Democracy Dies in Darkness

Why the Nobel Peace Prize went to 2 people fighting sexual

violence in war
By Elisabeth Jean Wood and Ragnhild Nordås 
October 8, 2018

As Islamic State forces swept through northern Iraq in 2014, they

captured the city of Mosul and then attacked the nearby Yazidi people.
Thousands of Yazidis were executed — and some 3,000 girls and
women were kidnapped. Most were sexually enslaved.

One of the two recipients of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is a survivor
named Nadia Murad. The other winner is Denis Mukwege, the
gynecologist who founded Panzi Hospital, which treats and supports
girls and women brutalized by sexual violence in Congo. The Nobel
committee recognized their advocacy on behalf of victims of wartime
sexual violence.

Wartime sexual violence, which includes sexual torture and forced

marriage, as well as rape and sexual slavery, inflicts excruciatingly
painful, sometimes mortal injuries and suffering on victims, their
families and their communities. But two decades of social science
research has shown that these crimes are not inevitable and
unavoidable collateral damage. These crimes can be mitigated — but
this depends on understanding why and how wartime sexual violence
occurs.

What do we know about perpetrators and targets?

The most important research finding is the extraordinary variability in

the incidence of sexual violence by armed organizations. The fact that
not all armed actors engage in rape provides critical evidence
for prosecutors seeking to hold accountable those who do.

Armies — including those of Congo, Sudan, Guatemala and Peru — as

well as rebels commit sexual violence during war. Forces of democratic
regimes also sexually abuse civilians during war. During the war in
Vietnam, U.S. soldiers in some units raped civilians, including during
the infamous massacre at My Lai.
But some armed actors effectively prohibit rape. Rebel forces in El
Salvador’s civil war committed few rapes even as state forces raped
during massacres and sexually tortured detainees. The Tamil Tigers
forced Muslims from northern Sri Lanka with little sexual violence.

Among those armed organizations that do engage in wartime sexual

violence, some victimize particular ethnic groups. Some, including the
Bosnian Serbs, target boys and men as well as girls and women.
Others, including the Islamic State, also target gender and sexual
minorities.

Understanding these differences  

Common arguments do not adequately explain these differences.

Wartime opportunity, ethnic hatred and lootable resources that

disrupt discipline all contribute to the incidence of rape by some
organizations — but these are also characteristics of organizations that
do not engage in extensive wartime rape.

Nor is wartime sexual violence simply a reflection of peacetime sexual

violence. It may vary sharply from peacetime patterns — often toward
more-brutal forms, particularly gang rape, or occasionally toward less
sexual abuse.

The Nobel committee referred to sexual violence as a “weapon” of war

when it selected these two honorees. To be sure, some armed actors do
adopt sexual violence as a weapon.

But rape is sometimes frequent without having been adopted as a

weapon, strategy or policy. Rather, as at My Lai, commanders
sometimes tolerate rape without ordering or authorizing it. Under
these conditions, social pressures to conform to violent forms of
masculinity can drive combatants to commit these crimes.

In these cases, rape is a practice — rather than a strategy of war. In

many such organizations, combatants that were forcibly and randomly
recruited are coerced to engage in gang rape of civilians, which creates
social bonds among the unit.

And sexual abuse as a practice may target fellow combatants: Sexual

assault of both men and women persists within the ranks of the U.S.
military despite two decades of a supposed “zero tolerance” policy.

Organizations that do adopt sexual violence as organizational policy

may use it as a military strategy, as in some cases of ethnic cleansing
or genocide. But others adopt some form of sexual violence as policy
for other reasons, often to manage the sexual and reproductive lives of
members, as in the case of the “comfort women” held by the Japanese
military during World War II. Colombia’s FARC forced its female
combatants to use contraception and to abort if they became pregnant.
Organizations that do adopt some form of sexual violence as policy
may authorize rather than order it. For example, the Islamic State
authorizes its combatants to hold sexual slaves under conditions it
outlines in formal regulations, but does not order them to do so.

An organization’s ideology may license sexual abuse of certain social

groups; mandate its effective prohibition; or reinforce masculine
entitlement over girls and women.

Organizations that effectively prohibit sexual violence build strong

institutions — of socialization to inculcate norms of restraint and of
discipline to ensure punishment for their breach — thereby
undermining the social pressures that drive sexual violence in other
organizations.

What does this mean for preventing and prosecuting

wartime sexual violence?

These social science findings can and should inform policy efforts to
address this profoundly destructive violence.

In the case of organizations that adopt a form of sexual violence as

organizational policy, it may be easier to show that it had been
authorized or institutionalized than that it was explicitly ordered. And
a policy to manage the sexual and reproductive lives of combatants
may be more easily documented in the organization’s doctrines and
patterns of governance rather than its military operations.

When rape is frequent as a practice, liability for the crime of rape goes
beyond ordering, planning or instigating. For example, the
International Criminal Court can prosecute commanders if such
crimes were a foreseeable consequence of a common criminal purpose
(for example, that of forcible displacement).

These findings may help to define more-effective interventions during

war. Forced recruitment is associated with frequent gang rape. Armies
and police forces that torture detainees are likely to engage in sexual
abuse as well. There are positive lessons from organizations that
effectively prohibit rape.

With global institutions for criminal accountability under attack from

the White House and other heads of state, recent academic work offers
insight for prosecutors, judges, policymakers and advocates working
to fulfill the goal of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipients — to end
the scourge of sexual violence against civilians during war.

Elisabeth Jean Wood, Crosby Professor of the Human Environment

and professor of political science, international and area studies at
Yale University, is writing a book about sexual violence during war
(forthcoming, Princeton University Press). 
Ragnhild Nordås, assistant professor of political science at the
University of Michigan and senior researcher at the Peace Research
Institute of Oslo (PRIO), conducts research on global patterns of
conflict-related sexual violence as well as sexual violence and female
empowerment in eastern Congo.