It’s not just women who get raped

Eve Fensome tells us why the refusal to recognise male-on-male rape is harmful to women as well as men

Despite vast historical documentation, it was not until 2008 that the UN recognised rape and sexual violence as a ‘weapon of war’ used by armies as a tactic against civilians. The ruling means that now the perpetrators of sexual violence during wars may be prosecuted in world courts alongside other war criminals. Since the 2008 ruling, the UN and other international governance organisations have been engaged in discussions relating to many aspects of sexual violence during conflict, with one significant omission. Male victims.

If you were inclined to wade through UN Security Resolutions pertaining to sexual violence during conflict, you will find the term: ‘gender-based violence’ more times than you could (or indeed would want to) shake a stick at. ‘Gender-based violence’ is one of those slippery, insidious and politically loaded terms, which for what it lacks in clarity, makes up for by being blessed with numerous definitions. It could mean: any violence enacted upon a person on account of their gender, but it has come to mean violence enacted upon women (and girls), which in turn has come to encompass all sexual violence.

The justification for this is that sexual violence is overwhelmingly experienced by females and therefore a sex-neutral definition is unnecessary.  In actual fact, male-on-male sexual violence is perhaps far more prevalent in war than the international community has ever imagined. For instance, a study of 6,000 concentration camp inmates in Sarajevo found that 80 percent of males reported that they had been raped during their detention. Another study shows that of all the Sri-Lankan males seen at a torture treatment centre in London, 21 percent reported sexual abuse. A 2010 survey found that in Eastern Congo 30 percent of women and 22 percent of men reported conflict-related sexual violence. We might also remember that the most conspicuous aspect of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq was the use of sexual abuse as part of the ritualised humiliation of inmates by American forces.

Mostly, data on the incidence of male sexual abuse is extremely hard to come by since few organisations are interested or well-equipped enough to collect it. This in turn continues to compound the belief that the only victims of sexual violence are female; the upshot is that the UN and other international NGOs only run programmes aimed at vulnerable women and will turn away male victims.

For most of the tenure of these global institutions, women’s experiences during conflict have been wholly ignored, yet now analysis of civilian violence is focused almost entirely on women. This is harmful not only to men, but also women. For as well as the pain experienced by many male victims of sexual violence who are denied help on account of their sex, we see the continuation of a rigid gender stereotype: that of the perennially weak female victim and the monolithic invulnerable male aggressor.

The international feminist community set out to remove these prejudices, and yet a policy which focuses purely on women results in their continued existence, to the detriment of both sexes. The international community must grasp that feminism will not be realised by women becoming the powerful oppressors, but by removing the oppression of rigid gender roles. The UN must realise that the global gender issue is not a zero-sum game. If we put one sex before another the result will always be a loss, if, on the other hand our strategy is equality, everybody wins.

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