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Global Efforts to End Conflict-Related Sexual Violence

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Global Efforts to End Conflict-Related Sexual Violence DEFENCE, FOREIGN POLICY AND SECURITY GLOBAL EFFORTS TO END CONFLICT-RELATED SEXUAL VIOLENCE MYRIAM FRANÇOIS • BETHSABÉE SOURIS www.europeanreform.org @europeanreform Established by Margaret Thatcher, New Direction is Europe’s leading free market political foundation & publisher with offices in Brussels, London, Rome & Warsaw. New Direction is registered in Belgium as a not-for-profit organisation and is partly funded by the European Parliament. REGISTERED OFFICE: Rue du Trône, 4, 1000 Brussels, Belgium. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Naweed Khan. www.europeanreform.org @europeanreform The European Parliament and New Direction assume no responsibility for the opinions expressed in this publication. Sole liability rests with the author. AUTHORS TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD - Syed Kamall MEP 7 1 INTRODUCTION 9 2 CONTEXT: EXPLAINING PATTERNS AND TRENDS OF CONFLICT-RELATED SEXUAL VIOLENCE 10 2.1 INTRODUCTION 11 2.2 FACTS AND FIGURES 11 2.3 WHO ARE THE PERPETRATORS OF CONFLICT-RELATED SEXUAL VIOLENCE? 14 2.4 WHO ARE THE VICTIMS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE? 18 2.5 WHAT ARE THE CAUSES AND PATTERNS OF WARTIME SEXUAL VIOLENCE? 19 2.6 THE CONSEQUENCES OF CONFLICT-RELATED SEXUAL VIOLENCE 23 2.7 MAIN CURRENT CASES OF WARTIME SEXUAL VIOLENCE 25 2.8 CONCLUSION 38 3 INTERNATIONAL RESPONSES TO CONFLICT-RELATED SEXUAL VIOLENCE 40 3.1 INTRODUCTION 41 3.2 HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL LEGAL NORMS REGARDING CONFLICT-RELATED SEXUAL VIOLENCE 42 3.3 THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF GLOBAL POLICY FOR CONFLICT-RELATED SEXUAL VIOLENCE 50 3.4 CONCLUSION 59 Myriam François Bethsabée Souris 4 POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS 60 4.1 INTRODUCTION 61 Dr Myiam Francois is a journalist and academic with a Bethsabée Souris is a PhD candidate in Political Science at focus on France and the Middle East. She obtained her University College London (UCL). Her research focusses 4.2 HOW TO PREVENT CONFLICT-RELATED SEXUAL VIOLENCE? 62 PhD from Oxford University (2017), her MA (Honours) on the links between refugees, diaspora communities 4.3 HOW TO IMPROVE ASSISTANCE TO THE VICTIMS OF CONFLICT-RELATED SEXUAL VIOLENCE? 72 from Georgetown University (2007) and her BA from and ethnic insurgent groups. Prior to her studies in the Cambridge Univerity (2003). She is currently a Research U.K., she has completed a Bachelor and a Masters in 5 CONCLUSION 81 Associate at the SOAS Centre for Islamic Studies and a Political Science in France at the Sorbonne University. Her correspondent for the news network TRTWorld. research interests and expertise are international relations, transnational politics, ethnic conflicts, as well as French and European politics. FIGURES 1 Number of conflict actors involved in sexual violent acts according to different 12 levels of prevalence and per year 2 Percentages of conflict actors involved in sexual violence per year and actor type 15 3 Number of conflicts where sexual violence occurred by forms of reported victim targeting 18 4 International Crimes of sexual violence under the Rome Statute 48 5 Potential activities to prevent conflict-related sexual violence 57 New Direction - The Foundation for European Reform www.europeanreform.org @europeanreform Global efforts to end conflict-related sexual violence Myriam François • Bethsabée Souris FOREWORD Syed Kamall MEP ECR Group co-Chairman and Member of the European Parliament for London t is more than three years now since my country area. Not only does the report set out to examine the UK hosted the Global Summit to End Sexual the root causes and the consequences of conflict- I Violence in Conflict. More than 150 states came related sexual violence. It also identifies different together with non-governmental organisations, patterns and types of such violence, assesses the experts and human rights activists. Of course, the limitations of international tools to end the problem, gathering did not end such violence there and then. and offers a menu of potential policy responses. One international summit on its own was never Along the way it addresses several common myths going to do that, but it did mark a watershed in and misconceptions. For example, not all victims the global community’s response to this enduring, are women and girls. The majority are, yes; but brutal and sickening stain on mankind’s character. many men and boys also suffer rape, sexual assault For centuries, conflict-related sexual violence and systematic sexual torture. Conflict-related has gone virtually unchallenged, unrecorded sexual violence is not exclusively perpetrated by and unpunished. Turning a blind eye must no ill-disciplined fighters when command-structures longer be deemed acceptable . While it may take break down. Often the violence is encouraged or decades, even centuries, to completely eradicate directed by commanders, frequently as a means this despicable practice, the international mood of suppression, control and intimidation. Most has changed from one of complacency and near- shockingly to me, it is not always fighters from complicity to a real determination