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Addressing the overlooked crisis of intimate partner violence in conflict zones

Lesego Sekhu
By Lesego Sekhu
18 Dec 2024
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The conventional understanding of conflict-related sexual violence is flawed and neglects the continuities and diversity of violence that permits continued impunity for sexual and gender-based violence during conflict.

Given the severity of conflict-related sexual violence during intra-state and inter-state conflicts in the past decade, transitional justice and peacebuilding efforts have directed resources to investigating this form of sexual and gender-based violence. 

They aim to create measures to both prevent and address the consequences of these atrocities. Notwithstanding the intention, the conventional understanding of conflict-related sexual violence is flawed and neglects the continuities and diversity of violence that permits continued impunity for sexual and gender-based violence during conflict.

Conflict-related sexual violence is perpetrated against women, men, girls and boys directly or indirectly during conflict, based on their sex or gender. It is endemic to areas suffering from humanitarian crises and conflict, including currently South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Ukraine and Palestine. 

According to research, women and girls are disproportionately targeted and affected by this form of violence. Men and boys, as well as sexually  and gender-diverse persons, are also targeted, but there is a crisis in underreporting and documenting that often marginalises their experiences of conflict-related sexual violence. 

Most conflict-related sexual violence is defined by a combination of who (profile of the victims and perpetrators), what (elements of the offence) and why (the motive). Often, perpetrators are profiled as state and non-state armed actors (militia, soldiers, rebels), and victims are profiled as civilian women with actual or perceived political, ethnic or religious affiliations. Also, the offence is often prescribed as systematic or a “tactic” of war, with the motive described as political or economic. Collectively, these factors shape policies and practices intended to protect civilians, particularly women and girls, against sexual and gender-based violence and to provide redress if it occurs. 

Fundamental problem


But this understanding of conflict-related sexual violence has a fundamental problem: it is based on the assumption that violence operates in a distinct past, present and future. This assumption prescribes which violence is visible and invisible in conflict and post-conflict periods. 

Transitional justice and peacebuilding practitioners develop measures that specifically address the past based on the understanding that this will stop future violence. Yet, political actors continue to commit human rights violations in countries that have undergone transitional justice processes, including truth commissions, prosecutions and reparations programmes. Our assumption about progress over time is flawed and represents an area of contention around interventions designed to address violence. 

This assumption carries the consequence of reinforcing certain biases and myths about sexual and gender-based violence that make other experiences and realities invalid, inadequate and invisible. An example is the invisibility of intimate partner violence in the dominant conflict-related sexual violence conversation. In conflict-affected northern Uganda, incidents of intimate partner violence, defined as sexual, physical and/or sexual abuse of a person by their partner or spouse, are prevalent. In a 2019 study conducted in the region, high rates of emotional, physical and sexual intimate partner violence were found, with 78.5% of women reporting they had experienced at least one type of this violence. 

Intimate partner violence perpetrated by men is reported as the most common form of gender-based violence in conflict settings. Emerging evidence indicates that persistent exposure to conflict and living in conflict-affected communities in countries like Uganda, Sudan, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo can increase women’s risk of experiencing intimate partner violence. According to studies in 2018 and 2021, residents in fatality-affected conflict districts face a 50% increased risk of intimate partner violence. Residents of districts that experienced four to five cumulative years of conflict are also more likely to experience intimate partner violence. Even five years after the conflict, they are more likely to experience post-conflict intimate partner violence.

Interventions


Despite this evidence, most interventions designed to provide redress and accountability for conflict-related sexual violence primarily focus on anonymous armed actors as perpetrators and women as victims. The consequence of time-bound understandings of conflict-related sexual violence is that many efforts, including policy interventions to combat and address conflict-related sexual violence, are ignorant of intimate partner violence, which results in continued impunity for these crimes. 

We need to think anew about sexual and gender-based violence by including intimate partner violence in our conflict-related sexual violence agenda. More broadly, we need to broaden our categories and understanding of violence in conflict to attend to all survivors, hold all perpetrators accountable and challenge traditions of impunity. 

Transitional justice and peacebuilding efforts need to acknowledge and deal with the continuities of the past in the present instead of closing sexual and gender-based violence off as repaired or finished. They need to address different kinds of crimes, notably different forms of sexual and gender-based violence. DM

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