Transcript: The Dark Economy of Mail Order Brides
Click here for Podcast Episode: Season 1, Ep. 6
[Rai] So today we are joined by Sian Norris, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re going to be doing an episode called the Dark Economy of Mail Order Brides. And just for listeners that aren’t familiar with the platform, this is Global Rights Defenders. It’s a non-profit dedicated to helping and advocating alongside marginalized, displaced and vulnerable populations, and we’re using this podcast as a type of vehicle to push forward human rights objectives and human rights issues that need to be confronted.
[Rai] Sian Norris is a writer and feminist activist, with a specific focus on reproductive and LGBTIQ rights. Her work has been published in openDemocracy 50:50, the Guardian, the i, New Statesman, Byline Times, politics.co.uk and many more. Her book, Birth Violence, explores how the Far Right is attacking women’s reproductive rights in Europe and will be published by Verso in Autumn 2022. (That is a very topical issue of course as we’re watching Roe v. Wade in the United States. And she is also the founder of the Bristol Women’s Literature Festival. Thank you so much Sian for joining us today, we’re so happy that you could be here.
[Sian] Thank you for having me it’s really good to be here.
[Rai] Awesome, OK so could you tell us a little bit about yourself like why you became a journalist and what your specific interests are.
[Sian] Yeah, absolutely so currently I’m working at a newspaper called Byline Times. I’m their Chief Social Affairs and European Reporter. And before that I was freelancing at various publications like the ones you listed. And I really got into journalism because I was really interested in telling stories well women’s rights in particular and marginalized communities and was really aware that there so many issues and so many active women and communities that were trying to do really important work to improve their lives and the lives of the people around them. And yet so often we didn’t get to hear about their stories, and we didn’t get to hear about what they were doing and the actions they were taking. So I was really keen to become a journalist and write those stories and engage with those activists and campaigners and groups. And also you know a big area of my interest as a journalist is sort of looking at the rollback of women’s rights and sort of the backlash against women’s rights and so I’ve been very keen in getting involved in investigative projects. Looking specifically at how disinformation channels and how disinformation is used to prevent women from accessing reproductive healthcare and abortion. I’ve been really interested in looking at how like money from the US and from anti-gender organizations in Europe, and money from Russia has been used to kind of rollback women’s rights or attack women’s rights across the region. And sort of towards the end of last year I sort of did a lot of reporting around Afghanistan and the unfolding situation there with a particular focus on the UK’s response to refugees and refugee crisis that was brewing. So lot’s of things really, I get to write about lot’s of stuff, but my main focus is kind of investigating those women’s rights issues from sexual harassment to reproductive violence and sexual rights as well.
[Rai] Very important topic’s and I just feel so lucky to have you as a speaker today. I just know you’re so knowledgeable. It’s really important work that you’re doing. So you could you please define for us what a mail order bride is and why might it be controversial?
[Sian] So mail order brides is kind of a really odd term in that it positions women in two very distinct ways: first of all you have the bride you know we’re talking about a woman who is defined by becoming a bride. She is not a wife. She is not a person. And it is all those kind of connotations around a bride that is kind of like virginial, naive, the start of life, the start of something. And then mail order which is this sort of commodification. That she is product that you can just buy on the internet. So in terms of what it means when you go looking for mail order brides, as it were, these are sort of women that put themselves on these websites, sort of sign up to these websites effectively but with the kind of purpose of getting married at the end of it. And generally it’s targeted at foreign men who a woman in Eastern Europe, and you sign up to these dating websites you know these types of dating websites tend to focus on men in western countries such as the US, the UK or western Europe. And you match with a man on there just like on a normal dating website and you can arrange to marry him and come live in his country of origin. And I think as well we’ve come to think about mail order brides because you know how people date, people use dating websites all the time, that’s kind of very normal way to meet people these days. But I think there’s something really specific about the power dynamics when we talk about mail order brides. Because these always men living in one country generally a wealthy country, a global north country, a developed economy sort of what we used to call a first world country although that term is not really appropriate anymore, and the women often living in much poorer countries, much less developed countries, week economies, and they’re kind of looking to move to the west in order to have a better life. But what you end up with is this power dynamic around the man in the western country being this sort of gateway to this woman to come to a better life. And depending on the country’s immigration laws, you could have huge amounts of power imbalances. So in the UK where I live you know people can come to the UK on a spousal visa, but there are also some restrictions that are put on that, you may not be allowed to work for a long time, you may become completely financially dependent on your husband. And even in the most equal loving, ideal relationships that kind of power imbalance is going to create tensions and problems because someone is completely dependant on their partner. So I think this isn’t the same as going on Match.com and going on a few dates and finding someone you like and seeing how it goes. This is a very transactional way of meeting another woman that relies a lot on stereotypes of what that woman will be like and then sort of creates this very uneven power dynamic should the relationship develop and the couple gets married and the woman moves over to the UK or the US or another global north country.
[Rai] Yeah you touched on some really important topics there. You touched on immigration issues, you talked about nationalism, you talked about the exploitation, power dynamics. All of which we’re going to go deeper into. But the term mail order bride is kind a colloquial term that we use for human trafficking. And human trafficking as you just explained has all of these tenets in it. To define human trafficking, three elements must exist: which is the recruitment, transportation, harbour or the receipt. Through the second which is the means to use force or coercion power to achieve consent of a person coming towards you and this is all for the purpose of exploitation which is the third element. Which includes slavery, practices similar to slavery, servitude, forced prostitution, sexual exploitation. So all of these elements absolutely exist under the definition of mail order bride and yet we’re using it as a sort of fun modern term where it’s just kind of accepted. It’s one of those things people just turn a blind eye to intentionally, there’s intentionality behind it as well for women specifically.
[Sian] I think as well, the exploitation, like there’s people making money out of this and it’s not the men or the women, it’s the businesses that run these websites. And you have to pay a lot of money to like when I was doing this investigation on mail order brides I mean I didn’t pay for anything, I didn’t give the services any money. I had very strict boundaries when I was doing the investigation, but it was constantly saying like oh you know pay this much money and you can chat, pay this much money and you can see your likes, pay this much money and you can see these extra services, this extra access to women. So really the sort of layers to expectations are complex but these big businesses are winning out of desperation. Desperation on many levels.
[Rai] Absolutely, and what these organizations are called in the literature are International Marriage Organizations which is just an umbrella term that was given to them. They’ve been linked to criminal trafficking in several ways. Adults and girls can be offered as brides to the public but sold privately into prostitution, forced marriage, or held in domestic slavery. So, they’re still running rampant and it’s still coming across as a legitimate business model in many countries.
So, what are the main reasons that women enter these websites in the first place?
[Sian] As I mentioned you know a good reason is to move countries. If you’re living in a country with a weak economy or depressed economy or you don’t feel like you have a lot of life changes, you’re living in poverty with high inequality then the idea of moving to a country that views you as more prosperous or as more modern where you might have better opportunities to get work that you’re interested in. Those are all really good reasons to do it. Interestingly, when I was looking at mail order bride websites, this sort of pitch to women is that in the west (you know I’m sort of using the term west advisedly as sort of the short hand kind of for G7 economies that kind of area). It’s kind of presented that men in these countries are more modern, they’re more open minded, more progressive, perhaps in the countries where lots of women go on these websites such as Eastern Europe or the Global South, they’re much more traditional sort of small conservative societies. So women are kind of sold this this notion of that oh you’ll meet a kind of cool progressive western guy who will be cool if you’re going to work and has these progressive values and less traditional that your home country. Conversely, the pitch to men is that women from these countries will be really submissive, they’ll be really conservative, they’ll be really traditional, they’ll be like home bodies who want to serve their man, and they won’t be like these nasty feminist women where you live and who have funny ideas about having human rights. And of course, it’s just so offensive to women in all countries where they make this comparison. So it’s interesting that the pitch to women signing up to the sites is so divorced to the men who are signing up to find a wife that they’re sort of given this promise of a more western progressive husband and the men are being told you’ll be given this lovely beauty and submissive lady who’ll also be completely wild in bed and fulfill every sexual fantasy you’ve ever had. But crucially, the reason that I looked into mail order brides is because of the situation in Ukraine. I’ve kind of been hearing you know that because we have this visa system in the UK that they launched at the start of the war in the Ukraine that you can come to the UK if you can get a sponsor so they ask members of the public to sign up to a scheme called homes for Ukraine. And then you will be matched with a Ukrainian refugee who will come and live with you and this was everybody thought this was a safeguarding nightmare, and that there were so many issues with this scheme. And one of the issues is that people were saying we’ve been seeing women going on dating websites to try and find men or people to match with so they could find people to match with in the UK under this scheme as a refugee. And so I thought, well ok if that’s the case, I wonder if there will be any activity on these mail order bride websites. And what I found is that you know when I was doing the investigation, I was on a website, and lot’s of chat boxes would come up and these women would try and start conversations with me, and I didn’t respond to any. I didn’t engage with anybody. Like I said, I had very clear boundaries about what was acceptable to do on these websites. But more than a few raised the refugee issue and they were like “Can refugees work in the UK?” and sort of asking questions about how many refugees were in the UK. And so it was like OK so that is a reason to be signing up to become a mail order bride. It’s not because you want to marry a Westerner or an Englishmen, it’s because you want to get the hell out of a war zone and there’s not safe, legal immigration routes that are being opened up effectively. They don’t allow you to do that.
[Rai] Yeah, yeah it’s so so sad and so so devastating just the dire situation and how desperate people are to get out of it and what they’re willing to put themselves through. I know somebody in Afghanistan who is extremely young, and she’s trying to help her family she’s the only educated person in her family and she didn’t even sign up to the mail order bride websites. People would sign up under the guise of let’s say Red Cross– it’s not Red Cross– but these big organizations that go in other countries and help, like those types of institutions. People would sign up to volunteer with those organizations and then would solicit to these people to these people they were trying to help. So they would go “I can’t help you through my organization but if you want I can sponsor you to come and live with me” and this person that I’m speaking of, at the time was 18, and the person reaching out to her was 64. So it’s the exploitation is beyond and she was considering it because Afghanistan or to be accepted by UNHCR to come to Canada you have to go to a third country. So she would have had to go to Pakistan or another neighbouring country, to then apply to UNHCR where she could be waiting years in a refugee camp and then years again when she came to Canada. So you know her family didn’t want to do that, and she needed to get out quickly, and she was seriously considering this option just because. it could potentially help her and her family.
