Gender-based violence in times of war and armed conflicts

25.05.2022

Written by : Candice Garcia

Wars and conflicts, such as violent clashes between two groups, shall be studied through a gendered lens. We understand gender in a hierarchical and relational way, imbricated in a normative binary relation: male/female, masculine/feminine. The United Nations (UN) Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery attributes gender to socially constructed variables for each sex in a particular society and culture, identifying differences in roles, responsibilities, opportunities, needs and constraints. When looking at conflicts and wars through a gendered lens, gender appears as a power relation: men are exposed to brutality and violence as fighters and combatants whereas women are seen as victims. Gender-based violence (GBV) is a latecomer to the concerns of international organizations. The UN focused particularly on this issue in the 1990s, in a desire to give priority to human rights and particularly to women and girls” rights. First, in 1993, the UN adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, which is the first international framework that explicitly defines the forms of violence against women^[1]U. N. General Assembly, Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, 1994, url : https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/179739.

However, the real progress is illustrated by the establishment of a legal and political framework. In 2000, the UN Security Council thus issued Resolution 1325, as part of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda. This agenda stresses the importance of women’s voices and participation in peacekeeping as well as their specific vulnerability in armed conflict: “Expressing concern that civilians, particularly women and children, account for the vast majority of those adversely affected by armed conflict, including as refugees and internally displaced persons, and increasingly are targeted by combatants and armed elements, and recognizing the consequent impact this has on durable peace and reconciliation”^[2]S/RES/1325. Security Council Resolution on women and peace and security | UN Peacemaker. (n.d.). from https://peacemaker.un.org/node/105.

Resolution 1325 emphasizes on the protection of women during wartimes: “Calls on all parties to armed conflict to take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse”^[3]Ibid.Prevention is firmly articulated with conflict in UN Security Council Resolution 1325, and later clarified in Resolution 1888 to focus further on the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence. Progress in the consideration of gender-based violence and prevention of war violence continued to be made with the Beijing Declaration and Plan for Action in 1995^[4]Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, Beijing +5 Political Declaration and Outcome, 2015, UN Women – Headquarters, url : … Continue reading, the UN Millennium Declaration in 2000^[5]U. N., United Nations: Millennium declaration, 2000, url: https://www.un.org/en/development/devagenda/millennium.shtml, and more recently the 2030 Agenda and its goal n°5: “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”^[6]The Sustainable Development Agenda, Gender equality and women’s empowerment, United Nations Sustainable Development, url: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/. Despite these leaps, one fact remains: gender-based violence goes hand in hand with armed conflict, and it is thus important to keep a certain distance from gendered and institutionalized representations. 

Gender-based violence, first defined in the 1970s as a violence perpetrated by men against women, can be a means to study the pattern resulting from individual experiences and the way society legitimizes the use of violence based on the gender identity criteria. Gender-based violence as an approach focuses on gender as a social construct. It is the understanding of the traditional roles of men and women portrayed in society – meaning essentializing women as victims and men as perpetrators. The UN defines violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life”^[7]Beijing Conference, Violence against women, n.d., UN Women, url : https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/vaw/v-overview.htm.

It is important to distinguish gender-based violence from violence against women. Although being regularly interchanged, these terms are not synonymous. Violence against women (VAW) is defined in 1993 in The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women as a subcategory of GBV. Accordingly, GBV also encompasses other interactions such as violence against gay men and aggressive expressions of masculinity. All violence is gendered, and it appears important to underline the distinction of “gender-based violence” as a type of violence directed at individuals based on their gender identity. GBV figures are quite staggering. According to the World Bank, gender-based violence against women and girls is a phenomenon that affects 1 in 3 women in their lifetime^[8]World Bank, Gender-Based Violence (Violence Against Women and Girls, 2019, World Bank, url : https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/socialsustainability/brief/violence-against-women-and-girls. Moreover, over a quarter of women aged 15-49 years who have been in a relationship have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner at least once in their lifetime.

Gender-based violence: a consequence of armed conflict 

Gender-based violence is often seen as a consequence of conflict. As the UNHCR points out: during displacement and in times of crisis, the threat of GBV significantly increases for women and girls^[9]U. N. H. C. R., Gender-based Violence. UNHCR, url: https://www.unhcr.org/gender-based-violence.html. Gender-based violence is often used as a part of war campaigns in various conflicts. It translates in practices such as: overt physical abuse (battering, sexual assault, at home or in the workplace); psychological abuse (deprivation of liberty, forced marriage, sexual harassment, at home or in the workplace); deprivation of resources needed for physical and psychological well-being (health care, nutrition, education, means of livelihood) or even treatment of women as commodities (trafficking in women and girls for sexual exploitation). 

