Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Gender Communal Terrorism or War Rape: Ten Symbolic Reasons

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Sexuality & Culture Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper examines gender communal terrorism in past conflicts across the globe. Gender communal terrorism is a symbolic form of war rape. It was used systematically during the Bosnian War (1992–1995) and the Second Congo War (1998–2003), as part of a large-scale campaign to wipe out ethnic groups. In fact, war rape in the Second Congo War has been considered the worst in the history of humankind. To increase our understanding of war rape as a form of terrorism, ten symbolic themes (i.e., symbolic reasons) emerged from this analysis: (1) identicide (or ethnic cleansing), (2) punishment, (3) conquering territory, (4) proof of manhood, (5) wounded femininity, (6) wounded community, (7) rejection from family, (8) abjection, (9) ritual, and (10) fantasy. An important conclusion of this analysis is that all ten symbolic reasons of war rape have one purpose in common: the cultural elimination of the enemy. As such, gender communal terrorism is a weapon of war and an instrument of terror that cause profoundly negative effects on entire communities. Hence, a recurrent key word among those themes is the word “wounded”.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Allen, B. (1996). Rape warfare: The hidden genocide in Bosnia–Herzegovina and Croatia. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amnesty International. (2012). “I wanted to die:” Syria’s torture survivors speak out. London: Amnesty International Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Askin, K. (1997). War crimes against women: Prosecution in international war crimes tribunals. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

    Google Scholar 

  • Autesserre, S. (2012). Dangerous tales: Dominant narratives on the Congo and their unintended consequences. African Affairs, 111(443), 202–222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baaz, M. E., & Stern, M. (2013). Sexual violence as a weapon of war? Perceptions, prescriptions, problems in the Congo and beyond. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bataille, G. (1993). The accursed share. New York, NY: Zone Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Belarouci, L. (2005). Terrorist violence: Attack on community attachments. In J. Donnelly (Ed.), Developing strategies to deal with trauma in children (pp. 25–31). Washington, DC: IOS Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benhabyles, S. (2005). Terrorism in Algeria: The impact on children and adolescents. In J. Donnelly (Ed.), Developing strategies to deal with trauma in children (pp. 23–24). Washington, DC: IOS Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benton, S. (1995). Women disarmed: The militarisation of politics in Ireland 1913–1923. Feminist Review, 50, 148–172.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bonnet, C. (1995). Le viol des femmes survivantes du génocide au Rwanda. In R. Verdier, E. Decaux, & J.-P. Chrétien (Eds.), Rwanda, un génocide du XXe siècle (pp. 17–29). Paris: Editions L’Harmattan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boose, L. E. (2002). Crossing the River Drina: Bosnian rape camps, Turkish impalement, and Serb cultural memory. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28(1), 71–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bose, S. (2009). Contested lands: Israel–Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brownmiller, S. (1988). Against our will: Men, women and rape. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Card, C. (1996). Rape as a weapon of war. Hypatia, 11(4), 5–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cheldelin, S. I. (2011). Victims of rape and gendercide: All wars. In S. I. Cheldelin & M. Eliatambu (Eds.), Women waging war and peace: International perspectives of women’s roles in conflict and post-conflict reconstruction (pp. 12–34). New York, NY: Continnum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cochrane, K. (2008). The victims’ witness. The Guardian, p. A1.

