International framework of sexual violence

Sexual violence includes, but is not limited to, rape. Although there is no agreed upon definition of sexual violence, commonly applied ones encompass any act of a sexual nature or attempt to obtain a sexual act carried out through coercion. Sexual violence also includes physical and psychological violence directed at a person's sexuality, including unwanted comments or advances, or acts of traffic such as forced prostitution or sexual slavery.[6][7][8]

Sexual violence, in times of peace and armed conflict situations, is widespread and considered to be one of the most traumatic, pervasive, and most common violations human beings suffer.[1][2] It is a serious public health and human rights problem and has profound short- and long- term impacts on physical and mental health. Though women and girls suffer disproportionately from this kind of violence, it can occur to anybody at any age. It is also an act of violence that can be perpetrated by parents, caregivers, acquaintances, and strangers, as well as intimate partners. Sexual violence is rarely a crime of passion; it is an aggressive act that frequently aims to express power and dominance over the victim.

Sexual violence remains highly stigmatized in all settings; thus, levels of disclosure of the assault vary between regions. In general, it is widely under-reported; thus, available data tend to underestimate the true scale of the problem. In addition, sexual violence is also a neglected area of research; thus, deeper understanding of the issue is needed to promote a coordinated movement against it. It is important to distinguish between domestic sexual violence and conflict-related sexual violence.[9] Often, people who coerce their spouses into sexual acts believe their actions are legitimate because they are married. In times of conflict, sexual violence tends to be an inevitable repercussion of warfare trapped in an ongoing cycle of impunity.[10][11] Rape is often used as a weapon of war, as a form of attack on the enemy, typifying the conquest and degradation of its women or men or captured fighters of any gender.[12]

In no other area is our collective failure to ensure effective protection for civilians more apparent – and by its very nature more shameful – than in terms of the masses of women and girls, but also boys and men, whose lives are destroyed each year by sexual violence perpetrated in conflict.

— Ban Ki-moon[13]

References to sexual offences and violence provided in IHL instruments are only partially expressed in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and even more vaguely considered in the 1977 Additional Protocols.[14][1] By prohibiting sexual violence in a non-discriminatory manner, international humanitarian law ensures that women are protected through a two-tiered approach, being covered by general (equal protection as men) and specific protections. IHL mandates special protections to women, according to their additional needs in situations in which they find themselves more vulnerable, for example women who are widows, sick and wounded, migrants, internally displaced, or held in detention.[15]

Rape and other forms of sexual violence that amount to serious violations of international humanitarian law entail individual criminal responsibility and must be prosecuted. All States are obliged to criminalize these violations under domestic law, and to effectively investigate and prosecute any instance of sexual violence.

— International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)[2]

Although evidence of sexual atrocities such as mass rapes is acknowledged in the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal and Tokyo Tribunal, references to sexual violence in their respective charter are absent.[16] Nonetheless, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the hybrid Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia consider sexual violence as a public tool of war rather than a private crime.[17][18] Groundbreaking case law both by the ad hoc Tribunals of ICTR and ICTY established unprecedented developments by classifying acts of rape and sexual violence as crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity.[19][20]

The Akayesu case goes beyond domestic law definitions of sexual violence and is the first case in which sexual violence is perceived as an integral part of genocide as defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.[21][22] On 2 September 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) found Jean-Paul Akayesu guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity, and "sexual violence" is cited more than 100 times in the judgment.[21] The trial chamber also held that "sexual violence was an integral part of the process of destruction, specifically targeting Tutsi women and specifically contributing to their destruction and to the destruction of the Tutsi group as a whole".[21]

The first trial solely focused on the perpetration of systematic sexual violence (rape camps) and on crimes against humanity committed against women and girls was in the Foca case, a ruling before the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY).[23][24] The Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) also explicitly incorporates rape and other forms of sexual violence in the list of war crimes and therefore recognizes sexual violence as a grave breach of international humanitarian law and of the Geneva Conventions.[25][26]

• Comfort women
• Carla del Ponte
• Louise Arbour
• Marital rape laws by country
• Marry-your-rapist law
• Navi Pillay
• Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict
• Rwandan genocide
• Sexual slavery
• United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women
• Wartime sexual violence

• Cohn, Carol (2010). Women and wars (1. publ. ed.). Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. ISBN 978-0-7456-4245-1.
• de Brouwer, Anne-Marie L. M. (2005). Supranational criminal prosecution of sexual violence : the ICC and the practice of the ICTY and the ICTR. Antwerpen [u.a.]: Intersentia. ISBN 90-5095-533-9.
• Eriksson, Maria (2011). Defining rape : emerging obligations for states under international law?. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN 978-9004-20263-4.
• Kunz, Megan Bastick, Karin Grimm, Rahel (2007). Sexual violence in armed conflict : global overview and implications for the security sector. Geneva: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces. ISBN 978-92-9222-059-4.
• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2003). Sexual and Gender-Based Violence against Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons: Guidelines for Prevention and Response. UNHCR.

• ICRC Resource Center. Sexual violence in armed conflicts: questions and answers
• Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Sexual Violence in Conflict
• UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict Brochure
• Stop Rape Now. UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict
• Reporting and interpreting data on sexual violence from conflict-affected countries
• UN Action against sexual violence in conflict: Progress Report 2010-2011
• Addressing Conflict Related Sexual Violence: An analytical inventory of peacekeeping practice
• Global Solution to Sexual Violence in Conflict, Chatham House, 18 February 2013. Speech of the UN SRSG on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Haja Zainab Hawa Bangura.