A Gendered Imperative: Does Sexual Violence Attract UN Attention in Civil Wars?

• Published date: 01 January 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0022002719841125
• Author: Theodora-Ismene Gizelis,Michelle Benson
• Date: 01 January 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

A Gendered Imperative:

Does Sexual Violence

Attract UN Attention

in Civil Wars?

Michelle Benson

1

,

and Theodora-Ismene Gizelis

2

Abstract

There is increasing awareness that sexual violence is distinct from other aspects of

civilian victimization in civil wars. Few studies have examined the independent impact

of such violence on responses to civil wars as compared to “traditional” forms of

violence. This article explores whether reports of high levels of rape and sexual

violence increase the probability of United Nations (UN) attention to conflicts and

calls to action. In so doing, we combine original data on UN Security Council

(UNSC) resolutions with data on sexual violence in armed conflict and estimate the

impact of sexual violence on UN attention to all civil wars from 1990 to 2009. We

show that the effects of sexual violence on the number and level of UNSC reso-

lutions are significant even when controlling for other important determinants of

UN action. These findings have important implications for understanding how the

UN has expanded its view on protecting civilians.

Keywords

war crimes, international organization, internal armed conflict, civil wars

1

Department of Political Science, SUNY Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA

2

Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester, Essex, United Kingdom

Corresponding Author:

Michelle Benson, Department of Political Science, University at Buffalo, SUNY, Buffalo, NY 14260,

New York, USA.

Email: mbenson2@buffalo.edu

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2020, Vol. 64(1) 167-198

ªThe Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/0022002719841125

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Attention to sexual violence has skyrocketed since the Bosnian and Rwandan civil

wars in the 1990s. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the State

Department all regularly report on systematic abuse and document-specific, impor-

tant episodes of sexual violence.

1

Human Rights Watch (2005, 7) reports an example

from second Congolese civil war where

...tens of thousands of women and girls were raped or otherwise subjected to sexual

violence. Victims whose cases Human Rights Watch documented were as young as

three years old. In a number of cases men and boys were also raped or sexually

assaulted. The World Health Organization investigated the incidence of rape ...and

concluded that some forty thousand persons had been raped.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) responded to the conflict in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) by passing a dozen resolutions in the

2003 to 2004 period. However, based on most prior research on the determinants of

UNSC action and resolutions, we would not have expected that the United Nations

(UN) to be active toward this conflict, since neither battle deaths nor civilian casu-

alties were particularly high during the 2003 to 2004 period reported (Fortna 2004,

2008; Beardsley and Schmidt 2012; Hultman 2013; Hultman, Kathman, and

Shannon 2013).

What then explains the high number of UNSC resolutions (UNSCRs) on the DRC

in addition to the traditional attributes held to predict to UN activity? We suggest

that a high prevalence of widespread sexual violence can explain UN attention to this

and other civil conflicts. Recent work suggests that sexual violence is a distinct type

of violence against civilians and can occur at all stages of conflict (Norda

˚s 2011;

Cohen, Norda

˚s, and Wood 2014). Given the prominence of sexual violence in many

conflicts, we expect that reported sexual violence can have an independent effect on

promoting UNSCRs.

We recognize the deep-rooted structures that may engender sexual violence

highlighted by feminist researchers (Enloe 2000, 2002; Meger 2016; Seifert

1994; Pankhurst 2010). Sexual violence often reflects deeper forms of hier-

archical, violent social structures with implications beyond domestic and inter-

national security (MacKenzie 2010; Meger 2016). Our focus here is not to

explain the origins of sexual violence but rather examine how the UN responds

to the relative magnitude of reported sexual violence. We posit that high

prevalence of stated sexual violence has been an important predictor of

UNSCRs in the post–cold war period, even before the “formal recognition”

in resolutions addressing the status of women and children with Resolution

1820. It is vitally important to understand the determinants of these resolu-

tions.

2

UNSCRs are precursors for most UN actions and the indicators of

global attention and great power willingness to act in specific conflicts. The

presence, number, and intensity of UNSCRs thus indicate global interest in

conflicts and the potential for action or intervention in civil wars.

168 Journal of Conflict Resolution 64(1)

We use an original data set on all UNSCRs from 1989 to 2014 to examine their

relationship to the presence, count, and intensity of sexual violence in Uppsala Con-

flict Data Program (UCDP)/Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) conflicts. We find

a robust, significant relationship between reports of sexual violence in a conflict and

the likelihoodthat the UNSC will address a civilconflict in a resolution as wellas how

often. We also find evidence that reports of systematic sexual violence go together

with a higher intensity in UNSC response, measured by thetype of action called for in

resolutions in a conflict-year, as well as the number of resolutions calling for high

levels of action (e.g., sanctions or the outside use of force).

3

Our analysis shows that the impact of sexual violence on resolutions is indepen-

dent of prior UNSCRs and the presence of peacekeeping missions in a conflict as

well as other well-established indic ators of violence in civil wars. In short, our

results indicate that sexual violence is a separate conflict attribute driving the like-

lihood of UNSCRs. These findings have meaningful implications for understanding

international conflict intervention and suggest that the norms and motivations of

conflict management are perhaps not as limited as suggested in prior literature. Our

findings suggest that the likelihood of intervention, which presumes prior UNSCRs,

is related to a widening understanding of and attention to specific types of violence

against civilians and innocents.

Challenging the Norm of Sexual Violence in Armed Conflicts

Sexual violence in armed conflict is not a new phenomenon, although awareness

about it may be. Enloe (2002) points out that the looting, pillage, and rape nexus has

been a characteristic of violent conflict throughout the history of humankind. Cases

of rape by German or Russian forces during World War II or the “rape of Nanking”

are by now well-documented but did not draw much international attention at the

time. The violent nine-month Bangladesh War of Independence in 1971 was the first

time that international attention started focusing on rape as a form of political and

military strategy independent from other forms of atrocities (Brownmiller 1975 ;

Skjelsbæk 2010). Sexual violence and rape were widespread in many of the armed

conflicts in Latin American countries such as Guatemala in the 1970s, even though

there was significant variation in the spread of these phenomena (Wood 2006). Yet,

sexual violence remained both understudied and underanalyzed as it was not con-

sidered equivalent to other fo rms of violence such as killings and tor ture often

observed in armed conflicts (Meger 2016; Skjelsbæk 2001). Early feminist research

made the case that sexual violence was not an inevitable by-product of war but a

reflection of the unequal gender relationships and insecurity experienced by women

in their daily lives both in war and peace (Kelly 2000).

It was not until the 1990s when public attention shifted, and mass documentation

of rape and sexual violence started with the cases of Bosnia and Rwanda. The

shocking reports galvanized public opinion to address sexual violence in wars and

persecute the perpetrators (Skjelsbæk 2010). After the international recognition of

Benson and Gizelis 169