Rape is a War Crime . The case of Dominique Pélicot

Rape has always been used as a tactic of war. In 1993, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia issued arrest warrants based on the Geneva Conventions. Muslim women had been gang-raped, tortured and deliberately impregnated by Bosnian Serb soldiers and paramilitaries. The Rome Statute (1997)made rape a ‘crime against humanity’.

Women have been systematically raped in Ukraine, Haiti, Rwanda, the Congo and Myanmar and many other places . Jihadis from Boko Haram to Isis aim to break their enemies through rape and sexual slavery. There is still a dreadful denial about the rapes committed by Hamas on Oct 7^th.  Organised sexual violence is both the worst and most neglected of all war crimes.

It is hard to think about. And there is a reason for that.

It forces us to confront questions about male sexuality? What is it like to rape a woman in front of her children? What is it like to force a son to rape a mother? What is it like to rape a body that is bleeding out, after so many other men have abused that body?

For me one of the unforgettable details of the late Edna O’Brien’s novel ,Girl which is a book based on her own research into Boko Haram in Nigeria, is when the abducted girls know they are about  to be raped. A table is placed in the middle of the room. The men are giddy. A white plastic bucket is placed under the table.

They know what they are about to do. The white plastic bucket somehow destroys me. I don’t know why. Or perhaps I do. Perhaps all women do.

This case of Dominique Pélicot is having the same effect on me and many others I know who are reading about it.

Banner made for me by Philippa Perry.