The Legal Regime for Taming Sexual Exploitation and Abuse During Armed Conflict: A Feminist Perspective
Abstract:Sexual exploitation and abuse committed during armed conflict is an outright violation of the victims’ human rights. It is grounded in the archaic ideology of patriarchy which thrives on domination of the weak genders, including women, by the strong genders in society. It is problematic to tame the vice of sexual exploitation and abuse because some of the perpetrators are the ones in charge of the operations in the armed conflict and cannot report their wrong doing. In other cases, for example the case of the United Nations peacekeepers, aid workers and the United Nations mandated forces, not much has been done because of lack of the machinery to deal with the perpetrators. Troop contributing countries are unwilling to report acts of sexual exploitation and abuse by their own forces, which complicate the situation of victims. Consequently, matters of sexual exploitation and abuse during armed conflict remain underreported, and unpunished. Only a few cases of sexual exploitation and abuse have been handled by the international criminal tribunals. These cases go to court because they occur largely in a situation such as genocide, which attracts international attention. Advocacy work, especially by the feminist researchers and scholars in the field of armed conflict has helped to bring to the limelight acts of sexual exploitation and abuse, and in some cases, helped to initiate investigations against perpetrators. This study is premised on an understanding that SEA during armed conflict has often been, and to a large extent continues to be underreported and its victims may not always be aware that it is a violation of their human rights. The main objective of the study is how to ensure that the problem of SEA in armed conflict is tamed, and if possible brought to a complete stop. The study ends by stating that stopping SEA during armed conflict is not possible. It, however, contributes to existing efforts advocating for respecting law in war, with a hope that acts of sexual exploitation and abuse during armed conflict can be minimised, if they cannot easily be stopped altogether. The study recommends further and deeper analysis of the problem by future researchers so that a lasting solution can be found to stop SEA during armed conflict.
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