“Once a woman is raped, she
loses her name.” When Rose Cunningham, an Indigenous women’s human rights
defender from Nicaragua spoke those words, she paused for a moment.
“People just call her ‘la violada’: the raped one.”
This is the stark,
dehumanizing power of sexual violence, wherein a person’s identity is erased,
pushing her outside the safety and solidarity of community bonds. When these
community ties are frayed, the dangers multiply, both to the survivor who is
deprived of the caring she deserves and to the community as a whole.
This is also what gives rape
as a weapon of war its destructive power. Perpetrators know that it can
traumatize, and even destroy a person, and that the impacts do not stop there.
The trauma of rape reverberates through families and communities. When people
ostracize, reject or, as is all-too-common, kill survivors because of the
stigma attached to rape, it tears apart the ties that bind families and
communities. Resilience resides in these bonds of support vital to
people’s ability to sustain each other through armed conflict. Armed groups in
war will eagerly use a weapon that attacks those bonds, rendering a community
even more vulnerable to domination and control.
Rose Cunningham, director of
the Indigenous women’s organization Wangki Tangni, shared her troubling
observation at a gathering of women’s human rights defenders at the recent United Nations’ annual Commission on the Status of
Women. At a public event, she joined colleagues from Colombia, Iraq and Syria,
who exchanged their direct experience working to prevent sexual violence in
their war-torn and "post-conflict" communities.
Women human rights defender speaking at the UN CSW, 2015. Photo: MADRE
Prevention of rape as a weapon
of war is an elusive concept, often more difficult to conceive than the
concrete notions of protecting survivors and prosecuting perpetrators. The
challenge lies in measuring and portraying that which was prevented and never
happened. Yet, prevention is obviously a vital strategy, one that should be
inextricably linked to protection and prosecution. In the vibrant conversation
between these four women, they quickly identified core commonalities in their
hard-earned experience to create and implement multilayered prevention
strategies.
Prevention strategy: providing
immediate and long-term protection to prevent sexual violence
Grassroots women facing the
threat of rape as a weapon of war will mobilize to create or expand secure
spaces where women and girls are protected. For instance, Yanar Mohammed,
director of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), explained how
they have built crucial infrastructure, such as shelters and safe houses, and
set up escape routes maintained by networks of women human rights defenders.
These avenues provide an essential conduit for at-risk women to escape the
northern part of Iraq, occupied by the extremist group ISIS, as well as for
women facing sectarian violence in the government-controlled parts of the
country. They also offer sanctuary from heightened levels of violence against
women that predate the 2014 incursion of ISIS and that are born of the US-led
invasion and occupation of Iraq.
OWFI has also advocated for
changes in policies that undermine women’s rights. In particular, the
government has refused to officially
recognize women’s shelters run by non-governmental
organizations. This grey area in the law leaves women’s shelters vulnerable to
police raids and other harassment, forcing human rights organizations like OWFI
that provide vital services to vulnerable women to run their shelters
clandestinely.
Similarly, Nawal Yazeji of the
Syrian Women’s League presented a case of a woman who transformed her own home
in Damascus into a shelter for women escaping violence. In another example, she
told of young women who organized their own self-defense classes, if only to
strengthen their personal sense of agency.
“These are just a few small
but important examples. There may be many more women like this, but this war
makes it difficult for us to communicate and share our stories,” Nawal
explained. “But we Syrian women are active, trying to protect each other and to
create peace.”
This protective infrastructure
is not only a refuge for survivors of rape as a weapon of war. It is also a
preventative barrier against future violations.
Prevention strategy:
awareness-raising to transform stigma, rigid gender norms and violent
masculinities
Stigma is what gives rape the
power to control and manipulate communities, making it an appealing weapon for
armed groups and violent extremists. Each of the four experts identified
attacking stigma as a key priority to prevent sexual violence. Nawal
highlighted a popular mobilization campaign by Syrian women’s rights activists
with one resounding message: “Rape is never the fault of the survivor.”
Grassroots women activists can
also model what acceptance and solidarity with a survivor looks like. Yanar
shared OWFI’s practice of visiting refugee camps in northern Iraq to listen to
and validate the stories of rape survivors.
“Everyone in the community
knew what had happened to these women, yet no one spoke of it,” Yanar said. She
described the subtle but important shifts in people’s perceptions of blame and
accountability when they listened directly to the women who, supported by
Yanar, wanted to tell their own stories.
Using artistic expression and
creative performance is an innovative way to heal individual trauma and to
shift community perspectives on sexual violence. Stella Duque, the Director of
Taller de Vida (Spanish for “Workshop of Life”) in Colombia, emphasized the
need to end the silence and shame that fuel stigma, giving the example of a
photography exhibit.
“We created the Take My
Body Out of War photo project to show the impact of war on young
survivors,” Stella said. This project allowed former child soldiers, many
survivors of sexual abuse, to transmit their testimonies through photography
and to build a constituency of support for national policies that protect the
rights of ex-combatants and vulnerable communities.
Like stigma, another harmful
social norm that spurs sexual violence is the prevalence of violent masculinities.
These learned attitudes and behaviors cause men and boys to define themselves
and, in particular, their manhood through aggression. For men caught in this
mindset, real or perceived affronts to their safety, well-being or identity are
supposedly remedied by violence. Extremist and armed groups can appeal to
potential recruits by offering them the opportunity to re-assert
themselves through violence.
Human rights defenders provide
an antidote to this mindset by promoting positive ideals of manhood rooted in
gender equality and in opposition to sexual violence. For example, in Colombia,
Taller de Vida mobilizes a mixed gender constituency in their community
outreach programs, bringing boys and girls together with men and women mentors
to teach them about developing healthy, collaborative relationships and to
diminish the allure for young boys of joining an armed group. Nawal shared
examples of Syrian women meeting for tea and using this informal social
gathering to talk frankly about how to prevent their sons from joining ISIS.
In Nicaragua, Rose tracked the
violence that persists long after a conflict has officially ended. She gave the
example of a woman who was raped over 30 years ago during a campaign of sexual
violence by US-backed Contra militias. This woman lives in the same community
as her rapist and who still faces his taunts. Rose linked the enduring abuse
that women face, in their homes and at the hands of traffickers, to the high
rate of violence against women that became normalized during that war.
Explaining her strategy to
prevent future violence, Rose said, “We are creating a shelter without walls.”
Together with other grassroots women activists, she envisions a community where
each woman can move freely without fear of violence. To create this condition,
they are engaging with local leadership who hold powerful influence over community
perspectives and practices. For instance, women successfully secured a
commitment from local traditional judges called Wihtas, often men, to uphold
national laws prohibiting the trafficking and sale of young girls.
These prevention strategies – offering immediate protection and countering stigma and other harmful social
norms – provided a connecting thread in the conversation between the women
leaders from the Middle East and Latin America. These and other women human
rights defenders have critical expertise and vital local experience. Given
governments’ frequently-stated aim to combat sexual violence in conflict, they
must turn to these women for solutions to the scourge of rape as a weapon of
war.
Yifat Susskind will be speaking at the Nobel Women’s Initiative conference on the Defence of Women Human
Rights Defenders, 24-26 April. 50.50 will be reporting live from the conference. Read more articles by participants and speakers.
