Be Used As A Weapon Of War Sexual Violence Research

In spite of long history, wartime sexual violence against women was never recognized as a weapon of war until 1990s. In most cases, it was only regarded as an inevitable side effect of war and thus drew little attention to its seriousness and importance. In post cold war era, more and more wartime sexual violence was revealed extremely brutal and even entailing some strategic purposes. It is only then that the prevalence of such atrocities became an issue in both academia and civil society. Among all of the related cases, sexual violence in post cold war ethnic conflicts are undoubtedly the most prominent ones."Rape as a weapon of war" refers to sexual violence as having a systematic, pervasive, and officially orchestrated aspect, emphasising that rapes are not random acts, but appear to be carried out as deliberate policy. It is a claim that rape, in some contexts is a "political event", located within militaristic or nationalist agendas and requiring substantive analysis and action.In post cold war ethnic conflicts, the utility of sexual violence was mainly on its effectiveness as a means of ethnic cleansing and genocide:on one hand, it can be employed as a tool of forced expulsion, which coerces the innocent civilians to leave their homeland and avoid the recurring humiliation and misery; on the other hand, it may also reshape the cultural spirit and ethnic make-up of the next generation of the targeted group, which not only destroys the social structure and resistance morale of ethnic rivals, but also prohibits the intra-ethnic propagation and spreads HIV and other STD (sexually transmitted diseases) in hostile group.Although the inflicters of most sexual violence are ordinary militants in armed groups, the real planners and beneficiaries of such atrocities are ethnic elites. Two reasons may explain their intentions. First, the timing and conditions of these ethnic wars emphasize the importance of identity construction, which can be easily fulfilled through sexual violence. Also, the high return yet low risk of sexual violence is attractive to those elites, which can be adopted to encourage more ethnic followers never receiving professional military training to join in the hostilities and thus facilitate the escalation and extension of conflicts.It is reasonable to consider the civil war of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the continuing Hutu-Tutsi ethnic conflicts in Kivu areas of DRC as representatives of post cold war ethnic conflicts. In both cases, not only is the number of victims of sexual violence startling, but also the brutal nature and the entailing purposes behind the atrocities have been concerned by the international community. The following thesis tries to make clear of the characteristics of such weaponalized sexual violence and show the roles played by the ethnic elites in these humanitarian tragedies.