War, Rape and Genocide: Never Again?

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War, Rape and GenocideNever Again?

• Martin Donohoe

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Special Thanks To

• Vic Sidel and Barry Levy (War and Public Health)
• Photographers James Nachtwey, Sebastio Salgado,
  and others

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Outline

• Sudanese genocide
• History of wartime violence against women in the
  20th Century
• VAW in the U.S. military
• War and Masculinity
• The Nature of Violence and Rape in War

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Outline

• Health Consequences
• Refugee Camps
• Human Rights Issues
• Role of Health Professionals
• Conclusions and Recommendations

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Darfur, Sudan

• As many as 300,000 - 450,000 deaths over last two
  years
• 15,000 die each day
• gt2 million in refugee camps

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Darfur, Sudan

• Government-supported, Islamic Janjaweed militias
  responsible for killing Black Africans
• Arms sales to Sudan from China, Russia, France,
  Iran, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania

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Darfur, Sudan

• Bush administration has called situation
  genocide, yet failed to act substantively
• Bush administration has been relying on Sudan,
  which used to harbor Osama bin Laden, for
  military intelligence

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Darfur, Sudan

• Bipartisan Congressional Research Service reports
  administration concerned that holding Sudanese
  officials accountable could disrupt cooperation
• Nevertheless, mild economic sanctions and travel
  restrictions enacted in May, 2007

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History

• 250 wars in 20th Century
• Most conflicts within and between small states
• Many in sub-Saharan Africa
• 85-90 of casualties among civilians
• Opposite at end of 19th Century

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Infamous Genocides

• China (under Mao), late 1950s early 1970s 30
  million killed
• USSR (mostly under Stalin), 1920 mid 1950s 20
  million killed
• Germany (under Nazis), mid 1930s 1945 over 11
  million killed
• Japan, late 1930s mid 1940s 10 million killed

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History

• Women considered spoils of war
• Abduction of Helen of Troy
• Rape of the Sabine women
• Hundreds of thousands raped in 20th Century
  conflicts

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History - World War II

• Japanese soldiers forced between 100,000 and
  200,000 women into sexual slavery (comfort
  women)
• Korea, Burma, China, Holland, Indonesia,
  Phillipines
• Some underwent forced hysterectomies to prevent
  menstruation, make them constantly available
• More than half died due to mistreatment

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Comfort Women

• 3-5 year detention
• 5-20 rapes per day
• For 3 yrs of enslavement, low estimate is 7500
  rapes per woman
• Japan has not compensated any victims
• Historical blindness to atrocities

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History

• Vietnam War
• Perpetrators included U.S. soldiers
• Few brought to justice
• 1971 Bangladesh War for Independence
• 250,000 - 400,000 girls and women raped
• 25,000 pregnancies

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History

• 1994 Rwandan genocide
• At least 250,000 women raped
• 1990s ethnic cleansing in Bosnia
• gt20,000 Moslem women raped
• Other 20th Century conflicts civil wars in DRC,
  Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Somalia

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History

• 2000s Well-documented, credible allegations of
  sexual humiliation and rape against female
  detainees at US facilities in Afghanistan and
  Iraq
• Iraqs Abu Ghraib prison sexual humiliation,
  forced homosexual poses
• Guantanamo Bay prison Moslems taunted with fake
  menstrual blood
• Amnesty International and Red Cross have condemned

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Violence against women in the U.S. military

• 5 - 20 times more likely than other government
  employees to have suffered a completed or
  attempted sexual assault
• Higher rates of chronic pelvic pain,
  dysmenorrhea, abnormal periods, premenstrual
  syndrome, and dissatisfaction with sexual
  relations
• all correlate with a history of sexual trauma
  while in the military

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Violence against women in the U.S. military

• Veterans Administration study 24 of patients
  under age 50 reported domestic violence within
  the past year

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Government Accountability Office Report, 2006

