The Forgotten Crime: Wartime Rape

Imagine a war scene. It includes combatants, bullets, bombs, and suffering. Nothing about the acts of war is pleasant, but there is one aspect that is consistently overlooked – wartime rape. Wartime rape has been around since the beginning of wars. No matter the circumstances, wartime rape is included in numerous pages of history across the world, but it is a topic that is often overlooked and forgotten. Rape is detrimental in itself; add the fact that it happens as a war defense and that the women who experience it are often overlooked, and what we have results to an injustice – a violation of the basic human rights. These acts are often ignored by history simply because of the nature of the action. Institutions and nations across the world have purposely left the stories of these women from public view, due to the violent and incredibly difficult topic. No one can imagine the situation that these women experience. They are not only victims of rape, but can become socially isolated with children that remind them of the worst experiences of their life. Not to mention the added trauma of extreme health risks such as HIV/AIDS, STD’s, severe genital mutilation, mental and psychological problems, and emotional issues that these acts trigger. These women have suffered a severe injustice; an injustice that needs to finally be recognized.

 

Women who are victims of wartime rape are often over looked in society because of the stigma that is associated with rape and its victims. Particularly in various developing countries, women will experience different levels of exile from the community. In a report by TIME magazine, a woman, Mary, gave her story of struggle. She lived in a tribe named Nuer, in Southern Sudan with her husband and children. According to the soldiers, the Nuer people were rebels of the state and this was their validation for their crimes. The soldiers began by killing her two sons, as they did not want them growing up to become soldiers against the state, along with her husband. “We don’t kill the women and girls,” the soldiers explained to Mary. “They said they would only rape us. As if rape were better than death.” Then the soldiers continued with equally heinous acts. Five soldiers took her 10 year old daughter, Nyalaat, proceeded to hold her down and rape her multiple times, and then turned to Mary, doing the same thing. When looking at her daughter, Mary recalled, “I couldn’t even see my little girl anymore. I could see only blood.” Not many hours later Nyalaat died. “I wanted to die too.”

 

Mary’s story is only one of many. She is a perfect demonstration of what many women face during times of conflict. However, there are variances of these stories that include other heartaches that are not expressed. In wartime, soldiers will use rape to tear apart an entire community. The soldiers will infiltrate a village or community, rape the women, then see the village deplete. As the women become pregnant by the men who raped them, their husbands, or the entire community, will exile the women, as rape has a negative stigma. When the women come full term with their pregnancies, the children that are born are commonly shunned by the husbands of the women and are likely abandoned. The alternative is that their community shuns both the woman and child, leaving both defenseless. Men may abandon the wife and child, and if not, it is not uncommon for domestic violence to occur. According to a woman named Mwira, who had a child from a rape while married, men will often feel ’emasculated’ or ‘guilty’ due to the experience. This leaves the women without family or financial support when caring for a child born out of rape.

 

A crime as old as war itself may seem impossible to solve. Measures have been taken in an attempt to help those affected by wartime rape. To begin, various camps and aid stations have been established to aid women. Within these camps, there have been occurrences of rape and efforts have been made to change this situation by illuminating areas where women travel to gather water and firewood. To alleviate some social stigma, various means of therapy have been established for both the women and their husbands. Ensler, from City of Joy, a six-month residential recovery camp, discussed what it was like to work with the women who had been affected. “City of Joy is not a refuge. It is a center for transformation. We are literally saying that the violence which was done to you can be turned into a motor that makes you [into] a leader, through a process of love, healing therapy and education.” They work to make a positive impact out of a detrimental experience. Programs including the husbands of these women have also been working together to lessen the difficulty of the situation. Mwari, a husband of a rape victim, discusses what his experience was like. “I was so ashamed,” says Mwira. “I thought I was the only one whose wife had been raped. But when I understood that others had the same problems as me, I started to understand that it wasn’t her fault. And by then, I started to come closer to her bit by bit.” There are solutions to these problems. The communities that are destroyed can be rebuilt with the correct techniques for all involved.

 

The true way to solve a crime is to start with the perpetrator, the men raping these women. This is the root of the problem. The men that commit rape to women and girls, some as young as 3 months old, are often uninformed and practicing this because of various ideas associated with their group. In order for this issue to end, all people need to view wartime rape as a crime against humanity rather than a strategy for combatants – as the women, their families, communities, and the children that are born from rape, are all equal, human, and reserve the right to pursue a life free from injustice, humiliation, and violence.

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