'If not now, when'?

• Author: Roque, Herminia
• Position: Addressing Gender-based Violence

Throughout history, gender-based violence has been an integral component of armed conflict. A new report by the Reproductive Health for Refugees Consortium (RHRC) provides a narrative account of some of the major issues and programming efforts, as well as gaps in programming, related to the prevention and response to gender-based violence (GBV) among conflict-affected populations worldwide. "If Not Now, When? Addressing Gender-based Violence in Refugee, Internally Displaced, and Post-conflict Settings" attests to such violence against women and girls (and to a lesser extent men and boys).

In the twelve countries profiled in the report--three each in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America--multiple forms of GBV, such as rape, forced or coerced prostitution and sexual exploitation, domestic violence, early marriage and trafficking, appear to have increased during armed conflict and consequent social disruption. Nine profiles--for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan/Pakistan, Burma/Thailand, East Timor, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo--are the outcome of some two weeks of field investigations that included interviews with survivors, local GBV-related organizations, international humanitarian aid and human rights organizations, government representatives and UN personnel. The profiles for Colombia, Guatemala and Nicaragua are the result of New York-based desk studies.

According to the report, the stimulus for GBV, particularly for sexual crimes committed in armed conflict, varies. Sexual violence can be capricious or random, resulting from a breakdown in social and moral systems. In addition, it may be systematic, in order to destabilize populations and destroy bonds within communities, advance ethnic cleansing, express hatred for the enemy, or supply combatants with sexual services. In Bosnia, for example, public rape of women and girls preceded the flight or expulsion of entire Muslim populations from their villages, and strategies of ethnic cleansing included forced impregnation. In Rwanda, Hutu extremists encouraged mass rape and sexual mutilation of Tutsi women as an expression of contempt, which sometimes included intentional HIV transmission.

Until the last ten years, most GBV committed during periods of armed conflict has been either condoned or ignored. This silence is in significant measure a function of deeply embedded cultural assumptions that acquiesce to the inevitability of...