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The Shame of Warsexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Conflict

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The Shame of Warsexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Conflict sexual violence against women and girls in conflict the shame of war thethe shameshame ofof warwar sexual violence against women and girls in conflict the shame of war sexual violence against women and girls in conflict A United Nations OCHA/IRIN publication Contributing writers: Jeanne Ward Chapter 1 Christopher Horwood Chapter 2 & 4 Claire McEvoy Chapter 3 & 5 Pamela Shipman & Lauren Rumble Chapter 6 Contributing photographers: Guillaume Bonn, Georgina Cranston, Jan Dago, Manoocher Deghati, Mariella Furrer, Thomas Grabka, Evelyn Hochstein, Eddie Isango, Jerry Lampen, Anthony Lloyd, Sylvia Spring, Brent Stirton, Jennifer Szymaszek, Sven Torfinn, Francesco Zizola, Tiggy Ridley. Project manager and book design: Christopher Horwood Sub-editor Lisa Ernst Layout: Eugene Papa Printing: United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON) Publishing Services Section Published in Kenya. February 2007 Cover photo and caption: Two victims of rape in Darfur comfort each other. Amnesty International’s 2004 report on Sudan – Darfur, Rape as a Weapon of War – revealed that rape was widespread and often systematic. According to its findings, “In many cases the women have been raped in public, in front of their husbands, relatives or the wider community. Those who have resisted rapes were reportedly beaten, stabbed or killed. Girls as young as eight years old have been abducted and held in sexual slavery, some for many months.” Three years later, reports from Darfur maintain the rapes have not stopped, despite the presence of thousands of international aid workers, thousands of African Union monitors and countless protests to the Sudanese government. Image: Evelyn Hockstein © OCHA/IRIN. 2007 All rights reserved. Reproduction of excerpts from the text is permissible, other than for commercial purposes, provided the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) is acknowledged as the author. No photographs may be used, reproduced or tramsmitted, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means without prior permission from the copyright holder. Provides humanitarian news and analysis, through on-line articles, special reports, printed publications, film documentaries and radio. IRIN is part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). For more information visit: www.irinnews.org For specific information concerning this publication contact: [email protected] SOLDIERS They come from a land where soldiers control each spot and not One woman’s body is free Woman once sacred flower blossom to dawn Slowly devoured until life inside of her is gone Exterior wasted Been tasted by too many men Slapped pinned down again and again and There is no exit from this trap Pools of blood in the center of her lap Dripping into cracked spaces Covering once beautiful faces Embraces Have no place here The land where sex breeds fear and Babies are born out of torn wombs Woman they pray cry out to the moon For there can be no God Who watches their pain and remains Still Like they are Still Being beaten with whips Still Being torn apart each night by a different poet stick And they Still Watch their mothers dip their hands below Earth tears This is the land where soldiers control each spot and not One woman’s body is free by Imani Woomera Acknowledgements This publication is IRIN’s second book on aspects of gender-based violence and part of OCHA / IRIN’s longer term commitment to this issue by offering products to increase awareness of and information about different forms of violence against women and girls. Special thanks go to the photographer Brent Stirton, who contributed many of his outstanding images used in this publication free of charge. We thank all the photographers who collected images and testimonies while on assignment. Our greatest appreciation, however, goes to the women and girls featured in this book who consented to share their personal stories with us. These women have suffered, and will continue to suffer, different forms of violence and deserve far more support and protection. The project was generously supported by two donors : the Swiss Agency for Development And Cooperation and Global Fund for Women financed through the Forum for Early Warning and Early Response (FEWER). contents Chapter 1 sexual violence against women and girls in conflict 11 with Francoise’s story Chapter 2 perpetrators and motivation: 37 understanding rape and sexual violence in war with Marni’s story Chapter 3 addressing impunity: 57 sexual violence & international law with Kibakuli’s story Chapter 4 sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and aid workers 79 1. UN peacekeepers: “one of the greatest stains on UN history” 2. aid workers: “the children will have sex with him to get the food” with Elizabeth’s story Chapter 5 seeking post-conflict justice 95 with Helena’s story Chapter 6 neglected challenges: 