Wartime Sexual Violence

Abstract

Patterns of wartime sexual violence differ sharply across insurgencies, militias and state militaries. Whether rape by a particular group is more frequent than that by civilians varies radically across settings. Although rape occurs with high frequency by some groups, it often does so as a practice than as an explicitly ordered strategy. I will argue that other forms of sexual violence such as sexual torture and forced marriage occur more frequently as ordered strategies. After presenting a typology of violence that distinguishes between ordered and unordered violence, I analyze the conditions under which distinct patterns of wartime sexual violence are likely to occur.