• Aggressive and duplicitous recruiting tactics on
  rise
• Including sexual harassment and rape

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Militarism and Masculinity

• Pervasive glorification of war and its acceptance
  as means of conflict resolution
• Linked to antiquated definitions of appropriate
  masculine behavior and coming-of-age rites

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Militarism and Masculinity

• Vocabulary and imagery laden with denigrations of
  the feminine and perverse phallic imagery of
  weapons as extensions of male generative organs
• weapons ads employ sexual imagery
• weapons described in terms of hardness,
  penetration, and thrust

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War and Masculinity

• Association of military bases with prostitution
• Tacitly accepted by commanders
• Men dominant decision-makers in pursuing
  militarization, fighting wars, and resolving
  international conflicts

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Violence and Rape in War

• Occurs against backdrop of ongoing individual and
  societal forms of violence against women
• Rape
• Individual acts of violence
• Genocide (to terrorize, subjugate, humiliate, and
  ethnically cleanse subjugated population)

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Violence and Rape in War

• Usually more sadistic and violent than rape
  outside of war
• Often committed in presence of womans husband
  and children, who are often then killed

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Violence and Rape in War

• Forced continuation of pregnancy
• 1994 Rwandan genocide 5000 pregnancies
• Enfants mauvais souvenir (children of bad
  blood)
• Difficulty caring for children
• Abandonment and infanticide

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Violence and Rape in War

• Male victims
• Raped, forced to commit rape against other
  victims / perform sex acts on other prisoners
  and/or guards, castrations, forced circumcisions,
  other sexual mutilations
• All under threat of torture or death

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Health Consequences of Rape in War

• Traumatic injuries
• STDs, including HIV
• Pregnancy
• Access to emergency contraception, abortion, and
  antibiotics often extremely limited

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Health Consequences of Rape in War

• Short-term psychological sequelae
• Fear, profound sense of helplessness and
  desperation
• Long-term psychiatric sequelae
• Depression, anxiety disorders (including PTSD),
  multiple somatic symptoms, flashbacks, difficulty
  reestablishing intimate relationships, shame,
  persistent fears, and blunted enjoyment of life

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Peacekeepers / Refugee Camps

• 7,000 man African Union peacekeeping force in
  Darfur under investigation for raping and abusing
  local women and girls
• Refugees forced to endure rape at border
  crossings as price of passage

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Refugee Camps

• Guards rape women or force them into sex in
  return for protection from bandits or for basic
  goods, including food
• Presence of abusive guards inside within camps,
  and bandits just outside, makes simple tasks such
  as going to the latrine or gathering water or
  firewood dangerous/life threatening

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Human Rights Issues

• Violence against women and girls violates several
  principles enshrined in international and
  regional human rights law, including the right to
  life, equality, security, equal protection under
  the law, and freedom from torture and other
  cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment

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Human Rights Issues

• Tokyo War Crimes Trial rape first identified as
  a war crime
• Successful prosecution of some commanders
• 1993 UN Commission on Human Rights resolution
  calls rape a crime of war

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Human Rights Issues

• 2001 International War Crimes Tribunal rules
  that rape in war is a crime against humanity
• 1990s/2000s successful prosecutions of rape as a
  war crime and act of genocide

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Human Rights Issues Other International
Agreements

• The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
  Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
• adopted by UN General Assembly in 1979
• calls for equality of the sexes in political,
  social, cultural, civil, and other fields
• Ratified by 162 countries, but not U.S.

