Genocidal rape

Some scholars argue that the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide should state that mass rape is a genocidal crime.{{sfn|Sharlach|2000|pp=89–102}} Other scholars argue that genocidal rape is already included in the definition under article two"...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

:(a) Killing members of the group;

:(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

:(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

:(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

:(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2" of the convention.{{sfn|Miller|2009|p=53}}{{sfn|Totten|Bartrop|2007|p=159}} Catharine MacKinnon argues that the victims of genocidal rape are used as a substitute for the entire ethnic group, that rape is used as a tool, with the target being the destruction of the entire ethnic group.{{sfn|MacKinnon|2006|pp=209–233}}

Siobhan Fisher has argued that forced impregnation and not the rape itself constitutes genocide. She says, "Repeated rape alone is still 'just' rape, but rape with the intent to impregnate is something more."{{sfn|Sharlach|2000|pp=92–93}}{{sfn|Bisaz|2012|pp=90–91}} Lisa Sharlach argues that this definition is too narrow because these mass rapes should not be defined as genocide based solely on those raped having been forcibly impregnated.{{sfn|Sharlach|2000|pp=92–93}}

{{Main|International framework of sexual violence}} Per the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1820 (declared on 2008) rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide.{{cite web |date=19 June 2008 |title=Resolution 1820 (2008) Adopted by the Security Council at its 5916th meeting, on 19 June 2008 |url=https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/CAC%20S%20RES%201820.pdf |access-date=17 October 2022 |publisher=United Nations}}

According to Amnesty International, the use of rape during times of war is not a by-product of conflicts but rather a pre-planned and deliberate military strategy.{{sfn|Smith-Spark|2012}} In the last quarter of a century, the majority of conflicts have shifted from wars between nation states to communal and intrastate civil wars. During these conflicts the use of rape as a weapon against the civilian population by state and non-state actors has become more frequent. Journalists and human rights organizations have documented campaigns of genocidal rape during conflicts in former Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Liberia, Sudan, Uganda, and during the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.{{sfn|Leaning|Bartels|Mowafi|2009|p=174}}

The strategic aims of these mass rapes are twofold. The first is to instill terror in the civilian population, with the intent to forcibly dislocate them from their land."In the context of genocide [...] violence against women may be aimed at the

destruction of the integrity of the group through its women, who embody its genetic

and cultural continuity."{{sfn|Derderian|2005|p=1}} Targeted rape has also been used to force those who might resist genocide into submission.{{sfn|Derderian|2005|pp=5-6}} The second is to degrade the chance of possible return and reconstitution by having inflicted humiliation and shame on the targeted population and to decrease social cohesion of a targeted group. These effects are strategically important for non-state actors, as it is necessary for them to remove the targeted population from the land. Rape as genocide is often used for campaigns which involve ethnic cleansing and genocide, as the objective is to destroy, or forcefully remove the target population, and ensure they do not return.{{sfn|Leaning|Bartels|Mowafi|2009|p=174}}

One objective of genocidal rape is forced pregnancy, so that the aggressing actor not only invades the targeted population's land, but their bloodlines and families as well. However, those unable to bear children are also subject to sexual assault. Victims' ages can range from children to women in their eighties.{{Cite web|url=http://www.genocidewatch.com/ten-stages-of-genocide|title=Genocide Watch- Ten Stages of Genocide|access-date=1 August 2019|archive-date=1 August 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190801173303/http://www.genocidewatch.com/ten-stages-of-genocide|url-status=dead}}{{sfn|Smith|2013|p=94}}

{{Main|Wartime sexual violence}}

File:Babesheea.png's description: "the Armenian women and girls are generally very beautiful. Looking at you is the dark [and] beautiful face of Babesheea who was robbed by Kurds, raped, and freed only after ten days; like a wild beast the Turkish soldiers, officers, soldiers, and gendarmes swept down on this welcome prey. All the crimes that had ever been committed against women, were committed here. They cut off their breasts, mutilated their limbs, and their corpses lay naked, defiled, or blackened by the heat on the fields."{{cite book |last1=Ihrig |first1=Stefan |author-link1=Stefan Ihrig |title=Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismark to Hitler |date=2016 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-50479-0 |language=en|pages=200–201}}]]