  • Cohen, W. (1989). Symbols of power: Statues in nineteenth-century provincial France. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 31(3), 491–513.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cook, C. (2013). Diamonds and genocide: American, British, and French press coverage of the Second Congo War. Sage Open, 3(3), 1–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Brouwer, A. M. (2005). Supranational criminal prosecution of sexual violence: The ICC and the practice of the ICTY and the ICTR. Antwerp: Intersentia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deibert, M. (2013). The Democratic Republic of Congo: Between hope and despair. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diken, B., & Bagge Laustsen, C. (2005). Becoming abject: Rape as a weapon of war. Body & Society, 11(1), 111–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dombrowski, N. A. (2004). Women and war in the twentieth century: Enlisted with or without consent. New York, NY: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farwell, N. (2004). War rape: New conceptualizations and responses. Affilia, 19(4), 389–403.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gauthier, J. A., & Widmer, E. D. (2014). The destruction of multiethnic locations: Markers of identity and the determinants of residential trajectories. War, Community, and Social Change, 17, 85–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gilberg, T. (2000). “Yugoslav” nationalism at the end of the twentieth century. In L. Suryadinata (Ed.), Nationalism and globalization: East and west (pp. 1–37). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldstein, I. (1999). Croatia: A history. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldstein, J. (2001). War and gender: How gender shapes the war system and vice versa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gourgouris, S. (2004). Transformation, not transcendence. Boundary, 31(2), 55–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grabham, E., & Buss, D. (2009). Intersectionality and beyond: Law, power and the politics of location. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guntram, H., & Kaplan, D. (1999). Nested identities: Nationalism, territory and scale. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guzina, D., & Marijan, B. (2013). Local uses of international criminal justice in Bosnia–Herzegovina: Transcending divisions or building parallel worlds? Studies in Social Justice, 7(2), 245–263.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hagen, K. T., & Yohani, S. C. (2010). The nature and psychosocial consequences of war rape for individuals and communities. International Journal of Psychological Studies, 2(2), 14–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halilovich, H. (2013). Places of pain: Forced displacement, popular memory and trans-local identities in Bosnian war-torn communities. New York, NY: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heineman, E. D. (2011). Sexual violence in conflict zones: From the ancient world to the era of human rights. Philadelphia, PA: The University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Huening, L. C. (2013). Making use of the past: The Rwandophone question and the “balkanisation of the Congo”. Review of African Political Economy, 40(135), 13–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ignatieff, M. (1993). Blood and belonging: Journeys into the new nationalism. London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, M. (1995). Patriarchal terrorism and common couple violence: Two forms of violence against women. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 57, 283–294.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, T. (2013). Congo refugee is a voice for homeland victims of sexual violence. Burlington, VT: Burlington Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, K., Scott, J., Rughita, B., Kisielewski, M., Asher, J., Ong, R., et al. (2010). Association of sexual violence and human rights violations with physical and mental health in territories of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 304(5), 553–561.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, A. (2000). Gendercide and genocide. Journal of Genocide Research, 2(2), 185–211.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Korac, M. (1996). Understanding ethnic-national identity and its meaning: Questions from women’s experience. Women’s Studies International Forum, 19(1), 133–143.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Korac, M. (1998). Ethnic nationalism, wars and the patterns of social, political and sexual violence against women: The case of post-Yugoslav countries. Identities, 5(2), 153–181.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kristof, N. D. (2008). The weapon of rape. The New York Times, p. C3.

  • Kristof, N. D., & WuDunn, S. (2009). Half the sky: Turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loncar, M., Medved, V., Jovanovic, N., & Hotujac, L. (2006). Psychological consequences of rape on women in 1991–1995 war in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Croatian Medical Journal, 47(1), 67–75.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacKinnon, C. A. (1994). Rape, genocide, and women’s human rights. In C. MacKinnon (Ed.), Are women human? And other international dialogues (pp. 180–191). Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, G. (2010). Understanding terrorism: Challenges, perspectives, and issues. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • May, L. (2007). War crimes and just war. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • McCrummen, S. (2007). Prevalence of rape in E. Congo described as worst in world. The Washington Post, p. A1.

  • Meharg, S. J. (2001). Identicide and cultural cannibalism: Warfare’s appetite for symbolic place. Peace Research Journal, 33(3), 89–98.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mencutekin, M. (2012). And the Golden Bear goes to Grbavica: An opus of manipulation. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research, 5(1), 71–89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meznaric, S. (1994). Gender as an ethno-marker: Rape, war, and identity politics in the former Yugoslavia. In V. Moghadam (Ed.), Identity politics and women: Cultural reassertions and feminism in international relations (pp. 79–92). Boulder, CO: Westview.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, W. (1997). The anatomy of disgust. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nikolic-Ristanovic, V. (1996). War and violence against women. In J. Turpin & L. Ann Lorentzen (Eds.), The gendered new world order: Militarism, development and the environment (pp. 195–210). New York, NY: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Osborn, A. (2001). Mass rape ruled a war crime. The Guardian, p. A1.

