Repertoires of conflict-related sexual violence: Introducing the RSVAC data package

Scholars increasingly call for documentation and analysis of specific forms of conflict-related sexual violence. Moreover, accountability for crimes is stronger when specific patterns of victimization are documented. This article introduces the Repertoires of Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict (RSVAC) data package, which assembles reports from 1989 to 2015 of forms of sexual violence by government/states forces, insurgent/rebel organizations, and pro-government militias for each conflict and year. RSVAC compiles the reported prevalence of eight forms of sexual violence – rape, sexual slavery and forced marriage, forced prostitution, sexual mutilation, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization and abortion, non-penetrative sexual torture, and sexual abuse (as well as that of multiple-perpetrator reports of each form). It includes extensive qualitative notes on reported incidents, as well as ‘conflict manuscripts’ that include the relevant portions of source documents. Disaggregating ‘sexual violence’ into its distinct forms enables analysis of the reported presence of forms of sexual violence across time, conflicts, and organizations. We illustrate its usefulness by highlighting hitherto neglected global patterns it suggests, and also discuss limitations, potential biases and underreporting that users need to take into account. We outline several research questions that the data can help answer and suggest how the data package could inform policy efforts to address sexual violence and its consequences.

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A criminal tribunal and a wide-ranging reparation programme is necessary for the victims of sexual violence and torture in Iraq

Torture Journal ◽

10.7146/torture.v29i1.109995 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 29 (1) ◽

pp. 110-124

Author(s):

Bojan Gavrilovic ◽

Stephanie Schweininger

Keyword(s):

Sexual Violence ◽

International Law ◽

Armed Conflict ◽

Islamic State ◽

Sexual Slavery ◽

Primary Object ◽

International Discourse ◽

Forced Prostitution ◽

Legal Frameworks

The frequency and extreme nature of sexual violence committed in Iraq, primarily by the self-declared Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from 2014 onwards, has shocked the international community. Now, four years later, victory over ISIL has been proclaimed but addressing past atrocities and their consequences has barely begun. There is a wide discrepancy between Iraq’s human rights obligations, stressed by the United Nations (UN), and the reality on the ground, shaped by the Iraqi authorities. The present paper aims to highlight this discrepancy by providing an overview of the crimes committed, their qualification under international law, and the efforts of Iraqi authorities to punish those responsible. It will also discuss legal frameworks and the role of the UN, before positing some possible solutions. Object of the inquiry. The primary object of this inquiry is the conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) that has taken place in Iraq since 2014. The term CRSV is used in the international discourse to designate sexual violence occurring during or following armed conflict. UN bodies have set a gravity threshold for defining CRSV—incidents or patterns of acts of sexual violence such as “rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity” (UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict, 2011, p. 3)

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Framing Sexual Violence in Portuguese Colonialism: On Some Practices of Contemporary Cultural Representation and Remembrance

Violence Against Women ◽

10.1177/1077801219869547 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 25 (13) ◽

pp. 1558-1577

Author(s):

Júlia Garraio

Keyword(s):

Sexual Abuse ◽

Sexual Violence ◽

Armed Conflict ◽

Cultural Representation ◽

Close Reading ◽

Victims Of Sexual Abuse ◽

Colonial Violence ◽

Portuguese Colonialism

This essay examines two Portuguese novels about colonialism and its legacies: António Lobo Antunes’s Fado Alexandrino (1983) and Aida Gomes’s Os Pretos de Pousaflores ( The Blacks from Pousaflores) (2011). Fado Alexandrino perpetuates the use of Black women’s raped bodies as a plot device to represent colonial violence, while Gomes’s narrative empowers racialized victims of sexual abuse and challenges dominant public memories of the Colonial War. A close reading of these novels, contextualized against the background of scholarly debates about the representation of sexual violence, exposes both the perils and potential of cultural works to preserve the memory of rape in armed conflict.

