Further, collectively perpetrating sexual violence against men, which is clearly seen as reprehensible both legally but also morally[9] by perpetrators themselves, is meant to demonstrate to the rest of the world that the group sees itself as being above the law, as being able to set its own rules. It is a clear affirmation of collective power, of an arbitrary rule that is imposed on other groups:
[After discussing the use of sexual torture on male prisoners]
We have a conflict here. You can’t expect us to respect the rules. It is those who are the most powerful who impose their rule. The others have to obey, whether it pleases them or not. (Richard 2009, interview)
Transgressing such ingrained taboos gives to combatants a feeling of invincibility, of invulnerability, which in turn feeds their will to carry on their struggle, and/or their various operations of looting, kidnapping and racketing, in the numerous cases where greed seems to be the main motivation of the armed group.
All the former or current combatants I interviewed about their experience of everyday violence had heard about cases of sexual violence against men, and if a majority denied that it had happened in their group or battalion, some recognized that they had personally witnessed episodes of such violence, and fewer still admitted that they had participated in some way in its perpetration. Their attitudes changed whether we were speaking about sexual violence against women, or against men. On the one hand, speaking about “bush wives”—that is, girls or women more or less forced to provide sexual services to combatants under the cover of so-called “marriages”—was absolutely not taboo and was even expected from a Western, female researcher. On the other hand, however, the issue of sexual violence against men, and in particular male on male rape, often elicited strong reactions, from a flat refusal to discuss the matter, to long and animated speeches about how evil this is. Several interviewees, such as Néhémie, vehemently condemned these acts as “plain wrong” and positioned themselves as strong objectors to these practices:
Which man would do this to another man? It is against nature, it is not how God has made us, it is evil, real evil. There is no excuse for that. (Néhémie 2009, interview)
In this quote Néhémie directly questions the masculinity model that is enacted through such acts, and opposes it to a “natural” (that is, in his view, God-made) finality, reminding us about the potential contradictions between traditional (and hegemonic) understandings of masculinity, and violent militarized ones.
Interestingly, perpetrators who expressed remorse, as well as those who condemned the perpetration of such acts, often used the religious register to do so, probably because it conveys a sense of morality, of distinction between right and wrong. Many of the combatants I interviewed—regardless of their participation in acts of sexual violence against men or not—thus spoke at length about the “normalization” of violence that occurs during war, and about their own growing confusion about what was right or wrong. In particular, those who are strongly religious could not reconcile what they did or were asked to do with their religious beliefs:
We did what we did because it was war, and in war you have to do what is needed. But now I feel bad about what I have done. I have bad dreams, sometimes I cannot sleep at all. I am asking myself “Did God want this? Did He want to test me?” I don’t know, but I am not proud of myself. (Jean Bosco 2009, interview)
Some argued that the violent context had changed them, and that somehow it is not really them who committed those acts, though they still feel remorse for what they have done:
When I think about what happened, I can tell you, it is not me who did that. I am not like that, I am a good man, I pray and I go to the Church and I take care of my family. But somehow, all this violence, all this killing, all of this drove me insane. I am ashamed of some things I have done. (Joseph 2013, interview)
The narratives collected for the purposes of this chapter are remarkably diverse, and also largely case-specific. It is, however, striking to see that, with very few exceptions, most stories weave episodes of sexual violence against men together with wider conflict dynamics. Even when it is narrated as resulting from the craziness of war, and even when it is condemned as evil, this violence is still somehow related to the war context, to security imperatives and to power relations with civilians or other militarized actors. Sexual violence against men is also often understood in relation to other forms of violence exerted against civilians or prisoners, both male and female. What these narratives thus come to confirm is that wartime sexual violence against men is neither exceptional nor disconnected from broader conflict issues and strategies. It is part of a continuum of violence that is affected both by local group dynamics and by broader societal and political relations of power.
Chapter 4
Surviving Wartime Sexual Violence
The capacity of male survivors to cope with what happened to them and, more generally, the ability of the wider society to deal with, and to overcome the sequels left by, sexual violence are inevitably dependent upon their own cultural background and positioning; the violence’s scope, duration and motivations; and also upon the other types of violence the survivor has been subjected to. However, somewhat paradoxically, the scope and severity of sexual violence sometimes seem to entail divergent consequences for individuals and for the wider society to which they belong. For instance, and as we will see, the more widespread sexual violence against men is, the more difficult and lengthy it is for the relevant community or society to mend its wounds, whereas if there are a lot of other survivors with whom to exchange and on whom to rely upon, recovery might become a bit less complicated for individual survivors[1] (Edström et al. 2016). This apparent paradox derives from the social and symbolic functions that men are required to play in social groups, and from the masculinity models they are expected to enact, especially in times of war (Dudink, Hagemann and Tosh 2004).
This chapter, exploring male survivors’ stories, mostly builds on interviews that I have conducted in various conflict zones during the past decade, and more specifically in the Great Lakes region of Africa (primarily in Eastern DRC and in Burundi, and with survivors of the Rwandan genocide) since 2009, and in Northern Ireland since 2005. I am not suggesting that the findings and trends exposed in this chapter are universal. Notions such as masculinity, femininity, violence or power, and the values and roles that are attached to them, vary according to the context, and it would be very surprising if all male survivors of sexual violence reacted in the same ways to their experience. And indeed, as we will see, contrasting narratives that I have collected in Burundi or in the Congo, with those from paramilitary group members who have been imprisoned in Northern Ireland, highlight quite significant differences. Also, it is likely that the experiences of, and reactions to, sexual violence vary according to the victim’s gender identity and sexual orientation. However, none of the survivors I spoke with suggested in any way that they had considered themselves, at the time of the assault, as gay, bisexual or transsexual. In spite of these limitations, most of the key trends exposed in this chapter are confirmed by data compiled by other researchers in different settings like Bosnia-Herzegovina or Sri Lanka, or by survivors’ groups themselves.[2]
9
This is not to say, of course, that sexual violence against women is acceptable either legally or morally, but rather that in the discourses of most of the combatants I spoke with, sexually abusing women was considered as neither exceptional nor “against nature”.
1
Similar patterns might of course occur in cases of widespread sexual violence against women.
2
I have notably used some data produced by male survivors’ groups, and available on the Refugee Law Project’s website, http://www.refugeelawproject.org/.