Women have been targeted in genocide; the destruction and degradation of their bodies have been used as an instrument of genocide. In many cultures, women are the ones who bear the honor of their societies. Targeting their honor, and defiling a women’s body is a way in which perpetrators of genocide can terrorize a community. Raping women produces three outcomes perpetrators hope will happen:
Firstly, it undermines the ability for the biological reproduction of a targeted group. If the perpetrators are of a different ethnicity, race, or tribe, then by raping the women of the targeted community, the biological reproduction of the targeted population is stilled.
Secondly, it degrades women and her community. When rape is used to intimidate, it silences people who may wish to speak out against atrocities. It also shames the community because a women’s honor, linked to her chastity, has been attacked. When women have been raped, they are shamed, and humiliated, making it easier to torture and kill them. It also shames the men, because they are seen as unable to protect their women. Guards and armies have chosen to use rape not only as a physical form of violence, but as an emotional form of violence. Immense emotional suffering and trauma are endured post-rape, by rape victims, their families and their communities.
Finally, rape isolates a woman and any future offspring from both her family and her community. Women who are impregnated through rape, often bear children of men who have caused them immense pain and suffering. The women who do bear these children are stigmatized, and the children born as a result of rape are stigmatized twice, for being born out of wedlock, and for being the children of the perpetrators of genocide. Sometimes, mothers and communities isolate these children, or leave their traditional homes in order to escape the stigmatization. This disperses a population, and creates a group of people who become delinked with their community.
Rape is a crime of genocide.
Tags: Speak Out
