Feminists against Sexual Violence in War: The Question of Perpetrators and Victims Revisited
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Effects of the Politicisation of Sexual Violence against Women in War: The 1990s and Beyond
3. Perpetrators and Victims: The Question of Male-Female Dichotomy
4. Men as Victims of Sexual Violence in War: Gendered Meanings and Political Effects
5. Concluding Remarks
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
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1 | This is not to imply that my role in this process was in any way prominent. However, as a person, a woman, and a feminist scholar from war-torn country of Yugoslavia, I did my best to support the peace processes, challenge nationalistic politics and fight against the victimisation of women in war. In 1989, on the eve of the outbreak of armed violence in Yugoslavia, and throughout the 1990s, I was involved with local and international women’s initiatives against nationalism and war in the region. As one of the founding members of the Women’s Parliament (1989), as well as part of the Women in Black anti-war protests in Belgrade, London and Toronto, during the 1990s. The latter multi-sited activism was the expression of my transnational life at the time. As a feminist scholar, during the 1990s, I published 12 journal articles and books chapters, as well as a single authored book and a journal special issue about the Yugoslav wars of succession, tackling the issue of violence against women in these wars. I also participated in numerous academic conferences, public talks, and seminars around the world. |
2 | |
3 | This is not to argue that war is always accompanied by sexual violence. Some studies (Wood 2009) offer evidence that sexual violence is not part of every armed conflict. |
4 | |
5 | Thus, the work of local women on disseminating information about mass rape and sexual violence took place before the first international factfinding mission in Bosnia-Hercegovina, which started in January 1993, led by the Amnesty International. |
6 | Mostly done by (feminist) scholars who were not also activists during the wars of the 1990s. |
7 | Skjelsbæk (2010, pp. 15–17), for example, in explaining why 1990s were the turning point that brought about a new understanding of rape and sexual violence in war, does not acknowledge the role of the political and scholarly work of local women. |
8 | I consider this important, because it was the political, social, and cultural context of Yugoslavia, in conjunction with a strong influence of the first way feminism, that critically shaped their politics, activism, and scholarly work during the 1990s wars of succession. For more on this, see Korac (1998). For more on the difficulties of being engaged in this process, see Litricin and Mladjenovic (1997). |
9 | While some key contributors to the feminist literature have addressed sexual violence against men in their analysis (see, e.g., Alison 2007; Askin 1999, 2003; Buss 2009; Grey and Shepard 2012; Jones 1994, 2002, 2006; Oosterveld 2011; Touquet and Gorris 2016), I share Grey and Shepard’s view that the issue of sexual violence against men is still peripheral in feminist analyses of war violence and sexual violence, in particular (Grey and Shepard 2012, p. 5). |
10 | My discussion in this paper refers to the discourse and the militarisation process primarily in Serbia and to some extent in Croatia, and the spread of war violence in Croatia and Bosnia. I consider pan-Yugoslav feminist anti-war activism prompted by these processes and examine specifically feminist peace activism of groups such as Women in Black’s (WIB) in Serbia. |
11 | This process of feminist engagement and analyses was not unified either politically or conceptually. Differences ranged from approaches to the question of the relation between feminism and nationalism, to conceptualisations of what constitutes rape in war as a war crime. While these differences were and still are important to feminisms and types of their anti-war activism, these variations are not the focus of my discussion, because all these struggles led to the recognition of rape as a war crime, despite the differences. For more on different feminist conceptualisations of sexual violence in war, see Benderly (1997) and Skjelsbæk (2001). |
12 | Press statement release AFR/94 L/2895 (Internet version, http://www.un.org/News/Presshttps://www.un.org/press/en/1998/19980902.afr94.html). |
13 | The passing of this Resolution can be largely credited to pressure applied by women in the international forum, i.e., the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the International Alert. |
14 | |
15 | Some of these studies were published in the late 1990s, thus, during the decade characterised by an outstanding focus on victimisation of women in war. |
16 | |
17 | Nermin’s account, who is one of the Bosniak men who decided to flee Bosnia and the army and who I interviewed in Rome, in 2000, provides a glimpse of their situation: “The only thing I could afford was a trip to Italy. I came to Ancona in March 1995. I’d paid to be smuggled on a ship, I felt like a criminal. The only contact I’d had was a young woman from Bosnia-Herzegovina who was here in Rome. I didn’t even call her, I just came.” (Korac 2009, p. 50). |
18 | Slobodan Milosevic, the than President of so-called Rump Yugoslavia, after the unilateral succession of Slovenia and Croatia from the Federation of the Republics of Yugoslavia. |
19 | Zarkov’s research shows that women combatants in these wars were very few (Zarkov 2007, p. 229). |
20 | This consideration echoes the need of women to articulate and conceptualise their experiences of living with and through gendered constructions of themselves as ‘in need of protection’, ‘weak’, ‘emotional’, hence, ‘inferior’. |
21 | Human history demonstrates that when it comes to the matters of war, the question is ‘when’, rather than ‘if’. |
22 | Misra’s study on sexual violence against men in war, provides a vivid insight into the brutality of this type of violence against men (Misra 2015, p. 124). |
23 | The United Nations Commission of Experts’ Final Report, Annex IX: C; 1994, December 28. http://www.phdn.org/archives/www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/comexpert/ANX/IX.htm#r21. |
24 | As approximately 60% of some 150 detention camps in Bosnia and Croatia were Serb run, in terms of the scale of victimisation, Bosnian Muslim and Croat men were more often victims of rape than Serbian men. All men in these wars were, however, deliberate targets of rape and other brutal forms of sexualised war violence. |
25 | Cockburn (2009, p. 270) points out how men must be visible in their physicality if patriarchal gender relations are to be seen clearly ‘working’ both at work and in the domestic sphere. |
26 | This also explains increased insecurity of LGBT populations in conflict and post-conflict zones, as they are perceived as ‘unwanted others’. |
27 | As opposed to the so-called gender mainstreaming that translates into adding women to otherwise unchanged patriarchal gender power systems and structures, by ‘allowing’ women to take on roles traditionally perceived as men’s. |
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Korac, M. Feminists against Sexual Violence in War: The Question of Perpetrators and Victims Revisited. Soc. Sci. 2018, 7, 182. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7100182
Korac M. Feminists against Sexual Violence in War: The Question of Perpetrators and Victims Revisited. Social Sciences. 2018; 7(10):182. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7100182
Chicago/Turabian StyleKorac, Maja. 2018. "Feminists against Sexual Violence in War: The Question of Perpetrators and Victims Revisited" Social Sciences 7, no. 10: 182. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7100182
APA StyleKorac, M. (2018). Feminists against Sexual Violence in War: The Question of Perpetrators and Victims Revisited. Social Sciences, 7(10), 182. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7100182