Part 3

Sven Torfi nn / Panos Pictures

Part III examines the impact of war on those generally considered to be

the most vulnerable—refugees, women and children. As is often the case

in this field, analysis is complicated by the lack of reliable data.

Assault on the Vulnerable

P A R T I I I

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100

Assault on the Vulnerable

Introduction

The plight of the displaced

103

While the number of refugees fell dramatically in the 1990s, the number of displaced persons has

increased. Many are sick and hungry, most lack protection, and few have adequate shelter.

War and sexual violence

107

In the world’s war zones, women and girls are acutely vulnerable to sexual attack. Chronic

under-reporting and lack of reliable data have allowed governments to turn a blind eye to the

problem, and growing international attention to the issue has thus far had little impact.

Child soldiers

113

It is difficult, if not impossible, to estimate how many child soldiers serve in armed forces around

the world. But their exploitation remains widespread.

P A R T I I I

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101

Introduction

When conflict causes people to . ee their homes,

their vulnerability to predation, disease and mal-

nutrition increases—often dramatically. Gender

is also an important determinant of wartime

vulnerability—often in surprising ways.

Although war-induced displacement is one of the few

human security issues for which there are official data, de-

termining trends is hampered by the fact that more than

half the displaced persons around the world are not count-

ed by the UN.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

(UNHCR) collects data only on what it calls

‘persons of con-

cern’ to the organisation. This includes all refugees, but less

than half of the estimated 24 million internally displaced

persons (IDPs).

The plight of IDPs is generally worse than that of ref-

ugees. As a new survey by the Global IDP Project of the

Norwegian Refugee Council points out:

IDPs did not receive sufficient humanitarian assistance

from their governments. In fact, three in four IDPs, more

than 18 million people, could not count on their national

authorities for the provision of adequate assistance.

But refugees and IDPs are not simply victims. As Fred

Tanner and Stephen Stedman point out, ‘Throughout the

1990s, refugee camps were used as staging grounds and

resource bases for combatants in areas experiencing some

of the world’s most protracted wars.’ (See: ‘Militarising ref-

ugee camps’.) In fact, according to the UNHCR some 15%

of refugee camps are militarised.

The question of people’s vulnerability to the various

impacts of war is more complex than often assumed. For

example, one of the most frequently cited claims about

today’s displaced persons is that 80% of them are women

and children—an assertion that conveys the impression

of unique vulnerability to displacement.

In fact, a recent

UNHCR analysis of refugee and IDP trends indicates that

women and children make up 70.5%

—not 80%—of dis-

placed persons.

Since women and children (i.e., boys and

girls under 18 years of age) make up at least 70% of the

population in many war-affected countries, this figure does

not constitute evidence that they are uniquely vulnerable.

In armed conflict women and girls are far more vul-

nerable to sexual assault and predation than men. Here

again the absence of reliable data makes tracking trends

extraordinarily difficult. It is not even possible to determine

whether wartime sexual violence is increasing or decreas-

ing. Such information is critical for governments seeking to

Leo Erken / Panos Pictures

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102

understand if policies designed to reduce the incidence of

wartime sexual violence are working or not.

Despite the absence of global data, case study evidence

suggests that displaced women may be twice as vulner-

able to sexual assault as those who do not see their homes.

Insofar as this finding is generally true, the more than five-

fold increase in the numbers of displaced people between

1970 and the early 1990s was likely associated with a major

increase in war-related sexual assaults.

Similarly, the decline in both the number of displaced

persons and the number and deadliness of armed conflicts

since the end of the Cold War may well have led to a net

decrease in wartime sexual violence—notwithstanding the

recent wave of assaults in Darfur, the Democratic Republic

of the Congo and elsewhere.

Amoung children, those under five

years of age are by far the most vul-

nerable to death from war-induced

malnutrition and disease.

With the critically important exception of sexual

violence, there is considerable evidence to suggest that

men, not women, are more vulnerable to the major im-

pacts of armed conflict. Of course, it is not surprising that

far more men get killed on the battlefield than women,

since they make up the overwhelming majority of com-

batants. But case study evidence also suggests that wom-

en are less likely to be victims of ‘collateral damage’, and

non-combatant males are more likely to be subject to mass

killing than non-combatant females. Further, some recent

epidemiological survey evidence finds that males are more

likely to die from war-induced malnutrition and disease

than females.