Violence against women and girls during wartimes is an issue that the UN aims to tackle. In 2008, the UN adopted the Resolution 1820, politicizing the need to protect women and girls during conflicts. “Noting that civilians account for the vast majority of those adversely affected by armed conflict; those women and girls are particularly targeted by the use of sexual violence, including as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, instill fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or ethnic group; and that sexual violence perpetrated in this manner may in some instances persist after the cessation of hostilities”^[10]UN Security Council resolution 1820 on women, peace and security (2008). (n.d.). UN Women – Headquarters. Retrieved 10 March 2022, from … Continue reading.

Gender-based violence is a consequence of conflict and is more significantly specifically seen as means for the perpetrators to harm the enemy. It has been used in numerous conflicts in the twentieth century and is a phenomenon having long-term consequences. Gender-based violence is used by the perpetrators for a very precise aim. The will is to “break the enemy’s spirit” and in this way of thinking, women are seen as bearers of the nation, meaning they are the one carrying the dependencies, cultivating the pride, and so bolstering the whole Nation. 

Women here represent the “opponent’s center of gravity”^[11]Banwell S., Gender and the Violence(s) of War and Armed Conflict: More Dangerous to Be a Woman?, 2020, Emerald Publishing, 208, url : … Continue reading. Thus, rape on an enemy women is used as a symbolic way to rape the body of the whole community, it is made to be an attack upon the nation and can’t only be seen as an individual attack on an individual woman. When it comes to sexual violence and rape as a GBV in warfare, it is a recurring issue in History. It has been a way to emasculate the enemy in many wars, from rape of German women at the end of the Second World War, of Chinese women in 1937 during the Nanjing Massacre, to the Rwandan genocide. Rape becomes a systemic weapon against civilian populations, as it has been the case in many countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo or Syria.

In that regard, Lauren Wolfe, journalist and photographer, goes even beyond the idea of “Breaking the spirit.” In “Why soldiers rape- and when they don’t”, an article published in Women’s media center website, an American feminist non-profit organization, she underlines the idea that “Rape also creates what researchers call “unit cohesion”— a kind of nasty socialization in which soldiers find something terrible they have now in common”^[12]Wolfe, L. (2014, July 25). Why soldiers rape—And when they don’t—In diagrams—Women’s Media Center. Women’s Media Center. … Continue reading.

Gendered representations in conflicts: women as victims and men as perpetrators?

Studying gender-based violence in conflict raises the issue of violence perpetrators. If it is expected that being a woman is more dangerous than being a man in wartime, it is because of culturally gendered roles. This logic is imbricated in everyday lives and perceptions of gender. Mainstream ideas on war and conflicts portray women and girls as passive and peaceful, whereas men are seen as active and aggressive. This vision and way of thinking is in critical need of a broader understanding of women’s participation during conflict and wars. Myriam Denov, Canada Research Chair in Youth, Gender and Armed Conflict and Professor at McGill University, writes “Just as it is important to recognize that males are subjected to violence, it is also important to acknowledge that women can be fighters and perpetrators of violence”^[13]Denov, M., 2007, ‘Girls in Fighting Forces: Moving Beyond Victimhood’, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Fetishization of wartime rape and sexual violence is another raising issue. Stacy Banwell, lecturer at the University of Greenwich in London, defines fetishization in the following way “selective and sensationalist accounts of rape and sexual violence – particularly against women and girls – at the expense of other types of conflict violence. Here, rape and sexual violence are identified as the most dangerous forms of conflict violence. Not only does this obscure the complexity of wartime rape and sexual violence, and indeed the conflicts within which they occur, it also marginalizes other types of violence taking place within and beyond conflict zones. It also excludes the experiences of men and boys”^[14]Banwell S., Gender and the Violence(s) of War and Armed Conflict: More Dangerous to Be a Woman?, 2020, Emerald Publishing, 208, url : … Continue reading.

Major General Patrick Cammaert, former UN force commander for the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, stated in a video clip on the Stop Rape Now: UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict website: “it is perhaps more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in armed conflict”^[15]Nations Unies. (2010, May 17). Stop Rape Now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woW1_xT0gq8. General Patrick Cammaert’s statement is a perfect illustration of this phenomenon, as it manifests how the securitization agenda can be gendered: his policy narrative is prioritizing the experiences and needs of women and girls and at the same time is obscuring men and boys” experiences. By confirming and perpetuating those representations, women and girls are more at-risk during wars and armed conflicts. 