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“That’s Not My Daughter”

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199300983.013.39 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Karima Bennoune

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Sexual Violence ◽

Violence Against Women ◽

Armed Conflict ◽

English Language ◽

International Human Rights Law ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Forced Marriage ◽

International Human Rights ◽

Internal Armed Conflict

During Algeria’s internal armed conflict in the 1990s, thousands of women were raped by jihadist groups. There is virtually no English-language documentary record of these crimes—a gap this chapter seeks to fill by documenting the use of sexual violence and forced marriage by fundamentalist armed groups during the conflict. Based on interviews and accounts from Algerian journalists, the chapter records the general phrases of violence against women, the experiences of specific women, and the limited response from families, society, and the state. It explores the complexity of documenting sexual violence in places where the topic is extremely taboo, questioning whether international human rights law and its emphasis on testimony are useful or appropriate in such contexts. It closes with a critique of the politics involved in producing human rights writing and provides suggestions for broadening documentation methodology.

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Daesh’ Atrocities Against Women and Girls and The Necessary Response

Chrześcijaństwo Świat Polityka ◽

10.21697/csp.2020.24.1.24 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 142-154

Author(s):

Ewelina U. Ochab

Keyword(s):

Sexual Abuse ◽

Sexual Violence ◽

Minority Women ◽

Religious Minorities ◽

Sexual Slavery ◽

Women And Girls ◽

Crimes Against Women

Since 2014, Daesh has been perpetrating mass atrocities against the population of Syria and Iraq, and beyond, and especially, crimes targeting religious minorities in Syria and Iraq. These included atrocities specifically targeting women and girls, including, rape, sexual abuse, and sexual slavery, and many more. Nonetheless, Daesh fighters are not being prosecuted for such crimes against women and girls and their (few) prosecutions are being conducted for terror-related offences only. The paper explores the use by Daesh of rape and sexual violence against minority women and girls. It considers some of the evidence of the use of rape and sexual violence in conflict, and most specifically, in the case study regarding the genocide committed by Daesh. It further examines the necessary changes that need to happen to address the issue. This includes an analysis of what legal measures have been taken to date to bring the Daesh perpetrators to justice, and specifically, for their atrocities perpetrated against women and girls.

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Profiting from Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict: A Case for the Resurrection of the Crime of Enforced Prostitution

Chinese Journal of International Law ◽

10.1093/chinesejil/jmaa029 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Nina H B Jørgensen ◽

Regina E Rauxloh

Keyword(s):

Sexual Violence ◽

Human Trafficking ◽

Armed Conflict ◽

Organised Crime ◽

Sexual Slavery ◽

For Profit ◽

The Core

Abstract This article challenges the notion that the crime of enforced prostitution is subsumed by the newer characterisation of sexual slavery. Based on a fresh analysis of the historical jurisprudence, the authors argue that the blameworthy conduct at the core of enforced prostitution distinguishes the crime from sexual slavery because it focuses on the fact that the perpetrator seeks to profit from the coerced sexual acts to which the victims are subjected. Having regard to the context of modern atrocities, this article argues that enforced prostitution is closely tied to organised crime and human trafficking and therefore should be resurrected in such contexts as an appropriate category to target the profiteers of sexual violence who do more than enslave their victims by effectively systematising rape for profit. Rather than being viewed as an outdated offence, enforced prostitution should therefore be more actively considered by prosecutors as a primary or alternative charge in accordance with international principles on cumulative charges and convictions.

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Brutal Harassments against Woman in Last Decade

Shanlax International Journal of Arts, Science and Humanities ◽

10.34293/sijash.v7i4.1626 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 (4) ◽

pp. 107-109

Author(s):

S Vidya

Keyword(s):

Sexual Assault ◽

Sexual Harassment ◽

Sexual Violence ◽

Violence Against Women ◽

Sexual Slavery ◽

The World ◽

The Status ◽

Forced Prostitution ◽

Women In India ◽

Status Of Women

Women are facing serious insecure circumstances in today’s society. Women are being subjected to various sexual harassment like Rape and murder, sexual assault, acid throwing, war rape, sexual violence, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, woman trafficking, and so on. Despite all available strict laws made by the legislature for preventing this violence, it remains pervasive through out the world. Even when stringent punishment were given in these cases, such barbaric activities against women are continuously happening every day in some place in our nation. Every woman who comes out of her home faces any one form of harassment stated above. This paper aims to explore the status of women in India in the last decade. It recollects some of the brutal and aggravated incidents of harassment against women in our country. The paper concludes with a message “Violence against women must never be excused and never be tolerated. Every woman must be respected and protected. It is the responsibility of every human being to STOP SEXUAL HARASSMENT.”

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