The use of rape during times of wars is not a new thing today. In 1474, for instance, Peter van Hagenbach, was the first to face an international tribunal after the assaulting of Briesbach’s women in Austria by troops that had received such instructions from him upon military occupation of the town (Joanna 8). The judges of the Holy Roman Empire directed that he beheaded as a penalty for his crimes (Joanna 11).
It was held that females have rights over nothing not even on their bodies or their sexuality (Joanna 13). In fact, great scholars like Aristotle and Cicero held that a justified war includes the right to assault or rape women of the inferior party (Joanna 13). As indicated earlier, raping of women was commonly practiced among the Greeks and Romans where women were perceived as “property rightfully won from their enemies”.
In the middle ages, rape was proclaimed as a capital crime (Carpenter 7) and this serves as the foundation for today’s perception on rape in warfare. Under the Lieber Code, rape was made punishable by death and this still holds in the ordinances of international law with respect to protection of women in time of war (Fredrick 14).
Rape in warfare has been evident in World War I where German soldiers assaulted France and Belgium through rape in a bid to frighten their enemy. This was the first scenario of mass violations of rights where rape was used as a tool for war (Fredrick 15). During World II, the Japanese assaulted more than 200,000 women and used them as sexual objects or comfort women for that matter (Mitchell 7). The other case involved Nazis, who committed mass rape in every territory they did occupy during World War II (Fredrick 16). Additionally, the Soviets avenged the atrocities committed to Russian women by continuously practicing rape as a weapon against the German women (Fredrick 17). World War II occasioned other cases of rape as a tool for warfare in countries such as Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Peru, Vietnam, Kashmir, Algeria, Haiti, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Cyprus, and the Former Yugoslavia (Fredrick 21). The use of rape and other injustices has also been evident in many parts of Africa, for instance, Sudan, Somalia, Mozambique, Uganda, Core d’Ivoire, DRC Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia among others.
On the basis of the above findings, it can be seen that rape in warfare affected almost all countries in the world or better still; all continents. Therefore, rape in warfare poses global challenges and hence the need to have international standards in the fight against assault of women. There are three things that can be established in this study:
- That rape in warfare is orchestrated by senior officers as a way to intimidate or terrorize the enemy.
- The stronger party in a war is in a better position to carry out acts of rape than it would be for an inferior party.
- Women are the most vulnerable.
Looking at the above hypotheses it is clear that rape is not so much a spontaneous activity. It is something that can be arranged and considered during wars as a way to defeat or intimidate the enemy. This is contrary to popular belief that rape is simply a proximate act occasioned by the particular circumstances at a given period of time. Additionally, only a superior party may consider use of rape as a way to humiliate the enemy and it follows without saying that women have been considered the least (inferior beings) in any social settings. In fact, if the reader takes a closer look at what has been established so far, he will see that most countries mentioned are either second world countries or third world countries.
In order for this study not to appear bias or selective it will be looking at some of those countries and establish if rape in warfare was internal or external. By external rape the researcher means rape committed by persons or militaries from another country and by internal rape the researcher means rape committed by persons or militaries belonging to the same origin as the victims.
Further Case Studies
In DRC Congo, rape was used as a way to penalize civilians who supposedly supported their enemy (Jeffrey 5). It was also used to torture other ethnic groups seen as enemies to the combatants. In the case of Sudan, combatants assaulted women sexually in order to extract information from them regarding their husband’s whereabouts and other family members (Amnesty International 2). Moreover, women have been exploited by making them wives or helpers to militants. In Sierra Leone, for instance, soldiers exploited women as wives and this was commonly referred to as the “Operation Fine Girl” (Amnesty International 3).
Turning to Uganda, the Lords Resistance Army forced women into marriages and sexually abused them (Jones 5). The other thing is that women succumb to such atrocities while in their ordinary lives. Once they are abducted, they were confined in the camps for purposes of rapes or so that they can perform other tasks, for instance, cooking or cleaning (Jones 6).
In 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army upon occupation of Nanking raped and assaulted women (Hayden 9). The rape of Nanking which is also referred to as the “Nanjing Massacre” features the major atrocities in China (Viklund 3). Despite the fact that that Chinese army was poorly trained and equipped, they attempted to resist Japanese forces which had more numbers, effective training and weapons. The Japanese forces invaded China and they caused a lot of murder, looting, and rape (Viklund 5).
It is held that the former US General Antonio Taguba asserts that the Obama administration seeks to suppress photographs that contain the images of US soldiers sodomizing and raping Iraq prisoners. He went ahead to state that the photographs contained images of US forces raping a female held in prison and also raping a male who had also been detained. Other images contained acts of sexual assaults using objects such as truncheon, wire and phosphorescent tube (Eley 5).
