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Wartime rape convictions overdue, says women's studies scholar

By David J. Craig

The repeated gang rape and torture of thousands of Muslim women and girls by Serb soldiers during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina are not unique. Rape has been a part of war throughout history.

But amazingly, the convictions of Serb army commanders Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovac, and Zoran Vukovic (who were sentenced to 28, 20, and 12 years in prison, respectively) for their part in the sexual enslavement of Muslims -- some as young as 12 -- mark the first time an international war crimes trial has focused exclusively on acts of sexual violence.

The ruling issued by the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague sends a powerful message to military leaders in future conflicts, according to Sayre Sheldon, a former assistant CAS English professor who now teaches at MET. She is the editor of the 1999 book Her War Story: Twentieth-Century Women Write About War, and a scholar of women's roles in war.

	Sayre Sheldon, a former CAS assistant English professor who now teaches at MET, says the recent convictions of three Serb army commanders for the sexual enslavement of Muslim women in the war in Bosnia is a landmark human rights decision. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky

"Rape has been widely considered a war crime, at least technically, since around the time of the American Civil War," says Sheldon (GRS'61), who this semester is teaching the MET course Women, Peace, and War. "Soldiers have been jailed for rape before, but prosecutions have been pursued rather randomly, and in accordance with the laws of individual nations. The prevailing attitude has been that rape is a part of war, and that there is little that can be done about it.

"We know that there was a tremendous amount of rape during World War II, for instance, but none of that was brought up in Nuremberg," she continues. "This decision essentially declares that basic human rights do apply to women during wartime."

Unfortunately, it took a staggering level of atrocity to bring about the historic convictions. Serb soldiers are estimated to have sexually assaulted more than 20,000 Muslim women during the first year of the 1992 to 1995 war alone, detaining many in "rape camps," where typically groups of three to five soldiers would gang-rape them daily. Many women and girls never returned to their families and are presumed dead. Judges in the trial ruled that Serbs used impregnating the women as a weapon in their attempt to "ethnically cleanse" Bosnia, and called the practice a crime against humanity second in severity only to genocide.

"I think this came before the U.N. tribunal because the charges involve systematic rape on a mass scale, and using rape as a way to defeat an enemy," says Sheldon. "What happened in Bosnia is much different from what's traditionally happened in war, when soldiers would plunder a town, steal goods and food, rape women, and move on.

"Of course, prior to the 19th century, many soldiers were paid for their services only in food, clothing, and whatever they could steal," she continues. "Raping women was part of the plunder that soldiers expected for their services."

Sheldon says the convictions illustrate in part the prominent role women play in modern war, as targeting civilian populations has become an increasingly common war strategy.

The international community recently took a "huge step" in addressing the situation, she says, when the United Nations adopted a resolution requiring that women be more integrally involved in future U.N. peacekeeping missions, and that such missions make the protection of women and children a top priority.

"If you're dealing with a refugee population, women can make sure that female refugees receive the supplies they really need, and rape victims, especially if they're from cultures in which women have few rights, are more likely to speak about their experiences with other women," says Sheldon. "Also, studies have shown that when women are prominent in peacekeeping missions, incidences of rape and prostitution drop."

The resolution also is crucial, Sheldon says, because in the past U.N. peacekeepers themselves have been charged with mistreating women in the communities they were supposed to be protecting.

"In 1995, humanitarian workers in Cambodia asked the U.N. to stop sending peacekeepers there, because the peacekeepers were raping women," she says. "The disturbing fact is that whenever you have groups of men isolated from their own culture, you have these problems."

16 March 2001
Boston University
Office of University Relations