Rape was widespread during the Armenian Genocide, which was committed by the Ottoman Turks. During the death marches of Armenian civilians through Anatolia in 1915, Turkish soldiers frequently raped and killed Armenian women and children. In many cases, Turkish and Kurdish civilians also participated in these crimes.{{Cite web |last=Barsoumian |first=Nanore |date=2011-12-07 |title='Devilish Marks' and Rape in the Time of Genocide |url=https://armenianweekly.com/2011/12/07/devilish-marks/ |access-date=2022-10-13 |website=The Armenian Weekly |language=en-US}} Turks took Armenian women and girls into sexual slavery or forced them into marriage. Those women forced into marriage also had to convert to Islam.{{sfn|Derderian|2005|p=2}} Some perpetrators believed that women and girls could be successfully assimilated into Muslim Turkish culture, unlike men and boys.{{sfn|Derderian|2005|p=4}} After the genocide ended, women and girls who had been forced into marriage often could not return to their former lives. They had no family left, no source of income, or otherwise feared the stigma of having married a Turk.{{sfn|Derderian|2005|pp=13-14}} Additionally, Turks publicly raped the wives, daughters, and other female relatives of important Armenian men. In addition to dehumanizing the victims, these targeted rapes intimidated the Armenian leadership into submission and dissuaded them from resisting.{{sfn|Derderian|2005|pp=5-6}} Some Armenian women and girls were sold as sex slaves. The Turkish soldiers stripped them naked and displayed them at auction. Their nudity in a conservative society served to further dehumanize them and strip them of agency. Many were forced into marriage or prostitution.{{sfn|Derderian|2005|pp=10-11}}

During the Greek genocide, another of the late Ottoman genocides, Turkish troops and civilians abducted Greek village women and raped them for hours or days. Turkish villagers raped one woman for eight days in a row; she died soon after. One man, who protested the violation of his wife, was sodomized.{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|p=386}} In the Pontos region, bands of brigands led by Topal Osman went from village to village, plundering, raping women, and killing at will. As in the Armenian genocide, it was common for Turkish troops to kill the men and rape the women; the women often died later during the long marches to Syria. Massacres were especially prevalent along the Black Sea coast while the Russians invaded and the Turkish troops fell back. In one Pontic village, dozens of women and girls leapt into a river to avoid rape. Turkish troops rounded up women at Vazelon Monastery, a Greek Orthodox monastery, and raped them before killing them..{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|p=389}} Many women and girls were also raped during the death marches to Syria.{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|p=390}}

During Sayfo, or the Assyrian genocide, Turkish soldiers followed the same pattern: they massacred the young men and deported the women, children, and elderly. Many women were raped during deportation or sold to Muslim civilians as sex slaves.{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|p=372}} Women were abducted and forced to convert to Islam.{{sfn|Gaunt|Atto|Barthoma|2017|p=25}} In Urmia, which had a large Assyrian population before the genocide, both Turkish and Kurdish civilians raped or abducted Assyrian girls.{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|p=378}} In one village, perpetrators subjected girls as young as eight to rape;{{sfn|Yacoub|2016|p=158}} in another, girls as young as six or seven who had been hiding on a rooftop were raped.{{sfn|Yacoub|2016|p=42}} Many rape victims later died. Turkish irregulars raped some women as they were dying.{{sfn|Gaunt|Atto|Barthoma|2017|p=156}}

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), it is estimated that in 2011 alone there were 400,000 rapes.{{sfn|Poloni-Staudinger|Ortbals|2012|p=21}} In the DRC, genocidal rape is focused on the destruction of family and communities. An interview with a survivor gave an account of gang rape, forced cannibalism of a fetus taken from an eviscerated woman, and child murder.{{sfn|Joeden-Forgey|2010|p=74}}

During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, members of the Pakistani military and supporting Bihari and Razakar militias raped between 200,000{{sfn|Saikia|2011b|p=157}} and 400,000{{sfn|Riedel|2011|p=10}} Bangladeshi women in a systematic campaign of genocidal rape. Some women may have been raped as many as eighty times in a night.{{sfn|Brownmiller|1975|p=83}}

In the ongoing Darfur genocide, the Janjaweed militias have carried out actions described as genocidal rape, with not just women, but children also being raped, as well as babies being bludgeoned to death and the sexual mutilation of victims being commonplace.{{sfn|Rothe|2009|p=53}}

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial Japanese Army during the Battle of Nanjing carried out what has come to be known as the Rape of Nanjing, which has been described by political scientist, Adam Jones, as "one of the most savage instances of genocidal rape". The violence saw tens of thousands of women gang raped and killed.{{sfn|Jones|2006|p=329}} The International Military Tribunal for the Far East estimated that 20,000 women were raped, including infants and the elderly.[http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/PTO/IMTFE/IMTFE-8.html Paragraph 2, p. 1012, Judgment International Military Tribunal for the Far East].

