Wartime sexual violence

Wartime sexual violence is rape or other forms of sexual violence committed by combatants during an armed conflict, war, or military occupation, often as spoils of war, but sometimes, particularly in ethnic conflict, the phenomenon has broader sociological motives. Wartime sexual violence may also include gang rape and rape with objects. It is distinguished from sexual harassment, sexual assaults and rape committed amongst troops in military service.

Quotes

Ancient sources

• Wretched me, whom the father, son of Cronos, will slay by a grievous fate on the threshold of old age, when I have beheld ills full many, my sons perishing and my daughters haled away, and my treasure chambers laid waste, and little children hurled to the ground in the dread conflict, and my sons’ wives being haled away beneath the deadly hands of the Achaeans.
  • Homer, Iliad, XXII, 47–74 (tr. A. T. Murray)

• The Icenian king Prasutagus, celebrated for his long prosperity, had named the emperor his heir, together with his two daughters; an act of deference which he thought would place his kingdom and household beyond the risk of injury. The result was contrary—so much so that his kingdom was pillaged by centurions, his household by slaves: as though they had been prizes of war. As a beginning, his wife {{w|Boudicca|| was subjected to the lash and his daughters violated: all the chief men of the Icenians were stripped of their family estates, and the relatives of the king were treated as slaves.
  • Tacitus, Annals, XIV, 31 (tr. John Jackson)

Rape during the occupation of Germany

• After the fighting moved on to German soil, there was a good deal of rape by combat troops and those immediately following them. The incidence varied between unit and unit according to the attitude of the commanding officer. In some cases offenders were identified, tried by court martial, and punished. The army legal branch was reticent, but admitted that for brutal or perverted sexual offences against German women, some soldiers had been shot – particularly if they happened to be Negroes. Yet I know for a fact that many women were raped by white Americans. No action was taken against the culprits. In one sector a report went round that a certain very distinguished army commander made the wisecrack, 'Copulation without conversation does not constitute fraternisation.'
  • Osmar White, Conquerors' Road: An Eyewitness Report of Germany 1945 (Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 97–98