A Comparison of Sexual Violence: Bosnia and Rwanda

Unfortunately, rape has always been a part of war, but recently, media attention has focused on how rape has become a weapon of war on a massive scale. Though wartime rape and sexual assault has come to the forefront of our attention, the theories explaining wartime rape are still not adequate enough to explicate its presence in both the Rwandan and Bosnian Wars. These conflicts were chosen for two reasons. Firstly, they are two of the major conflicts in which rape ahs played a significant part. Secondly, these conflicts played an important role in the transistion in international law from focusing on murders and death to rape and sexual violence. For example, the Jean-Paul Akayesu trial was the first time in which rape was considered a crime against humanity. However, if the ultimate goal is to prevent wartime rape, it is not enough to simply prosecute those who commit it; rather, we must understand the reasons that it occurs. All of the existing theories are partially valid, but none presents a truly holistic explanation for wartime rape. In this paper, I will seek to composite a holistic approach, with the hope that such an approach will prevent the institution of policies that may be either ineffective or counter-productive for the safety of women.