A large portion of these rapes were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped.{{cite web | url = http://museums.cnd.org/njmassacre/njm-tran/ | title = Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing: Chapter X: Widespread Incidents of Rape | publisher = Museums.cnd.org | access-date = 2011-03-06}} The women were often killed immediately after being raped, often through explicit mutilation"A Debt of Blood: An Eyewitness Account of the Barbarous Acts of the Japanese Invaders in Nanjing," 7 February 1938, Dagong Daily, Wuhan edition [http://museums.cnd.org/njmassacre/njm-tran/njm-ch10.htm Museums.cnd.org] or by stabbing a bayonet, long stick of bamboo, or other objects into the vagina. Young children were not exempt from these atrocities, and were cut open to allow Japanese soldiers to rape them.{{cite book| url=http://museums.cnd.org/njmassacre/njm-tran/njm-ch10.htm | title=Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing | series=Chapter X: Widespread Incidents of Rape |publisher=Museums.cnd.org |author1=Gao Xingzu |author2=Wu Shimin |author3=Hu Yungong |author4=Cha Ruizhen |access-date=11 October 2012}}

On 19 December 1937, the Reverend James M. McCallum wrote in his diary:Hua-ling Hu, American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking: The Courage of Minnie Vautrin, 2000, p.97

I know not where to end. Never I have heard or read such brutality. Rape! Rape! Rape! We estimate at least 1,000 cases a night, and many by day. In case of resistance or anything that seems like disapproval, there is a bayonet stab or a bullet ... People are hysterical ... Women are being carried off every morning, afternoon and evening. The whole Japanese army seems to be free to go and come as it pleases, and to do whatever it pleases.

In 1996, Beverly Allen wrote Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia in which the term genocidal rape was first introduced, she used the term to describe the actions of the Serbian armed forces who had a policy of rape with the intention of genocide.{{sfn|Card|2008|pp=176–189}} In her book she compares genocidal rape to biological warfare.{{sfn|Allen|1996|p=131}} During the conflict in Bosnia Allen gave a definition of genocidal rape as "a military policy of rape for the purpose of genocide currently practiced in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia by the Yugoslav army the Bosnian Serb forces and the irregular Serb forces known as Chetniks".{{sfn|Vetlesen|2005|pp=196–200}}

Coverage of the mass rapes during the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Serbian forces in the 1990s began the analysis over the use of rape as a part of genocide. Catharine MacKinnon argues that the mass rapes during the conflict "were a simultaneous expression of misogyny and genocide", and argues that rape can be used as a form of extermination."It is also rape unto death, rape as massacre, rape to kill and to make the victims wish they were dead. It is rape as an instrument of forced exile, rape to make you leave your home and never want to go back. It is rape to be seen and heard and watched and told to others: rape as spectacle. It is rape to drive a wedge through a community, to shatter a society, to destroy a people. It is rape as genocide"{{sfn|Sharlach|2000|pp=92–93}}{{sfn|Russell-Brown|2003|p=1}}

The acts of violence which were committed against women during the Partition of India have also been cited as examples of genocidal rape. Dyan Mazurana et al argued that the "patterns of rape and sexual violence carried out [in the Tigray War] by the ENDF, the EDF and Amhara regional militia and special forces against Tigrayan civilians are consistent with acts of genocide, potentially conducted with the intent of destroying the Tigrayan people."

