December 8, 2004
INTERVIEW- Rape and torture of women - a weapon of war
Reuters

Women are raped and sexually tortured during war because they are viewed as "the reproductive machinery of the enemy" and the embodiment of a community's honour, the head of Amnesty International said.

By Gideon Long

LONDON (Reuters) - Women are raped and sexually tortured during war because they are viewed as "the reproductive machinery of the enemy" and the embodiment of a community's honour, the head of Amnesty International said.

They are bearing the brunt of dozens of conflicts around the world from Iraq, Afghanistan and Nepal to Colombia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Irene Khan, secretary general of the world's largest human rights group, told Reuters.

"Women are seen as the reproductive machinery of the enemy," Khan said in an interview to mark the release on Wednesday of an Amnesty report on crimes against women.

"It becomes a military strategy -- if you attack women you attack the morale of the enemy and humiliate not only the women themselves but also their men, who feel they have failed to uphold their honour."

The Amnesty report highlights hundreds of cases of horrific violence against women in times of conflict.

In Colombia, a 14-year-old girl was stripped naked and forced to wear a sign around her neck saying "I am a lesbian" before she was raped by three men and murdered.

When her body was found some days later, her breasts had been cut off, Amnesty said.

In the Indian state of Gujarat, where hundreds have died in clashes between Muslims and Hindus, pregnant women have had their unborn babies cut from their wombs, Amnesty said.

In Congo, tens of thousands of women have been abducted, raped or forced into sexual slavery.

"Some women have had a rifle, a knife, a sharpened piece of wood, glass or rusty nails, stones, sand or peppers inserted into their vaginas," Amnesty said. "Others have been shot during or after rape, sometimes in their genitals."

A QUESTION OF HONOUR

From Helen of Troy onwards, women have been hailed as the embodiment of a warring nation or people, a phenomenon Khan describes as "a compliment which becomes a burden".

"That is why one sees honour crimes, particularly as so many modern conflicts are ethnically rooted," she said. "Women have become tools of war because of this social concept of honour."

Khan, the first Muslim women to head the London-based human rights body, urged authorities in Afghanistan and Iraq to do more to safeguard the rights of women.

"Women's rights were used as major justifications for military intervention in both countries and yet in the strategy thereafter very little attention has been paid to protecting women," she said.

Monitoring the extent of crimes against women is notoriously difficult because the issues are shrouded in shame and secrecy, Khan said. But she added that "the problem is undoubtedly one of epic proportions".

She urged the newly-established International Criminal Court in the Hague to ensure that when it indicts its first suspects --- probably next year -- it includes suspected perpetrators of crimes against women.

"If they were to pick a few high profile cases it would send a strong message that these crimes are intolerable," she said.

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