to tackle it head conflicted factions who commit the acts. There are on. Let’s hope that sexual violence in conflict will records of United Nations peace-keepers and even no longer be dismissed as though it were somehow aid workers who have committed offences of sexual an unavoidable by-product of warfare and strife. violence. For most of us, I suppose it was events in This excellent and timely study combines a close the former states of Yugoslavia and Rwanda which re-examination of existing data with details of first increased public awareness and condemnation of implications and applications for policy-makers to sexual violence in armed conflict. As we look around consider. I believe it will prove to be an important the world, we see that far from being consigned to step in refocusing and redefining efforts to combat history, it is still happening today in countries such sexual violence in conflict - and the European as Myanmar, Iraq, Syria and Yemen to name a few. Union’s work in co-ordinating them. I congratulate The world may never rid itself of the problem. But it EYF Consulting, Myriam François and Bethsabée has decided it can no longer just accept it as a fact Souris for their painstaking and dedicated work of life - or of war. This report represent an important in drawing together and analysing so much data. impetus - along with some helpful guidelines - for I congratulate my colleagues at New Direction for our international determination to tackle a global commissioning such important new work in this vital disgrace with renewed global resolve. 6 New Direction - The Foundation for European Reform www.europeanreform.org @europeanreform 7 Global efforts to end conflict-related sexual violence Myriam François • Bethsabée Souris 1 INTRODUCTION exual violence is a common occurrence in While conflict-related sexual violence takes place regions of armed conflict. A large portion in most wars, it can occur in different forms and S of the casualties in conflicts are made up of to different extents. During the conflict in Bosnia- civilians, including women and children. Women in Herzegovina, sexual abuse was so widespread that it particular can face devastating forms of conflict- was recognised by the United Nations International related sexual violence, which can be used to achieve Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as a military and political objectives. The term ‘conflict- crime against humanity4. Similarly the International related sexual violence’, which will appear throughout Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda included sexual the present report, refers to the following UN Security violence in the definition of genocide and war Council’s definition1: ‘rape, sexual slavery, forced crimes. The conflicts in former Yugoslavia and prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilisation, Rwanda have increased public awareness and and other forms of sexual violence of comparable condemnation of sexual violence in armed conflict, gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls and and have been followed by multiple international boys’, linked geographically, temporally or causally to initiatives from a number of humanitarian a conflict. The term ‘conflict zone’ includes situations organisations to end sexual violence. of mass armed conflict, or active conflict2, which include battles and battle deaths, as well as ‘lethal Henceforth, this report aims to explain the extent intergroup violence’3. This means that conflict zones of conflict-related sexual violence by examining its do not necessarily require a formal declaration of war, causes and consequences. Distinguishing different or for state actors to be a protagonists in the conflict. patterns of conflict-related sexual violence, this report In addition, this report will also take into account will then present the existing international efforts to peaceful but militarised settings, including post- prevent it. Furthermore, it will assess the limitations conflict societies, to understand the phenomenon of of international tools to end conflict-related sexual sexual violence. violence and provide policy recommendations. 1 United Nations. 2015. “Report of the Secretary-General on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence to the Security Council.” United Nations. Vol. 61764. doi:S/2010/579. 2 Blattman, Christopher, and Edward Miguel. 2010. “Civil War.” Journal of Economic Literature 48 (1): 3–57. doi:10.1257/jel.48.1.3. 3 Goldstein, J S. 2003. War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa. Cambridge University Press. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KXs_ LS5g57MC. 4 United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Crimes of Sexual Violence. http://www.icty.org/en/in-focus/crimes-sexual-violence 8 New Direction - The Foundation for European Reform www.europeanreform.org @europeanreform 9 Global efforts to end conflict-related sexual violence Myriam François • Bethsabée Souris 2.1 INTRODUCTION hile conflict-related sexual violence is often and war crimes. Yet, sexual violence in some conflicts, perceived as an inevitable consequence such as Israel/Palestine or Sri-Lanka, is limited6. These W of armed conflict, it can occur in cases suggest that conflict-related sexual violence is different forms and to varying extents.
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