The securitization of rape: women, war and sexual violence. By Sabine Hirschauer.
London: Palgrave Macmillan. 2014. €96.29. ISBN 978 1 13741 081 8. Available as e-book.
I. Introduction
Wartime rape is something much more than single incidents of rape during war. This phenomenon is also called mass wartime rape, indicating the extra – ordinary numbers of the victims and the use of this practice as a tactic of war. Although humanitarian law has tried to put some limits on wartime situations, war crimes and crimes against humanity do not only just randomly occur, but they are instrumentalized in order to defeat the other group’s moral and strength. Sexual violence is one such instrument of terror, which, due to the fact that it is veiled with strong socio – cultural and sexist stereotypes and biases, it usually remains an “invisible” crime: feelings of guilt and shame, fear of revenge or taboos can prevent victims from revealing what happened and sharing their experiences. Halyna Maistruk, head of the Women’s Health and Family Planning charity in Ukraine points out the instrumentalization of wartime rape:
“In military conditions, rape is of a completely different nature. It has nothing to do with peacetime. Absolutely. If in peacetime this kind of violence is most likely to satisfy sexual needs, then rape in war has a very distant relation to sex. This is one of the ways to prove your power. It is a way of influencing the civilian population, designed to sow panic, fear, and a state of submission. This is done only for this purpose.” (Chernickin, 2022)
While wartime rape can have tremendous consequences in the affected societies, both in an individual level and a collective one, traditional forms of theorizing about international politics fail to identify or vocalize the violent insecurities of women in domestic and international space, thus ensuring women’s silence. Although wartime rape is as old as war itself, the consistency and extent to which women’s bodies are the site, both metaphorically and literally, for inter- and intra-state battles is not well documented in the literature on war (Koo, 2002). Yet, particularly in the circumstances of war, sexual violence does not target women because of their gender; the intersectionaity of the multiple and varied identities of ethnicity, nationality and religion places women inside the binary or “ours” and theirs”, or “friend” and “enemy”, as Schmittian securitization proposes; it is the clear adumbration of who the (bad) other is in regards to the (good) self (Hirschauer, 2014).
Having set an introductory framework of the concept Hirschauer deals with, “The securitization of rape: women, war and sexual violence” lies in the empirical analysis of the intersection of security and rape during conflict; the securitization of rape through the empirical application of the Securitization Theory to the case studies of Bosnia and Rwanda. Sabine Hirschauer is an assistant professor in the Department of Government of New Mexico State University in USA and her areas of specialization include migration, identity politics and gender, theories of International Relations (IR), critical and feminist security studies and human security. She has conducted research in South Africa and Rwanda and she is currently working on research projects in Germany regarding migration and integration challenges, as well as archival research about gender-based violence during post-WWII allied-occupied Germany. She published the book “The Securitization of Rape: Women, War and Sexual Violence” in 2014, in which she traces different aspects of the securitization of wartime mass rape, highlights rape’s peculiar security character and maps the political and international field of sexualized violence during conflict in general. It is definitely an eye – opening book, worth reading.
II. Summary of content
The book has 257 pages and it is separated into six chapters. Chapter I is the introductory chapter, in which the author introduces the concepts of mass rape and securitization. She makes clear that strategy and development studies, or in general global security studies, mostly ignore, still today, the deeply disruptive and damaging security effect of wartime rape to communal societies. Humanity has faced many failures, most of them shameful, gruesome, dire and ghastly. These failures form the darkest corners of our humanity’s history as collective souls in an international community. Some of these accounts need to rise to the surface and hold accountable the individuals and groups that have committed them, offering a stumpy feeling of catharsis to the future generations. After the war in Bosnia and Rwanda, this time has come for the international community to recognize wartime rape a matter of “security”, enabling extraordinary means to protect, punish, and secure.
Chapter II “Securitization Theory: A Matter of Words” explores the historical and intellectual roots of the Securitization Theory. The author talks about the theory’s ontological origin and the epistemological development and is focused on the Barry Buzan’s and Ole Waever’s theories on securitization. She raises fundamental questions on the usefulness, the practice, the tools and the processes, the application and the effectiveness of the theory. Moreover, an example of the application of the theory to international migration is given, stressing the current utilization of securitization in the global community. The author becomes very analytical and detailed both on the different scholar’s perspectives and the critics by investing in an intellectual dialogue about the theory’s various ambiguities.
