ABSTRACT
This chapter gives an overview of the conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia and Uganda, in order to provide important background and contextual information for the three empirical chapters that follow. It aims to give a succinct account of these conflicts, while also conveying some of their complexity. It discusses their origins and dynamics, as well as the key actors involved. Crucially, the chapter also explores the use of conflict-related sexual violence by different armed groups in each country. It unpacks some of the many purposes that such violence served and it problematises narrow, one-sided accounts (notably in relation to the Bosnian war) that foster victim hierarchies.