[Sian] And it just speaks to a failure, it speaks to a failure our response well where I am in the UK well I guess where you are in Canada, to these refugee crises. The fact that women feel like they don’t have options except to kind of go on these dating websites, these mail order bride websites if we had opened up really clear safe legal routes of humanitarian visa’s then we wouldn’t have a situation where you go on mail order bride websites and Ukrainian women asking whether refugees are allowed to work in the UK. The other thing that I found which is what actually made me write this story in the first place, was this article on a kind of aggregate site for mail order brides website, so it’s kind of this website which reviews the best sites and gives you tips on how to find a lady, gives ratings for you know links to all the different websites, and there’s this article that was a long read about why Ukrainian women are so popular right now, and the reason they gave was to war. And it was just such a distressing article you know really engaged with very engendered, radicalized stereotypes about Eastern European women that they were all incredibly beautiful, incredibly sexual but also very submissive and traditional. And it’s just, the line that stayed with me, I swear I’ll never forget it as long as I live is when they said that the women you know the women are desperate to escape this awful situation but they’re very optimistic and they will be forever grateful to you for rescuing them. [Rai] Grateful. [Sian] Forever grateful, and it’s just like you’re setting up these women as these kind of objects that will you know do your every wish, cause they’re so grateful to you. But you’re also setting the men up to an expectation. You know these women are women who will likely be deeply traumatized from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They’re not going to. There’s so much dishonesty, and so much cruelty in the way that it is set up. Yet, this idea of sort of happy, grateful, optimistic women that you’ll be matched with to live happily every after. Again, it’s these websites exploiting really vulnerable women in desperate situations.
[Rai] And it’s interesting that you mentioned that as well because in doing some research for this episode, I was also going on the websites to see what they were talking about. And I also noticed they were pointing to the fact of war. They’re aware of war, they’re aware they’re highly exploiting these women, and there was like a Q&A section that the website itself had curated, and the question and answer portion was something like “Are these women going to be effected by the war in the Ukraine negatively?”. And the answer was like “No, they’re going to be fine, they’re familiar with English, everything is normal”. They’re trying to just continuously advertise these women as just like beautiful and happy. And it should be mentioned that prior to the war, Ukraine and Philippines were contending for first place for the last 20 years. It’s always been mail order brides are coming from Asia, or Eastern Europe, and South American countries. They’re (the mail order brides) are also coming to the United States, Canada, other European countries, and newly Japan. So it’s interesting how we’re not allowing refugee visas but we’re allowing trafficking. It’s the same people who are coming in.
[Sian] Yeah, it’s really shocking and you know they’re so aware of the war these websites, because they would say you know like this is a way of supporting Ukrainian women. So this is a way of supporting women in a war zone. Not like handing out like giving a helping hand or helping with humanitarian safe legal routes for refugees. It’s just by creating these fantasy objects.
[Rai] And even more to the fantasy objects to about how divorce rates are lower, because marriages are longer but that’s because the women you know there are so many issues with that that we’ll talk about later but these websites just really know what they’re doing on how to advertise for the women. Anyway, so why are women, I know we touched on it a little bit, but why are women even more vulnerable during this time and do you think it counts as consent?
[Sian] I mean I think the reason that women are more vulnerable during the crisis is all the reasons we’ve discussed really like you know this is that they’re living in a war zone, the main problem, the main issue is the lack of humanitarian routes for refugees. Again we always come up against this issue that if you’re not creating safe and legal routes to leave a war zone be it Ukraine or be it Afghanistan, be it anywhere else in the world, then people are going to find dangerous ways of leaving their country and leaving to another country. So in the UK we have this real issue because there’s such a lack of safe, legal routes. We’re seeing more and more people attempt really dangerous journey’s such as getting small boats across the channel from France to the UK and there’s been horrific tragedies, people have died as a result. And the government’s response for having them be like “OK well let’s try and make it possible for people to claim asylum without people having to get on really dangerous dingy”. They’re just coming up with more and more policies that are more and more draconian to try and what they’re calling deterrent mechanisms. But even the. UK home office admitted in its equality and pact assessment on these. mechanisms that there was limited evidence to say that people are deterred by these policy decisions. So if we have better routes, if we weren’t forcing people to come either through very very dangerous methods or no methods at all then we wouldn’t have women in really desperate situations signing up to become mail order brides or trying to match with people on dating websites. We’d have a sort of healthy robust immigration system that would allow people to access safety when they’re trying to flee you know .. Russia allegedly has committed mass rapes, tortured, executions, let alone you know the bombing and the shelling and the sort of day to day fighting of war. So, yeah, that’s what makes women vulnerable. The war combined with a completely dysfunctional immigration system. And in terms of consent, I mean, it’s so complicated, and I think it’s really important… I mean when I was researching and doing the investigation, I spoke to a researcher and we talked a lot about agency but you can’t make or take agency away from women. It’s important to recognize that women have agency and they’re not just passive victims are they sort of agents of chaos. We’re all really complex humans and we’re all trying to survive in patriarchal, racist, unequal, societies in the best way that we can and sometimes that requires making choices that we might not make if we did live in a fair, equal and just society. But I do think there are important conversations to be had about consent, if you’re consent is dependent on your survival, and if we’re saying that if we have situations where women feel that they have no options but to have a sexual relationship with someone in order to be safe and that cuts across all sorts of issues. Be that domestic abuse relationships, be that kind of you know mail order bride issue, be that all sorts of difficult and violent situations then what does consent mean if we’re saying it’s dependent on survival? And that’s not the same as consenting to a sexual relationship because you really want to or because you’ve got a spark or because you’re attracted to someone and you know you’re having a lovely time, it’s what does consent mean when it becomes dependent on someone else?