• Outline of genocide studies

{{reflist|group=Note}}

{{Reflist|refs=

{{cite web | last1 = Mazurana | first1 = Dyan |last2 =Mekonen |first2= Hayelom K. |last3=Conley |first3=Bridget |last4=de Waal |first4=Alex |author4-link=Alex de Waal |last5=Burns |first5=Delia | title= What 'Rape as a Weapon of War' in Tigray Really Means | website= World Peace Foundation |date = 2021-08-10 | url = https://sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/2021/08/10/what-rape-as-a-weapon-of-war-in-tigray-really-means | access-date = 2021-11-20 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20211027034943/https://sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/2021/08/10/what-rape-as-a-weapon-of-war-in-tigray-really-means |archive-date= 2021-10-27 |url-status=live }}

}}

{{Main|Bibliography of Genocide studies}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book |last=Allen |first=Beverly |title=Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia |year=1996 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |isbn=978-0816628186 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/rapewarfarehidde00alle}}
• {{cite book |last=Askin |first=Kelly Dawn |year=1997 |title=War Crimes Against Women: Prosecution in International War Crimes Tribunals |title-link=War Crimes Against Women |publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers |isbn=978-90-411-0486-1}}
• {{cite book |last=Bisaz |first=Corsin |title=The Concept of Group Rights in International Law: Groups as Contested Right-Holders, Subjects and Legal Persons |year=2012 |publisher=Martinus Nijhoff |isbn=978-9004228702}}
• {{cite book |last=Brownmiller |first=Susan |title=Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape |year=1975 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=978-0-449-90820-4}}
• {{cite journal |last=Card |first=Claudia |title=The Paradox of Genocidal Rape Aimed at Enforced Pregnancy |journal=The Southern Journal of Philosophy |year=2008 |volume=S1 |issue=46 |pages=176–189 |doi=10.1111/j.2041-6962.2008.tb00162.x}}
• {{cite book |last=De Brouwer |first=Anne-Marie |title=The Men Who Killed Me: Rwandan Survivors of Sexual Violence |year=2010 |publisher=Douglas & McIntyre |isbn=978-1553653103 |editor=Anne-Marie De Brouwer, Sandra Ka Hon Chu |chapter=Introduction}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Derderian |first1=Katharine |title=Common fate, different experience: gender-specific aspects of the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1917 |journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies |date=2005 |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=1–25 |doi=10.1093/hgs/dci001 |pmid=20684092}}
• {{cite book |last=Eftekhari |first=Shiva |title=Rwanda, Struggling to Survive: Barriers to Justice for Rape Victims in Rwanda |year=2004 |publisher=Human Rights Watch}}
• {{cite book |last=Fielding |first=Leila |title=Female Génocidaires: What was the Nature and Motivations for Hutu Female |year=2012 |publisher=GRIN Verlag |isbn=978-3656324409}}
• {{cite journal |last=Fisher |first=Siobhán K. |title=Occupation of the Womb: Forced Impregnation as Genocide |journal=Duke Law Journal |year=1996 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=91–133 |jstor=1372967 |doi=10.2307/1372967 |url=https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/dlj/vol46/iss1/4|url-access=subscription }}
• {{cite book |last1=Gaunt |first1=David |last2=Atto |first2=Naures |last3=Barthoma |first3=Soner A. |title=Let Them Not Return: Sayfo – The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire |date=2017 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=9781785334993}}
• {{cite book |last=Ghadbian |first=Najib |editor1=Kent Worcester |editor2=Sally A. Bermanzohn |editor3=Mark Ungar |title=Violence and Politics: Globalization's Paradox |chapter=Political Islam: Inclusion or violence? |year=2002 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-93111-3}}
• {{cite book |last=Joeden-Forgey |first=Elisa Von |title=The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies |year=2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0199232116 |editor=Donald Bloxham, A. Dirk Moses |chapter=Gender and Genocide}}
• {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Adam |title=Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction |year=2006 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0415353847}}
• {{cite book |last1=Leaning |first1=Jennifer |title=Women, Migration, and Conflict: Breaking a Deadly Cycle |year=2009 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-9048128242 |pages=173–199 |editor=Susan Forbes Martin, John Tirman |chapter=Sexual Violence during War and Forced Migration |first2=Susan |last2=Bartels |first3=Hani |last3=Mowafi}}
