by: Shanmei Zheng, Fall 2024 High School Intern
CW: mentions of violence, sexual assault
Image from Al Jazeera
Most people would say that the nuclear bomb is the most deadly weapon to ever be used in times of war. Its ability to wipe out thousands of kilometers of land and lives is not a mystery; just look at the nuclear bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not to mention, the radiation from the bomb can destroy a person inside out if they weren’t already dead from the explosion. Despite these horrors, the true devil of all weapons is rape.
Rape is understandably a sensitive topic, yet we must push back on the social taboo of discussing it. Only over the past couple of years did I start discovering how rape has affected women across millenia throughout time, location, and culture. The stories of these women are often dismissed as unimportant, with the media minimizing the seriousness of these atrocities. Many court systems around the world make it extremely difficult for survivors of sexual violence to get justice so oftentimes women don’t even report these cases, fearing the legal outcome won’t be worth the backlash and further trauma of going to court. As we saw with Amber Heard a few years ago, many victims and survivors of sexual violence face stigma and harassment just for sharing their stories. The media amplifies the voices of men who call these women liars and monsters. While it should be the responsibility of the perpetrators of sexual violence to change their actions and behaviors, the burden of social change is often placed on victims and those most likely to experience sexual assault. Let’s dive into how rape is a weapon of war and why it’s so important to understand.
Rape, especially during war, is more malicious than any gun or bomb due to the gut-wrenching experiences that women and children face. If they don’t die from the experience, they suffer a “worse” fate: bringing shame upon their communities and themselves. In many communities across the world, a girl’s virginity is very important and if they are raped, they can be seen as dirty objects, unable to marry. Not to mention, these rapes can bring upon unwanted pregnancies which often worsens how these victims are treated. In rural communities, like in Congo, the lack of access to abortion and the support for such treatments by their loved ones, young girls and women are forced to give birth and raise these children despite the terrible conditions. Although the children themselves are of course innocent, they are a physical reminder to their mothers of the men that abused them, and often these infants may be hidden or killed after their birth because abortion is inaccessible. In a compelling TIME article, a survivor of the conflicts in Congo, Mary, describes her thoughts and reasoning behind wanting to kill her baby: “I had nothing. No family, no income. I was thinking, ‘How will I be able to take care of a child that reminds me, every time I look at its face, of what happened to me in the camp?’” (Baker). In instances such as these, rape can break down women mentally and physically, destroying the order of communities and relationships between people without the use of guns or ammo. The motivation behind rapes during war is more than just the malice and pleasure of the soldiers/men, it is also used to forcibly impregnate women in order to create kids of different ethnic makeup: an ethnic cleansing (United Nations).
Women’s lives are not only destroyed by these unwanted pregnancies, but they can be also plagued by sexually transmitted infections. These STIs can spread throughout their communities; another reason that women are often shunned and called dirty after being raped. But most heartbreaking of all, many of these women in times of war and in places such as Congo, are unable to get good healthcare so they have to suffer with the difficulties of their STIs alone and all while being looked down upon by their loved ones. In the 1950s, the Italian Government was still struggling to screen and treat the numerous STI’s that resulted from the mass rapes of women by French soldiers in the midst of WW2 (Bourke). There are many other incidents of mass rapes by soldiers of every nationality during World War 2, but we are never taught about such atrocities in school because they’re too graphic and a topic people prefer to avoid. This causes a lack of awareness and ignorance towards victims who speak out about their experiences.
To me, what is most gut wrenching, is the amount of babies and young girls being raped. In the TIME article, there is a picture depicting a young girl in crutches. Beneath the picture is a caption explaining how, after her parents were killed in front of her, at the age of 5, she was raped so many times that she became paralyzed and stopped talking. I cannot even fathom how alone and scared she felt. As a five year old, she should be learning the alphabet and playing soccer in the streets with her friends, not learning to walk again because her body had been so badly violated. This makes me wonder why, why her story and many others’ are not reported in the news as much as the spray tan of former President Trump or how President Biden falls when walking down the stairs of his private jet.
After looking through so many articles and sources, it is truly astonishing to me how such a subject is so meticulously ignored in education and in the media. How many people can truly say they know and understand such a topic besides having experienced it first hand? This problem is bigger than soldiers carrying out government orders, this is about the people across the world ignorant of the stories of those who bravely chose to speak out. Accountability is in the hands of every person in the world and being educated on a difficult subject is the first step in preventing it from systematically continuing. I encourage readers to read my sources next and to do your own research in order to educate others.
Works Cited
Baker, Aryn. “Survivors of Wartime Rape Are Refusing to Be Silenced.” TIME.com, time.com/war-and-rape/. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.
Bourke, Joanna. “Rape as a Weapon of War.” The Lancet, vol. 383, no. 9934, June 2014, pp. e19–e20, https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(14)60971-5.
United Nations. Sexual Violence: A Tool of War. Mar. 2014.