Citation

Boesten J. BMJ 2022; 377: o1172.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, BMJ Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1136/bmj.o1172

PMID

35537715

Abstract

The atrocities unfolding in Ukraine are shocking to watch. After the destruction of cities and the flight of Ukrainians turned refugees, we saw the images of murdered civilians in Bucha and received the first reports of Russian soldiers raping women in the international press. The actual scale of these atrocities is still unclear, but the reports indicate that sexual violence is being perpetrated in different war theatres across Ukraine. Given the likelihood that these atrocities are only the tip of the iceberg, the difficulty of reporting such incidents, and the enormity of the overall violence being deployed, it seems likely that the Russian army is using indiscriminate killing and rape to terrorise the population into submission.

Research and debate on sexual violence as a weapon of war surged after the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s.12 These conflicts made clear that the military leadership in both countries encouraged and participated in patterns of sexual violence against enemy populations with genocidal intent. Rape was used to fragment and subjugate the "enemy" population by raping "its" women, drawing on patriarchal constructs of women as the holders of honour and biological and cultural reproduction.

In such contexts, torture practices against men and boys may also be highly sexualised and focus on harming genitals.3 But men and boys are also raped, sometimes in the context of a public performance that aims to terrorise and subdue; instances of this happening in Ukraine have been reported.4 The use of rape as a weapon of war is not, therefore, as straightforward as a heteronormative patriarchal narrative suggests, although one can argue that it is always intended to engender total submission by humiliating the community as well as the individual...

Language: en