done to the nation as a whole
done to the nation as a whole
destroyed due to the war and the life changing aspects that come along with it. Not only can war…
According to the Rothe and Mullins genocidal rape is defined as “ A systematically organized military tactic of terror and genocide used to (1) generate fear in subdued population, (2) humiliate the population (both men and women), (3) derogation of women (spoilage of identity), (4) create a cohort of mixed-ethnic children to maintain the humiliation/spoilage/domination. Such a use of sexual assault is an orchestrated tactic of warfare”( Kruger, 2). In Rwanda after the assassination of president, all the roads were blocked by Hutu militia; these blocked roads and Hutu barriers eventually became the base of executions and rapes. The major aim of this sexual violence was degradation and humiliation of the Tutsi. Tutsi women were brutally raped and their sexual organs were injured with spears, gun barrels, machetes and acids too. According to the Amnesty International report of 2004, approximately 250,000 to 500,000 Rwandan women were raped during the genocide (Mukamana and Brysiewicz, 380). It is the matter of argument that systematic, government planned rape and sexual enslavement proves to be an…
These malicious acts were used as a way to change the ethnic makeup of the area, by impregnating women with Serbian babies so as to create a larger Serbian population in the future and drive out the Bosniaks and Croats. Rape was simply another strategy used in their overall goal of ethnically cleansing Bosnia and overtaking the land as Serbian territory. It is believed that up to 60,000 women were raped in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995(*), but the number may be much higher as many rape victims do not come forward due to the shame and humiliation they feel. Many witnesses recount events of the systematic rape, and often murder, of women and girls during the time by the Serbian military (*). There is also mention of specific ‘rape camps’ through the country that held women and girls of all ages who were repeatedly raped by soldiers. Unfortunately, tactical rape is a common occurence in war zones but it was not until 1992 that the UN Security Council declared widespread rape to be an international crime, specifically noting the Muslim women in Bosnia (*). Later, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia cited rape as a crime against humanity, equal with such acts as torture and murder, and added sexual slavery under the definition of slavery (*). The act of rape as a military tactic is in direct interference with article 5 of the UDHR, which states that no one shall be subjected to cruel or degrading treatment. In Behind Enemy Lines, there is no direct mention made to the widespread rape committed by the Serbians which is a shame because it was such a large issue during this time. Given the fact that this movie takes place towards the end of the war and focuses on the involvement of US soldiers, it misses out on some very key and important aspects of the Bosnian…
* Prussian Rape - The Soviet Republic was responsible for 240 000 deaths after they raped around 2 million women and children. France was also responsible for around 1500 rapes and the United States of America around 11 000 rapes.…
It is claimed that “sex is the weapon of life, the shooting sperm sent like an army of guerrillas to penetrate the egg’s defenses-the only victory that really matters.” With this being said, sex, and how the sperm must go through several enemy territories to declare victory, is war. Interchangeably, according to William Broyles in his novel Why Men Love War, war is actually sex. The power generated through war and the bonding of individuals “heightens…sexuality” and as a result makes “war…a turn on.” People love war because people love weapons and the power and opportunity to destroy nations, infrastructure, and/or ideas. War therefore is the union between sex and destruction—between love and death. Broyles believes that to fully understand the seduction of the opposite gender, it is crucial to hear the war stories of women. If their voices are heard, the gender-encoding stereotypes in war and the war stories can be denaturalized. We must understand the women’s viewpoint of the war to grasp the importance of ideological power for people, cultures, and humanity overall (Schneider 6). When we reach this understanding and gain insight on “the other side” of war, the parameters of war literature can be altered and we can “re-conceptualize aspects of…war’s political history” (Scott…
While reading Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, I came across many issues and conflicts. In the story, a Pakistani woman named Mukhtar Mai was a victim of gang rape. Six men raped her as a punishment due to her brothers supposed relationship with a woman from another clan. Mukhtar says, “when I tried to call the police, I received death threats that I would be killed if I went to the police station.” In Joel Christie’s article, they talk about a Norwegian woman named Monika Korra who was a survivor of gang rape. Three men abducted and raped her on her way home from a party. Monika says, “Before I knew it, I just had someone grabbing me from behind and I had a gun to my head.” They told her to strip down while sexually assaulting…
