Sexual Violence In The Military Essay

In “The Invisible War,” it is noted that “women who have been raped in the military have a PTSD rate higher than men who have been in combat” (The Invisible War, 2012). The impact that military sexual assault has on victims is tremendous. Both physical and mental trauma are common, and they play a significant role in how victims of sexual assault are able to return to their daily lives.

In the article titled, ‘Feminism, Nationalism, and Militarism after the Cold War’, by Cynthia Enloe, the links between feminism and nationalism are discussed through the analysis of the Cold War. The article makes striking comments about the treatment of women in the context of masculine societies. War is often associated with masculinity as men are expected to take up arms and fight for nationalism. This narrative of war often excludes the stories of women, particularly women who survive sexual assaults during war. History lacks the female perspective on war, particularly because social justice is rarely achieved for women who were raped. Women are forced into war when men use the military tactic of rape to ignite a need for nationalism and

“In the patriarchal societies found in many developing countries, gender roles are strictly defined” (Johnson 2014). “Survivors are often assumed to be gay which is a crime in 38 of 53 African nations…” (Johnson 2014). Many doctors in third-world countries are not educated enough to recognize the signs of sexual assault in men, which limits the resources and help that they can obtain. Comparing the experiences in South Africa, we will now turn our attention to a study done by ______, where the focus was on the gender-based violence that often ensues during wartime and how it defines masculinity in the Middle-East, more specifically Egypt. “Deep social stigma and shame about sexual assault [prevents] both women and men from reporting such incidents” (Tadros 2016: 324). “In international criminal investigations, men’s experiences were often obscured by terms such as abuse, torture, or mutilation” (Tadros 2016: 326). “…male and female victims are affected differently by societal notions of masculinity and

To explore the legacy of rape as a tool in war Nancy Toping Bazin’s and Jane Harmovit Lauter’s philosophy of domination is important to know. The philosophy of domination is the underpinning of all patriarchal institutions from domestic institutions, to government, and the military. Another usefully theory is one succinctly described by Katrina Lee Koo in “Confronting a Disciplinary Blindness: Women, War and Rape in the International Politics of Security”. Koo says, “the nation, the state, allies, and enemies intersect with gendered identities…sexual enslavement is politicized violence against women’s bodies that is both state-sanctioned and premeditated” in effect, during war time there is an intersection of gender with religion, ethnicity, nationality and anything else that represents the opposing side as an “other”. In this sense an assault on the women of a nation is a direct assault on their state, their culture, their religion, their ethnic group as well as the men in it. In her essay “Revisiting the Issue of Korean ‘Military Comfort Women’: The Question of Truth and Positionality” Hyunah Yang says, “by invading women’s bodies, rape attempts to possess the enemy’s property and leaves a rift in the most fundamental ground of the symbolic system that sustains the enemies group identity…belief that the woman’s body is a field underpinning the family, ethnic group, and/or nation” (61). During the comfort system the Japanese army was not only in control of the Korean

In “Rape as Weapon of War in the Eastern DRC? The Victim's’ Perspective” by Anna Maedl, It begins to describe the problems around the community and how some respond with rape to help it stop. Rape as a Weapon used against people? For me it doesn't matter if you deserve to suffer, rape isn’t something to be played with or become an answer to a problem. “Indiscriminate violence against civilians, including mass rape and sexual torture, are not an exception in so-called “new wars”18 or “complex political emergencies,”19 but are the modus operandi by which these armed conflicts are fought.” (Rape 131) Modus Operandi? Which means a new way of doing things, but why rape? During the wars they believed as something normal one could do to another country’s women, yet after the massive rapes happening many women were destroyed emotionally. Not only did they chances to marry pure has disappeared, but also they are unable to even look at their love one like they did normally. When a person rapes another person, I think of them as animal that shouldn’t be considered human. Why don’t they think, “what happens if someone was raping one of my family member? How would they feel? And what would I do?” they don’t think about the consequences of the victim and of the child they may posses in the near future. However, even though the research that was conducted knew there were massive of rapes, they were able to conclude a concise number because of the numerous women who didn’t want to be interviewed of the situation that happened to them. What makes me angered is most of the victims were unable to fight back for their freedom because about 90.9% of the attackers were carrying weapons like pistols, spears and Machetes/knifes (Rape 140). Though I was unable to get a clear picture on which side Anna was trying to argue with, I have a clear statement on how the victims felt and the massive rape that was happening during the wars like World War II.

It focuses on examining how violence impacts members of a specific gender, but most often focuses on its unique impacts on women. Authors such as Moon focus on how prostitution (including cases of forced prostitution in Japan) impact women specifically, as well as Moon and MacKinnon pointing to rape as a specific and horrific example of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV). However, as Jones notes, gendering genocide has specific implications for men as well. We find that men of “military” age are proportionally more often the victims of direct violence, particularly as it pertains to our two cases in Serbia and

There are many different ways for the abuse of women to decline in the military. One thing is, which ones are going to be the solutions?