[Rai] Yeah, that really hit home for me, that was really meaningful because what does consent mean if it’s for survival? right? and it’s not just resting on your shoulders, it’s resting on your families’ shoulders potentially. Because, if you’re a young woman, at a marriageable age, they could potentially make money, that’s also part of certain traditions in certain cultures as well so who are we to turn our nose down to that? So yeah obviously it’s so complicated and there’s no single solution to helping these women. And I just think that we have to be aware of potential exploitations and harms that could exist so that there could be safeguards in place to help them if they do choose this route. Most importantly, we talked a little bit about in the UK and a little bit about this in Canada, but how and why is this legal?
[Sian] I mean I guess it’s legal because, well it is legal because they sort of position it as a dating website, with a marriage at the end. As long as you go through the correct immigration systems and you get your spousal visa’s and you fulfill all their terms of getting those visa’s then legally there’s no problem. I think there’s no.. and I think that’s why the term mail order bride is so frustrating in so many ways because it doesn’t really reflect the power dynamics, it doesn’t really reflect the sort of gendered and racialized positioning of the brides and of the grooms. But yeah, it’s .. from a sort of very basic… I mean it is legal because it’s two people meeting and deciding to get married and moving countries to do so.
[Rai] Right and also each country decides together what their national law is going to be as you sort of talked about. And also, forced marriage in international law an agreed term for international marriage doesn’t actually exist. So there’s a lot of issues and papers for forced marriage and child marriage as a violation of human rights but not international marriage so that’s why. And even reading through all these UN reports and toolkits in preparation for this interview, not once did they mention mail bride, overseas bride, foreign bride, because there’s no legal definition of that or agreed term.
[Sian] Well I guess it would just be so complicated to legislate against because people do meet a partner in another country and you do go through that process of getting spousal visa’s it’s like trying to legally define it is quite challenging as a result because you wouldn’t want to cast suspicion or doubt on a couple are happy to be together and want to like .. do you know what I mean? and I think that’s almost part of the problem its sort of because of these stereotypes it sort of casts suspicion on people who are just meeting their partners from Eastern Europe or the global South and they want to get married.
[Rai] Yup, absolutely, it’s so true. So again just briefly some of the international protections for these women that relate to marriage are: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, where it provides for the right of women and men of full age to get married and it emphasized free will and free consent to the intending spouse. The Convention on Consent to Marriage and Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages so again it talks about free consent for age. Convention on the Elimination on All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, now known as CEDAW but again it just has to do with the protection of women in general, not explicitly brides. And Sustainable Development Goal 5 for the 2030 Agenda calls for Gender Equity and the Empowerment to when and refers to trafficking in persons and children. So, there are a lot of tools that are floating around the concept but nobody is pinpointing it exactly.
So can you please describe the barriers for reporting and identifying and reporting these abusive practices in marriages? Such as like why don’t they leave if so many bad things are happening?
[Sian] So my investigation just looked at the websites, I didn’t speak to anyone who had gone through the process. Because like I said, I was interested in looking at how it looked at how Russia’s invasion to the Ukraine. I mean the question of why didn’t she leave is one obviously that comes up again and again and again when you write about violence against women and girls. There’s lots of answers, the main answer is because it’s not easy. It’s the most dangerous time in an abusive relationship is when a woman leaves. That’s the time when she’s mostly likely to face fatal violence. I don’t know what the situation is like in Canada, but in the UK, we had a real crisis in terms of support services for women fleeing domestic abuse. 1 in 6 refuges were closed between 2010-2017, I think that’s the correct year. We have situations where on a single day 150 women are turned away from refuge help. There’s a really fascinating book by an author called Rachel Louise Snyder called Noticeable Bruises, which really just deals with the question of why doesn’t she leave. And the answer that she comes to is sometimes staying is the safest thing to do. That you make the calculation that where do you go? where would you end up homeless? would you end up with your kids taken away? do you end up losing your support networks? Do you end up dead? Sometimes its safer to stay. And that’s a failing of society. We should have a robust safety net for women trying to flee abusive marriages or abusive homes. And the fact that women make the calculation that it is safer to stay it means we have failed catastrophically.
