“The example we always look back on as the pivotal and most terrible moment in sexual violence was Bosnia,” Di Giovanni tells GLAMOUR. “Women were held in camps in eastern Bosnia, and they were raped up to 16 times a day.” Bosnian Serbs wanted, she says, to “break the gene pool” of Muslim women by making them pregnant – part of an ethnic cleansing strategy.
It was only following the systemic abuse of women during this war in the early 1990s that the UN Security Council officially recognised organised mass rape in times of conflict as a crime against humanity.
Although each crisis has its own dynamics, sexual violence in times of armed conflict is “ubiquitous,” says Joanna Bourke, professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London, and author of Disgrace: Global Reflections on Sexual Violence. “Almost every conflict involves exceptionally high levels of violence against girls and women. The question is, why is this the case?
“You can burn down a village, and there will be post-war reconstruction. But if you violate most of the women in it, you’re completely destabilising the society for generations.”
“The threshold of violence drops extremely low in times of war, and the usual restraints are often no longer there. Legal systems crumble, families get divided, and police and authorities that maintain law and order disintegrate. That leaves a vacuum for acts of sexual violence.” When huge proportions of the population are armed, they have the means to intimidate, she adds, while sexual violence is also used in military conflicts as a way of male bonding or seen as a sense of entitlement of the victors. Ultimately, it’s a way of asserting authority and destroying community ties.
Yet for the vast majority of survivors, their experiences of violence don’t fit the narrative of soldiers raping and pillaging, says Sara Bowcutt, UK Managing Director, Women for Women International.
“Their abusers are likely to be civilians from their own communities. Humanitarian crises disrupt family and social networks, change the roles played by different genders and break down protection structures.” Although there is an epidemic of gender-based violence, men and boys are also targets and are even less likely to report it due to fear of stigmatisation.
Beyond the physical and mental trauma, in many parts of the world, wartime assault brings enormous stigma. “The shame is so grave and so extensive, and that’s why for bad people, it’s a very powerful tool,” says di Giovanni, who interviewed Muslim women in Syria who had been deliberately raped because they were virgins and would then never be able to get married.
The impact can far outlast hostilities, affecting women’s social status and economic prospects. “It’s transgenerational,” she says. “You can burn down a village, and there will be post-war reconstruction. But if you violate most of the women in it, you’re completely destabilising the society for generations.”
“Conflict-related sexual violence has become predictable – but it is preventable.”
Rape and sexual violence in the context of armed conflict are war crimes – but a tradition of impunity reigns, and prosecutions are rare. “During the conflict itself, there are no repercussions for perpetrators,” says Bourke. “But after the conflict as well, there is almost nothing.”
This is something Di Giovanni is trying to change. The Reckoning Project trains conflict journalists and researchers to gather legally admissible testimonies documenting war crimes and crimes against humanity during the invasion of Ukraine – including sexual violence, primarily seen in prisons and detention centres – with the hope of supporting prosecutors. The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine has recorded 235 cases of sexual violence where victims are willing to testify so far.
More people are starting to talk about gender-based violence, says Hillary Margolis, senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Women’s human rights defenders, activists and survivors have been working for decades to make sure that preventing and responding to gender-based violence is seen as an urgent need in any emergency, not just an afterthought or something that is ‘nice to have’.”