Although, men and boys also face major risks of abuse and violence, based upon culturally constructed notions about gender roles. “Addressing gender-based violence against women and girls in conflict situations is inseparable from addressing the forms of violence to which civilian men are specifically vulnerable”^[16]Carpenter R. C., Recognizing Gender-Based Violence Against Civilian Men and Boys in Conflict Situations, 2006, Security Dialogue, url: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0967010606064139. Gender-based violence against men is actually perpetuated on a way more regular basis than expected. Men and boys are victims of violence in wartimes, although little attention has been paid to this type of sexual violence. The conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been the scene of numerous reports of sexual violence against men. Sexual violence against men is underreported: looking at the issue of gender-based violence against male during armed conflicts will not take away from female sexual violence. Both form part of the same issue of gendered dimension of conflict. It should be noted that sexual violence against men is rarely prosecuted as rape or sexual violence, and rather described as “torture” or “degrading treatment”, thus perpetuating the stigma. 

Reproduction of gendered ways and continuum

If violence is not only directed towards women in times of armed conflicts and wars, it is also important to stress the specific impacts wars and armed conflicts have on women.  

Conflicts are gendered. They reproduce gender norms and inequalities. Cynthia Cockburn, academic and peace activist takes up the notion of continuum developed by Liz Kelly, Sociologist and Director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University, in 1988 to describe the normalization of daily violence leading to sexual violence. She develops the continuum approach, making connections between gender violence in everyday life, structural violence in economic systems maintaining inequalities, repressive policies of dictatorial regimes, and armed conflicts. In her view, this “continuum of violence” would transcend the simple diplomatic dichotomy of war and peace and resist any division between the so-called public and private spheres, adding to that notion.

In the same way, Cockburn emphasizes that there is a link between the personal and international scales of violence existing in both peace and wartime and thus calls to “acknowledge that “peacetime” itself is a site of gendered violence”^[17]Cockburn C., Gender Relations as Causal in Militarization and War, 2010, International Feminist Journal of Politics, url : https://doi.org/10.1080/14616741003665169. The distinction between war and peace is artificial in terms of gender-based violence. GBV is rooted in the different social interactions, it is nested in the hierarchies of relations. 

In countries with already important levels of gender-based discrimination, inequalities and gendered hierarchies, women and girls are at a higher risk of violence, sexual abuse, or victimization in times of armed conflicts. The conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) appears to be a good illustration of persistent high gender inequalities and violence against women imbricated in societies. In the context of a conflict, it thus appears impossible to end GBV with a peace agreement. The UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security highlights the impact of conflicts on the traditional roles of men and women: “conflicts brutally reveal the discrimination suffered by women and girls during peacetime, since the different types of abuse and violence against women in conflict situations simply reproduce and amplify what they experience in their communities”^[18]U. N. Security Council, Security Council Resolution on women and peace and security. Conflict-related sexual violence. | UN Peacemaker, 2009, url: https://peacemaker.un.org/node/1921.

Reproduction of gendered visions during wartimes raises the issue of masculinization. Masculinity can be defined as: a collection of practices within a system of gender relations that is determined and regulated by the state and its institutions. It is relational as it is defined in relation to femininity, often framed as a binary. Any other form can be seen as a transgression. As Raewyn Connell, Australian sociologist, points out “violence is a privileged site for the construction of masculinities”. She explains that violence can be “a means of asserting masculinity or claiming it in intergroup struggles”^[19]Connell R. W. & Messerschmidt J. W., Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept, 2005, Gender and Society, url: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0891243205278639.

In fact, masculine images and gender hierarchy in everyday lives are exacerbated during an armed conflict. States are patriarchal institutions, based on the institutionalization of masculine violence, the issue of masculinity then appears more than ever during wars. Joshua S. Goldstein, professor of international relations at American University, finds out that culturally constructed gender identities enable war. Indeed, appeals to masculinity are used to help overcome men’s reluctance to go to war. Men are not naturally disposed to war and conflicts. Men are forced to overcome the fear and “claim the status of manhood”^[20]Goldstein J. S., War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa, Cambridge University Press, 2003, 544.. Violence is a male institution, the relationship of men to each other is seen as a result of violence. GBV violence is then imbricated in masculinity and the issue of masculinity in gender-based violence during armed conflict and wars remains understudied.