Rape of women during wartime
Recent rapes. International law.
Courts. Books and articles
Rape during recent wars and civil unrests:
|More than 20,000 Muslim girls and women were raped during the
religiously-motivated atrocities in the former Yugoslavia in Bosnia. This was mainly
during an organized Serbian program of cultural genocide. One goal was to make
the women pregnant, and raising their children as Serbs. 1
Another was to terrorize women so that they would flee from their land.|
|It has been estimated that Iraqi soldiers raped at least 5,000 Kuwaiti
women during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. 2|
|During the civil war in Rwanda: "One United Nations report estimated that as many as 500,000 women and
girls suffered brutal forms of sexual violence , including gang-rape and sexual mutilation, after which many of them
were killed." 3|
|According to a UNESCO article: "In Algeria, the women of entire villages have been raped and killed.
The government estimates that about 1,600 girls and young women have been
kidnapped to become sexual slaves by roving bands from armed Islamic groups."
|One source referred to rape of Tamil women in Sri Lanka and of women in
Somalia, Haiti, Kashmir and Peru. 3,4,5|
|Another source referred to rape "in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Cyprus,
Haiti, Liberia, Somalia and Uganda." 6|
|A resolution of the United Methodist Church mentioned rape in the
Republic of Georgia. 7|
International law concerning rape during wartime:
Current international laws that deal rape are mainly contained in four
|The 1949 Geneva Conventions|
|The 1977 Supplementary Protocols of the Geneva Conventions|
|The body of law from the Nuremberg Tribunal held at the close of
World War II|
|The Military Tribunal of the Far East. 3|
Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that "women shall
be especially protected against any attack on their honour, in particular
against rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault."
Countries are required to punish "grave breaches" of the Geneva
Conventions and Protocols in their own national courts. Article 147 of the
Fourth Geneva Convention includes, as grave breaches, any actions
willfully committed that cause great suffering or serious injury to body or
Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions prohibits "violence
to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel
treatment and torture" as well as "outrages upon personal dignity, in
particular humiliating and degrading treatment."
Protocol II Additional to the Geneva Conventions murder as well as
cruel treatment such as torture, mutilation and outrages upon personal dignity
-- in particular humiliating and degrading treatment, rape, enforced
prostitution and any form of indecent assault, as well as slavery and the slave
trade in all their forms.
Rape was listed in Article 6 of the Nuremberg Charter as a "Crime
At the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda, the rape of Tutsi
women was found to constitute torture when it was "by or at the
instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or
others person acting in an official capacity."
Recently, rape during armed conflict has received a higher priority
have been commenced in the International Court of Justice by Bosnia Hercegovina,
criminal proceedings in the domestic courts of, for example, France, Germany and
the Bosnian Military Tribunal in Sarajevo, civil actions in the USA... and of
course the establishment of a International Criminal Tribunal in the former
In spite of the strong resistance by the U.S. government, the new permanent International Criminal Court will give
future women victims of rape an opportunity to initiate lawsuits against their attackers
and obtain justice. The existence of the Court will hopefully cause combatants to
fear future prosecution, and thus deter future mass rapes.
Books and articles concerning rape during wartime:
|Thomas S. Abler, "Scalping, torture, cannibalism and rape: An
ethno-historical analysis of conflicting cultural values in war,"
Anthropologica 34, pp. 3-20, (1992). |
|Christine Ball, "Women, rape, and war: patriarchal functions and
ideologies," Atlantis 12, pp. 83-92, (1986).|
|Susan Brooks Thistlehwaite, " 'You may enjoy the spoil of your
enemies:' rape as a Biblical metaphor for war," Semeia 61, pp. 59, (1993).
|Marlene Epp, "The memory of violence: Soviet and East European
Mennonite refugees and rape in the Second World War," Journal of Women's
History 9, pp. 58-87, (1997-8).|
|Pamela Gordon, "Women, war and metaphor: language and society in the
study of the Hebrew Bible," Semeia 61 (1993).|
|Anita Grossmann, "A question of silence: the rape of German women by
occupation soldiers," October 72, pp. 54-55 (1995).|
|Gullance Nicoletta, "Sexual violence and family honor: British
propaganda and international law during the First World War," American
Historical Review 102, pp. 714-747, (1997).|
|Ruth Harris, "The child of the barbarian: rape, race and nationalism in
France during the First World War," Past & Present 141, pp. 170-206,
|Stanley Rosenman, "The spawning grounds of the Japanese rapists on
Nanking," Journal of Psychohistory 28: pp. 2-23, (2000).|
|Louise Ryan, " 'Drunken tans:' Representations of sex and violence in
the Anglo-Irish war (1919-1921)," Feminist Review 66: pp. 73-94, (2000).
|Ruth Seifert, "The second front: the logic of sexual violence in wars,"
Women's Studies International Forum 19: pp. 35-43, (1996). |
|Hsu-ming Teo, "The continuum of sexual violence in occupied Germany,"
1945-49," Women's History Review 5: pp. 191-218, (1996). |
International courts which have or will deal with cases of rape:
The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above
essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.
- Dahlia Gilboa, "Mass Rape: War on Women," at:
- Valerie Oosterveld, "When women are the spoils of war," UNESCO, at:
- "International Law Relating to Rape in Armed Conflict,"
- "Tamil Centre for Human Rights," at:
- "Human Rights Watch Global Report on Women's Human Rights,"
- "Sexual violence as a weapon of war," UNICEF, at:
- "Rape in Times of Conflict and War: A resolution from the General Board
of Global Ministries approved by the 1996 General Conference of The United
Methodist Church," at:
- Maria B. Olujic, "Women, Rape, and War: The Continued Trauma of
Refugees and Displaced Persons in Croatia," Anthropology of East Europe
Review, Volume 13, No. 1 Spring, 1995; Special Issue: Refugee Women of the
- From: Stefan Blaschke, "History of Rape: A Bibliography," at:
Copyright © 2002 to 2009 by Ontario Consultants on Religious
Originally written: 2002-OCT-30
Latest update: 2009-NOV-08
Author: B.A. Robinson