THE SOLDIERS left muddy tracks throughout the house—physical traces of the violence they unleashed that day. The boot prints led all the way to the pool of blood around the woman’s body. Her dress had been hauled around her waist, her underwear torn and discarded in the corner. From her badly beaten eyes, she could see her two young children cowering in a corner, the older boy shielding his little sister’s eyes from the horror they had witnessed.
This crime, perpetrated by fighters loyal to the Serbian warlord Arkan in Kosovo in 1998, was one of the first cases of sexual violence in conflict that I documented as a young international lawyer. It has long haunted me. Now, nearly three decades on, extreme sexual violence remains alarmingly prevalent as a weapon of war. In the past year my office has received allegations of rape and other forms of graphic sexualised aggression from no fewer than 27 countries that are at war or have recently experienced fighting.
These include well-reported events like the October 7th attacks by Hamas, which included sexual assaults on Israeli women and girls. Female Israeli hostages who have been released have reported to me incidents of forced nudity, sexual touching and other intimidating behaviour of a sexual nature. Separately, I am pursuing serious allegations of sexual crimes against Palestinians held in Israeli custody, including the alleged sodomisation of a male detainee by soldiers. It is likely that many of the violations during the Israel-Hamas conflict, on all sides, have yet to be disclosed.
In Syria, prisoners liberated recently from Bashar al-Assad’s jails have told of commonplace rapes and other sexual assaults. These crimes will be reviewed in the forthcoming proceedings before the International Court of Justice. I have reported extensively on sexual crimes against Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians, which appear to be central to Russia’s campaign of systemic torture. Sexual torture is also widespread in less prominent wars, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and Sudan. Even UN peacekeepers have been accused of rape.
Sexual violence during war is a profound abuse of power. And it would be wrong to assume that it affects only women. Both women and men are being subjected to various forms of sexual torture, including the electrocution or mutilation of genitals, sexualised beatings and gruesome assaults that may lead to the loss of reproductive or penile function. I have interviewed many male survivors, including soldiers, who struggle to hold back tears as they recount their ordeals.
Viewing these heinous acts through the lens of torture dismantles the simplistic view that sexual violence is about sex. Make no mistake: it is about control, power and dehumanisation.
A fundamental rethink of how we address sexual violence in wartime and other security crises is urgently needed. This should involve reclassifying such violence as torture. This is not a stretch legally: most cases involve severe pain or suffering, and they are perpetrated deliberately.
This could be achieved relatively simply by charging sexual offences under existing torture laws, in both domestic and international courts. A growing number of states have explicitly included sexual forms of torture within the crime of torture.
This would facilitate prosecutions. The global prohibition on torture is binding on all states: it is a “peremptory norm”, a fundamental principle of international law that must be applied everywhere. This does not apply to all cases of rape. Torture investigations are never time-barred. No one can claim amnesty or immunity. The guilty cannot hide behind the defence that they were just following orders.
The advantages could be immediate and far-reaching. Sexual offences are notoriously difficult to prosecute, often because of conflicting testimony about consent. Questions such as these are not relevant to torture. Consent is not a criterion for the crime of torture and so is not a factor in any prosecution.
This change of approach could lift the intense burden of shame that often accompanies being a victim of rape or assault. By considering victims of sexual violence as survivors of torture, shame will shift to those who should carry it—the perpetrators. There is no shame in surviving torture. Victims and their families reiterate this to me even when torture involves sexual acts. They experience an acceptance that often eludes survivors of rape and other crimes labelled as sexual violence.
Indeed, torture survivors have historically been viewed as heroes who have overcome adversity, and communities tend to rally around their recovery and rehabilitation. It is time the same recognition was afforded to victims of sexual violence in conflict, who are often stigmatised.
The benefits of reclassifying such crimes will be dampened, however, if courts are unable to keep up. New cases of sexual aggression are occurring at such high rates that even in countries where there is a willingness to prosecute these crimes, judicial systems are struggling to handle the caseload.
There are some signs of hope. Recently, a civil court in America ordered a defence contractor to pay $42m to three Iraqi plaintiffs who had been subjected to sexualised torture. In 2022 a German court held two Syrian former security officials accountable for crimes against humanity, including sexual torture. Around 100 similar “universal jurisdiction” cases—which allow serious crimes against international law perpetrated in one country to be prosecuted in another—have been opened around the world.
Reclassifying and prosecuting sexual violence as torture is desirable, legally feasible—and urgent. Doing so would put soldiers and their superiors on notice that when they rape or assault they become torturers. If the current approach continues, such violence will continue to add greatly to the misery of war, destroying lives, fracturing communities and making peace ever more elusive. ■
Alice Edwards is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture.