It has been suggested that this article be merged with Mass rape. (Discuss) Proposed since July 2008.
Rape in the course of war dates back to antiquity, ancient enough to have been mentioned in the Bible. In the modern era, rape is considered to be a war crime when committed by soldiers in combat. This type of rape is known as 'war rape.' During war, rape is often used as means of psychological warfare in order to humiliate the enemy and undermine their morale. Rapes in war are often systematic and thorough, and military leaders may actually encourage their soldiers to rape civilians.
When part of a widespread and systematic practice rape and sexual slavery are now recognised as crimes against humanity and war crimes. Rape is also now recognised as an element of the crime of genocide when committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a targeted group. However, rape remains widespread in conflict zones.
Amnesty International has challenged the view that rape and sexual abuse are a by-product of war. According to Amnesty International rape is now used as deliberate military strategy rather than opportunistic rape and pillage of previous centuries.[1]
Women casualties of war
Kelly Dawn Akin observes that increasingly, the victims of war are civilians. It has been estimated that 50 million people "perished" during World War II. Male and female civilians may be subject to torture, but war rape is more frequently perpetrated on women than men.[2][3] Sexual violence in warfare is frequently perpetrated against women and children, and the perpetrators of sexual assault "commonly include not only enemy civilians and troops but also allied and national civilians and even comrades in arms." [4]
The victims of war rape are usually "civilians", a notion that was only recognized in the 19th century. Before that military circles supported the notion that all persons, including unarmed women and children, were still the enemy, with the belligerent having conquering rights over them. [5] Although war rape of women is documented throughout history, laws protecting civilians in armed conflict has tended not to recognise sexual assault on women. Even when laws of war have recognised and forbidden sexual assault, few prosecutions have been brought. According to Kelly Dawn Akin the laws of war perpetuated the attitude that sexual assaults against women are less significant crimes, not worthy of prosecution. [6] "To the victor goes the spoils" has been a war cry for centuries and women were included as part of the spoils of war.[7] Furthermore war rape has been downplayed as an unfortunate but inevitable side effect of sending men to war.[8] Also, war rape has in the past been regarded as tangible reward to soldiers (which were only paid irregularly) and as a soldier's proof of masculinity and success.[9]
War rape in international law
War rape has been until recently not been punished under international law. War crimes or humanitarian law specifically considers the treatment of the civilian population and "any devastation not justified by military necessity".[10] War rape has rarely been prosecuted as a war crime. After World War II the Nuremberg Tribunals failed to charge Nazi war criminals with rape, although witnesses testified on war rape. The War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo did convict Japanese officers "of failing to prevent rape" in the Nanking massacre, which is known as the "Rape of Nanking".
[11][12]
Some scholars argue that the lack of explicitly recogntion of war rape in international law or applicable humanitarian law may not be used as a defence by the perpetrator of war rape. Laws and customs of war prohibit offenses such as "inhuman treatment" or "indecent assaults", adding to this domestic military codes and domestic civil codes (national law) may make sexual assault a crime.[14]
In Ancient time on of the first references to the "laws of war" or "traditions of war" was by Cicero who urged soldiers to observe the rules of war, since obeying the regulations separated the "men" from the "brutes". Conquering the riches and property of a enemy was regarded as legitimate reason for war in itself. Women were included with "property", since they were considered to be under the lawful ownership of man, whether a father, husband, slave master, or guardian. In this context the rape of a woman was considered a property crime committed against the man who owned the woman. In ancient Greece war rape of women was considered "socially acceptable behaviour well within the rules of warfare" and warriors considered the conquered women "legitimate booty, useful as wives, concubines, slave labour or battle-camp trophy". "To the victor goes the spoils" has been a war cry for centuries and women were included as part of the spoils of war. [15]
In the Middle Ages and until the 19th Century this attitude and practice prevailed, and the legal protection of women in war time related directly to the legal protection women were granted in peace times. In medieval Europe women were considered as an inferior gender by law.[16]
In 1159 John of Salisbury wrote Policraticus in an attempt to regulate the conduct of armies engaged in "justifiable" wars. Salisbury believed that acts of theft and "rapine" (property crimes) should receive the most severe punishment, but also believed that obeying a superior's commands whether legal or illegal, moral or immoral, was the ultimate duty of the soldier. [17] In the 15th and 16th Century, despite considerations and systemisation of the laws of war, women remained objects to be used by the conquering male in any way whatsoever. The influential writer Francisco de Vitoria stood for a gradual emergence of the notion that glory or conquest were not necessarily acceptable reasons to start a war. The jurist Alberico Gentili insisted that all women, including female combatants, should be spared from sexual assault in wartime, however in practice war rape was common. It is suggested that one reason for the prevalence of war rape was that at the time, military circles supported the notion that all persons, including unarmed women and children, were still the enemy, with the belligerent having conquering rights over them. [18] In the late Middle Ages the laws of war even considered war rape as an indication of a man's success in the battlefield and "opportunities to rape and loot were among the few advantages open to...soldiers, who were paid with great irregularity by their leaders... triumph over women by rape became a way to measure victory, part of a soldier's proof of masculinity and success, a tangible reward for services rendered...an actual reward of war".[19]
During this period in history, war rape was not necessarily committed as a conscious effort of war to terrorize the enemy, but rather as earned compensation for winning a war. There is little evidence to suggest that superiors regularly ordered subordinates to commit acts of rape. [20] Throughout this period of history war became more regulated, specific, and regimented. The first formal prosecution for violations of war crimes did not take place until the late Middle Ages. [21]
Hugo Grotius, considered the father of the law of nations and the first to conduct a comprehensive work on systematizing the international laws of war, concluded that rape "should not go unpunished in war any more than in peace". Emmerich van Vattel emerged as an influential figure when he pleaded for the immunity of civilians against the ravages of war, considering men and women civilians as non-combatants. [22]
In the late 18th Century and 19th Century treaties and war codes started to include vague provisions for the protection of women: The Treaty of Amity and Commerce (1785) specified that in case of war "women and children... shall not be molested in their persons". Article 20 of the Order No. 20 (1847), a supplement to the US Rules and Articles of war, listed the following as severely punishable "Assassination, murder, malicious stabbing or maiming, rape". The Declaration of Brussles (1874) stated that the "honours and rights of the family.... should be respected".[23]
In the 19th Century the treatment of soldiers, prisoners, the wounded, and civilians improved and core elements of the laws of war were put in place. However, while the customs of war mandated more humane treatment of soldiers and civilians, new weapons and advanced technology increase destruction and altered the methods of war. [24]
The Lieber Code (1863) was the first codification of the international customary laws of land war and an important step towards humanitarian law. The Lieber Code emphasises protection of civilians and states that "all rape...(is) prohibited under the penalty of death", which was the first prohibition of rape in customary humanitarian law. [25]
After World War I the War Crimes Commission, set up in 1919 to examine the atrocities committed by Germany and the other Axis powers during World War I, found substantial evidence of sexual violence and subsequently included rape and forced prostitution among the violations of the laws and customs of war. Efforts to prosecute failed.[26]
The Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals
After World War II the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals were the first international criminal tribunals of real significance and were established in 1945 and 1956 respectively to prosecute the major war criminals of the European Axis countries (in fact only Germany was tried) and Japan for "crimes against peace," war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The possibility of prosecuting sexual violence as a war crime was present because of the recognition of war rape as serious violation of the laws of war in the Lieber Code and the Hague Convention assertion that "family honour and rights...must be respected". Also, there was evidence that previous war crimes trials had prosecuted for sex crimes, hence war rape could have been prosecuted under customary law and/or under the IMT (International Military Tribunals) Charter's Article 6(b): "abduction of the civilian population... into slavery and for other purposes" and "abduction unjustified by military necessity. Similarly it would have been possible to prosecute war rape as crime against humanity under Article 6(c) of the Nuremberg Charter: "other inhumane acts" and "enslavement". However, notwithstanding evidence of sexual violence in Europe during World War II a lack of will lead to rape and sexual violence not being prosecuted at the Nuremberg Tribunals.[27]
In the War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo sexual violence and war rape were prosecuted as war crimes under the wording "inhumane treatment", "ill-treatment," and "failure to respect family honour and rights." According to the Prosecution in excess of 20,000 women and girls were raped during the first weeks of the Japanese occupation of the Chinese city of Nanking. The War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo included accounts of sexual violence crimes in the trial testimonies as well as public records.[28] On a national level, a commander of the 14th Area Army, General Yamashita, was convicted for, inter alia, "rape under his command."[29] Some 35 Dutch comfort women brought a successful case before the Batavia Military Tribunal in 1948.[30]
Since 1949 Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention explictly prohibits wartime rape and enforced prostitution. These prohibitions were reinforced by the 1977 Additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. [31]
In 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda established by the United Nations made landmark decisions that rape is a crime of genocide under international law. The trial of Jean-Paul Akayesu, the mayor of Taba Commune in Rwanda, established precedents that rape is a element of the crime of genocide. The Trial Chamber held that "sexual assault formed an integral part of the process of destroying the Tutsi ethnic group and that the rape was systematic and had been perpetrated against Tutsi women only, manifesting the specific intent required for those acts to constitute genocide."[32]
Judge Navanethem Pillay said in a statement after the verdict: “From time immemorial, rape has been regarded as spoils of war. Now it will be considered a war crime. We want to send out a strong message that rape is no longer a trophy of war.”[33] An estimated 500,000 women were raped during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.[34]
Under her presidency of the Rwanda Tribunal, that body rendered a judgment against the mayor of Taba Commune which found him guilty of genocide for the use of rape in “the destruction of the spirit, of the will to live, and of life itself.”
In September 1999 the United Nations published a "Report of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Genocide and Other Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of Rwanda and Rwandan Citizens Responsible for Genocide and Other Such Violations Committed in the Territory of Neighbouring States between 1 January and 31 December 1994"
The report states that on September 21998, Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, composed of Judges Laïty Kama, Presiding, Lennart Aspegren and Navanethem Pillay, found Jean Paul Akayesu guilty of 9 of the 15 counts proffered against him, including genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide and crimes against humanity (extermination, murder, torture, rape, and other inhumane acts). Jean Paul Akayesu was found not guilty of the six remaining counts, including the count of complicity in genocide and the counts relating to violations of article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and of Additional Protocol II thereto.[32]
The Akayesu judgement includes the first interpretation and application by an international court of the 1948Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The Trial Chamber held that rape, which it defined as "a physical invasion of a sexual nature committed on a person under circumstances which are coercive", and sexual assault constitute acts of genocide insofar as they were committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a targeted group, as such. It found that sexual assault formed an integral part of the process of destroying the Tutsi ethnic group and that the rape was systematic and had been perpetrated against Tutsi women only, manifesting the specific intent required for those acts to constitute genocide.[32]
On October 21998, Jean Paul Akayesu was sentenced to life imprisonment for each of the nine counts, the sentences to run concurrently. Both Jean Paul Akayesu and the Prosecutor have appealed against the judgement rendered by the Trial Chamber.[32]
The indictment was of major legal significance and was the first time that sexual assaults were investigated for the purpose of prosecution under the rubric of torture and enslavement as a crime against humanity.[38] The indictment was confirmed by a 2001 verdict by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia that rape and sexual enslavement are crimes again humanity. This ruling challenged the widespread acceptance of rape and sexual enslavement of women as intrinsic part of war.[39]
"The perpetrator invaded the body of a person by conduct resulting in penetration, however slight, of any part of the body of the victim or of the perpetrator with a sexual organ, or of the anal or genital opening of the victim with any object or any other part of the body."[41]
and
"The invasion was committed by force, or by threat of force or coercion, such as that caused by fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or abuse of power, against such person or another person, or by taking advantage of a coercive environment, or the invasion was committed against a person incapable of giving genuine consent."[42]
The concept of “invasion” is intended to be broad enough to be gender-neutral and the definition is understood to include situations where the victim may be incapable of giving genuine consent if affected by natural, induced or age-related incapacity.[43]
The effects of war rape
War rape has a severe impact on the mainly women[citation needed] victims. A recent study lists the physical injury to the victims of war rape as traumatic injuries, sexually transmitted disease (STD) or venereal disease (VD) (including HIV), and pregnancy. Because war rapes take place in zones of conflict access to emergency contraception, antibiotics, and/or abortion are extremely limited. The short-term psychological injuries to the victims include feelings of fear, helplessness, and desperation. Long-term psychological injuries may include depression, anxiety disorders (including post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS)), multiple somatic symptoms, flashbacks, difficulty re-establishing intimate relationships, shame, and persistent fears.[44]
War rape may include gang rape and rape with objects, such as sticks and gun barrels. Women victims may suffer from incontinence and vaginal fistula as a result of particularly violent instances of rape.[45]Vaginal fistula is a medical condition usually the result of poor childbirth care, and involves the walls between the vagina, bladder and anus or rectum being torn, resulting in severe pain and debilitating incontinence.[45]
Women victims of war rape may be stigmatised and excluded from their families or communities as a result of war rape, particularly in societies were female virginity is prized and the husband of a rape victim is considered shamed.[46][47]
Military strategy
As a military strategy war rape is reportedly used for the purpose of conquering territory by expelling the population therefrom, decimating remaining civilians by destroying their links of affiliations, by the spread of AIDS, and by eliminating cultural and religious traditions. War rape may be described as "weapon of war" or a "means of combat" in the media.[48]
With specific reference to recent war rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other African countries the aims of war rape as a military strategy have been listed as follows: increase in military morale, decrease the military morale of the enemy, to offend the enemy, and to loot the maximum of an enemy’s belongings (including women and children).[49]
History of war rape
Pre-World War II
Rape, in the course of war, also dates back to antiquity, ancient enough to have been mentioned in the Bible: "They must be dividing the spoil they took: there must be a damsel or two for each man…" (Judges 5:30 NAB)[50] The Israelite, Greek, Persian and Roman troops would routinely rape women and boys in the conquered towns.[citation needed]
The Vikings, Scandinavians that raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late 8th to the early 11th century,[51] are famed for their popular "rape and pillage" image. Viking settlements on the British Isles are thought to have been primarily male enterprises, with a lesser role for Viking females. A cemetery on the Isle of Man for example includes mainly male Norse burials, with females from the local indigenous population. British Isles women are mentioned in old texts on the founding of Iceland, indicating that the Viking explorers had acquired wives and concubines from the British Isles. Genetic studies of the Shetland population indicates that Viking family units were the norm among the migrants to these areas. Genetic studies of the population in Iceland and the Western Isles/Isle of Skye show that Viking settlements were established mainly by unattached male Vikings who subsequently "acquired" women from among the local populations. This may be explained in terms of physical distance to new settlements from the Scandinavian homeland; closer settlements were more suitable for family migration while frontier settlements further north and west were left for groups of lone male colonizers.[52] Some historians dispute the Vikings' "rape and pillage" image, arguing that exaggeration and distortion in later medieval texts created an image of treacherous and brutal Northmen.[53]
World War II
A number of war rapes have been documented during World War II, ranging from institutionalised sexual slavery to war rapes associated with specific battles.
The term "Comfort women" is a euphemism for the estimated 200,000, mostly Korean and Chinese, women who were forced into prostitution in Japanese military brothels during World War II.[54] At the Nanking Massacre in Chine rape was used as a tool to humiliate the civilians under Japanese oppression. As many as 80,000 women were raped by the Japanese soldiers during the six weeks of the Nanking Massacre and many of them were disembowelled and left to die and some soldiers even cut off the breasts of their victims, then nailed the women alive to walls.[55]
The Wehrmacht ran "brothels" where civilian and captured partisan women were forced to work. Ruth Seifert in War and Rape: Analytical Approaches writes, "In the Eastern territories the Wehrmacht used to brand the bodies of captured partisan women - and other women as well - with the words 'Whore for Hitler's troops' and to use them accordingly."[56] There are numerous[57] cases of rapes conducted on Jewish women and girls by German soldiers during Invasion of Poland[57]. Rapes were also committed against Polish women and girls during mass executions made primarily by Selbstschutz, which were accompanied by Wehrmacht soldiers and on territory under administration of German military, the rapes were made before shooting female captives.[58] Thousands of Soviet female nurses, doctors and field medics fell victim to brutal German rapes when captured during the war, and often they were murdered afterwards[59].
Allied soldiers are also documented to have raped civilians. According to a review of "The GI War against Japan: American Soldiers in Asia and the Pacific during World War II", rape is seen as a method for soldiers to bond with each other, and also to enhance their aggressiveness, and it also "reflects a burning need to establish total dominance of the other" [the enemy].[60] French Moroccan troops, known as Goumiers, committed rapes and other war crimes after the Battle of Monte Cassino[61] and in Germany. In Italy victims of the mass rape committed after the Battle of Monte Cassino by Goumiers, colonial troops of the French Expeditionary Corps are known as Marocchinate.
At the end of World War II, Red Army soldiers are estimated to have raped around 2,000,000 German women and girls.[62][63]Norman Naimark writes in "The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949." that although the exact number of women and prepubescent girls who were raped by members of the Red Army in the months preceding and years following the capitulation will never be known, their numbers are likely in the hundreds of thousands, quite possibly as high as the 2,000,000 victims estimate made by Barbara Johr, in "Befreier und Befreite". Many of these victims were raped repeatedly. Naimark states that not only did each victim have to carry the trauma with her for the rest of her days, it inflicted a massive collective trauma on the East German nation. Naimark concludes "The social psychology of women and men in the soviet zone of occupation was marked by the crime of rape from the first days of occupation, through the founding of the GDR in the fall of 1949, until - one could argue - the present."[64]German women who became pregnant after being raped by Soviet soldiers in World War II were invariably denied abortion to further humiliate them as to carry an unwanted child. As a result, according to the book Berlin: The Downfall, 1945 by Antony Beevor, some 90% of Berlin women in 1945 had venereal diseases as results of consequential rapes and 3.7% of all children born in Germany from 1945 to 1946 had Russian fathers. The history behind this particular rape of the German women by the Soviet troops was considered a taboo topic until 1992. (See also Red Army atrocities.)
Evidence of the magnitude of rape in Bosnia prompted the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to deal openly with these abuses.[65] Reports of sexual violence during the Bosnian War (1992-1995) and Kosovo War (1996-1999), part of the Yugoslav wars, a series of conflicts from 1991 to 1999, have been described as "especially alarming".[66] Since the entry of the NATO-led Kosovo Force, rapes of Serbian, Albanian, and Roma women by ethnic Albanians, sometimes by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, have also been documented.[67]
It has been estimated that during the Bosnian War between 20,000 and 50,000 women were raped. The majority of the rape victims were Muslim women raped by Serbian soldiers. Although men also became victim of sexual violence, war rape was disproportionately directed against women who were (gang) raped in the streets, in their homes and/or in front of family members. Sexual violence occurred in a multiple ways, including rape with objects, such as broken glass bottles, guns and truncheons.[68] War rape occurred as a matter of official orders as part of ethnic cleansing, to displace the targeted ethnic group out of the region.[69]
During the Bosnian War the existence of deliberately created "rape camps" was reported. The reported aim of these camps was to impregnate the Muslim and Croatian women held captive. It has been reported that often women were kept in confinement until the late stage of their pregnancy. This occurred in the context of a patrilineal society, in which children inherit their father's ethnicity, hence the "rape camps" aimed at the birth of a new generation of Serb children. According to the Women's Group Tresnjevka more than 35,000 women and children were held in such Serb-run "rape camps".[70][71][72]
During the Kosovo War thousands of Kosovo Albanian women and girls became victims of sexual violence. War rape was used as a weapon of war and an instrument of systematic ethnic cleansing; rape was used to terrorise the civilian population, extort money from families, and force people to flee their homes. According to a 2000 Human Rights Watch report war rape in the Kosovo War can generally be subdivided into three categories: rapes in women's homes, rapes during fighting, and rapes in detention. The majority of the perpetrators were Serbian paramilitaries, but they also included Serbian special police or Yugoslav army soldiers. Most rapes were gang rapes involving at least two perpetrators. Rapes occurred frequently in the presence, and with the acquiescence, of military officers. Soldiers, police, and paramilitaries often raped their victims in the full view of numerous witnesses.[73]
Recent History
It has been alleged that an estimated 200,000 women were raped during the Bangladesh Liberation War by the Pakistani army[74], though this has been disputed by many including the Indian academic Sarmila Bose.[75] It has been reported that in Peru, throughout the 12 year internal conflict, women were victims of sustained war rape perpetrated by government security forces and the Shining Path.[76] Other documented instances of war rape include the Liberian civil war and in East Timor since the occupation by Indonesia in 1975.[77] It has also been reported that during the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait an estimated 5,000 Kuwaiti women were raped by Iraqi soldiers.[78]
Commenting on the rape of women and children in recent African conflict zones, Unicef said in 2008 that rape was no longer just perpetrated by combatants but also by civilians. According to Unicef rape is common in countries affected by wars and natural disasters, drawing a link between the occurrence of sexual violence and significant uprooting of a society and the crumbling of social norms. Unicef states that in Kenya reported cases of sexual violence doubled within days of recent post-election conflict erupting. According to Unicef rape was prevalent in conflict zones in Sudan, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.[79] It is estimated that there are as many as 200,000 surviving rape victims living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo today.[80][81]
Since fighting broke out in 1998 tens of thousands of women and girls have been raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo.[83] War rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo has frequently been described as a "weapon of war" by commentators. Louise Nzigire, a local social worker, states that “this violence was designed to exterminate the population.” Nzigire observes that rape has been a "cheap, simple weapon for all parties in the war, more easily obtainable than bullets or bombs."[84]
Despite the peace process launched in 2003, sexual assault by soldiers from armed groups and the national army continues in the eastern provinces of the country.[85] Evidence of war rape emerged when United Nations troops move into areas previously ravaged by war after the peace process started. Gang rape and rape with objects has been reported. The victims of war rape may suffer from incontinence and vaginal fistula as a result of particularly violent rape.[45]
Kahindo Ndasimwa, dressed in little more than rags, told of how militia attacked her village one night two years ago, forcing her to flee into the bush. The 40-year-old was then repeatedly raped by four men - their legacy a continual stream of urine down her legs. (BBC, 2004)[45]
Witness accounts include an instance of a woman who had the barrel of a gun inserted into her vagina, after which the soldier opened fire.[45]Incontinence and vaginal fistula leads to the isolation of war rape victims from her community and access to reconstructive surgery is limited in the D. R. Congo.[45]
An October 2007 New York Times article[86] reported on the large numbers of rapes occurring in the Eastern Congo near Rwanda. It reported (emphasis added):
Eastern Congo is going through another one of its convulsions of violence, and this time it seems that women are being systematically attacked on a scale never before seen here. According to the United Nations, 27,000 sexual assaults were reported in 2006 in South Kivu Province alone, and that may be just a fraction of the total number across the country.
The article also reported on the conclusions of Wilhelmine Ntakebuka, who coordinates a sexual violence program in Bukavu in South Kivu Province:
Instead, she said, the epidemic of rapes seems to have started in the mid-1990s. That coincides with the waves of Hutu militiamen who escaped into Congo’s forests after exterminating 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus during Rwanda’s genocide 13 years ago. Mr. Holmes said that while government troops might have raped thousands of women, the most vicious attacks had been carried out by Hutu militias.
Armed militias in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region are continuing to rape women and girls with impunity, an expert from the United Nations children’s agency said today on her return from a mission to the region. Pamela Shifman, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) adviser on violence and sexual exploitation, said she heard dozens of harrowing accounts of sexual assaults – including numerous reports of gang-rapes – when she visited internally displaced persons (IDPs) at one camp and another settlement in North Darfur last week. “Rape is used as a weapon to terrorize individual women and girls, and also to terrorize their families and to terrorize entire communities,” she said in an interview with the UN News Service. “No woman or girl is safe.”
In that article Pamela Shifman also reported:
Ms. Shifman said every woman or girl she spoke to had either endured sexual assault herself, or knew of someone who had been attacked, particularly when they left the relative safety of their IDP camp or settlement to find firewood.
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Besides all the other sexual abuse and humiliation that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison while under U.S. control, the Taguba Report found a sodomy claim ("Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick") to be credible.[88]
^ ab"55 Dni Wehrmachtu w Polsce" Szymon Datner Warsaw 1967 page 67 Cite error: The named reference "Datner" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
^"Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu na jeńcach wojennych w II Wojnie Światowej Szymon Datner Warsaw 1961 page 215
^A Heterology of American GIs during World War II by Xavier Guillaume, Department of Political Science, University of Geneva July 2003, (H-NET review of Peter Schrijvers. The GI War against Japan: American Soldiers in Asia and the Pacific during World War II. New York: New York University Press, 2002)
^Norman M. Naimark. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949. Harvard University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-674-78405-7 pp. 132,133
