Rice: Rape Shouldn't Be War Weapon

Condoleezza Rice says some warring factions use rape to subdue women.

ByABC News via logo
February 12, 2009, 12:10 PM

July 13, 2008 — -- Wartime tactics are often brutal, but in some conflict-torn regions, perpetrators add -- to the usual bombs, guns and beatings -- sexual violence against women.

The practice has become so widespread and visible that the United Nations Security Council took aim at the issue on June 19 when it demanded nations halt warring factions' violence against women, specifically saying rape was no longer a war by-product, but a military tactic.

"The unfortunate thing is that, in many parts of the world, in many conflicts, it has been made a weapon of war," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. "It's meant to tear societies apart. It's meant to show who's boss, and I remember very well going to Darfur, and sitting in a refugee camp in a tent with women talking about the fact that they had been raped on the way to get firewood or to get water."

Rice is passionate about the issue and chaired part of the U.N. session that informed the 15-member council how the world now recognizes sexual violence during conflicts goes beyond individual victims to affect nations' security and stability.

Other international leaders echo her thoughts, including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said the problem "reached unspeakable and pandemic proportions in some societies attempting to recover from conflict," according to Reuters.

Some have questioned whether rape actually was a weapon of war, because the victims don't die, but Rice disagreed.

"In some ways they die, they die spiritually," she said. "They die in terms of their persona from then on, and it's really one of the worst things that you can do to a village or to its women."

The problem has become so severe that former U.N. peacekeeping commander Maj. Gen. Patrick Cammaert said, "It has probably become more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in an armed conflict."

Rice agreed.

"In some parts of the world, that's absolutely true, because, of course, the women are unarmed and they're vulnerable," she said. "It's been an unfortunate circumstance in some cases that it's been peacekeepers that have turned on these women. And so, I felt very strongly that we needed to raise the profile of this issue."