113 the humanitarian responsibility to protect with Pewa’s story Endnotes 127 Two victims of sexual abuse and torture. The older woman, a nurse by profession, was abducted by rebels in Sierra Leone to live as a "bush wife". The scar on her forehead is from a bullet wound she sustained when the soldiers, after gang-raping her, tortured her by seeing how close they could come to killing her with an AK-47. The younger woman a former “bush wife” in Sierra Leone, who was abducted from her family at age 10 by rebels from the Revolutionary United Front. After a killing spree that decimated most of her village, the rebels took her away with them to work as a cook, porter and sex slave. When she tried to escape, the rebels poured acid over her arm and breast as a warning to other abductees. After two years in captivity, she was able to escape. She recently joined a small self-help group of female torture victims. Image: Brent Stirton the shame of war Preface sexual violence against women and girls in conflict In this age of unprecedented communication and international mobility, the ugly truths of wars can no longer remain hidden and obscure. Journalistic reporting, documentaries, investigations, research and commissions of inquiry are exposing the violence of yesterday and demanding accountability and redress. People are finding the voice to speak out and, increasingly, the world is listening. In particular, women are making themselves and their sufferings heard. Throughout the centuries of human conflict, armies have sexually abused and enslaved women and girls with complete impunity, in what some may have seen as the natural process of war; but the tide is turning. The international community, now more united in its aspirational commitment to universal human rights, no longer finds these abuses to be acceptable or inevitable. Rape and sexual exploitation of women in times of conflict should never be tolerated, let alone excused. The brutality and viciousness of the sexual attacks that are reported from the current conflicts in Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Iraq and Sudan, and the testimonies from past conflicts in Timor-Leste, Liberia, the Balkans and Sierra Leone are heartbreaking. Girls and women, old and young, are preyed upon by soldiers, militia, police and armed thugs wherever conflict rages and the parties to the conflict fail to protect civilian populations. We need to wage a different war, one against violence against women and girls and against the culture of impunity that protects the perpetuators and their accomplices. To some extent, this battle is already underway, but it is in its very early days. People around the world, shocked at the revelations from conflict zones, are becoming motivated and engaged to look for ways to end impunity and create effective legal mechanisms that protect women and deny perpetrators sanctuary from prosecution and punishment. Within my capacity as the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, I have seen that violence against women in times of armed conflict is merely the tip of the iceberg. The problem is so deep-rooted and widespread in all societies – in times of war and in peace – that one is sometimes left with a sense of despair and helplessness as to where to begin. But the trajectories of women’s struggles to resist violence and oppression worldwide demonstrate that violence against women can be and must be stopped. We must act and we must act with a sense of urgency to address the entire continuum of violence against women and the gender hierarchies within which the problem is embedded. The Shame of War: Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Conflict bears witness through graphic photographs and powerful testimonies to the scale of sexual violence faced by girls and women in conflicts all over the world. It pulls no punches in confronting the reader with stories and statistics that expose the extent of these violations that define countless women's and girls' everyday existence. It also charts the progress made in international law in recent years in protecting women’s rights and convicting perpetrators of rape and sexual violence. This book serves to raise awareness and provoke action. I would like to end by echoing the powerful words from the preface to Broken Bodies, Broken Dreams, an earlier book by IRIN on gender-based violence: History will judge us harshly if, once aware of the nature and scope of this violence, once outraged by its injustice, we do not choose to act against it. Yakın Ertürk, Prof of Sociology and UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its causes and consequences introduction “ We need to voice the violence, to hear the stories of all those affected by violence … Spreading the word, breaking down the taboos and exposing the violence that takes place among us is the first step towards effective action to reduce violence in our own societies.” Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway and former director general of the World Health Organization This book was born out of shock.
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