On the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: Rape is a War Crime

Every year on June 19, publishing on sexual violence in conflict zones intensifies, and demands for its elimination and achieving justice for victims/survivors are renewed.

Although the use of sexual violence as a weapon in wars and armed conflict is as old as history, it was not recognized as a “war crime” until 2008.

For us as women in Arabic-speaking countries and the Global South, the nightmare of sexual violence during wars and conflicts is recurring.

Dictatorial and colonial regimes use sexual violence as a political and social weapon against women and girls. They then use the social blame placed on survivors and victims to deepen their sense of shame of their bodies and to enjoy impunity.

As a form of gender-based violence, sexual violence is a result of the patriarchal structure. The bodies of women and individuals, especially from marginalized groups, are seen as a source for producing notions of so-called “honor”, shame, and the culture of rape and blame while the perpetrators remain unaccountable.

Sexual violence is a declaration of war on women’s bodies

Sexual assault is generally considered one of the most dangerous violent means aimed at humiliating, suppressing, and spreading terror. Throughout history, it has been used as a means of intimidation and subjugation of women, girls, and bodies classified as “the other” or “the enemy”. It was normalized and used as a weapon of war in conflicts and wars.

The use of sexual violence as a weapon of war dates back to ancient histories since the patriarchal system took control and classified bodies according to economic and political gender hierarchies.

Since women’s bodies have been considered private property, discourses and forms of violence aimed at controlling their bodies have prevailed. Women’s bodies were regarded by patriarchy as “objects” that could elevate or humiliate men who possessed them.

Thus, when patriarchy began to use sexual violence as a tool to spread fear, warlords were able to make sexual violence a fixed tenet of their war.

A soldier can loot and kill those classified as “the enemy.” But for men engaged in the “business of war”, the weapon of sexual assault was and still is the most successful tactic, to terrorize the population and destroy life and stability.

The aggressors, especially in situations of conflict and war, bet on the patriarchal structure that blames women and holds them responsible for crimes committed against them, in the absence of the values of justice and accountability. Thus, victims/survivors are ostracized, which contributes to further dispersion and persecution.

Therefore, the systematic and individual use of sexual assault during wars is an instrument of destruction, humiliation, and oppression. It creates a situation of horror, harm, and trauma.

Rape, the most horrific war crime

The use of sexual assault as a weapon of war is linked to the patriarchal intellectual structure that presents women’s bodies as arenas for the exercise of power and as one of its most important strongholds. The authority and laws of patriarchy revolve around women’s bodies, as they represent a position in the hierarchy of power.

Rape during wars and armed violence is the most brutal mechanism of domination over bodies, an attempt to control them, and infliction of material and moral harm on the other who is considered an “enemy”.
Despite its horrific effects on victims/survivors and war-struck communities, it remains a secondary topic in discussions of war and its physical and moral repercussions on people’s lives. Most of these discussions are limited to killing, displacement, destruction of infrastructure, foreign policy, and obstruction of capital.

Sexual abuse in contexts of war and armed conflict has left intergenerational harm. Survivors/victims have rarely been compensated with any kind of justice or integrated into its processes. This is because these paths are confined to signing agreements favorable exclusively to those who benefit from the gender and class hierarchies of the disputants.

Sexual violence in the context of the Arabic-speaking region

The Arabic-speaking region has known the use of sexual assault as a weapon of war, a tool of repression against women and women activists during revolutions and protests. It may be difficult to attribute a historical period of the beginning of this violence to the political contexts of this region.

However, with the start of the decolonization movements, the occupation forces used sexual violence against indigenous women. Perhaps the most documented about this era was France’s sexual crimes against Algerian women and women activists. The Zionist colonial regime’s practice of rape against Palestinian women has also been documented.

The most prominent of these documents is what Suhad Nassif describes as the use of Zionist colonialism for sexual assault. “Rape and other forms of sexual violence against Palestinian women have long been a factor in the settler colonial state’s attempts to destroy and exclude Palestinian women from their land,” she says.

The Moroccan occupation has not refrained from using sexual assault against Sahrawi women rebels since its invasion of their lands in 1975, up until the sexual assault of Sahrawi activist Sultana Khaya in 2021. The Moroccan occupation has betted for years on a patriarchal culture that remains silent in the wake of these attacks. This has resulted in the absence of serious documentation of these crimes, which are no less violative than the systematic crimes of genocide against the Sahrawi people.

The use of sexual assault as a method of political torture has escalated in recent years, especially after the popular protests that were named by the Western Academy as the “Arab Spring”. Sexual violence as a weapon against women has emerged intensively in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, and Tunisia.

The testimonies of Syrian women survivors of Bashar al-Assad’s horrific detention tell of the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war against them. They were subjected to sexual abuse, including rape, harassment, and torture with sexual violence.

The use of retaliatory sexual abuse against Syrian women by the Assad regime was a patriarchal bet par excellence. After their release from prison, survivors/victims were subjected to patriarchal stigma from society and family. They were also subjected to social isolation, adding to the accretion of harm to them.

The war in Sudan is a war on the bodies of women and girls

In a similar vein, the war in Sudan was the continuation of decades of using sexual violence as a weapon of war against women and girls. Dozens of cases of rape of women and minor girls by the Janjaweed militia have been recorded.

These cases emerged after the RSF stormed homes and used sexual assault against women and girls. Checkpoints and streets have also witnessed the same criminal practices.

This crime is not new to the RSF. It was used by the Sudanese army during the former regime’s war on the Darfur region. During this period, there was an escalation in sexual violence against women and minors, at a horrific rate in which the victims have not yet received justice.

Sexual violence in wars wouldn’t come to an end before ending patriarchy

The use of sexual assault in conflicts and wars cannot be separated from its use in the daily life of patriarchal societies. Sexual assault is a social and political epidemic propagated and perpetuated by patriarchy. Communities reconciled with it and aggressively sided against its victims, rather than holding its perpetrators accountable and convicting them.

This makes it impossible to address this systematic crime, without a real stand against patriarchy and rape culture.

Therefore, we believe that any serious action on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict will only achieve its endeavor by recognizing that patriarchy in political and social systems is the main cause.

As well as by the social and political recognition that sexual violence in the context of war is no less egregious than the use of nuclear and chemical weapons. Sexual assault is a war crime, a crime against humanity, and all those who committed it must be held accountable, and it must not be extinguished by statute of limitations.

We continue to fight for a safe world for women, girls, and all members of society, driven by our feminist commitment. We are aware that achieving this requires a struggle against patriarchy and confronting its violent culture. On top of it are the cultures of rape and blame, which are rooted in the collective and political consciousness.