Rape as a Weapon of War

In the last 25 years, campaigns of mass rape by armed state and non-state actors have become widespread, appearing to take place as a structured aspect of organized hostile action against civilian populations. These campaigns have occurred in the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Liberia, Sudan, Uganda, and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Mass rape can serve the strategic aims of aggressors and is peculiarly suited to campaigns of ethnic cleansing and genocide intended to remove or destroy a stigmatized population and demolish the potential for regeneration.

Links

Characterizing Sexual Violence in the DRC (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative 2009)

"Now, the World is Without Me": Sexual Violence Eastern DRC (HHI/Oxfam 2010)

Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy: Gender-Based Violence in the US War on Iraq (MADRE, 2007)

International Crisis Group Podcast on Women and Security