Some may argue that the societal built environment of abuse of power may be one of the main causes of most disputes within the military. Stark et. al, mentions how within armed groups, sexual violence and rape have been affiliated into norms of machismo and expressed though means of sexual domination of females. Men have been reported to engage in sexual activities such as gang rape to fully display their authority in the branch. This research shows how sexual violence in the armed forces shows an issue of power asymmetry, patriarchy, masculinity, and devaluation of women soldiers (2012). Lamentably, power struggle is mostly noticed between male and female in a military branch. Psychologically, rape is stated to occur as means of a dominant-submissive…
During any war, many acts of brutality were committed by soldiers on both sides; and most people seem to realize this. Nevertheless, when we look at photographs of the dead women and children from any massacre, it seems impossible to understand how soldiers could participate in such an atrocity. However, in psychological views, we can easily explain their behavior by using conformity and obedience.…
Rape and sexual assault during military armed conflicts are described as psychological warfare, thus harming and affecting the enemies emotions and feelings more than it's body. Now when carried out thoroughly and as a systematic practice, rape and sexual slavery are now recognized under the United Nations Geneva Convention as crimes against humanity and serious war crimes.…
Even though the military itself is aware of these statistics nothing really have been done to prosecute these men for their crimes. Moreover the United State military, the most powerful government organization in the world endorses the concept of traditional American family. For these sexual assault crimes to be so rampant throughout the military the hypocrisy of the organization is evident. In this paper I will explore the mental breakdown and anguish of the women that were sexually abused, also I will highlight how the military conduct and treat these victims when they try to report the crimes, then I will concluded with how these empowered victims are trying to fight back against sexual abuse and what preventative pressures the military is putting in place to stop these sex crimes.…
Campbell, K., 2003, “Rape as a ‘Crime Against Humanity’: Trauma, Law and Justice in the…
When I watched the movie the Invisible War, I was shocked by the high rape rate in the military. How can a seemly just institution indulge the perpetrator but be indifferent to victims? The soldiers and their supervisors seem to regard rape as a small thing that should not be reported. The supervisors do not believe the victims and think that they file a false report about rape. They tell females not to wear makeup to avoid rape. The institutional sexual assaults can be connected to the rape culture in the college and the athletics.…
For generations of African American women, racial terror included the perpetual threat of sexual assault. Sexual assault in the time of World War II was an unavoidable outcome of the war. Many African American women at this time experienced unwanted groping, fondling, kissing, nonconsensual sodomy, rape, and many more aggressive acts. These sexual assaults added to the oppression of African American women during World War II. The women experienced sexual assault in their jobs, homes, and neighborhoods, which made each woman feel at risk during this period of war.…
Throughout human history across the globe, wartime rape has been perceived as an unfortunate, but natural and expected by-product of war (see Kennedy-Pipe and Stanley, 2001). In essence wartime rape was normalized so that not much had been done in terms of policy and legal prosecution, and therefore has been publicly invisible (Hansen, 2001). Raped women (and raped men) have been absent from historical records that usually describe the victories, defeats, and heroic battles from a male perspective (see for instance Nikolic-Ristanovic, 2002). In discourses on collective violence wartime rape was silenced, placed outside the political sphere and therefore rendered mute by appropriation into the language of property rights, with women considered…
As this quote will state rape has been around since ancient times and is something not encouraged. "Rape was an offense under Roman Law, Jewish Law, and Anglo-Saxon Law, so it is evidence that is a crime with a long history, and misdeed severely disapproved and discouraged in a civilized society" (Warshaw, 1994, p. 86). So here you can see that rape has been out since almost the beginning of time and is not something tolerated. The fact is women are the ones who are being victimized by this crime of rape. As you will see in this quote women are the ones who are in danger, "Revisionists like Ms. Roiehe often point out that some women are categorized as rape victims in studies even though they do not identify them as such" (Warshaw, 1994, p. 84). Also in this quote it proves the same, "84% of all raped reported in the United States were done on women" (Warshaw 1994, p. 10). As stated above, the victims of rape are mostly women. Now it has been proven that rape is mostly done on women, but how does it affect them? Women that were victims of rape suffer many emotional problems. These emotional problems are called Rape Trauma Syndrome. Women who suffer from this trauma feel that they have been invaded and violated. Her own comfort zone and reality are destroyed because she has not been able to control her own physical safety. In this quote, it will show how rape affects a woman after a rape act, "Even though the actual assault is over, a…