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When Are Women Allowed to Survive Genocides?

Why Rape Was a Key Part of Genocide in Rwanda

Tragedy for Women in Rwanda

Women and Children Are Particularly Vulnerable to Violence in Darfur

Arab Women Play a Role in War-Related Rape in Darfur

Rape and sexual assault have long been associated with military violence—whether in war or in genocides. However, the relationship between sexual assault and genocide is not simple. The place of sexual assault in genocidal campaigns varies depending on a number of different factors.

Sexual Assault Is Less Likely in Ideological Genocides

Though sexual assault always shadows military violence, rape is less prevalent in some types of genocides. Genocides happen for different reasons and with different motivations, and these motivations can have an important effect on the place of sexual assault in genocide.

For instance, rape may be less likely in ideological genocides—that is, genocides where the victim group is supposed to carry some sort of taint or contamination. This was the case in the Nazi and Khmer Rouge genocides. In the first case, because of fear of corrupting the Aryan bloodline, sex with Jews was taboo. Rape, which could give rise to polluted offspring, was prohibited. In the case of the Cambodian genocide, the Khmer Rouge sought to build an ideologically pure utopia and so sex and reproduction was highly regulated. In neither of these cases did rape or sexual assault play a major role.

Sexual assault is more likely in genocides where the underlying motivation is revenge or fear. Fighting age men pose a threat and so are killed. Women (and children), because they pose less immediate threat, need not be summarily executed but are often sexually assaulted as part of the larger effort to terrorize and destroy the victim group.

Appropriating Reproduction

Since genocide seeks to destroy a racial or ethnic group, one method of doing this is to appropriate reproductive capacities of the women. In a sense, if women are forced to have mixed race children, then the victim group can be diluted or destroyed via the next generation. In cultures where the race of the child is tied to the race of the father, as is the case in Darfur, then rape and forced pregnancies can accomplish a change of race in the population very quickly.

Spoiling Reproduction

If women, through their reproductive abilities, carry the future of the race, then sexual assault may also be used to spoil future ability to reproduce. In this case, the aim of sexual assault is not to impregnate women, but to so brutalize them that they can no longer reproduce.

Many refugees from the genocide in Rwanda tell gruesome stories of sexual mutilation. For many of these women and girls, the physical damage was so extensive that sexual activity and reproduction are no longer possible.

Sexual Assault as a Means of Murder

Sexual assault and murder often go hand-in-hand in a genocidal campaign. However, sexual assault can go beyond being an accessory to murder. It may become a tool for murder.

In Rwanda, widespread beliefs about the sexuality of Tutsi women lead to rape and sexual torture becoming an instrument for murder. Among Hutu men, Tutsi women held a sort of sexual mystique. Tutsi women were often considered more beautiful than Hutu women, there were intimations of their sexual prowess and—probably most important—many Hutu men believed that Tutsi women were somehow too good for them. These stereotypes were reinforced by Hutu propaganda leading up to the genocide. When the violence began in earnest the actions of many among the Interhamwe demonstrated that simply killing the Tutsis was not enough. The threatened masculinity of the Hutu men reasserted itself with a vengeance. Many Tutsi women were literally raped and sexually tortured to death.

Sexual Assault to Humiliate the Other

Sexual assault in genocide serves to do more than hurt or kill the woman who is raped. Sexual assault is an assault upon the entire victim group. Sexual mores are a key part of a group's identity. Violating these deeply held norms humiliates the other. It demonstrates that the other group is not capable of protecting their own identity. To make the most of rape as a tool to humiliate the victim group, the rape must be public.

In Darfur, survivors tell of Janjaweed militia men raping women and girls in a public square as other Darfurians watched helplessly. In Bosnia, survivors tell of Serbian attackers forcing family members to watch as their wives, mothers and daughters were raped. In some cases, family members were forced to sexually assault each other.

The damage that sexual assault brings to the victim group is massive. Not only are individual women, girls and in some cases men and boys brutalized, but the assault makes a public statement that the victim group is incapable of protecting itself. Additionally, because sexual assault violates deeply held group beliefs, rape and sexual assault can have devastating and lasting effects on relationships among those who survive.

The Progression of Rape in Genocide and Military Violence

The place of rape and sexual assault in genocide has also changed over time. This is particularly evident in the genocides of the 20th century.

Rape is tolerated. In times when a woman's labor or ability to reproduce were needed (especially in ancient times) women may be saved from immediate execution and taken as slaves. Both during the genocidal conflict and following it (since slaves had no right to their own bodies) rape was part of the violence, but it was not central to the conflict.

Rape is encouraged. A victorious army may be encouraged to rape as part of their effort to conquer and humiliate the defeated population. This was the case with the Soviet invasion of Berlin at the end of the World War II.

Rape is institutionalized. Beyond merely being encouraged, rape and sexual assault can become a regularized part of the overall military operation as in the case of the “comfort women” forced into prostitution by the Japanese military during World War II.

Rape is a tactic. Rape and sexual assault may also become a key component of a genocidal effort. This was the case in Bosnia and Rwanda where rape was used as a primary tool for terror and murder. Far beyond an incidental event, sexual assault and sexual torture became a widespread and systematic means for accomplishing the genocide.

Other Keytexts from this source

When Are Women Allowed to Survive Genocides?