Rape during the Sierra Leone Civil War

During the Sierra Leone Civil War gender specific violence was widespread. Rape, sexual slavery and forced marriages were commonplace during the conflict. It has been estimated by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) that up to 257,000 women were victims of gender related violence during the war. The majority of assaults were carried out by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). The Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), The Civil Defence Forces (CDF), and the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) have also been implicated in sexual violence.

Multiple perpetrator rape (MPR) was widespread during the conflict, with one report showing that seventy-six percent of survivors had been subjected to MPR. There were high levels of survivors having caught a sexually transmitted disease, and six percent reported that they had been forcibly impregnated. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said of the gender related violence that it had been "widespread and systematic".

War crimes trials began in 2006, with thirteen people indicted for gender related violence, and for the first time, forced marriage was found by the trial chamber to be a crime against humanity.

According to Amnesty International, the use of rape during times of war is not a by-product of conflicts but a planned and deliberate military strategy. Since the end of the 20th century, the majority of conflicts have shifted from wars between nation states to communal and intrastate civil wars. During these conflicts the use of rape as a weapon against the civilian population by state and non-state actors has become more frequent. Journalists and human rights organisations have documented campaigns of genocidal rape during the conflicts in, the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Liberia, Sudan, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The strategic aim of these mass rapes are twofold, the first is to instil terror in the civilian population, with the intent to forcibly dislocate them from their property. The second, to degrade the chance of possible return and reconstitution by having inflicted humiliation and shame on the targeted population. These effects are strategically important for non-state actors, as it is necessary for them to remove the targeted population from the land. Rape as genocide is well suited for campaigns which involve ethnic cleansing and genocide, as the objective is to destroy, or forcefully remove the target population, and ensure they do not return.Cultural anthropologists, historians and social theorists have indicated that the use of mass rape in wartime has become an integral part of modern-day conflicts, such as in Pakistan, the DRC, Darfur, Liberia, and Colombia.

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