| This dissertation asserts that systematic sexual violence was used as public policy by the Serbian government in Bosnia during the conflict of 1992-1995 to effect ethnic cleansing and genocide. Systematic sexual violence must be recognized as public policy in order for the global community to advance appropriate recommendations regarding the levels at which (in addition to individuals) institutions, organizations and particularly governments should be held accountable. Further, when governments not only fail in their responsibility to protect citizens but actually commit crimes against citizens, survivors are betrayed by the very institutions to which they look for protection. Public policy is indelibly linked to the actions of governments. Recognizing systematic sexual violence as public policy acknowledges the seriousness of that betrayal and is imperative to foster both personal and social healing. First, the dissertation develops a framework of policy dimensions consisting of the concepts of government initiation, public interest, actors and institutions, intent and goals, complicity and sanction, instruments and tools, and targets. Then, case study methodology is used to investigate records documenting the case of systematic sexual violence in Bosnia. By comparing the results of those investigations to the policy framework, the dissertation concludes that in Bosnia in the 1990s, systematic sexual violence was used as public policy. Sexual violence was systematically perpetrated on a mass scale by government-sanctioned agents, and administered using governmental organizational mechanisms. By discussing what has happened and is happening, to whom, and how, we can understand that systematic sexual violence is being used as a policy, how such a policy may be implemented and what its goals may be. We can also acknowledge the policy goals--such as ethnic nationalism, genocide and ethnic cleansing--associated with this policy of abuse and view systematic sexual violence as a critical part of overall concerted strategies to effect those policy goals. |
