ABSTRACT
When one hears the words “sexual violence,” one normally thinks about domestic sexual abuse (from one family member to another one), sexual harassment in the work place, sexual abuse of children, and different sorts of sexual assault, including rape. In regular peace time, these are indeed the most frequent sexual crimes that take place in our society. There is, however, a second context of sexual violence. Sadly, there are numerous examples of warfare situations where not only soldiers, but civilians, have been the target of violence. Sexual violence during war takes place either through sexual slavery (i.e. the establishment of brothels for the military), gang rape of women right after a military conquest or victory, and through different forms of sexual torture of war prisoners. Some of the most striking examples of this type of sexual violence during the twentieth century include the sexual enslavement of Korean women by the Japanese army (between 1910 and 1944) and the mass rape of women during the partition of the Punjab region between India and Pakistan in 1947. Most recent examples include the rape camps established by the Serbs in the middle of Europe in the early 1990s to the mass rape of Bosnian-Muslim women, and the mass rape, sexual torture and killing of Tutsi women by Hutu militia during the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
