Types of Rape - War Rape

War Rape

War rapes are rapes committed by soldiers, other combatants or civilians during armed conflict or war, or during military occupation. It also covers the situation where girls and women are forced into prostitution or sexual slavery by an occupying power, as in the case of the Japanese during World War II.

During war, rape is often used as means of psychological warfare in order to humiliate the enemy and undermine their morale. Rapes in war are often systematic and thorough, and military leaders may actually encourage their soldiers to rape civilians. Likewise, systematic rapes are often employed as a form of ethnic cleansing.

War rape has been considered a war crime only since 1949. Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits wartime rape and enforced prostitution. These prohibitions were reinforced by the 1977 Additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Therefore during the post-war Nuremberg Trials and Tokyo Trials mass war rape was not prosecuted as a war crime.

In 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda established by the United Nations made landmark decisions that rape is a crime of genocide under international law. In one judgement Navanethem Pillay said: "From time immemorial, rape has been regarded as spoils of war. Now it will be considered a war crime. We want to send out a strong message that rape is no longer a trophy of war."