General Taguba also held that the photos contained images of rape, torture, abuse and all sorts of indecency. It was held that the claims by President Obama in justifying the suppression of the photos in that they would not be sensational as it would be with the painful images remembered from Abu Ghraib (Eley 5). Additionally, the General held that there are 2,000 photos containing approximately 400 scenarios of US forces assaulting Iraqis and Afghans in different prisons (Eley 6). It is also believed that both Bush and Obama administration have blocked the publication of the pictures.
President Obama noted that if the images would be released the direct consequence would be to trigger anti-American public opinion and endangering American troops (Eley 6). Moreover, it is also held that the main reason as to why President Obama declined to release the photos is because the US generals had also opposed their publication. However, Bryan Whiteman, who is Obama Pentagon Spokesman, expressed that the images did not contain acts of rape and that the images had been mischaracterized (Eley 7). In the same vein, Obama held that the torture depicted in the images had been committed by “a small number of individuals”.
It is held that apart from the 2,000 photographs of torture there are still more cases that might not have been captured. Again, torture and rape among prisoners can be interpreted as the “systematic policy of the US military and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)” in that it derived from high levels of senior government (Eley 8). It is also noted that Saddam Hussein abducted girls from Thailand and elsewhere to service the Iraqi soldiers since they could not use their wives for religious reasons (American Chronicle 2). There have been concerns as to the whereabouts of the women who might have survived the assaults of Iraqi’s army.
On interviewing several Asian women and girls who were prostituted to the US forces, an Okinawan girl expressed that she cannot forget the mass rape by soldiers. In her words, she stated that her experience involved having to lie and get raped by over twenty men a day. Another case was of a girl who had been trafficked into a brothel in Kosovo. She tried to seek help from the US military in vain since they also wanted to use her (Amnesty International 2). It is also reported that around 400,000 Bangladesh women had been trafficked in rape camps by the Pakistan military (Turse 23).
In DRC Congo, the Congolese army and rebel groups resorted to systematic gang rape as a weapon towards their enemies and this led to many injuries and spreading of HIV (Sexual Warfare 3). According to surveys carried out by Aids group in every three women in North Kivu, one is a victim of rape and where 30% have been infected with HIV. A lady shared her experience by stating that she was gang raped by soldiers and then took a way his husband which she cannot tell if he is alive or dead. She held that the raping took place while she was still eight months pregnant (Sexual Warfare 1). Another woman also shared her experience in that she was gang raped by the Mai Mai rebels in Congo where they also killed her husband and children.
Geneva Convention provides that women shall be safeguarded against rape, prostitution or any other kind of indecency (Clifford 14). However, in the modern conflict, rape has been regarded as a legitimate tool in war and has also been adopted as a military strategy. Soldiers have been encouraged to utilize rape as a way to terrorize or humiliate the enemy (Moorehead 14).
As indicated in a European Community Report, troops from Serbia had raped thousands of Muslim women and girls who had been detained in over a hundred Nazi-style concentration camps (Moorehead 14). The acts of rape were carried out as a strategy to make non-Serbs vacate their homes. A seventeen year old Muslim girl narrated her story in that she had been taken away from her village and trafficked to a hut in the woods where she was detained for three months. During that period she, together with the other women was repeatedly raped. As indicated earlier in this study, it was stated that rape was used in Yugoslavia as a tool for ethnic cleansing and as a strategy to terrorize the population as well as forcing ethnic groups to leave. In Novi Grad, Croatians accused four Serbian women of sheltering Serbian fighters and as result turned them over to fifteen men that belonged to a group referred to as Fire Horses where they were gang raped for five hours (Moorehead 15).
The rising number of refugees across the world has occasioned endless violations and rape among women. In the period 1991 and 1992, Kenya hosted 300,000 Somali refugees where many got raped in their camps including girls of below four years. Another case in Africa is told of a woman who when escaping from the Mengitsu government in Ethiopia was detained by two men. These were her words: “One pulled me aside and said, ‘No safe passage before sex!” (Moorehead 15). She went further to narrate that one of the men forced her down, kicked her stomach bearing in mind that she was five months pregnant, and raped her in the presence of her children.
Rape has been used as a way to intimidate, humiliate, create political terror, obtain information, and reward soldiers and also for ethnic cleansing (Saleh 58). Such violence towards women derives from traditional and cultural perceptions of women as property and as objects of sex. In most settings, women have been regarded as transmitters of cultural values and as symbols of nation or community. In this regard, violence towards women is equated to violation of values and honor to a given community and so the most preferable tool for war (Aziz 20).