What these findings suggest is that women are more

resilient and less vulnerable to the impacts of armed con-

flict than much of the literature that focuses on women as

victims suggests. The increased participation of women in

government military forces, rebel groups and even terror-

ist organisations also serves to remind us that depicting

women simply as passive victims of political violence can

be profoundly misleading.

Of course, children are the most vulnerable of all. The

discussion on child soldiers draws on recent research by the

Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and Brookings

Institution analyst Peter W. Singer. Here the focus is not

so much on the economic and strategic imperatives that

impel the recruitment of children and that were briefly re-

viewed in Part I, but on how children under arms are used

and abused.

Most analysts believe that there has been a dra-

matic increase in the use of child soldiers over the past

three decades, driven in part by economic imperatives.

Physically vulnerable and easily intimidated, children

make cheap, expendable soldiers. Armed with modern

light weapons, they can be swiftly transformed into ef-

ficient, low-cost killers.

But lack of reliable data again confounds attempts to

determine whether numbers of child soldiers have recently

been increasing or decreasing. Both governments and reb-

el forces routinely lie about their use of child soldiers and

few if any records are kept, making the task of estimating

numbers extremely difficult.

The estimate of 300,000 child soldiers worldwide dates

back almost a decade, yet it is repeatedly cited as if it were

current. However, given the dramatic decline in the num-

ber of wars since then—and the consequent demobilisa-

tion of fighters, including children—it would be surprising

if child soldier numbers had not fallen along with those of

regular forces during this period.

Whatever the numbers, there is no doubt that children

generally—and not just child soldiers—suffer most from

the impact of armed conflict and displacement. Among

children, those under five years of age are by far the most

vulnerable to death from war-induced malnutrition and

disease. In some conflicts more than 50% of the ‘indirect

deaths’ from armed conflicts are children in this category.

This ‘indirect death’ phenomenon is examined in more

depth in Part IV, and will be a major focus of the Human

Security Report 2006.

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The plight of the displaced

While the number of refugees around the

world has steadily declined in recent years,

the number of internally displaced persons

has grown considerably. Many are sick and

hungry, most lack protection and few have

adequate shelter.

For four decades the number of refugees around the

world has tracked the number of armed conflicts—grow-

ing inexorably, though unevenly, from the 1960s to the

early 1990s, then falling commensurately as the numbers

of wars declined in the 1990s, from a record high of 17.8

million in 1992 to 9.7 million in 2003. The recent upsurge of

peace agreements in Africa, the world’s most violent con-

tinent, suggests that this trend will continue, at least in the

short term.

Most displaced persons are not refugees, however.

Of the estimated 33 million displaced people around

the world in 2003, about 24 million were internally dis-

placed persons (IDPs), and although the data are unreli-

able, it appears that their numbers have increased signifi-

cantly since 1995 (see Figure 3.1).

Unlike refugees, IDPs

do not cross national borders in search of safety—they re-

main within their home country.

Sven Torfi nn / Panos Pictures

Displaced persons (total)

Internally displaced persons

Refugees

Source: Philip Orchard, 2004

From the mid-sixties to the early 1990s, numbers

of all displaced persons, both refugees and IDPs,

rose dramatically, from about 5 million to 42 mil-

lion. But while the number of refugees declined

between 1992 and 2003, the number of IDPs

increased.

Note: Refugee figures from 1964–1975 are es timates by UNHCR based on

the arrival of refugees and/or recognition of asylum seekers.

Figure 3.1 Refugees and internally displaced

persons, 1964–2003

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104

World War II and its aftermath

More than 30 million people were displaced as a re-

sult of World War II, confronting the new UN Relief and

Rehabilitation Administration (now the United Nations

High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR) with a huge

task of repatriation and local integration.

By 1946, howev-

er, the looming Cold War made the repatriation of refugees

to the Soviet Union and Soviet-controlled areas politically

unpalatable to Western governments. Resettlement became

the preferred option. As James Hathaway put it, accepting

refugees from Communist regimes, ‘reinforced the ideo-

logical and strategic objectives of the capitalist world’.

Cold War politics rather than humanitarian need tended to

determine who was granted asylum. In the 1980s, for ex-

ample, the United States accepted only 3% of Salvadorean

and Guatemalan applications for asylum, but 75% of those

from the Soviet Union.

