Genocidal rape

Genocidal rape is a term used to describe the actions of a group who have carried out acts of mass rape during wartime against their perceived enemy as part of a genocidal campaign. During the Yugoslav civil war and the Rwandan genocide the mass rapes that had been an integral part of those conflicts brought the concept of genocidal rape to international prominence. While war rape has been a recurrent feature in conflicts throughout history, it has usually been looked upon as a by-product of conflict, and not an integral part of military policy.

Instances of mass rape during wartime which have been defined as genocidal rape were the mass rapes during the Bangladesh liberation war, the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia and during the Rwandan Genocide.

Genocide debate
Scholars argue that the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide should state that mass rape is a genocidal crime. Other scholars argue that genocidal rape is already included in the definition under article two of the convention. Catherine MacKinnon argues that the victims of genocidal rape are used as a substitute for the entire ethnic group, that rape is used as a tool, with the target being the destruction of the entire ethnic group.

Siobhan Fisher has argued that forced impregnation and not the rape itself constitutes genocide. She says, "Repeated rape alone is still ‘just’ rape, but rape with the intent to impregnate is something more." Lisa Sharlach argues that this definition is too narrow because these mass rapes should not be defined as genocide based solely on those raped having being forcibly impregnated.

Documented instances
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) it is estimated that in 2011 alone there were 400,000 rapes. In the DRC the genocidal rape is focused on the destruction of family and communities. An interview with a survivor gave an account of gang rape, forced cannibalism of a fetus taken from an eviscerated woman and child murder.

In the ongoing War in Darfur the Janjaweed militias have carried out actions described as genocidal rape, with not just women, but children also being raped, as well as babies being bludgeoned to death and the sexual mutilation of victims being commonplace. During the Second Sino-Japanese War the Imperial Japanese Army during the Battle of Nanking carried out a genocidal rape known as the Rape of Nanking, described by Adam Jones as "one of the most savage instances of genocidal rape". The violence saw tens of thousands of women gang raped and killed.

During the Rwandan genocide the violence took a gender specific form, with women and girls being targeted in a systematic campaign of sexual assault. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 were victims of rape. Those who survived the genocidal rape found themselves stigmatised, and for many they also discovered they were infected with HIV. This has resulted in these women being denied their rights to property and inheritance as well as their employment chances being restricted. The first person convicted for genocidal rape was Pauline Nyiramasuhuko.

In 1996 Beverly Allen wrote Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia in which the term genocidal rape was first introduced, she used the term to describe the actions of the Serbian armed forces who had a policy of rape with the intention of genocide. In her book she compares genocidal rape to biological warfare. During the conflict in Bosnia Allen gave a definition of genocidal rape as "a military policy of rape for the purpose of genocide currently practiced in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia by the Yugoslav army the Bosnian Serb forces and the irregular Serb forces known as Chetniks" Coverage of the mass rapes during the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Serbian forces in the 1990s began the analysis over the use of rape as being a part of genocide. Catherine MacKinnon argues that the mass rapes during the conflict "were a simultaneous expression of misogyny and genocide", and argues that rape can be used as a form of extermination.