[Rai] Yeah I would completely agree with that. Some of the things that I have found was that their families were also part of the forced marriage. So again, the families back at home husbands included they wanted to make money from this transaction, they anticipated that, or they also wanted the women to sponsor their family eventually to come to that new country. There’s a stigma attached in some countries where if you go overseas to get. married and you come back and suddenly you’re not married then well you’re not virginial you’re not a good wife, you and your family become stigmatized. The trafficked spouses often lack information of their basic rights of being in an abusive marriage. They think that if they report this to the police, or to an organization that they will be deported and they don’t want that. Wedding agencies or these organizations that we were talking about- it requires a lot of money so the families willing to sponsor them put a lot of pressure to say that how dare you. even go against me, I am the one who paid for these things. And lastly, there are consequences for loved ones. In Canada, if a friend is consulted, the friend could be punished by law, in some cases, there are consequences to the friend who could be a consultant. So you know it’s really tricky getting around these difficulties and to get information to these people who are foreigners, foreign to the land, foreign to the language potentially so they’re extremely isolated.
[Sian] Absolutely. And it’s also so important to have funded specialist services that work with specific communities because of all the different kinds of language barriers, cultural sensitivities, understanding that pressures will be different depending on your cultural or religious background. And again, it’s .. we’ve had this issue in the UK the sort of the defunding of public services over the last 12 years, domestic abuse services and specialist services working with women victims and survivors have lost a lot of funding or specialist services have lost out to bigger organizations that don’t specialize in either domestic abuse or in specific cultural connections so you know again its this failing to fund to support and to protect women.
[Rai] Right, absolutely, well thank you so much we’re at the end of our interview today and on this episode. and I know we touched on some really heavy and deep topics but I think they’re so important. for people to know about. And I’m so grateful to you for coming, is there anything else you would. like to discuss that we haven’t talked on or touched upon yet?
[Sian] The thing that really struck me the most when I was doing this investigation was that these kind of racialized and gendered kind of stereotypes about women. And I think that we really need to challenge these notions about what women in Ukraine are, and in other countries like Afghanistan and various countries in the global south. you know we, there’s a lot of mail order bride websites that focus on these south Asian women. That they’re naive, that they’re submissive, they’re obedient, sexually voracious, always comes back to sexually voracious at the end, these are just orientalist, nasty, stereotypes that have no bearing in a woman’s life. You just have to look at the response of women in the Ukraine with the invasion. The incredible human rights defenders speaking out, the women going to the front line, the women securing food and medical care for their communities. The incredible bravery and strength of women in this absolutely horrific and desperate circumstances and that we’re still relying on this distasteful, racism, misogynistic stereotypes about what an Eastern European woman is. In order to, and I come back to this point over and over again, it’s not… there’s these layers of exploitation but the ultimate layer of exploitation is these businesses, who are extracting money out of desperation and extracting money out of racialized and gendered stereotypes in order to boost their profits and we really need to have .. we need to open our eyes to the damage these kind of stereotyping and messaging does to women’s equality and safety.
[Rai] Absolutely, absolutely. We always end our podcast episode with how can listeners help from home?
[Sian] I think that one of the things that struck me when I did the investigation was how this was being used by like “Hey men, you can support Ukrainian women by shipping them over here as a bride” Like you can actually support Ukrainian people by donating to the emergency appeals, by making sure you tackle disinformation, by making sure that you share on social media good solid news report, from places like Kiev independent, human rights activists, from women’s rights activists who are on the ground. Really kind of counter those disinformation messages. And yeah support the people of Ukraine during this horrific time with solidarity and if you can with donations and by making sure these nasty narratives about the war are silenced.
[Rai] Absolutely, well thank you so much for joining us today
[Sian] Thank you for having me it was really lovely
[Rai] It was really incredible, and just so everyone knows, Sian Norris’ book ‘Birth Violence’ is coming out in Autumn 2022. Is there a release date for the book yet?
[Sian] No, it’s probably not going to come out until next year actually. It’s just publishing schedules meeting around but yes hopefully2023.
[Rai] can you give us a little tease of what the book will be like? I know you said it’s about women’s reproductive rights but is there anything that you’re really excited for us to learn about?
[Sian] Well its an investigative book with analysis, and I look at how extremist messaging about abortion and about women’s bodies, looking really ugly really far right extremist places. How that messaging and how that ideology has become mainstream political policy in the US and in various European countries. And also look at who funded that and who made that possible with lots of money so yeah its sort of the idea was to go on this pipeline from this sort of extremist ideology to policy in parliaments.
[Rai] I can’t wait to read it because it could not be more topical. right now.
[Sian] Sadly, sadly it is. I hoped it would be a history book but its a very present book sadly.
[Rai] Right right of course. Well anyway thank you so much for joining us and I hope you have a great day. And just thanks again.