For much of the Cold War the UNHCR and host and

donor states assumed that most refugees would remain in

their country of asylum for extended periods.

But over

the years the rising numbers of asylum seekers and the in-

creasing reluctance of host countries to absorb them, plus

opportunities for some refugees to return home, led to a

major shift in policy. Once again, repatriation became the

name of the game. Between 1991 and 1996 the UNHCR

repatriated more than 9 million refugees.

In the West the end of the Cold War swept away any re-

maining ideological motive for accepting refugees, most of

whom now came from the poorest countries of the devel-

oping world.

Opportunistic European politicians began

blaming unemployment and rising crime rates on refugees,

asylum seekers and illegal migrants. Governments argued

that many who claimed to be asylum seekers were really

economic migrants with no real need of international pro-

tection. The claim was doubtless true in some cases.

And governments had reason to be concerned about

costs. In 2002–03 the cost of housing and support for the

41,000 asylum seekers in the UK was nearly US$2 billion—

‘roughly twice the amount the UNHCR spends each year

to support and care for 21 million refugees in its camps

around the world’.

IDPs: Greater numbers, greater problems

In 2003 there were an estimated 23.6 million IDPs world-

wide, up from an estimated 3 million in 1982. The protec-

tion provided for these displaced people varies from non-

existent to barely adequate. According to the Norwegian

Refugee Council, in 13 of the 52 countries that have IDPs,

governments provide no protection at all, while 9 million

IDPs in 22 other countries receive occasional protection.

UN humanitarian agencies operate in only 21 countries—

less than half the number of countries with IDPs.

It isn’t obvious why IDP numbers apparently rose be-

tween 1995 and 2002 while both the numbers of armed

conflicts and refugees fell. Several possibilities present

themselves.

In the West the end of the Cold War

swept away any remaining ideologi-

cal motive for accepting refugees.

First, the scope of the problem is better under-

stood now than it was a decade ago—despite attempts

by governments to invoke sovereignty and non-interfer-

ence to quash criticism. This is thanks in part to the work

of the Representative of the Secretary-General on Internal

Displacement, but also to the increased numbers of

NGOs and UN agency staff on the ground. So part of the

increase in IDP numbers may be due simply to an increase

in reporting.

Second, in many countries embroiled in conflict, ‘eth-

nic cleansing’ campaigns mean that returning refugees

have no secure homes to go to. When refugees return to

their own countries, the global refugee total goes down,

but the global IDP total may go up.

Third, in many contemporary wars, civilians are not

only victims of ‘collateral damage’, they are deliberately

targeted by rebel groups and even government forces.

Mass killing of civilians in guerrilla wars is most likely to

occur when guerrillas pose a major threat to the regime

and are strongly supported by the civilian population.

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Between July 14 and 18, 1994, some 850,000

people fled from Rwanda into eastern Zaire (now the

Democratic Republic of the Congo), joining several

hundred thousand who had travelled there in the pre-

vious month. By August, between 1.7 and 2 million

Rwandans were living in makeshift camps in Zaire

and Tanzania.

Many of the displaced were not fleeing the geno-

cide; they were its perpetrators. The slaughter of more

than 800,000 Rwandan Tutsi and moderate Hutu had

ended in the middle of July 1994, not because the in-

ternational community had finally been galvanised

into action, but because the Rwandan Patriotic Front

(RPF), a largely Tutsi force that had been fighting the

Rwandan government for three years, had prevailed.

The genocide had been organised and directed by

elements of the Rwandan government and army that

had opposed a power-sharing deal with the RPF to

end the civil war. When all seemed lost militarily, the

genocideurs forcibly marched hundreds of thousands of

Rwandan Hutus out of the country—an exodus fueled

by Hutu fears that the RPF would seek violent retribu-

tion. But the genocide’s organisers and killers blended

into the refugee camps in Zaire—where they, like oth-

er refugees, received assistance—and quickly gained

control. As Médicins Sans Frontières has pointed out,

‘those responsible for the genocide ... remained living

with impunity in camps run by the United Nations,

and the very system established to protect the refu-

gees became the source of their peril.’

