Beyond Strategic Rape and Between the Public and Private: Violence Against Women in Armed Conflict

The premise of this article is to analyze the definition of gender-based violence within the context of armed conflict, partially in response to the tendency of some scholars to only “consider” strategic rape as conflict-related violence against women while ignoring other forms of violence. The author uses historical data from the conflicts in Liberia, Northern Ireland and Timor-Leste to support their definition. They propose a spectrum that will help to understand the differences between types of violence, ranging from political public violence to endemic private violence. The author also emphasizes the impact that wide spread conflict and warfare can have on private individualistic violence.