Rape in War: Challenging the Tradition of Impunity

Reports of rape in the former Yugoslavia have highlighted the abusive nature of wartime rape and the persistent misunderstandings regarding its prevalence, function and motivation in war. Efforts to prosecute rape effectively by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), established to try war crimes in the territory have also revealed the difficulties in applying existing international human rights and humanitarian law standards to rape. In order to overcome these difficulties and end the tradition of impunity for this abuse, rape in conflict must be understood as an abuse that targets women for political and strategic reasons. This article describes the prevalence of rape in situations of conflict, rape's function in war, why women are targeted, and how the rhetoric of rape has influenced and sustained a tradition of impunity.