According to the UNHCR, militarised camps such

as those in Zaire now pose the single largest threat

to refugee security. Although the great majority of

refugee crises do not foment refugee militarisation, a

small but significant number (15%) do have this ef-

fect. Throughout the 1990s refugee camps were used

as staging grounds and resource bases for combat-

ants in areas experiencing some of the world’s most

protracted wars: Afghanistan, Bosnia, Burundi, East

Timor, Liberia, Rwanda, Sudan and the Palestinian

Territories.

The fact that some of the most powerful member

states of the United Nations used refugees as pawns

in larger geopolitical conflicts ensured the UNHCR

was denied resources necessary to stop the use of

camps as de facto military bases. In its commitment to

long-term relief assistance, the UNHCR was inadver-

tently supporting warring groups intent on exploiting

refugee populations and humanitarian assistance as a

means of continuing their violent struggles.

Recognising the dilemma, some refugee workers

argue that host governments should provide better

camp security. But in today’s world, many host gov-

ernments are either complicit in the political and mili-

tary manipulation of refugees (as in Pakistan, Thailand

and the Democratic Republic of the Congo) or simply

lack the capacity to protect refugee populations (as in

Lebanon).

The UNHCR has proposed measures to deal with

the problem—ranging from modest preventive initia-

tives, to the creation of an international military force

tasked with policing the camps and separating com-

batants from refugees.

While admirable in principle, these proposals will

have little impact in practice as long as the interna-

tional community continues to ignore the manipu-

lation of refugees by host governments, neighbours,

regional powers and, not least, the major powers.

MILITARISING

REFUGEE

CAMPS

The flight of Rwandans following the genocide in 1994 may have been the largest and most rapid

mass exodus in African history and is deeply misunderstood.

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106

In such cases, flight is often the only option. But seeking

sanctuary across borders may not be possible for a variety

of reasons—including the refusal of governments to allow

displaced persons to leave the country and the reluctance of

governments in potential host countries to accept them.

Finally, while the number of armed conflicts declined

between 1995 and 2002, the number of people killed in

sub-Saharan Africa increased dramatically, but temporarily,

at the end of the century. Some of the increase in IDPs was

almost certainly a response to this increase in violence.

Failures to protect the displaced

When civilians become strategic targets, those who seek

to help them—including humanitarian agencies—may

themselves be targeted. This is one reason for the upsurge

of attacks on humanitarian workers during the 1990s.

The greater the danger to humanitarian workers, the more

likely those workers are to be withdrawn from the field and

the less protection and assistance will be available to the

displaced and vulnerable.

In 2002 a four-year survey by the Norwegian Refugee

Council’s Global IDP Project reported that:

The global IDP crisis is one of the great humanitarian

challenges of our time. In most of the 48 countries cov-

ered, IDPs struggle to survive with inadequate shelter,

few resources and no protection. Warring parties often

block humanitarian aid, unnecessarily worsening mal-

nutrition and disease. Moreover IDPs—mainly women

and children—have no one to protect them from mul-

tiple human rights violations: including attacks, torture,

forced labour and sexual exploitation.

2 0

IDPs are entitled to the same legal protection under

human rights and humanitarian law as other civilians, and

they are supposed to be protected by their governments.

But some governments lack the capacity to protect dis-

placed citizens; others simply don’t care. Sometimes gov-

ernments themselves cause displacement. When this hap-

pens IDPs have no one to turn to for protection—except

on those rare occasions when the international community

can be persuaded to mount a ‘humanitarian intervention’.

And even when governments—often grudgingly—permit

aid agencies access to internally displaced populations, the

situation on the ground is often too dangerous to allow

unprotected agency personnel to operate effectively.

The ability of the international community to assist the

displaced is further complicated by inadequate response

capacity. In February 2004 Refugees International reported

that field assessments by its staff revealed that UNHCR

was failing to meet its core responsibility in protecting

refugees—let alone IDPs—in every country assessed. Even

official agency reports on the response to IDP needs are

negative. A recent assessment by the UN’s new Internally

Displaced Persons Unit concluded that the internation-

al community’s response to IDP needs was ad hoc and

plagued by egregious failures.

When civilians are stategic targets,

those who seek to help them—

including humanitarian agencies—

may themselves be targeted.