Chapter III “Rape: A Matter of History” dives into a historical exploration of war and the placement of women in the unimaginable brutality, terror and torture of the political rivalries and ideological elitism of the past. Women were usually the spoils of war and sexual violence, rape and sexual slavery common components of the many bloodsheds of the past. Hirschauer quotes Vikman’s work on the ancient origins of sexual violence in warfare. Vikman (2005) shows that ancient sources held multiple attitudes to sexual violence. This is illustrated in Homer’s Iliad, in which Greek warriors were promised women as reward if Troy were to fall. ‘If the gods permit us to sack the great city of Priam, let him pick out twenty Trojan women for himself’ (ibid, p. 24), while in ancient Jerusalem, “in warfare against the Midianites, Moses orders the mass rape of 32 000 girls: ‘. . . all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves . . .’ ” (ibid, p. 23). Throughout history, the correlation of sexual violence and state expansionism and nation building is well depicted. Hirschauer continues the historical exploration of wartime sexual violence in incidents of the 20th century, such as the Russo – Japanese war, the World War II, the fall of Berlin in 1945. The mass rapes in Berlin and in the Soviet-occupied regions were used both as a kind of mechanism in order to humiliate the fallen enemy, and as a cleansing tool in order to ‘de-Nazification’ and ‘un-German’ the population. ‘Coercion and conscience, enmity and good-will, self-assertion and self-subordination are present in every political society. The state is built up out of these two conflicting aspects of human nature’ (Carr, 1939, p. 96 in Hirschauer, 2014, p.64). The tensions created out of these incompatibilities produced unaddressed damage to women, hardly ever remedied.
In chapter IV “Securitization of Rape: The Application — Case Study I, Bosnia”, the Bosnian crisis in the summer of 1992 and its rape camps, the mass rape of Bosnian Muslim women and the forced impregnation as a tool of ‘ethnic cleansing’, is deeply researched and analyzed. The Bosnian crisis and its brutal character was a huge wound, incompatible with the post – Cold War optimism. The defeat of Iraq opened the road for a New World Order, promised by the American television, in which the atrocities of the Bosnian war could not fit. The mass rapes, the rape camps, the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995 and the genocidal acts of the Serbian troops raised in the surface of the European memories Holocaust shiver. Even though the international community refused at first to recognize the emergence of the situation, modern technology, wide spread news and persistent journalists, forced the powerful states and organizations to take a stand on this encroachment of world peace. In February 1994 – the first time ever since the use of force by the transatlantic alliance in 1949 – NATO shot down four Serbian planes over Bosnian airspace. International institutions, international legal mechanisms such as the International Criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia, the United States along with the European Community served as securitization actors, while the international media took place as a communication institution that articulated through the speech act the existential threat and security quality of mass wartime rape to women during the Bosnian conflict. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia became the first internationally recognized entity to charge officials with rape as a crime.
Chapter V “Securitization of Rape: The Application — Case Study 2, Rwanda” applies the securitization theory in the Rwandan genocide, in 1994. Women and children were called ‘the walking dead’ (African Union, 2000, p. 180 in Hirschauer, 2014, p. 138); the ones that survived by accident, luck or fierce and had to come in peace not only with their horrific, traumatized memories but also with their sexist communities. In just 100 days of terror and violence Rwanda was the fastest genocide in recorded recent human history. In just 100 days this tiny African country, the size of Wales, were emptied of its people and by its people. By July 1994, three months after the first killings, three-quarters of Rwandese were either dead or internally displaced, while the land and infrastructure was ravaged. The mass rape incidents placed women – and particular Tutsi women – in the category of the existential threatened population. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) became the first international legal entity, charging and convicting perpetrators – including a female minister – for specifically utilizing rape in the ‘elimination of a population, physically and socially’ (Mullins, 2009, p. 722 in Hirschauer, 2014, p. 140). “In its unprecedented Akayesu ruling, it (ICRT) connected rape to genocide and, as such, even further securitized the systematic utilization of rape during conflict” (Hirschauer, 2014, p. 185). The Yugoslavian and Rwandese Criminal Tribunals unveiled the mass rape atrocities, un – silenced the rape and security nexus and brought the perpetrators to justice.
In chapter VI “Analysis and Conclusion: Rape—A Matter of Humanity”, which is the final chapter, summarizes the historical evidence and evaluates the implementation of the securitization theory through its achievements, its imperfections and its drawbacks and weaknesses. Through speaking of rape as a matter of security, rape adopted specific threat components. Rape was made visible as a threat to women, but not only to women as an insular and singular (individual) entity, but in its plurality: to a collective, a community, a regional and global locale. Through the rape camps in Bosnia and the imagery of machetes and banana stems as instruments of terror in Rwanda, world peace was wounded twice just some years after the end of World War II. The global community had to face its denial of what was happening and abandon its dreaming New World Order, and come into terms with the new reality. The imagery of massacred rape victims piled up, the corpses of dead young women and young girls ‘laid out with their dresses over their heads, the legs spread and bent. You could see what seemed to be semen drying or dried’ (Nowrojee, 2003/2005, p. 4 in Hirschauer, 2014, p. 186). All in all, besides its weaknesses and imperfections, wartime rape was successfully securitized in the cases of Bosnia and Rwanda. Bosnia initiated the first convictions of rape as a crime against humanity while Rwanda the first conviction of mass rape as a tool of genocide.
III. Analysis and evaluation
While multitude scholars and researchers have risen the issue of wartime rape, Hirschauer brings together the unique nexus of securitization and wartime rape. She investigates how the political actors in the cases of Bosnia and Rwanda elevated wartime rape in to a supra – national realm of security, by applying the Barry Buzan’s and Ole Waever’s theories of securitization to its case. Through detailed research and writing dexterity, Hirschauer work is thrilling, depicting both the devastating reality of the victims and the political reality of the international actors. The wide – ranging complexities of the securitization of rape are revealed and the inherent links between systematic rape, war and global security is further explored.