Issue Analysis & Discussion
This study believes that rape can neither be a justified way to fight an enemy nor is it worth to be a military strategy in defeating and humiliating an enemy. So, if this is the kind of training militaries get then it is a great pity! The executive arm of most governments have a lot of influence in the conduct of the soldiers while at war since it is the only institution that can command the armed forces or declare states of emergency. So, any directives given by the president matter a lot in how the soldiers carry themselves out while at war. This study would hate to believe that the use of rape as a way to defeat or humiliate an enemy was commanded by head of states then. There needs to be thorough investigation on the causes of rape and if it is established that such orders came from senior government officials then the public needs to know even if they may not do anything about it.
As a matter of legal principle in the event when there are no available witnesses or that the defendants have died the courts cannot consider such charges. This could be one of the reasons why adjudication of these crimes in courts would not be a good reason. However, the current recognition and criminalization of sexual violence against women during wars establishes a great opportunity for its prevention in the future. The study believes that at the time such crimes took place, there existed no laws that would prevent soldiers from behaving in such ways; and what is worse is that such orders came from the superior officers.
It has been shown that both Bush and Obama administration declined to permit the publication of images believed to contain scenarios of American troops raping and assulitng prisoners. The reasons given by President Obama may not be valid on various grounds. First of all, if Obama administration declines to support their publication simply because they will trigger anti-American opinion or because they will endanger the American troops then that is not enough. The bottom line question is if such atrocities happened and if the claims against the US forces are true. As in, is it true that American soldiers gang raped women? The same case applies to all other scenarios of rape in warfare. This is not an issue that can be speculated but it is something that must be based on real facts, truth and reliable evidence. Otherwise, if such claims are just but mere propaganda then the position of Obama administration is water-tight.
This adds to the reason why adjudicating such crimes in court would not be a way forward. As in, the accused may receive unwarranted accusations if they are just propaganda. So, what governments should do is face the facts and if need be, apologize on behalf of the military troops on injustices committed in the past. By the way, this study believes that among those countries whose troops have been accused of raping, for instance Japanese troops, the current soldiers may have nothing to do with it. Therefore, it turns out that such accusations point to those troops that served many years ago.
However, from the scenarios indicated in Africa, it is evident that rape in warfare still remains a modern challenge. So, it cannot be entirely purported that the recognition and outlawing of sexual violence against women has been entirely prevented. There are still some traces of it in different settings. Just to restate rape is a criminal offense and should never be a military strategy whatsoever. In any case, most governments have demonstrated serious commitment in ensuring a just society where every person has equal rights. So, any accusation that a state has been involved in acts of sexual violence against women should be received with great sadness and justice in such matters must prevail.
The use of rape to humiliate or defeat an enemy makes no sense to this study. In any case, if a state is determined to defeat an enemy it should look for the enemy itself. By raping one will be harboring more hatred to the enemy and chances of hit back would be very high. The study appreciates the various treaties that have been settled upon in ensuring that only just wars prevail. The concepts of jus in bello and jus ad bellum are among the best measures to ensure that acts of sexual violence do not occur at all.
In order to influence justice in war and enhance international cooperation the notion of “realpolitic”has been criticized which allows a state to pursue its goals and or to do whatever is in their interest. Here, it qualifies the means so long as the end is desirable (Lutz 20). Realpolitik disregards ethical standards like human rights and dignity of the person and instead emphasizes on what is of national interest. However, the just war principle provides that there should be a just cause which is solely a quest to defend oneself from the enemy. The other thing is that such a decision must come from the legitimate authority, for instance, the government and with the right intention which is solely the restoration of peace. The other conditions include reasonable hope of success to avoid shedding of innocent blood. There has to be proportionality between the good to be achieved and the damage to be done. And finally, the decision to go to war must be as a last resort after all other options have been considered.
Conclusion
As can be seen, use of rape in warfare poses a global challenge since almost all countries have a history of such atrocities. There is a need to have laws that criminalize sex violence during wars and rape should never be used as a military strategy. The study has also discussed in detail cases of sexual violence in various countries and the adverse effects thereof. There are major issues that have come out strongly, for instance; that use of rape in warfare was a way to humiliate or intimidate the enemy, women are the most vulnerable and that sexual violence against women favors the superior party. In this regard, rape in warfare is not only a way to humiliate the enemy but it is also a discriminative course of action just as how the powerful may devalue the minors. The study has also established that rape in warfare has not been a thing of the past only as there are many cases of rape today like in the case of Congo and Sudan. This is what led this study to state that albeit laws to prevent sexual violence against women some of it is still evident today. The study also established that adjudicating sexual violence crimes in courts may not be a good reason only if it is based on speculation. Additionally, women have been mistreated due to the traditional understanding about the role of women in the society. They have been taken as inferior beings almost to a point of denying them basic rights. It is at this point that this study wishes to state that: Injustices committed during past wars should never be brushed under the carpet. Once human dignity is violated the impact is forever and so there can be no permanent way to restore it. Therefore, the issue of rape in warfare should be categorized as crime against humanity as this is the only way to prevent it from occurring and to make culprits take up responsibility.
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