Agency turf battles are a further impediment, but the

fundamental problem is that humanitarian agencies simply

lack the capacity to address protection needs in the field ef-

fectively. Among official agencies and NGOs, there is gen-

eral agreement that the most effective way to address this

is through better collaboration. But while the ‘collaborative

approach’ is widely agreed to be sensible, it requires a de-

gree of cooperation that has yet to be achieved.

In the meantime—unable to depend on either their

own governments or the international community—most

displaced persons have no choice but to rely on their own

coping mechanisms.

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War and sexual violence

Sexual violence has been an intimate partner of

armed conflict throughout human history, but

because of chronic under-reporting by both vic-

tims and authorities, determining its extent in

war is extraordinarily diffi cult.

Men and women die—and suffer—in wars quite dif-

ferently. Far more men are killed in battle than women.

Indeed, according to the World Health Organization

(WHO) nearly 90% of all direct war deaths in 2002 were

men.

But women are far more vulnerable to sexual vio-

lence and predation.

In the world’s war zones, women

and girls are overwhelmingly non-combatants—and rarely

have the means to protect themselves.

The history of sexual violence in 20th century wars il-

lustrates the scope of the problem:

During Japan’s infamous assault on the Chinese city

of Nanking in December 1937, more than 20,000 and

possibly as many as 80,000 women were raped and

killed. In 1934–1945 the Japanese forced between

100,000 and 200,000 mostly Asian women, most of

them Korean, into prostitution as ‘comfort women’.

In the final phases of World War II, Russian soldiers

raped and gang-raped hundreds of thousands of

women in the assault on, and subsequent occupation

of, Germany.

In 1971 hundreds of thousands of Bengali women

were sexually assaulted by West Pakistani forces in

the uprising and subsequent savage repression that

killed more than a million people and eventually led

to the creation of Bangladesh from what had been

East Pakistan.

In the 1994 Rwandan genocide, as many as 500,000

women and girls may have been victims of sexual

violence.

According to Gerald Chamina, Rwanda’s

prosecutor general, ‘Rape was the worst experience of

victims of the genocide. Some people paid to die, to

be shot rather than tortured. Their prayers were for a

quick and decent death. Victims of rape did not have

that privilege.’

In the war in Bosnia, an estimated 20,000 to 50,000

women were sexually assaulted.

In the new century the assaults have continued:

In Burma, Refugees International reported in 2003 that

a government-backed reign of terror had resulted in

the sexual violation of thousands of women from the

Karen, Karenni, Mon and Tavoyan ethnic minorities.

In Sudan in early 2005, government forces and militias

were responsible for rape and other acts of sexual vio-

lence throughout the region of Darfur. These and other

Nick Danziger / Press Images Europe

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acts were conducted on a ‘widespread and systematic

basis, and therefore may amount to crimes against hu-

manity’.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, government

troops and rebel fighters have raped tens of thousands

of women and girls, ‘but fewer than a dozen perpetra-

tors have been prosecuted by a judicial system in dire

need of reform’.

Displacement and sexual violence

A major survey in post-war Sierra Leone found that the

rate of sexual assault against women and girls who had

been displaced was 17%, almost double that of those who

had not fled their homes.

Nationwide that rate translates

into 94,000 to 122,000 victims among the displaced females

alone.

Nearly a third of the assault victims among the dis-

placed had been gang-raped.

Unarmed and rarely able to exercise their rights, dis-

placed women and girls become easy targets for sexual vi-

olence and exploitation. And while refugee camps provide

food and shelter for women fleeing the chaos of war, they

often fail to protect them from predation.

No one knows whether the inci-

dence of sexual violence in war is

increasing or decreasing.

There have been a number of well-documented recent

cases of aid workers and peacekeepers coercing women

and girls into providing sexual services in exchange for

protection, assistance and support for children and other

family members:

One 2002 report on camp conditions in Guinea, Liberia

and Sierra Leone cited numerous stories of sexual vio-

lence and exploitation by peacekeepers and humani-

tarian workers.

In January 2005 a UN inquiry substantiated allega-

tions of sexual abuse by peacekeepers and civilian UN

workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Is the violence increasing or decreasing.

No one knows whether the incidence of sexual violence in

war is increasing or decreasing. Statistics on rape and other

forms of sexual assault in conflict zones remain virtually

non-existent and many post-conflict epidemiological sur-

veys do not ask questions about sexual violence because

they are too sensitive.

