stories were published by media outlets with their own agendas. ie it is how the media exploits violence against women for political motives, not out of any interest in women. Or challenging men's behviour.

The links in the OP contain statements from the UN.

Hmm, interesting standpoint. I think the first that was known about it was as the Hamas soldiers broadcast their activities across the internet.

Have only just seen this. And yes it was because of social media that the group of Israeli women mentioned in my post organised themselves to investigate.

And unfortunately when they arrived to start investigations most "evidence" in the legal sense had been lost.

Partly because the convention of burial within 24 hours.

And they got no support from the state.

But their work did result in a support centre being set up.

Raped by Russian soldiers, Ukraine women speak out to erase stigma

Since Russia invaded in February 2022, Ukrainian authorities say they have documented over 300 cases of sexual violence perpetrated by the Russian troops.

However, "the true scale of sexual violence is hard to imagine", said Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of Ukraine's Center for Civil Liberties, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.

Activists estimate that the number of such cases runs into thousands because many victims prefer to remain silent due to the stigma associated with sexual violence.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240621-raped-by-russian-soldiers-ukraine-women-speak-out-to-erase-stigma

Girls as young as nine gang-raped by paramilitaries in Sudan

Gunmen from a notorious militia roamed Sudan’s capital gang-raping “countless” women and girls, some as young as nine, according to an investigation documenting the shocking prevalence of sexual violence in Khartoum during the country’s civil war.

Some of the attacks by members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were so brutal that women and girls died “due to the violence associated with the act of rape

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jul/29/girls-as-young-as-nine-gang-raped-by-paramilitaries-in-sudan-report

And unfortunately happening in other areas of conflict and not being reported.

This is such horrible, difficult, nightmare subject. Thank you for posting it. I doubt I'd be able to.

Women really aren't seen as human beings. Their suffering is on a par with a cow in a slaughterhouse. Regrettable, maybe, if you spend too long thinking about it, but meaningless on any scale that matters.

Compare that to how men's suffering in war is treated. Statues are put up. They're heroes for what they've undergone and withstood. They've "won the war" even though it's regularly women who've been picking up the pieces and making something worth living for afterward. And women aren't heroes for that. It's just something women do, like sheep grow wool. Not like real humans, real people, with real suffering.

I don't know how we break through that wall of desperation not to see what men do to women.

And for the women who suffered it doesn't end.

Whether they are left with a child because of rape, or because their own communities never really welcome them back.

Many of the Chibok schoolgirls are still suffering as adult women.