Due to the combination of two major concepts in IR – securitization and wartime sexual violence – this book is speaking to three kind of audiences; to scholars being specialized in securitization, to scholars being specialized to wartime sexual violence and to students that seek to understand how securitization theory is applied in real circumstances and how someone can use the theory and academically analyze real situations. Hoover Green (2016), a sexual violence researcher who is not an expertise in securitization, found this book’s interpretive lenses fascinating. Me, as a master’s student found this book very well structured and organized, being gradual to its knowledge building and concepts’ connection, a true masterpiece for my feminist interests. Hoover Green (2016) finds this underlying feminist character of the book kind of choppy when it comes to causal arguments, since she argues that the presentation of the feminist, weapon-of-war accounts of wartime rape are contrasted to traditional accounts, giving the impression that these two approaches are opposites. I would disagree, saying that Hirschauer’ approach tries to highlight the gender dynamics and the intersectionality of the many identities of the actors and victims’ of war. Many theories overpass the gendered reality of wartime atrocities and for that, I truly appreciated that Hirschauer did not.
Notwithstanding, the analysis of the two case studies was very well researched and very much detailed. The author, though, chose two major wartime rape events, in which rape was used a weapon of war and therefore securitization application was inevitably effective. Also, in these two cases, rape was used an instrument of genocide, a fact that the international political actors could not overpass. If genocide, rape camps and mass killings did not occur, would securitization of wartime mass rape be of the same effectiveness? Are there any cases where this can be researched? How victims were furthermore protected during reconstruction of peace? “Was securitization of rape a language or process in its own right, or a byproduct of attempts to create legal accountability for the Bosnian and Rwandan atrocities more generally?” (Hoover Green, 2016, p. 318). These are some of the questions being raised while reading the book.
Overall, the author achieved to point out that the violence and violations that occurred in Bosnia and Rwanda made the international community aware of the intersection of women, war and political violence and provoked a re – examination of the protection and sanctity of fundamental human rights for all people. Wartime rape is not just a feminist or women’s issue, but a larger human rights issue and Hirschauer’ work highlights this argument.
IV. Conclusion
War provides difficulties for otherwise accepted social and moral norms. Widely condemned in peacetime, sexual violence becomes rampant in warfare. It has been over half a century since the end of the Second World War and once again the international community is seeing the undertaking of a war crimes tribunal, this time for crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and this time with the prosecution of those charged with war rape and genocide. Sentences ranged from 12 to 28 years in the case of three members of the Bosnian Serb Armed Forces tried in The Hague in February 2001 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on charges of violations of the laws and customs of war and crimes against humanity (those being rape, torture, enslavement and outrages upon personal dignity) (OHCHR, 1993). On 3 December 2003, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found all three defendants guilty and sentenced Nahimana and Ngeze to life imprisonment and Barayagwiza to imprisonment for 35 years for genocide, incitement to genocide, and crimes against humanity, including rape (OHCHR, 1994).
Sabine Hirschauer’ book “The securitization of wartime rape: women, war and sexual violence” provides an important new analytical lens of wartime rape and responses to wartime rape. Suitable for an advanced audience that is interested in this issues and above, it does important work bridging two contentious and complex areas of scholarship. The two case studies, in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, provide a reality illustration of the application of the theory with much detail. Absolutely interesting and informative, it is a necessary book for IR students and academics.
Faidra Gatsarouli, University of Macedonia, Greece
Reference list:
Chernickin, I. (2022). ‘Women Were Raped Where They Were Caught.’ How Rape Became a Tactic of War. Analysis of Zaborona. [online] Заборона – ZABORONA. Available at: https://zaborona.com/en/women-were-raped-where-they-were-caught-how-rape-became-a-tactic-of-war-analysis-of-zaborona/ [Accessed 13 Jun. 2022].
Hoover Green, A. (2016). Sabine Hirschauer.The Securitization of Rape: Women, War and Sexual Violence. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 18(2), pp.317–319. doi:10.1080/14616742.2016.1151180.
Koo, K.L. (2002). Confronting a Disciplinary Blindness: Women, War and Rape in the International Politics of Security. Australian Journal of Political Science, 37(3), pp.525–536. doi:10.1080/1036114022000032744.
OHCHR. (1993). Statute of the International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991 (International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia). [online] Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/statute-international-tribunal-prosecution-persons-responsible [Accessed 14 Jun. 2022].
OHCHR. (1994). Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Genocide and Other Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of Rwanda and Rwandan Citizens Responsible for Genocide and Other Such Violations Committed in the Territory of Neighbouring States, between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 1994. [online] Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/statute-international-criminal-tribunal-prosecution-persons [Accessed 14 Jun. 2022].
Vikman, E. (2005). Ancient origins: Sexual violence in warfare, Part I. Anthropology & Medicine, 12(1), pp.21–31. doi:10.1080/13648470500049826.
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