[Sian] Thank you, it was lovely to meet you. Take care!
[Rai] Ok you too, bye.
[Sian] bye
Transcript: Deep Dive: Rape as a Weapon of War
What is rape?
Rape is defined as an unlawful sexual activity, usually carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against a person’s will or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable to give valid consent. This is due to mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception. Otherwise known as an act of outrageous violation[1].
Rape has been by product of war for as long as human beings have engaged in conflict. It was not until the 1990s that rape during wartime began to be recognized as a weapon and intentional strategy.
Historically, rape has been viewed as a private crime, a. sexual act that was committed by a “bad seed” or individual, or worse still, it is so commonplace that it widely accepted as a by-product of war. Though men are also raped, the data shows that rape during wartime is overwhelmingly committed against women.[2] However, rape is neither incidental or private. It is a strategic function in war and acts as a tool for ethnic cleansing, achieving military objectives, and gaining social control.[3] Though there are several accounts, if not countless, records of rape being used as a weapon of war, I just want to highlight a few to give context to the types of war crimes we are dealing with:
During WWII rape was used to terrorize and demoralize enemy populations and troops. In Japanese conquered areas, such as Korea, Singapore, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan and the Philippines, thousands if not hundreds of thousands of women and girls were taken through force and put into military sex-slave camps the Japanese coined “comfort stations”. Comfort women became a category of women and girls who had belonged to poor communities and could be forced to serve as sex slaves. Japanese soldiers believed that if they had designated comfort stations, it would prevent them from raping local women en masse.
Nazi’s raped Jewish women as they invaded despite concerns with race defilement, and raped countless others on their path to the Ukraine. Russian troops raped German women, hypothesized to be up to 2 million. As one witness stated “the Russian soldiers were raping every German female from eight to eighty… it was an army of rapists”[4]
In 1971, state-backed Pakistani troops raped anywhere between 200,000 – 400,000 Bengali women during the Bangladeshi Liberation Movement.
And we have seen this time and time again in places like Sierra Leone, the former Yugoslavia, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In recent years, we are seeing this same strategy being deployed against the Tigrayan population from Ethiopian and Eritrean forces, imploring rape, sexual slavery, gang rape, sexual mutilation and torture[5]. Ukrainian women right now are also facing threats of rape as a weapon of war from advancing Russian soldiers,
But how has it been possible for rape to be committed so many times, and with such impunity, before it began to be investigated for what it truly is? A weapon
During their programming in the 1990s, Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) began witnessing rape as a war strategy. Bosnia created and designed “rape camps” where women were being used to birth Serbian babies. This here is an example of ethnic cleansing which can be defined as “the mass expulsion or killing of members of an unwanted ethnic or religious group in a society”. Later in 1994, MSF observed systemic rape in Rwanda following the genocide, where Tutsi women were being raped by HIV-infected men, recruited and deployed by the Hutu led government. This time, rape was used to gain social control over the Tutsi population to instill terror and eradicate the Tutsi population[6].
When used as a weapon of war it terrorizes, displaces, and negatively affects the social fabrics of communities. Sexual violence happens in conflicts such as war zones, but also around refugee resettlements or camps for internally displaced people, in host communities where IDPs live, and along routes which people use to flee violence[7]
In Darfur for instance, women and girls are responsible for child rearing and domestic duties. Those living in displaced camps or towns are required to collect firewood, water, frequent the market in exchange for goods and tend to the livestock. Leaving their area of refuge poses a great risk of being raped by soldiers nearby. Due to deforestation, women are compelled to venture further and further away from their protected areas of residence. Yet, because their community is so dependent on humanitarian aid, it is imperative for them to supplement their family’s income in any means necessary. Collecting firewood for cooking and fodder for livestock is an integral part of their families’ well-being.
Every time they leave their perimeters, they are at risk of being raped. And if they do indeed get raped, it heavily stigmatizes the woman, her family members and community at large. Men are unwilling to marry a woman who has been raped, husbands may abandon their wives after the fact, and she may be disowned for disgracing her family. She will then be forced to find other means of work, often prostitution or related, to continue to support her family’s income. Supports for women are seldom, if they exist at all. And because of the conservative culture that permeates within Darfur, communities are unwilling to discuss the violence.
This is exemplified in insightful Netflix documentary City of Joy, which follows rape in the Domican Republic of the Congo, where rape is used to scare the surrounding population. If women are being raped, they fear leaving their secured perimeters. This means they may not supplement their families’ income and may be forced to relocate to a safer area. Women that have been raped, as I previously mentioned, will be heavily stigmatized, abandoned by their husbands or become isolated. Men may feel ashamed because they were unable to help their wives and feel emasculated because of it. If you haven’t seen City of Joy, I highly suggest you check it out
Then of course we are forced to discuss the very serious and real consequences of rape. Effects of sexual violence can be psychological, emotional and physical. This includes depression, flashbacks, post-traumatic stress disorders and can materialize in the form of self-harm, substance abuse, dissociation, panic attacks, eating disorders, sleep disorders, and suicide[8]. Some physical effects include sexually transmitted infections, such as HIV, unwanted pregnancies and other physical injuries including to the mouth, breasts, vagina and rectum[9].
