science

Wartime sexual violence

Wartime sexual violence is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Wartime sexual violence rather than just read about it. In short: Wartime sexual violence is rape or other forms of sexual violence committed by combatants during an armed conflict, war, or military occupation. This type of violence is often committed as spoils of war, but in the case of ethnic conflict, the phenomenon has broader sociological motivations.

Key takeaways

Wartime sexual violence belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Wartime sexual violence to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Wartime sexual violence from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Wartime sexual violence is rape or other forms of sexual violence committed by combatants during an armed conflict, war, or military occupation. This type of violence is often committed as spoils of war, but in the case of ethnic conflict, the phenomenon has broader sociological motivations. During periods of armed conflict, cases of sexual violence may encompass a range of behaviors, including gang rape and rape with the use of objects. It is distinct from sexual harassment and sexual assaults and rape committed amongst troops in military service. During war and armed conflict, rape is frequently used as a means of psychological warfare in order to humiliate and terrorize the enemy. Wartime sexual violence may occur in a variety of situations, including institutionalized sexual slavery, wartime sexual violence associated with specific battles or massacres, as well as individual or isolated acts of sexual violence. Rape can also be recognized as genocide when it is committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a targeted group. International legal instruments for prosecuting perpetrators of genocide were developed in the 1990s, and the Akayesu case of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, between the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia and itself, which themselves were "pivotal judicial bodies [in] the larger framework of transitional justice", was "widely lauded for its historical precedent in successfully prosecuting rape as an instrument of genocide". According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the following acts are classified as crimes against humanity and as war crimes: rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity.

Definition

There is no consensus definition of wartime sexual violence, as there is variance in what forms of violence are included in the definition and variance in which violence is considered conflict-related. The terms rape, sexual assault and sexual violence are frequently used interchangeably. The Explanatory Note of the Rome Statute, which binds the International Criminal Court, defines rape as follows:

The perpetrator invaded the body of a person by conduct resulting in penetration, however slight, of any part of the body of the victim or of the perpetrator with a sexual organ, or of the anal or genital opening of the victim with any object or any other part of the body. and

The invasion was committed by force, or by threat of force or coercion, such as that caused by fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or abuse of power, against such person or another person, or by taking advantage of a coercive environment, or the invasion was committed against a person incapable of giving genuine consent. The concept of "invasion" is intended to be broad enough to be gender-neutral and the definition is understood to include situations where the victim may be incapable of giving genuine consent if affected by natural, induced or age-related incapacity. A prominent data-set on conflict-related sexual violence, Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict (SVAC), builds on the ICC definition and covers seven forms of violence: "(a) rape, (b) sexual slavery, (c) forced prostitution, (d) forced pregnancy, (e) forced sterilization/abortion, (f) sexual mutilation, and (g) sexual torture". The data-set defines conflict-related sexual violence as the sexual violence committed by "armed actors (specifically, state militaries, rebel groups, and progovernment militias) during periods of conflict or immediately postconflict", thus excluding sexual violence by civilians. More expansive definitions may define wartime sexual violence as being committed even by civilians if the conflict creates a sense of impunity. In 2009, the UN established a mandate and adopted SCR 1888 resolution 2009 to tackle conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) as a peace and security issue and related violations. CRSV refers to rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage, trafficking in persons when committed in situations of conflict for the purpose of sexual violence/exploitation and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls or boys that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict.

History of laws against sexual assault during war

Prosecution of rapists in war crime tribunals was rare prior to the late 1990s. Kelly Dawn Askin, the senior legal officer at the Open Society Foundation, argued that the lack of explicit recognition of war rape in international law or applicable humanitarian law can not be used as a defense by a perpetrator of war rape. Laws and customs of war prohibit offenses such as "inhuman treatment" or "indecent assaults", adding to this domestic military codes and domestic civil codes (national law) may make sexual assault a crime. In 1999, humanitarian law concerned the maltreatment of civilians and "any devastation not justified by military necessity".

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Wartime sexual violence: De jure belli ac pacis, title page from the first edition of 1625. — De jure belli ac pacis, title page from the first edition of 1625.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Wartime sexual violence

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Wartime sexual violence claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Wartime sexual violence before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Wartime sexual violence ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Wartime sexual violence

In research: Wartime sexual violence appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Wartime sexual violence in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Wartime sexual violence is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Crimes against women, Sex crimes, Sexual misconduct, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Wartime sexual violence outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Wartime sexual violence in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Wartime sexual violence means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Wartime sexual violence out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Wartime sexual violence in simple terms?

Why does Wartime sexual violence matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Wartime sexual violence?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Wartime sexual violence.