Book

Wartime sexual violence : from silence to condemnation of a weapon of war

Kerry F. Crawford

Washington, DC : Georgetown University Press, 2017

X, 214 p. : tabl., graph. ; 23 cm

978-1-62616-466-6

English

Bibliographie: p. 191-204. Index

Conflict-related sexual violence has transitioned rapidly from a neglected human rights issue to an unambiguous security concern on the agendas of powerful states and the United Nations Security Council. Through interviews and primary-source evidence, the author investigates the reasons for this dramatic change. Views about wartime sexual violence began changing in the 1990s as a result of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and then accelerated in the 2000s. Three case studies—the United States' response to sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1820 in 2008, and the development of the United Kingdom's Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative—illustrate that use of the weapon of war frame does not represent pure co-optation by the security sector. Rather, well-placed advocates have used this frame to advance the antisexual violence agenda.