Global Futures Initiative

When we think of terrorism we tend to think of destruction, killing, kidnapping, and abduction. Rape and other forms of sexual violence are not mentioned in any national counterterrorism legislation. The Security Council's recent recognition of sexual violence as both a tactic of war and a tactic of terrorism affirms that counterterrorism strategies can no longer be decoupled from strategic efforts to end this scourge. Armed groups often view the civilian population as a resource to be exploited, seeing women's sexuality and reproductive capacity as commodities to be owned, traded, and trafficked as part of the political economy of war. ISIS has used sexual violence to mobilize resources, to fund its operation, including through the ransoming and sale of women and girls. It is believed that $850,000 was paid in January 2015 for the release of 200 Iraqi Yazidis.

When sexual violence is deliberately employed as a tool of genocide against ethnic, political, and religious minority groups the intention is not simply to kill the enemy, but to control or even end their ability to give birth. In this way women's body are used as biological weapons to alter the demography of a region and to unravel existing kinship ties. Attacking women as soft targets to reach otherwise unreachable enemies as a proxy for their husbands, fathers, or sons, who are fighters or political leaders, or because they are seen as the bearers of social-cultural identity, literally turns women's bodies into battlefields and weapon factories for producing the next generation of fighters. 

Perhaps the greatest challenge in relation to atrocity crimes like conflict-related sexual violence is moving from a long history of justice delayed and justice denied to justice delivered, and from a culture of impunity to a culture of deterrence.

Zainab Hawa Bangura is the United Nations special representative on sexual violence in conflict.