According to (WHO, 2002) & (Obote-Odora, 2005, p135), sexual violence is not limited rape, but a person conducting a sexual act on another person via coercion. Sexual violence can relate to violence psychologically and physically and this is aimed at the sexuality of a person and this could include forced acts such as sexual slavery and prostitution. Sexual violence is prevalent in peace and armed conflict scenarios. This is regarded as traumatic, pervasive a common violation that people suffer from. This is a grave health and human rights issue that affects the individual mentally and physically in the short term as well as the long term. Though women and girls suffer disproportionately from sexual violence, it can happen to anyone from any age. This can be caused and the

One estimate by The Guardian’s data editor, Mona Chalabi, suggests that “13.4 percent of all male Americans” have served in the armed services. If we assume that all of these men have families, it is easy to see that the risk for domestic violence is high. One source says that “reports of abuse from military communities are not only more frequent, but the level of violence they describe is more extreme” (Lutz). Around 42 million Americans, by these data, either are veterans or have direct intimate contact with veterans, putting them at risk for extreme domestic abuse. Childhood victims of domestic abuse can also become highly unstable, develop PTSD, and propagate the very violent culture that damages

While the soldiers are deemed “heroes”, the women are depicted as “victims”, that is weak and subordinated. This perpetuates women's lack of empowerment in peacetime situations and mask the reality of women’s experience of violence and insecurity.

Despite developments in human rights discourse and international law, abuses endure and there remains a certain poverty of explanations (Alison, 2007). Moreover, the fields of conflict resolution and peace studies have also historically been silent on the question of sexual violence and mass rape in armed conflict (Leatherman, 2007). The pressing problem of rape in wartime has, at long last, evoked worldwide concern (United Nations Security Council 2007). Accounts of the cruelty and massive amount of sexual violence committed by both government forces and members of the rebel groups have certainly alerted both global policymakers and advocate groups to the scope and lasting terror of sexual violence in the context of armed conflict and peace-building (Baaz & Stern,

The issue of women involved in armed conflict has been a reoccurring problem in countries that are plagued by war for decades. Due to this problem women are taken in by soldiers and are sexually violated, and sold as sex slaves. Also they are faced with economic, abduction's, and healthcare problems. They have a lack nutrition, physiological problems such as depression, and sexual transmitted diseases. After being sexually violated they have become outsider and are later rejected by their families and society.  In many countries that in present day are in war face many of these issues and they are reoccurring events that happen every day in these peoples lives. The most well known country is Afghanistan. Still today there is fighting going on in Afghanistan and every day women are sexually violated and abused by soldiers in what are called comfort camps.

Wartime sexual and gender based violence is one of the main concerns of SCR 1325. Violence against women in the forms of rape, torture, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization and murder has increasing become a routine weapon of war (Willett, 2010, pp. 153-154). A further concern is the persistence of widespread sexual violence, even after political stabilisation, where sexual violence becomes a ‘normal’ part of society and its systems. Sexual and gender based violence, including the threat of violence, is a powerful tactic of war that services to exclude women’s participation and enforce their victimisation and subservience (Willett, 2010, pp. 154).

Despite the existence of post-conflict programs aimed at reintegrating soldiers back into regular society, notably SSR and DDR processes, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin asserts that these programs are overly physical in nature and thus do not address the negative masculine mindset built into soldiers. Specifically criticizing DDR, she contends that militant attitudes, behavior and beliefs “are not in any sense undermined or addressed by a formal disarmament process”. She continues to affirm that “the disarmament of weapons is not the disarmament of minds” and I verge that even an approach concerned with the mindset of combatants after the fact would not be enough to disembed the militarization that takes place and forms a militant mindset during conflict (Ní Aoláin, 2008:1067). Therefore violence towards women in the post-conflict space is a result of the continued presence of militant attitudes and beliefs after a conflict and women who seek to augment their status “meet with a backlash against their attempt to redefine their rights”, as they are challenging the masculine social order reinforced through militarization (Meintjes et al, 2001:12). In conclusion, given the prevalence of militarization, particularly militarized masculinities, in the post-conflict space, it is an inopportune time for women to achieve an advancement in their rights

Armed conflict and violence are a common concern for communities living in conflict regions around the world. The additional impact of gender on the lives affected by violence is often overlooked or disregarded. Furthermore women and girls have traditionally been viewed as completely removed from war and violence or perceived as playing passive roles in conflict which impacts their ability to reintegrate into society after participation in armed conflict, or degradation and shame due to sexual and gender based violence and human trafficking. An increased promotion of gender equity in all societies in the last century has made the roles women play more evident in both the perpetuation of conflict and violence as well as the promotion of