For instance, between 2004-2009, the kivu conflict in the Eastern DRC encapsulated a brutal war. Armed groups from the DRC and neighbouring countries committed atrocities and systematically used sexual violence as a weapon of war to humiliate, intimidate and dominate women, girls, their men and communities. Armed combatants took advantage with impunity, for they knew they would not be held accountable by police or judicial authorities. A particularly inhumane public health problem emerged: traumatic gynaecological fistula and genital injury from brutal sexual violence and gang-rape, along with enormous psychosocial and emotional burdens. Many of the women who survived found themselves pregnant or infected with STIs/HIV without access to treatment.
The sexual violence is widespread and pervasive. Gang-rape is often exacerbated by other forms of extraordinary sexual savagery, including the forcing of crude objects such as tree branches and bottles into the vagina. Sometimes the women are tortured, their genitalia mutilated with knives or bayonets or burned with naked flame. Or they are shot through a gun barrel thrust into the vagina. One dreaded outcome of the trauma from sexual violence is genital fistula, defined as an abnormal communication between the vagina and the urinary tract (usually the bladder), or between the vagina and the alimentary tract (usually the rectum) or both.5 The fistula leads to uncontrollable leakage of urine or faeces or both through the vagina
The perceived risk of sexual violence and death in this conflict setting posed an insurmountable barrier to seeking crucial, emergency obstetric care if a woman had obstructed labour. For those who were not killed, the genital injuries require difficult and painstaking surgery. Often, there is additional damage to sexual and coital function, and reproductive capacity is also compromised[10]
As outlined above, there are existing inequalities, especially gender inequalities, that perpetuate and enable rape. Weak law and order, discriminatory social norms and customs, ethnic tensions, poor governance, impunity, and extreme poverty all compound one another to breed conditions that enable sexual violence to be used as a weapon[11]
So, what is being done to protect these women?
In the late 20th century, efforts were made to prosecute rape as a weapon and strategy of war under existing international law[12].
Here are the
Current laws that prohibit rape as a weapon:
The universal declaration on human rights adopted in 1948 by 58 member states where article 5 states “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”[13]
- The primary statute, Article 27 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (1949) had existing language that protected women “against any attack on their honour, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault”; this protection was extended in an additional protocol adopted in 1977[14].
- The convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW) adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, can be described as the bill of rights for women. It consists of 30 articles and defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination[15]
- In 1993, the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights (now termed the UN Human Rights Council) “declared systemic rape and military sexual slavery” as crimes against humanity “punishable as violations of women’s human rights”[16]. That same year, the General Assembly Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women contained “a clear and comprehensive definition of violence against women [and] a clear statement of the rights to be applied to ensure the elimination of violence against women in all forms”.
The UN recognizes that violence against women is a pandemic affecting all countries, where 35 percent of women have experienced either physical and or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner violence[17]
- In 1995, the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women recognized that rape by armed groups during wartime as a war crime.
- In 2008, the UN Security council denoted that “rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity of a constitutive act with respect to genocide”[18]
- ”[19]. In 2010, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women at its forty-seventh session pursued article 21 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, “to adopt a general recommendation of women in conflict prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations[20].”
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Committee on the Rights of the Child have emphasized that States must “ensure that private actors do not engage in discrimination against women and girls, including gender-based violence.”1
And that’s just to name a few…
If you want to learn more make sure you check out the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, with the link down below: ( https://vawnet.org/sc/international-laws-and-policies-prevent-and-intervene-violence-against-women )
Though Japan reached an agreement with South Korea on December 28, 2015, acknowledging the issues that arose from widespread and systemic human rights violations of comfort women, they are one of the few. Japan agreed to acknowledge and express regret for its role and to provide a one-time contribution of one billion yen (US $8.3 million) to carry out joining projects with south Korea, including a foundation to be established by the country[21], they are one of the few countries to admit guilt.
States and state actors engage in rape during wartime with impunity. It is seldom for them to be prosecuted, or for them to face charges for their crimes against humanity.
Though international laws prohibit the use of rape as a weapon of war, the endemic use of rape as a weapon has often been committed by states with impunity. In 2002, the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established to end impunity for international crimes “such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity”[22]. Though defendants have been charged with breaking international laws of rape and sexual violence as acts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, it has not yet been brought to the ICC. The ICC has limited resources and a restrictive mandate, enabling it to prosecute the very few at the top. Moreover, because of the deep-rooted history of rape during times of war, the issue of gender-based violence in conflicts receives inadequate attention in the discourse on gender equality and sustainable development[23]. According to the Global Justice Center (2012) “The failure to treat war rape like other illegal weapons or war tactics removes the central protection of the laws governing the conduct of war from rape victims”[24].
