GLOBAL: Shame of War: a new book
on sexual violence against women and girls in conflict
Photo:
IRIN  |
| The
front cover of IRIN's book The Shame of War: sexual violence against women
and girls in conflict |
NAIROBI, 7 March 2007 (IRIN) -
Today, IRIN launches ‘The Shame of War: sexual violence against women and girls
in conflict’ - a reference book and photo essay of portraits and testimonies of
the sexual violence women suffer when men go to war. It examines the scope and
nature of this violence and looks at the different ways the international
community is addressing sexual violence against women and girls during and after
conflict.
Above all, the aim of this book is to inform, to shock and to
join the voices saying ‘Enough!’ Sexual violence against women and girls does
not have to be an inevitable consequence of war.
“Violence against women
and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a
devastating toll on women's lives, on their families, and on society as a whole.
Most societies prohibit such violence -- yet the reality is that too often, it
is covered up or tacitly condoned,” said Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the
United Nations, on Tuesday at an informal General Assembly debate on gender
equality and the empowerment of women.
This year, International Women’s
Day (8 March) is being marked by nine UN agencies with the joint initiative, UN
Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict.
While I was still standing up he was
taking off my shirt, and then he pushed me to the ground. I felt so much
pain when he raped me. He just left me there.
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11-year-old girl in
Democratic Republic of
Congo. |
Unprecedented levels of
violence against women have occurred in recent conflicts reaching what many
refer to as “epidemic proportions”.
UNDP, OHCHR, UNHCR, OCHA, UNIFEM,
UNICEF, WHO, UNFPA and DPKO have joined forces to improve the quality of
programming to address sexual violence, to increase the coordination of efforts
for comprehensive prevention and response services, and to improve
accountability.
Despite the efforts of the UN system and its partners to
stop sexual violence during and after conflicts, the problem continues to grow.
The UN Action initiative is designed to highlight and create awareness of these
abuses and, ultimately, end sexual violence to make the world safer for women
and girls.
As part of OCHA, IRIN’s contribution to this multi-agency
drive is the publication of this powerful and disturbing new book.
“The
brutality and viciousness of the sexual attacks that are reported from the
current conflicts in Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Iraq and Sudan, and
the testimonies from past conflicts in Timor-Leste, Liberia, the Balkans and
Sierra Leone are heartbreaking. Girls and women, old and young, are preyed upon
by soldiers, militia, police and armed thugs wherever conflict rages and the
parties to the conflict fail to protect civilian populations,” says Yakin
Ertürk, Professor of Sociology and UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against
Women, its causes and consequences, in the preface of the book.
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DOWNLOAD Shame
of War book |
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Chapter 1 -
sexual violence against women and girls in conflict (1MB)
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Chapter 2 - perpetrators and motivation:
understanding rape and sexual violence in war (829KB)
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Chapter 3 -
addressing impunity: sexual violence & international law
(587KB)
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Chapter 4 - sexual
abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and aid workers
(451KB)
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Chapter 5 - seeking post-conflict justice
(545KB)
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Chapter 6 - neglected challenges: the
humanitarian responsibility to protect (663KB)
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DOWNLOAD photo slideshow
- low res (15MB)
- med res (30MB) |
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PURCHASE Shame of War book |
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For further
enquiries, email:
shameofwar@irinnews.org |
“We
need to wage a different war, one against violence against women and girls and
against the culture of impunity that protects the perpetuators and their
accomplices. To some extent, this battle is already underway, but it is in its
very early days. People around the world, shocked at the revelations from
conflict zones, are becoming motivated and engaged to look for ways to end
impunity and create effective legal mechanisms that protect women and deny
perpetrators sanctuary from prosecution and punishment,” she added.
The
137-page book’s primary focus is on sexual crimes in war, their impact on
women’s lives, and includes harrowing personal testimonies from raped and abused
women who have had the courage to speak out about their experiences.
The
Shame of War is IRIN’s second publication on gender-based violence. ‘Broken Bodies,
Broken Dreams: violence against women exposed’ was released in 2005
and through 15 chapters of text and more than 170 photos tracks different
aspects of violence that women and girls face in their lives. The issue of
sexual violence in war is one chapter of this book that has been reproduced and
expanded in the new publication ‘The Shame of War’.
In addition, IRIN
has made two short documentaries on the issue of rape in war (Our Bodies… Their Battlegrounds) and female genital
mutilation (Razor’s Edge).
To mark International Women’s
Day, IRIN is also publishing a series of articles from around the regions it
covers: Africa, Asia and the Middle East.