Victims are often reluctant to report that they have

been sexually assaulted because they fear being stigma-

tised or further victimised. M any hold a well-founded be-

lief that authorities will do little to provide redress.

This chronic under-reporting has allowed authorities

to downplay the problem, with the result that rape and

related crimes have tended to be treated as an unfortu-

nate form of ‘collateral damage’. As Human Rights Watch

has argued:

Rape has long been mischaracterised and dismissed

by military and political leaders as a private crime,

the ignoble act of the occasional soldier. Worse still, it

has been accepted precisely because it is so common-

place. Longstanding discriminatory attitudes have

viewed crimes against women as incidental or less seri-

ous violations.

3 8

Despite the lack of reliable statistics, wartime sexual vi-

olence has received far more attention in recent years—and

few doubt that it is widespread. But it is unclear whether

the incidence of attacks is increasing, or simply that more

are being reported. Both could be true. However, some in-

ferences can be drawn from the association between sexual

violence and population displacement.

As noted earlier, in the civil war in Sierra Leone the

sexual assault rate among displaced women was close to

twice that of those who had not fled their homes. If a simi-

lar relationship exists in other conflict zones around the

world, then war-related sexual violence would have risen

as the numbers of displaced people increased.

From the beginning of the 1970s to the early 1990s,

the number of people displaced, many as a result of armed

conflict, increased from 8 million to more than 40 million.

So if the Sierra Leone pattern applies universally, then the

H U M A N S E C U R I T Y R E P O R T 2 0 0 5

109

incidence of conflict-related sexual violence would also

have risen massively over the same period.

After 1992 the numbers of displaced persons around

the world declined, so the same logic would suggest that—

all other things being equal—the number of victims of

sexual violence would have declined as well.

Another possibility is that the rate of sexual assaults

per hundred thousand of the population increased in some

conflicts, while the total number of victims of such assaults

decreased worldwide as the number of conflicts declined.

Clearly more research is needed before any definitive

conclusions can be reached on this issue. And researchers

need to bear in mind that rates of sexual violence can dif-

fer dramatically from conflict to conflict. One recent study

found, for example, that wartime sexual violence rates

in the conflicts in Bosnia and Sierra Leone were many

times higher than those in Israel-Palestine, Sri Lanka and

El Salvador.

Rape as a weapon of war

There is some case study evidence to suggest that ‘strategic

rape’—sexual assault that is encouraged by military leaders

as a means of furthering war aims—has been rising. One

recent study reported that rape had been used as a ‘weapon

of war’ in at least 13 countries between 2001 and 2004.

Rape can be used to humiliate and demoralise enemies,

while the mere threat of sexual violence can induce people

to see their homes—a central goal of ‘ethnic cleansing’. For

example, in July 2004 Amnesty International reported that

the Arab militias (‘Janjawid’) in the Darfur region of Sudan

had raped women in public as part of a deliberate effort

to humiliate, punish, control, engender fear and displace

whole communities.

During the Rwandan genocide a

decade earlier, rapes were ‘often staged as public perfor-

mances to multiply the terror and degradation.’

So-called strategic rape is particularly effective against

traditional ‘honour and shame’ societies, where the per-

ceived integrity of the family and the community is bound

up with the virtue of women. When used this way rape be-

comes a cultural weapon as well as a physical outrage, one

that brings shame and humiliation to the victim’s entire

family. This happened in Kosovo, where Muslim women

were specifically targeted, in part because the perpetrators

believed that once women had been raped, traditional cul-

tural norms would ensure that they would be ostracised

and could then neither marry nor have children.

Sexual violence is most prevalent when, as is the case

with strateg ic rape, it is encouraged and legitimised by

political authorities. But even without of ficial encourage-

ment most wars involve a dramatic erosion in the norms

that restrain anti-social behaviour in times of peace.

And the general lawlessness and impunity that war brings

in its train means that once the fighting starts there is

often little to deter individuals from acting out their vio-

lent desires. Where pre-war social norms against sexual

violence are weak, the risk of rape in war is correspond-

ingly greater.

The fate of the victims

Many wartime victims of sexual violence confront a tragic

dilemma. If they do not reveal that they have been vio-

lated they cannot seek treatment, which puts their health,

and sometimes their lives, at risk. Disclosing that they have

been raped, on the other hand, may mean being stigma-

tised and rejected by the very people they would normally

turn to for support.