• {{cite book |last=Miller |first=Sarah Clark |title=Evil, Political Violence, and Forgiveness: Essays in Honor of Claudia Card |year=2009 |publisher=Lexington |isbn=978-0739136508 |pages=53–76 |editor=Andrea Veltman, Kathryn Norlock |chapter=Atrocity, Harm, and resistance}}
• {{cite news |last=MacKinnon |first=Catharine A. |author-link=Catharine A. MacKinnon |title=Genocide Rape Is Different Than War Rape |url=http://clg.portalxm.com/library/keytext.cfm?keytext_id=181 |newspaper=Center on Law & Globalization |year=2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150919095413/http://clg.portalxm.com/library/keytext.cfm?keytext_id=181 |archive-date=19 September 2015}}
• {{cite book |last1=Morris |first1=Benny |last2=Ze'evi |first2=Dror |title=The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of its Christian Minorities |date=April 24, 2019 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=9780674916456}}
• {{cite book |last=Mookherjee |first=Nayanika |editor1=Raphaelle Branche |editor1-link=Raphaëlle Branche |editor2=Fabrice Virgili |title=Rape in Wartime |chapter=Mass rape and the inscription of gendered and racial domination during the Bangladesh War of 1971 |year=2012 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-0-230-36399-1}}
• {{cite book |last1=Poloni-Staudinger |first1=Lori |title=Terrorism and Violent Conflict: Women's Agency, Leadership, and Responses |year=2012 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1461456407 |first2=Candice D. |last2=Ortbals |chapter=Rape as a Weapon of War and Genocide}}
• {{cite book |last=Riedel |first=Bruce O. |title=Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of the Global Jihad |year=2011 |publisher=Brookings Institution |isbn=978-0-8157-0557-4}}
• {{cite book |last=Rothe |first=Dawn |title=State Criminality: The Crime of All Crimes |year=2009 |publisher=Lexington |isbn=978-0739126721}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Ruby Reid-Cunningham |first1=Allison |title=Rape as a Weapon of Genocide |journal=Genocide Studies and Prevention |date=2008 |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=279–296 |doi=10.3138/gsp.3.3.279 |s2cid=146514994}}
• {{cite journal |last=Russell-Brown |first=Sherrie L. |title=Rape as an Act of Genocide |journal=Berkeley Journal of International Law |year=2003 |volume=21 |issue=2 |url=http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1241&context=bjil}}
• {{cite book |last=Saikia |first=Yasmin |editor1=Elizabeth D. Heineman |chapter=War as history, humanity in violence: Women, men and memories of 1971, East Pakistan/Bangladesh |pages=152–170 |title=Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: From the Ancient World to the Era of Human Rights |year=2011b |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-4318-5}}
• {{cite book |last=Sajjad |first=Tazreena |title=Plight and Fate of Women During and Following Genocide |year=2012 |publisher=Transaction |isbn=978-1412847599 |pages=219–248 |edition=Reprint |editor=Samuel Totten |chapter=The Post-Genocidal Period and its Impact on Women}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Schott |first1=Robin May |title=War rape, natality and genocide |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |date=2011 |volume=13 |issue=1–2 |pages=5–21 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2011.559111 |pmid=21941691 |s2cid=23484933}}
• {{cite journal |last=Sharlach |first=Lisa |title=Rape as Genocide: Bangladesh, the Former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda |journal=New Political Science |year=2000 |volume=1 |issue=22 |doi=10.1080/713687893 |pages=89–102 |s2cid=144966485}}
• {{cite book |last=Smith |first=Roger W. |title=Genocide Matters: Ongoing Issues and Emerging Perspectives |year=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0415814966 |pages=82–105 |editor=Joyce Apsel, Ernesto Verdeja |chapter=Genocide and the Politics of Rape}}
• {{cite news |last=Smith-Spark |first=Laura |title=How did rape become a weapon of war? |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4078677.stm |access-date=29 December 2013 |newspaper=British Broadcasting Corporation |date=8 December 2004 |ref={{sfnref|Smith-Spark|2012}}}}
• {{cite book |last1=Totten |first1=Samuel |title=Dictionary of Genocide |year=2007 |publisher=Greenwood |isbn=978-0313329678 |first2=Paul R. |last2=Bartrop}}
• {{cite book |last=Vetlesen |first=Arne Johan |title=Evil and Human Agency: Understanding Collective Evildoing |year=2005 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521673570}}
• {{cite book |last1=Yacoub |first1=Joseph |title=Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide : a History |date=2016 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780190633462}}

{{refend}}

{{Genocide topics}}

{{International Criminal Law|state=collapsed}}

Category:Crimes against women

Category:Wartime sexual violence

Category:Sex crimes