According to Mavis Matladi, the president of the Pan African Women’s Conference, today “it is more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier” in times of conflict. Whilst soldiers are treated in society as war heroes, honoured and celebrated, the women and girls who suffer at the hands of war are stigmatized. They face discrimination and ostracism from their communities, along with the threat of further violence. Sexual violence is only just being internationally recognized as an intentional and systematic weapon of war, targeted and deliberate. It has often been regarded as an inevitable by product of conflict, regularly ignored or side-lined in peace talks, however, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is attempting to change this through their “Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Campaign” which includes 16 days of activism.
The statistics on the use of rape as a weapon of war are as shocking as they are horrifying. 90% of casualties in modern conflict are civilians, the majority of whom are women and children. Of these, many will have been victims of sexual violence. Recent examples include the thousands of rapes reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo in a recent period where up to 50% of the rape survivors were under the age of 17 and 10% were under the age of 10. When we talk about sexual violence and rape in war it is easy to think that it is just directed towards women and men, but it’s not. Many children are suffering such atrocities.
Sexual violence in war is not just an isolated incident, the effects of it do not end along with the conflict, they continue throughout the survivor’s life, having profound consequences upon the individuals, their families and the wider community. Research shows the unequivocal link between sexual violence and HIV/AID’s, for example, 67% of rape survivors in Rwanda were subsequently found to be HIV positive. With a lack of medical resources and limited access to health care for many in war torn nations, this proves to be a slow death sentence. Many women who are raped during conflict become pregnant, leading to a rise in unsafe abortions, many of which are fatal. For the women or girls who continue with the pregnancy, their children face neglect, stigmatization or worse. But it’s not just the physical consequences of rape which these women and girls have to face. When they return home they are often denied justice, stigmatized and ostracised from their communities. The husbands and partners of the women often feel ashamed, or face pressure from their communities and this results regularly in divorce or verbal and physical abuse.
For the women and girls who are victims of sexual violence during conflict, their suffering does not end with a peace treaty. Hopefully though, the tide will be turning, with a greater international awareness of sexual violence within conflict this is likely to mean a more concerted effort to prevent it and bring the perpetrators to justice. The UK is planning to use its presidency of this years G8 summit to bring attention to the issue and to implement a UN plan of action. The UK has already set up a specialist team of experts to be deployed to conflict areas to support the UN missions and local civil society; responding to the urgent need for people who are trained and focus solely upon helping victims of sexual violence. This team contains 70 people and is set to be deployed later this year. Whilst this is not enough, hopefully it is the first step towards a more concerted effort by the UN and world leaders in realising and acting upon the profound and lasting devastation that sexual violence causes, not just to the individual, but to wider communities too.
Photo credits: Unicef, Foreign and Commonwealth Office