Peace Research Institute Oslo

The elephant in the room:

Sexual violence in war

Presentation 11 November PRIO

Inger Skjelsbæk

What do we know about sexual violence in wars before the 1990s?

–Documentation from several conflicts (WWII, Bangladesh, Vietnam, the Americas, Africa, Asia)

–Diverse and incomparable documentation

–Sexual violence in war was not necessarily a hidden phenomenon but it was understudied and it was not the focus of political analyses.

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New questions emerging in the 1990s

• What does sexual violence in armed conflict mean for the larger conflict pattern?

• How does sexual violence in armed conflict affect international peace and secutrity?

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Turning events in the 1990s: the Bosnian war and Rwandan genocide

• New and increased attention

• New and increased documentation • New conceptualization

• New preparedness for dealing with the phenomenon

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Turning points in the 1990s:International Criminal Prosecution

• 25 May 1993 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 827, which formally established the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

• The ICTY was the first war crimes court established by the United Nations, and the first international war crimes tribunal to be set up since the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals after World War II.

• The tribunal is temporary, ad hoc, and has limited jurisdiction—covering the entire territories of the former Yugoslavia, including Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Macedonia.

• The overall aim of the tribunal is to hold major perpetrators accountable for the most serious crimes, although low- and mid-level perpetrators have also been prosecuted

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Definitions of sexual crimes within international criminal law

• Rape• Sexual Slavery• Enforced Prostitution• Forced pregnancy• Enforced Sterilization

(1)Crimes Against Humanity, Art 7 (1) (g)(2)War Crimes, Art 8 (2) (b) (xii), (e), (vi)(3)Genocide, Art 6

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Since 2000: International Attention in the UN

• Four United Nations Security Council Resolutions

– 1325 (2000)– 1889 (2008)– 1820 (2008)– 1888 (2009)– Special Respresentative of the Secretary

General (SRSG)

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Status Quo

• The understanding of sexual violence in war has gone from being under-documented, under-analyzed and misunderstood as a private affair, to being documented and analysed more than ever before, and is now part of the discourse and conceptualizations of international peace and security.

• This is nothing less than a minor revolution, but the renewed focus brings multiple dilemmas and concerns to the fore which policy-makers and researchers need to address.

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Themes that are not covered in the literature

• Children born of war• Reproductive health• Sexual violence against men• Methods to combat stigmatization• Ways in which political discourses leading up to

conflict are gendered• Perpetrators of sexual violence

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What to document?

(1) Should we document sexual violence only during the war years, or also after?

(2) Should we document sexual violence where the perpetrator is armed and in uniform and the victims are civilians, or also other victim/perpetrator relationships?

(3) Domestic violence: Is this part of the research and policy agenda?

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How to document?

• Ethical and methodological dilemmas:

(1) How do we ask possible victims whether they have had this experience and, equally important, who should ask and in which settings?

(2) Can aid workers ask in refugee settlements? (3) Can we set up facilities in war settings where rape

victims can get help and thereby also be documented?

(4) Can we carry out surveys, and, if so, how?

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Why more documentation?

(1) In order to help victims better?

(2) In order to prosecute perpetrators in a way that will deter potential future perpetrators?

(3) In order to follow-up children conceived through

rape?

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Peace Research Institute Oslo

Thank you

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