Sexual violence is most prevalent

when it is encouraged and legiti-

mised by political authorities.

Victims of sexual violence are at high risk of contract-

ing diseases from their attackers—the most deadly being

HIV/AIDS. Other diseases, such as chlamydia, gonorrhea,

syphilis and venereal warts, often produce no symptoms

in women, so infections go untreated. This can result

in more serious conditions—the most common being

pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility. In poor coun-

tries, non-existent or inadequate health services compound

the problem.

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110

In December 2004 Amnesty International re-

leased a major report on the vulnerabilities of women

in armed conflicts. The press release stated, ‘Women

and girls bear the brunt of armed conflicts fought to-

day both as direct targets and as unrecognised “col-

lateral damage”.’

The Amnesty report is part of a growing body of

policy-oriented research that uses gender as a lens to

study the impact of armed conflict. This research has

helped sensitise policymakers to the special vulner-

abilities of women in war and in post-war environ-

ments. But the ‘gender lens’ has been inconsistently

applied, creating a distorted picture of reality.

Notwithstanding Amnesty’s claim, it is men—not

women—who ‘bear the brunt’ of armed conflict. Both

in uniform and out, men have been, and continue to

be, killed, wounded and tortured in far greater num-

bers than women. Men are also, overwhelmingly, the

major perpetrators of violence. Sexual violence is the

area where women, not men, make up the majority

of victims.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates

that in 2002 approximately nine males were killed in

armed conflicts around the world for every female.

WHO’s annual estimates of the gender ratios of war

victims vary considerably, but all its reports show that

far greater numbers of males than females are killed

in warfare.

WHO’s global estimates are broadly in line with

epidemiological case study evidence. For example, a

1999 survey of 1197 households in post-war Kosovo

found that 75% of total deaths and 90% of war-related

trauma deaths during the conflict were males.

Ratios

vary from war to war, but the consistent pattern of far

more male than female casualties is not surprising

given that men make up the overwhelming majority

of combatants. War is primarily an institution that pits

males against other males.

Amnesty’s claim that women ‘bear the brunt’ of

collateral damage—civilians who get caught in the

crossfire—is unsupported by any global data. In fact,

case study evidence suggests that here again males,

not females, are the primary victims.

One major epidemiological survey following the

first Gulf War found that while men made up 51% of

the Iraqi population they suffered an estimated 62% of

the civilian deaths.

And a 2004 study of civilians who

had been killed in the current Iraq conflict found that

males were even more likely to be killed than in the

first Gulf War. The study, which focused on individuals

who could be identified by name, reported that for ev-

ery female killed there were three male victims.

(One

explanation for the difference may be that women had

moved to safer locations.)

The gender breakdown of ‘indirect deaths’ from

war-induced malnutrition and disease—particularly

in refugee and internally displaced persons camps—

is also at odds with the conventional wisdom.

Amnesty’s claim that in war ‘it is women and children

that are forced to leave their homes’ is not borne out

by the available evidence.

According to the UNHCR

there are actually slightly more male refug ees (51%)

than female.

The common assumption that women are more

likely to be adversely affected by displacement than

men has some supporting case study evidence,

but

most of the case study data point in the other direc-

tion. A comprehensive review of 46 epidemiological

MEN

VICTIMS,

WOMEN

WARRIORS

Many analyses of gender and conflict ignore or underestimate the gender-based violence directed

against males, and pay little attention to the active roles women play in warfare.

H U M A N S E C U R I T Y R E P O R T 2 0 0 5

111

surveys commissioned by the Human Security Centre

for the Human Security Report found that the death

rate for displaced males was generally higher than

that for females.

What about ‘gender-based violence’ in war—that

is, violence that deliberately targets individuals or

groups of individuals because of their gender. We

know that women are far more likely to be the victims

of rape and other sex crimes, but sexual violence is

only one form of ‘gender-based violence’.

Men, too, are targeted because of their gen-

der. There is, for example, compelling evidence that

non-combatant males, ‘have been and continue to

be the most frequent targets of mass killing and

genocidal slaughter as well as a host of lesser atroci-

ties and abuses’.

Following the 1999 war in Kosovo, a report by the

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

(OSCE) noted that the most systematic atrocities

were inflicted disproportionately and overwhelmingly

on non-combatant males.