By recognizing and enforcing consequences we will…
- Promote deterrence by changing norms which legitimize rape during times of war
- Raise awareness regarding the number of women and girls injured or killed by rape. According to the Global Justice Center (2012), “Global indices that track fatalities and injuries by weapons type do not consider rape to be a weapon for these purposes”[25]
- Provides new avenues for redress including to the victim’s family, or to the victim for the purposes of restitution such as: becoming “HIV infected, forced pregnancy and child-bearing, and child rearing costs for children born of war rape”[26]
Discussion:
The true number for those affected by sexual violence is unknown. These occurrences are grossly under-reported, especially in non-refugee, non-internally displaced settings, and that the true number is difficult to calculate. Those women and family members who are not killed outright may fail to report because of stigma and fear of retaliation. Additionally, clinic staff, health management information systems and official statistics may not capture the data either, because of inappropriate interview, documentation and reporting techniques, which are often not adequately sensitive, discreet or confidential[27].
We need to make sure we are advocating for sexual violence to be recognized and documented across all forms.
Rape as a weapon of war has been employed on all continents. The problem is not limited to a certain time or region. In the past we have seen it in Bangladesh, North Korea, the Philippines, Rwanda, Sierra Leonne, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Vietnam and the former Yugoslavia. It was also prevalent during WW2 across parts of Europe and Asia. While there are no exact statistics on the number of victims or the prevalence of sexual violence, research indicates it is a global problem. That is why it is so imperative we include the count of rape victims in the global indices so we can provide proper aid, education, resources, reduce stigmatization, and most importantly, protect the victims. We need to strengthen our efforts in reducing this global phenomenon and create avenues where women can come forward to receive redress and the long-term help they will need.
To quote Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign slogan “yes we can”
Thank you and take care
[1]Mariam Webster. Rape. Retrieved: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rape
[2] Thomas, D and Ralph, R (1994). Rape in War: Challenging the Tradition of Impunity. SAIS Review. John Hopkins University Press. Retrieved: https://www.hrw.org/legacy/women/docs/rapeinwar.htm
[3] Ibid
[4]Beevor, A (May 1, 2002) ‘The Russian Soldiers Raped Every German Female from Eight to 80’. The Guardian. Retrieved: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/may/01/news.features11
[5] McVeigh, T (May 14, 2021) Rape is Being Used as a Weapon of War in Ethiopia, Say Witnesses. The Guardian. Retrieved: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/may/14/rape-used-as-weapon-war-tigray-ethiopia-witnesses
[6]Global Justice Center (2018) The Rwandan Genocide: Rape and HIV Used as a Weapon of War. Global Justice Center Blog. Retrieved: https://www.globaljusticecenter.net/blog/937-the-rwandan-genocide-rape-and-hiv-used-as-weapons-of-war
[7]Dr. Denis Mukwege Foundation. What are the Issues. Retrieved: https://www.mukwegefoundation.org/the-problem/
[8]RAINN. Effects of Sexual Violence. Retrieved: https://www.rainn.org/effects-sexual-violence
[9]Clifton, E (2020) Medical Examination of the Rape Victim. University of Michigan. Retrieved: https://www.merckmanuals.com/en-ca/professional/gynecology-and-obstetrics/domestic-violence-and-rape/medical-examination-of-the-rape-victim
[10]Longombe, A, Claude K, & Ruminjo J (2008). Fistula and Traumatic Genital Injury from Sexual Violence in a Conflict Setting in Eastern Congo: Case Study. Reproductive Healh Matters. DOI: 10.1016/ S0968-8080(08)31350-0
[11] Dr.Denis Mukwege Foundation
[12] Britannica. Rape as a Weapon of War. Retrieved: https://www.britannica.com/topic/rape-crime/Rape-as-a-weapon-of-war
[13]OHCHR. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved: https://www.ohchr.org/en/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
[14] ibid
[15]UN Women. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms Against Discrimination. Retrieved: https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/
[16] ibid
[17]United Nations. Gender Equality. Global Issues. Retrieved: https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/gender-equality
[18] ibid
[19] ibid
[20]International Committee of the Red Cross. Women and Sexual Violence. Retrieved: https://casebook.icrc.org/case-study/women-and-sexual-violence
[21]OHCHR. (March 11, 2016) Japan / S. Korea: “The Long Awaited Apology to ‘Comfort Women’ Victims is Yet to Come” – UN Rights Experts. Media Center. Retrieved: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2016/03/japan-s-korea-long-awaited-apology-comfort-women-victims-yet-come-un-rights
[22] The Conversation (November 2, 2012) Rape as a Weapon of War: What the Law Can Do. Retrieved: https://theconversation.com/rape-as-a-weapon-of-war-what-the-law-can-do-10038
[23]Chakrabarty, M (March 23, 2022) A War Within a War: Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War. Observer Research Foundation. Retrieved: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/sexual-violence-as-a-weapon-of-war/
[24]Global Justice Center (2012) How the Laws of War Fail Women. Retrieved: https://www.globaljusticecenter.net/documents/Q&A.HowTheLawsofWarFailWomen.March2012.pdf
[25] Ibid, p.2
[26] Ibid, p.2
[27] Longombe, A, Claude K, & Ruminjo J (2008).
Global Rights Defenders 