Ukraine’s ombudsman for human rights, Lyudmyla Denisova, has been documenting reports of widespread rape and sexual abuse in areas occupied by Russian forces. It’s horrifying. According to Denisova, Russian soldiers told women “they would rape them to the point where they wouldn’t want sexual contact with any man, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children." Many survivors are now pregnant. What’s happening in Ukraine is among the worst large-scale campaigns of sexual violence in war since Islamic State’s attacks on Iraq’s Yezidi minorities in 2014. Before that, systemic rape in conflict was reported from Nigeria, Rwanda, Congo, Kosovo, Bosnia, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Let’s not forget the Soviet ‘Rape of Berlin’ in 1945 and the Japanese ‘Rape of Nanjing’ in 1937.
Similarities between Bucha and Kocho, the Yezidi village whose women and girls were forced into sexual slavery, are chilling. Soldiers separated the men, women and girls, killed the men and went on to sexually assault those left in their custody. These were not random acts of depravity. It was supported by defence authorities.
Only recently has rape has been recognized as a ‘military tactic’, as opposed to errant behaviour by an immoral soldier. The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution No. 1820 in 2008, which states that rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, and can be a factor in determining genocide. But prosecutions have been few and far between.
What’s happening in Ukraine should ring alarm bells. It is heartening that there are investigations under way into the atrocities committed by Russian soldiers against the civilian population.
Some experts say a separate war crimes investigation of targeted sexual violence is necessary to break the cycle of impunity. The UN has found dozens of state and non-state groups in 10 countries are, right now, “credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence" in armed conflicts. That report—released on 11 April—does not include in its count Ukraine or the brutal violence between Ethiopian government forces and regional militia groups in Tigray.
Still, there have been some welcome developments. The UK introduced the Murad Code on 13 April, named after Yezidi survivor and now human rights activist Nadia Murad, which is meant to set a new standard for evidence collection and the protection of victims. In 2021, Iraq adopted its Law on Support to Female Yezidi Survivors, which states that the policy of rape and sexual slavery enacted by the IS against Yezidis and other groups constitutes genocide and crimes against humanity. It provides for access to pensions, land and education, as well as a quota in public-sector employment for victims, but in a much-criticized omission, leaves out the generation of children born of that conflict-related rape.
As far back as 1971, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first president and later prime minister of Bangladesh (and father of its current leader Sheikh Hasina), labelled the estimated 200,000 survivors of rape during the 1971 fight for independence “war heroines" to acknowledge their role in the resistance and the particular trauma they experienced. His gesture did little to ease their suffering. Instead, they were widely rejected by their families—many were reportedly killed by their husbands, committed suicide or struggled to survive with their babies born of rape by Pakistani soldiers.
The UN has found unconstitutional shifts of power in countries from Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Myanmar to Sudan were characterized by the use of sexual violence to subjugate and humiliate opposition groups and rival communities.
Like rape in the general community, it is clear that conflict-related sexual violence is not a rare thing. So it is infuriating—and devastating—that I can count on one hand the number of successful prosecutions of political leaders for these crimes. So much horror, so little action.
Maybe, with the right resources and investigative powers, the current war in Europe will be prove to be an exception to the rule. It will only happen if the international community steps up to alleviate funding shortfalls and support any investigation as enthusiastically as it has been providing weapons and military assistance to Ukraine.
Ruth Pollard is a columnist and editor with Bloomberg Opinion
