The Crime of Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict: Characteristic and Penalization
The Crime of Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict: Characteristic and Penalization

Summary/Abstract: Sexual violence accompanying armed conflicts is one of those issues which—because of their allegedly controversial nature—have been denied the right to become the subject matter of serious studies. Surprising as this may seem, it was only in the 1990s that this problem was first addressed by scientists. Events that had taken place during the Bangladesh fights for independence, when some 200,000 women are believed to have fallen victim to rape, opened the eyes of international opinion to sexual atrocities committed during wars, yet it took another 20 years, until the Balkans conflict, for condemnation of acts of sexual barbarity to be voiced at the highest international level as some of the perpetrators were brought to account before the Yugoslav Tribunal. A survey of the conduct of the parties to the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina exposed the bitter truth about the scale and nature of these crimes, whose psycho-physical effects were a likely tool of furthering the hostilities waged. Not limited to the conflicts of the 1990s, such as in Bosnia and Herzegovina or in Rwanda, similar patterns are observed in present-day conflicts—in Sudan or in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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