The explanation. Part re-

venge and part bleak strategic logic: killing battle-age

males minimises future threats to the victors.

Men are also disproportionately victimised by

violent state repression. One major study used census

data to show that the population of the Soviet Union

in 1959 was ‘some 20 million lower than Western

observers had expected after making allowance for

war losses.’

The deaths that led to the lower-than-

expected population total were the result of Stalin’s

purges in the 1930s. Most of the victims were men.

Given that males constitute a more likely source of

challenge to repressive regimes than females this is

again not surprising.

A comprehensive gender analysis of human

insecurity would examine how men as well as wom-

en are victimised because of their gender. And rather

than presenting women primarily as passive victims

of armed conflict, it would pay more attention to

the growing role they play in fighting forces around

the world.

In many countries women now make up between

5% and 15% of government armed service person-

nel. The ratios are even higher in some guerrilla or-

ganisations, especially those that espouse a commit-

ment to gender equality. Women made up 30% of

both soldiers and leaders in the Sandinista National

Liberation Front in Nicaragua, for example.

Other

rebel groups with a large female membership include

Peru’s Shining Path, the Revolutionary Armed Forces

of Colombia (FARC) and Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers.

Over the past 50 years women have also played

important roles in terrorist organisations—from

Germany’s Red Army Faction and the Japanese Red

Army to Chechnya’s Black Widows. And according to

Jane’s Intelligence Review, there has been a dramatic

upsurge in the number of women suicide bombers.

For example, some 30% of suicide bombings by the

Tamil Tigers have been carried out by women, as have

most of the suicide missions perpetrated by Turkish

terrorist groups.

Finally, some 40% of child soldiers around the

world are girls.

One recent study found that female

child soldiers were involved in fighting forces in 55

countries between 1990 and 2003. They were involved

in combat in 38 of them.

Bringing a gender perspective to the study of

armed conflict has provided many valuable insights

and forced policymakers to focus on the unique threats

that women and girls confront in conflict zones. But

the huge costs that political violence imposes on males

have been mostly ignored, while women’s agency re-

mains largely invisible and women themselves have

been presented primarily as passive victims.

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112

Unwanted children resulting from wartime rape are

yet another burden for many survivors. Women may be

stigmatised for bearing ‘enemy’ offspring—known as ‘chil-

dren of hate’ in Rwanda. But the alternative—usually a

backstreet abortion—poses grave health risks.

In the past decade, there have been

signs that the international com-

munity has begun to take war and

sexual violence more seriously.

Rape victims are also prone to deep psychologi-

cal harm—including depression, psychotic episodes and

post-traumatic stress disorder.

For some, reliving and re-

counting the details of their trauma can trigger renewed

feelings of vulnerability, humiliation and despair. Health

workers in the former Yugoslavia reported that survivors

of rape experienced severe clinical depression and acute

psychotic episodes after they talked with journalists, hu-

man rights workers and medical personnel. Some attempt-

ed suicide.

Humanitarian organisations have also reported high

rates of suicide among rape victims. For some of Rwanda’s

genocide survivors, the mere sight of their persecutors—

many of them neighbours and colleagues—going about

their daily business with neither guilt nor fear of reprisal

has been almost too much to bear. As one victim put it:

Since the war has ended, I have not had my monthly pe-

riod. My stomach swells up and is painful. I think about

what happened to me all the time and I cannot sleep.

I even see some of the Interahamwe who did these

things to me and others around here. When I see them I

think of committing suicide.

Changing times.

During the past decade, there have been signs that the in-

ternational community has begun to take the issue of war

and sexual violence more seriously:

In 1993 and 1994 the statutes of the International

Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for

Rwanda defined rape as a crime against humanity.

In September 1998 the International Criminal Tribunal

for Rwanda convicted Rwandan mayor, Jean-Paul

Akayesu, of committing rape as genocide and a crime

against humanity.

This was the first such finding by

an international tribunal.

In February 2001 the International Criminal Tribunal

for the former Yugoslavia convicted three Bosnian

Serbs of rape, which it designated a crime against

humanity.

The statutes of the new International Criminal Court

(ICC) stipulate that when rape is committed as part of

a widespread attack against a civilian population it is

both a war crime and a crime against humanity.

On the political front, the UN and its agencies, the