What is "rape as a weapon of war"?
Rape of women civilians has been and continues to be deployed as a tactic of war to terrorise civilian communities and/or to achieve "ethnic cleansing," a tool in enforcing hostile occupations, a means of conquering or seeking revenge against the enemy, and a means of payment for mercenary soldiers. It is a strategy planned and organised with the complicity of those who are deemed to provide protection in times of armed conflict and war.

What are the consequences?
Beyond the brutality and trauma of rape itself, which often causes life-long psychological damage to the victim, rape can result in serious physical injury, forced pregnancy, disease and even death. All victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence suffer psychological trauma and almost all have required medical treatment for physical injuries inflicted during their ordeal.

Why does it occur?
To punish, harm and intimidate; to inflict shame; for sex-specific reasons as a means of controlling and dominating women. Rapists attempt to impregnate their victims and compel them to carry the pregnancy to term as an added form of suffering and humiliation. In the former Yugoslavia, non-Serbian women report being taunted by their rapists that they will be forced to carry and give birth to Serbian babies. Many of those women who gave birth then committed suicide. Added to this, almost 3000 children are abandoned in the Ex- Yugoslavia as a result.

What is the extent of the problem?
Of all the abuses committed in war or by repressive regimes, rape in particular is inflicted predominantly against women.

The obvious nature of the use of rape as a weapon of war in the former Yugoslavia has been decisive in focusing attention on the issue as it provoked international condemnation. The stated commitment of the judges and chief prosecutor for the war crimes tribunal, created by the United Nations initially for crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia, to prosecuting rape as a war crime marks a critical turning point. In late 1994, the United Nations expanded the mandate of the tribunal to investigate and prosecute violations of the laws of war that occurred during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Rwanda and Yugoslavia are far from being the first and only places where rape has been used as a tactic of war or under repressive regimes, it can be stated that wherever there is an armed conflict this is happening; it has been necessary to wait until the former Yugoslavia conflict to recognise it.

Moreover it has been viewed as a " private issue ". Rather than a violation of human rights and a tool of repression it has been considered — and still in many cases — as an "inevitable reality" of war. Therefore the perpetrators know they will go unpunished.

Rape is never incidental nor private. It serves a strategic function and acts as a tool for achieving specific and military objectives.

What measures have been taken?
On the basis of the International Criminal Court (ICC) -the Statute of Rome - RAPE is explicitly recognized as a war crime (art.8) , as a crime against humanity (art. 7) and through a explicit statement in the commentaries as genocide (art.6 ).

Further information
www.hrw.org (Human Rigths Watch)
www.amnesty.org (Amnesty International)
www.womenlobby.org (European Women Lobby)
www.v-day.org