The freedom press, the democratization of the social
media and the growing body of data from the wars are bringing into the light
the sexual violation and torture of civilian women and girls during periods of
armed conflict. This issue had been generally ignored by historians,
politicians and the rest of world even it exists since the Ancient Greek, Roman
Empire and is a manifestation of the low value
of the women nature and their rights.
The situation has come to the discussion
as a result of a big effort provoked in part by the media coverage of the
sexual atrocities committed during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia where
were an estimation of 20.000 to 50.000 women raped during war and the Rwanda
Genocide with 250.000 to 500.000 women raped and enslaved and after decades of
intensive awareness-raising by women’s activists around the world. (Ward, J. Marsh, M. 2006).
“The term
“conflict-related sexual violence” refers to rape, sexual slavery, forced
prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced
marriage and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity
perpetrated against women, men, girls or boys that is directly or indirectly
linked (temporally, geographically or causally) to a conflict. This link with
conflict may be evident in the profile of the perpetrator (often affiliated
with a State or non-State armed group), the profile of the victim (who is
frequently a member of a persecuted political, ethnic or religious minority),
the climate of impunity (which is generally associated with State collapse),
cross-border consequences (such as displacement or trafficking in persons)
and/or violations of the terms of a ceasefire agreement” (United Nations, 2016.
Pg. 1).
Some numbers and dates:
Sexual Slavery against women has been one of the most used war weapon
trough the History; another cases are the Liberia conflict in 1989 characterized by
ethnic killings and massive abuses against the civilian population between 1989
and 1997 and again in 2003 and 2004 where female combatants experienced sexual
violence (Johnson, K., Asher, J.,
Rosborough, S., Raja, A., Panjabi, R., Beadling, C., & Lawry, L. 2008). “In 1993, the Zenica Centre for the Registration
of War and Genocide Crime in Bosnia Herzegovina had documented 40,000 cases of
war-related rape, during the Rwandan
genocide the 39% women surveyed in 1999, reported being raped during the 1994
genocide, and 72% declared they knew someone who had been raped; in the Kosovan
Albanian conflict there’s an estimated 23,200 to 45,600 women who were raped
between August 1998 and August 1999 in the hardest time at the Serbia’s
conflict; During and following a rebel offensive launched in 1998 on the
capital city of Brazzaville, in the Republic of Congo, approximately 2,000
women sought out medical treatment for sexual violence, 10 percent of whom
reported rape-related pregnancies, the United Nations officials estimate that
the real number of women who were raped in Brazzaville during this single wave
of violence was closer to 5,000. Based on the outcomes of a study undertaken in
2000, researchers concluded that approximately 50,000 to 64,000 internally
displaced women may have been sexually victimized during Sierra Leones
protracted armed conflict. The 19% of 1,575 Burundian women surveyed by the
United Nations Population Fund in 2004 had been raped; 40% had heard about or
had witnessed the rape of a minor. Of a sample of 410 internally displaced
Colombian women in Cartagena who were surveyed in 2003, 8% reported some form
of sexual violence prior to being displaced, and 11% reported being abused
since their displacement” (Ward, J., &
Marsh, M. 2006, pg.1). Many instances can be found following the line from Burma in the mid of the 1990s, violations against women by Russian
soldiers in Chechnya assaulted in February 2000 and finally in Latin America,
in Colombia where the currently paramilitary control of some regions often
includes sexual violence and torture of women and girls.
The common
fact is the intimidation campaigns that are carried out on their bodies, as in
one of many cases reported in 2001 to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on
Violence Against Women. (Ward, J. Marsh, M. 2006 Pg.2)
More recent cases are DAESH/ ISIS and its sexual enslave practice in Syria and
Boko Haram in Nigeria (Walker, A. 2012) and the Chibok
female students kidnapped since the night of 14 to 15 April in 2014.
“Since the latter half of the last century, combat
primarily limited to military engagements between national armies has been
largely supplanted by civil wars and regional conflicts that pit communities
along racial, religious and/or ethnic lines. The result is that civilian
populations are victimized on a massive scale. Although overall more men than
women continue to die as a result of conflict, women and girls suffer myriad
debilitating consequences of war. So much so, according to a 2002 report of the
Secretary-General of the United Nations, that women and children are
disproportionately targets and constitute the majority of all victims of
contemporary armed conflicts” (Ward, J. Marsh, M. 2006 Pg.2)
“Sexual
violence may also be systematic, carried out by fighting forces for the
explicit purpose of destabilizing populations and destroying bonds within
communities and families. In these instances, rape is often a public act, aimed
to maximize humiliation and shame”. (Ward, J. Marsh, M. 2006 Pg.4) women’s bodies because of their
reproductive capacity represents the social body and they have the special role of
give birth, take care of the family (the descendants that can resist the
violence in the future) and were converted into military objects.
The Stop Rape
Now, a special United Nation Program against sexual violence in conflict unites the work of 13 UN entities with the goal of
ending sexual violence in conflict. It is a concerted effort by the UN system
to improve coordination and accountability, amplify programming and advocacy,
and support national efforts to prevent sexual violence and respond effectively
to the needs of survivors. (United Nations, 2016)
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