Recent conflicts offer ever more compelling evidence, and as attention is growing, cases of wartime sexual violence against men have now been documented almost all around the world. It has been used—though not always systematically—by soldiers, police officers, members of intelligence services, as well as by members of armed groups in civil wars, ethnic conflicts, interstate conflicts, genocides and so on. It is impossible to offer here a complete description of all known cases, but a few examples seem to stand out. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, for instance, a study of six thousand concentration-camp inmates in Sarajevo found that 80% of men reported having been raped (Stemple 2009, 613). Numerous cases of castration, mutilation of sexual organs, sexual humiliation, forced fellatio and prisoners forced to rape other (male and female) prisoners have been documented in official documents too (Bassiouni 1994). Survivors’ stories have also been compiled and disseminated by non-governmental organizations, such as in the 2014 documentary Silent Scream (Nečujni Krik) on wartime rape during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and which includes testimonies of male survivors. More generally, sexual violence against men seems to have been used extensively during conflicts related to the breakup of Yugoslavia, for instance, by Serb forces in Kosovo (Munn 2008, 153) or in Croatia (Oosterhoff et al. 2004).
The various conflicts raging in Eastern DRC since the beginning of the 1990s provide compelling evidence too. In addition to the statistics quoted earlier, a survey by John Hopkins University, in cooperation with the Refugee Law Project in Uganda, surveyed 447 male refugees (99% from Congo) and found that 38.5% had experienced sexual violence at some point of their life (Dolan 2014a). Some databases suggest that, in 2013, there were around one hundred thousand male survivors of wartime sexual violence in the DRC (Refugee Law Project 2013b, 13). In Liberia, Johnson et al. (2008) reported that approximately one-third of adult male ex-combatants in their sample had experienced sexual violence, a percentage confirmed by other studies.[3] Numerous cases have also been reported in Sierra Leone, especially among male child soldiers (Betancourt et al. 2011), in Colombia where 15% of victims of conflict-related sexual violence are male (Quijano and Kelly 2012, 490) and in Uganda where the rape of men has been referred to as “the pain of kneeling” (Oloya 2013, 49). Other known and documented cases relate, among many others, to the conflicts in Chile (Oosterhoff et al. 2004, 68), El Salvador (Leiby 2012), Guatemala (Perlin 2000, 409), Argentina (Skjelsbæk 2001b, 74), the former Soviet Union (Scarce 1997, 31), Ukraine (UNHCR 2017b), Greece (Lunde et al. 1980), Northern Ireland (McGuffin 1974; Murray and Faul 2016), Israel/Palestine (Punamaki 1988; Weishut 2015), Algeria (Peel 2004), Iran (Agger 1989, 305), Kuwait (Scarce 1997, 31), Afghanistan and Syria (Human Rights Watch 2012; UN 2015) where sexual violence has been identified as one of the main reasons for migration (UNHCR 2017a), Kashmir (Sengupta 2011), but also Sri Lanka (Peel et al. 2000; Sooka 2014; All Survivors Project 2017), Kenya (Sivakumaran 2010, 265), Sudan and South Sudan (UN 2015), Central African Republic (Sivakumaran 2010, 263; UN 2015), Burundi (Féron 2015) and Rwanda (de Brouwer et al. 2005; Mullins 2009).
Evidence from the fieldwork I have conducted in the Great Lakes region of Africa, but also to a lesser extent in Northern Ireland, is also quite compelling, and shows that in all these cases this type of violence has been frequent during conflict times, though silenced and overlooked by political authorities, survivors and relatives, as well as by non-governmental organizations. We will further explore these cases in the following chapters, but a few short examples will give a first overview of the phenomenon. At the Panzi hospital in Bukavu (South Kivu), for instance, the chief doctor I spoke with in 2012 reported two cases that had been treated the week before: the first was that of a driver who had been stopped on his way to Bukavu by an armed group, forced to rape all the people, male and female, who were in his van, and who then was himself raped by the members of the armed group (Panzi Hospital 2012, interview);[4] the second was that of a young man who had been forced to help an armed group by carrying around goods that they had stolen from various houses (including the young man’s) and had been subsequently gang raped by the members of the group. In both of these cases, there is a deliberate wish to instill terror, and to inflict pain and public humiliation (enforced rape and then gang rape in the first case, robbery and gang rape in the second). These cases are far from being isolated. Over the years, I have heard numerous similar stories, though the setting and identity of perpetrators obviously vary. According to a person working for the International Rescue Committee in the Great Lakes region of Africa (2012, interview), sexual violence against men, and more specifically male-on-male rape, has become just another strategy of war of armed groups active in the region, the ultimate aim being to force local populations into submission. Whether or not it is a pre-determined strategy, sexual violence is successful in instilling terror among civilian populations, without putting the perpetrators at risk since victims are almost never reporting it. According to the survivors’ and witnesses’ stories I have collected, when this violence is perpetrated during raids on villages, men are often forced to rape their own family members (forced incest). This of course entails humiliation and trauma for both the rapist and his victim(s), and family relations can never be fully mended. But in many instances sexual violence seems to also happen during detention periods, or shortly after men and boys have been abducted by armed groups—a trend that also characterizes sexual violence against women and girls.
Survivors’ experiences vary greatly, as do practices of sexual violence. Testimonies collected amongst refugees and internally displaced persons in Uganda by the Refugee Law Project (2013b, 18) offer a daunting overview:
- Oral rape, as well as rape using objects (e.g. screwdrivers, bottles);
- Having ropes tied to the genitalia and being pulled around by this rope;
- Having electric wires attached to the genitalia, through which electric shocks are administered;
- Linking two men using ropes tied to their genitalia and making them walk in opposite directions;
- Being made to dig holes in the ground, or in trees, and then to rub themselves in that hole to the point of ejaculation;
- Being forced to have vaginal sex with women of the same ethnic identity who are also being detained;
- Being forced to have anal or oral sex with fellow detainees, or with brothers or fathers;
- Being forced into sexual acts with your own spouse, while being watched by children, parents, etc.;
- Being used as a mattress while soldiers rape their family members on top of them;
- Being held for lengthy periods of time as sexual slaves;
- Forced circumcision, castration and other forms of genital mutilation.
In other settings, cases of forced bestiality, of acid poured on the genitals, of cigarette burns on the genitals, etc., have also been recorded. It is worth underscoring the fact that if sexual violence against men sometimes occurs during raids on villages or in a seemingly “random” manner, many of these cases take place in the specific setting of detention, where sexual torture is used in order to extract confessions, crush political dissidence or rebellion and/or for anti-terrorist purposes. In several cases, sexual torture seems to have been used by state security forces in an almost routine fashion. For instance, 21% of Sri Lankan men who were seen at a London torture treatment center reported sexual abuse while in detention (Stemple 2009), and in El Salvador, a survey of political prisoners at La Esperanza men’s prison revealed that 76% had suffered sexual abuse perpetrated by prison guards or interrogators during their incarceration (Leiby 2012, 341), with a predominance of cases of forced nudity, genital beatings, electric torture and rape or threats of rape.
3
See, for instance, https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14522-sexual-abuse-of-male-soldiers-common-in-liberian-war/. Accessed 2 May 2018.
4
The doctor mentioned that none of the other male victims had reported to the hospital, which is a good indication of the very low level of reporting of such acts.