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Human Rights Issues Other International
Agreements

• UN Security Council Resolution 1325
• adopted in 2000
• mandates the protection of, and respect for, the
  human rights of women and girls
• calls on all parties to armed conflict to take
  specific measures to protect women and girls from
  gender-based violence, particularly rape and
  sexual violence
• U.S. has not signed

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Human Rights Issues Other International
Agreements

• International Criminal Court
• established by international treaty in 2002
• codifies accountability for gender-based crimes
  against women during military conflict by
  defining sexual and gender violence of all kinds
  as war crimes
• 139 countries have signed on, U.S. has not

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Role of Health Professionals

• Document incidents of rape
• Use medical data to verify widespread rape
• Use techniques of medical science to validate
  victims testimonies
• Treat individual victims

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Management of victims of sexual violence during
war

• Conduct a full history and physical examination
• Treat physical injuries and sexually-transmitted
  diseases
• Offer emergency contraception and referral for
  abortion
• Provide counseling and psychological support

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Management of victims of sexual violence during
war

• Facilitate reporting to appropriate authorities
• Gather forensic evidence
• Provide documentation of findings (in triplicate,
  with a copy for the victim, the United Nations
  High Commission of Refugees and the providers
  medical agency)

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Management of victims of sexual violence during
war

• Health exams should be conducted in a
  confidential manner by trained workers in a safe
  environment
• Female providers should be widely available

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Management of victims of sexual violence during
war

• In refugee camps
• Place water collection points and latrines in
  central, well-lighted areas
• food distributed directly to women
• House female-headed groups and unaccompanied
  children in safe areas
• Women should be involved in designing and running
  the camps

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Conclusions and Recommendations

• Each war represents a failure of our species to
  live in harmony, a waste of precious human
  capital, a further scourge on the environment,
  and a crime against all humanity
• Rape in war represents the malevolent nadir of
  human behavior

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Conclusions and Recommendations

• Given the increasing spread of technology and
  materials for the construction of weapons of both
  small- and large-scale destruction, the enormity
  of the social and environmental problems facing
  humanity, and the realistic potential for the
  demise of the human species, rapid change is
  desperately needed

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U.S. Must Play Leadership Role

• Limiting consumption
• Cutting unnecessary military programs
• Increasing funds and using troops for
  international peacemaking (instead of making war)
• Building alliances with the UN to solve
  international disputes

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U.S. Must Play Leadership Role

• Vigorously investigate its own human rights
  abuses and fully prosecute those responsible
• Sign on to international agreements CEDAW, UNSC
  Resolution 1325, ICC, the Convention on the
  Rights of the Child, the Convention on Economic,
  Social, and Cultural Rights, and the Convention
  for the Suppression of Traffic in Persons, others

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U.S. Must Play Leadership Role

• Pass International Violence Against Women Act
• Would require US government to prevent and
  respond to violence against women and girls as a
  part of US foreign policy and aid programs
• Stalled in Congress
• Join forces with international community to
  rapidly apply both economic and military
  pressure, including the protective use of
  military troops, to halt genocide and mass rape

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Conclusions

• We have failed to act to halt the genocide in the
  Sudan, just as we failed to act in Rwanda
• And yet we continue to say, Never again.
• It is time for our nations policies to match
  this rhetoric

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References

• Donohoe MT. Individual and societal forms of
  violence against women in the United States and
  the developing world an overview. Curr Womens
  Hlth Reports 20022(5)313-319.
• Donohoe MT. Violence and human rights abuses
  against women in the developing world. Medscape
  Ob/Gyn and Womens Health 20038(2) posted
  11/26/03. http//www.medscape.com/viewarticle/4642
  55
• Donohoe MT. Violence against women Partner abuse
  and sexual assault. Hospital Physician
  200440(10)24-31. Available at
  http//www.turner-white.com/memberfile.php?PubCode
  hp_oct04_partner.pdf

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References

• Donohoe MT. War, rape and genocide Never again?
  Medscape Ob/Gyn and Womens Health 20049(2)
  posted 10/22/04. http//www.medscape.com/viewartic
  le/491147
• Donohoe MT. Violence against women in the
  military. Medscape Ob/Gyn and Womens Health
  200510(2) posted 9/13/05. Available at
  http//www.medscape.com/viewarticle/512380

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Contact Information

• Public Health and Social Justice Website
• http//www.phsj.org
• martindonohoe_at_phsj.org