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Armed conflict.
Sexual abuse of women during intrastate and interstate conflict has historically been
a recurring phenomenon but kept as an official secret. History books have until
recently counted dead and injured soldiers but never sexually violated women who
were psychologically and physically injured for life. The recent list only from the
1990s is long: Bosnian Muslim women violated by Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian
Croats, Tibetan women violated by Chinese, Rwandan women violated by both
enemy men and women, East Timorese women by Indonesians, Kashmir women by
Indian soldiers, to mention only a few of the intrastate and interstate conflicts.
(Report of the Special Repporteur on Violence 1998). The horrendous news of the
raped women in Bosnia gave impetus for a large number of personal testimonies,
books and articles in international scientific literature and media that for the first time
brought to light the “Hidden horrors” (Tanaka 1996) against women in previous
Sexual violence against enemy women is part of the punishment, intimidation and
terrorization of a political, religious or ethnic minority, a mean for a military strategy
or other State policy: A weapon of war.
The abuse happens in custodial settings: Prisons, police stations, detention centers,
transit-centres, refugee settlements, but just as well in non-custodial settings as
homes, official buildings, various kinds of collective centers, health institutions,
bordellos or sexual slavery camps organized by the military. Sexual slavery camps
have a long history. Notorious are the so-called “comfort” houses established by the
Japanese during WW2 where 80,000 – 100,000 women from Southeast Asia were
held captive and forced to sexually service the troops. The first “comfort” house opened in Nanjing in 1938.
“the conditions of these brothels were solid beyond the imagination of most civilized people.
Untold numbers of these women (whom the Japanese called ‘public toilets’) took their own lives when
they learned their destiny; others died from disease or murder. Those that survived suffered a lifetime
of shame and isolation, sterility or ruined health. Because most of the victims came from cultures
that idealized chastity in women even those who survived rarely spoke after the war – most not until
very recently about their experiences for fear of facing shame and derision” (Chang 1997 p.53)
A former Japanese soldier spoke candidly about the process of mass rape and
murder of Chinese women:
“..We took turns raping them. It would be all right if we only raped them. I shouldn’t say all
right. But we always stabbed and killed them. Because dead bodies don’t talk” (Chang 1997 p.49)
The Japanese government has after pressure expressed remorse and has
apologized to former “comfort women”. It has set aside 700 mil yen for medical and
welfare projects for these women, and committed itself to include these stories in
history books in order to prevent such atrocities in the future. However, it has not yet
accepted legal responsibility.
Fifty five years later history repeated itself in Europe in the Bosnian war where
women were raped as part of an ethnic cleaning of a territory. (Arcel et al 1998)
To this day the war rape crimes in Bosnia are the best investigated, documented
and reported. (Helsinki Watch 1992, Amnesty International 1993, 1994, UN 1994/674,
European Union 1993, IRCT 1995, 1998).
In a small village of Kotor-Varos (Bosnia), Matilda 20 yr. Old, mother of two small
children was raped by a soldier in her own house while another soldier watched the
children and took his turn afterwards. She was threatened with a knife that if she did
not co-operate, the children would be harmed. Her 60 yr. Old mother in-law was
raped on the second floor by a third soldier. The women were interrogated about the
whereabouts of the family males and were urged to leave the village as soon as
possible, otherwise they would come back, rape them again and kill them (Arcel et al
1998)
Impunity of perpetrators of these crimes has been pervasive throughout history. In
most wars, rape was officially prohibited, but in reality accepted as a necessary
“by-product of the war”. Courts and state authorities did not consider rape to be
torture. Torture as a method of punishment and interrogation of soldiers and
prisoners has been repeatedly prohibited in Declarations and Covenants since the
18th century, and punished in several military and civilian trials, meanwhile the rape
of women has been explicitly condemned alone under Humanitarian law. (Blatt
1995)
Rape was not condemned before 1949 Geneva Convention on the Protection of
Civilians in Time of War in which article 27 states that women should be especially
protected against any attack on their honour, in particular against rape, enforced
prostitution or any form of indecent assault.
However, the international legal community was until lately (i.e. until the 1970s)
reluctant to recognize even mass rape and horrendous dimensions of sexual abuse
by public officials as a politically motivated offence against enemy women.
A striking example can be found in the report of the International Commission of
Jurists on the mass rapes of 200,000 Bengali women in East Pakistan in 1971 (Blatt
1995). The jurists assumed that young women and girls were kept by Pakistani
troops for their sexual pleasure. No link was made between the rapes and sexual
slavery on one side and torture on the other. The Pakistani army’s stated purpose to
brutalize and terrorize Bengali people in order to break their spirit during the civil war
was not used by the jurists as an explanation for the sexual abuse. The reasons
underlying the failure to link rape and other sexual abuse with the legal definition of
torture are mainly based on the conception of rape as a private act for which the
State cannot be responsible.
The prohibitions against rape and torture by officials were and still are in many
countries separated from each other. This is reflected in the judicial practice and is
as well deeply embedded in the consciousness of judicial personnel at all levels.
When discussing this with colleagues from many countries, I am presented with the
view that torture of women is rare in their country, only to hear them add in the next
moment: “But women suffer from rape by police and prison officers”.
The linking of rape to female honour in the Geneva Convention and in the common
view contributes to the assumption that rape is not a politically motivated act. In
linking rape to the violation of a woman’s honour, the morality of the victim comes
into focus. She is viewed by the community as having lost her honour, she is ‘dirty’
or ‘spoiled’. Consequently, many women will neither report nor discuss the sexual
violence against them.
Not a single case of rape during WW2 was punished at the Nuremberg trials despite
testimonies.
In contrast to the Nuremberg Tribunal, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal took pains to
include rape crimes in the public records (Atkin 1997). The most significant case on
rape presented to the Tribunal was the rape and massacre of Chinese women by
the Japanese 10th Army and 16th division in Nanjing in December 1937. (Tanaka
1996, Chang 1997) A general was sentenced to death for crimes committed by his
troops including rape. Despite this precedence it took 45 years to acknowledge – but
still not punish – the massive sexual abuse and sexual slavery of European and
Asian women. The sad case of the war-raped Bosnian women in Europe created
such an international outcry that the judicial world became sensitized to recognize
war-rape for what it is: torture.
Posted on 2002-11-11
remarks:3 |
