Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the plight and fate of females during specific cases of genocide: the Ottoman Turk genocide of the Armenians, the Holocaust, the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh, the 1975–1979 Khmer Rouge perpetrated genocide, the 1994 Rwandan genocide, genocide perpetrated during the crisis in the former Yugoslavia, and the ongoing genocide in Darfur. It focuses on genocides that were perpetrated earlier than the twentieth century. The book presents the history of the issue of rape and genocide and examines the evolution of international law and the plight and fate of women during the course of genocide. Finally, in "The Post-Genocidal Period and Its Impact on Women", Tazreena Sajjad, a third-year Ph.D student at the School of International Service at American University in Washington D.C., discusses the phenomenon of post-genocidal trauma and examines the ways in which post-genocidal trauma directly impacts women.