  • Parrot, A., & Cummings, N. (2008). Sexual enslavement of girls and women worldwide. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pegorier, C. (2013). Ethnic cleansing: A legal qualification. New York, NY: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Penn, M., & Nardos, R. (2003). Overcoming violence against women and girls: An international campaign to eradicate a worldwide problem. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pope, N. (2011). Honor killings in the twenty-first century. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reyntjens, F. (2010). The Great African War: Congo and regional geopolitics, 1996–2006. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sajjad, T. (2012). The post-genocidal period and its impact on women. In S. Totten (Ed.), Plight and fate of women during and following genocide (pp. 219–248). Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salzman, T. (1998). Rape camps as a means of ethnic cleansing: Religious, cultural, and ethical responses to rape victims in the former Yugoslavia. Human Rights Quarterly, 20(2), 348–378.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scholz, S. J. (2007). War rape’s challenge to Just War Theory. Intervention, Terrorism, and Torture, 1, 273–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Security, Global. (2014). Second Congo war. Alexandria, VA: Global Security.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seifert, R. (1994). War and rape: A preliminary analysis. In A. Stiglmayer (Ed.), Mass rape: The war against women in Bosnia–Herzegovina (pp. 54–72). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sharlach, L. (2000). Rape as genocide: Bangladesh, the former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda. New Political Science, 22(1), 89–102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simic, O. (2012). Regulation of sexual conduct in UN peacekeeping operations. New York, NY: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sivakumaran, S. (2007). Sexual violence against men in armed conflict. The European Journal of International Law, 18(2), 253–276.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stemple, L. (2009). Male rape and human rights. Hastings Law Journal, 60(3), 605–647.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stiglmayer, A., Faber, M., Enloe, C., & Gutman, R. (1994). Mass rape: The war against women in Bosnia–Herzegovina. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Storr, W. (2011). The rape of men: The darkest secret of war. The Guardian, p. A1.

  • Trexler, R. C. (1995). Sex and conquest: Gendered violence, political order, and the European conquest of the Americas. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Üngör, U. U. (2012). Studying mass violence: Pitfalls, problems, and promises. Genocide Studies and Prevention, 7(1), 68–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • United Nations. (1994). United Nations commission on breaches of Geneva law in former Yugoslavia. New York, NY: United Nations.

    Google Scholar 

  • United Nations. (2001). Report of the panel of experts on the illegal exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo. New York, NY: United Nations.

    Google Scholar 

  • United Nations. (2005). United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: Audit of ICTY information technology management. New York, NY: United Nations.

    Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Agency for International Development. (2004). Sexual terrorism: Rape as a weapon of war in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Washington, DC: U.S. Agency for International Development.

    Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Department of State. (2007). Country report on human rights practices: Democratic Republic of the Congo. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watts, C., & Zimmerman, C. (2002). Violence against women: Global scope and magnitude. Lancet, 359(9313), 1232–1237.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, C. (1993). A bridge too many: Destruction of Bosnia landmark sparks outrage from all sides. Montreal Gazette, p. B5.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Central Florida, UCF-Sanford/Lake Mary, 100 Weldon Blvd., Partnership Center (#UP 3009), Sanford, FL, 32773, USA

    Jonathan Matusitz

Authors
  1. Jonathan Matusitz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jonathan Matusitz.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

This paper contains no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights

This paper involves no research involving human participants and/or animals.

Informed Consent

No informed consent was necessary for this paper.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Matusitz, J. Gender Communal Terrorism or War Rape: Ten Symbolic Reasons. Sexuality & Culture 21, 830–844 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-017-9424-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-017-9424-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation