Rape as a Weapon of War? Gendered Genocide Analysis in the Darfur Conflict

Gendercide refers to a genocidal event that specifically highlights gender-specific patterns of elimination.

Gendercide refers to a genocidal event that specifically highlights gender-specific patterns of elimination. Gendercide is often studied in terms of its impact on men, as they are the group at the forefront of the war. But what about women? Does genocide only affect men in war situations? This essay focuses on the 2003 Darfur conflict to explain the systematic sexual violence that occurred as a form of genocide. In the Darfur conflict, the people of Darfur were victimized by gender roles, generating gender meanings that implicitly undermine the social order through selective and gender-specific criminal practices. By highlighting the concept of thanatonatality, this essay aims to answer: i) who are the often forgotten victims in genocide? ii) how does rape and sexual violence attack the social fabric of human existence as a whole?; and iii) how does it occur in the Darfur conflict?

Mass Rape in the Darfur Conflict: Rape as a Weapon of War

               On April 20, 2003, the attack on a government air base in El Fasher by a Darfur rebel group, the SLA or Sudan Liberation Army, became a phenomenon that implicated the escalation of the Darfur conflict. This rebellion was also driven by another Darfur rebel group, JEM or Justice Equality Movement, to respond to the repression and discriminatory pressure carried out by the Sudanese government on citizens in Darfur, the majority of whom are of non-Arab ethnicity. At the same time, a Sudanese militant group called Janjaweed emerged to control the rebellion in Darfur. However, the control exercised by Janjaweed has increasingly shown gratuitousness by killing men, raping women, and kidnapping/killing children–occurred in 3 (three) waves that occurred within 36 hours. They (Sudanese troops) broke into people’s homes, seized goods, arrested men, and raped women. Basically, the atrocities committed by the Arab Janjaweed militia when armed did not only target women, but also black Africans (non-Arabs) as targets of extermination. However, rape is an integral part of the Darfur conflict.

Talking about the rape of Darfur women, rape and sexual violence in the Darfur conflict has grown into a very complex issue. Some of the rapes that occurred were rapes committed by rebels against women of their own ethnicity (Darfur). In fact, the rebels now have official control of one of the refugee camps. They (the rebels) rape women of their own ethnicity, causing ongoing terror, justifying it as a measure to prevent the “ethnic cleansing” that the Sudanese government seeks. This of course destroys social networks through collective trauma.

               Approaches to violence in war often narrow down to what happens on the battlefield: gun battles, coups, attacks or the taking over of strategic military assets. This in turn frames the perspective on what happens to those on the frontlines of war (i.e. men), rather than looking at war from a truly holistic view.

Those killed on the battlefield are not the only victims of genocide. Genocide in its definition focuses on the destruction of entire social entities – showing how genocide is carried out through systematic victimization or persecution. This explains how genocide also targets the remaining members of the group to face a more subtle process of “erasure” than occurs on the battlefield, namely physical and social conditions designed to destroy the entire community. This shows how social destruction within the framework of genocide (at the macro level) is supported by micro factors, one of which is sexual violence.

               The Darfur conflict shows how rape was used as a systematic instrument to commit genocide, targeting the elimination of non-Arab Darfurian ethnicities. In other words, rape in this context is also often referred to as “slow-death,” a more subtle process of genocide through the destruction of physical and social conditions in a community.

Thanatonatality Strategy: Contextualizing Gendered Genocide in the Darfur Conflict

Thanatonatality, explain how sexual violence in genocide turns the process of birth into death. It is undeniable that sexual violence such as rape that occurred in the Darfur conflict is a systematic strategy of genocide carried out by militias and the Sudanese government to destroy the target community. Thanatonatality is explained through mass rape committed in the Darfur conflict, as it has created collective trauma that destroys social networks. Moreover, women (who are victims of rape) still have to face stigma – that the child they are about to give birth to is of Arab descent – and are alienated from their own communities. On the other hand, the rape committed by the Sudanese government through the Janjaweed militia further enforces their (the Sudanese government’s) dominance over non-Arab ethnic groups. This structural phenomenon certainly exacerbates social cohesion by destroying the identity of the target community.

In the conception of thanatonatality, forced pregnancy is a logical consequence that can no longer be avoided. The child born from this forced rape then becomes an individual who can no longer be considered as “her ethnicity,” but rather identified as the ethnicity of the perpetrator of the rape (Arab). This shows how the born child becomes a social symbol that disconnects them (the born children) from their mother’s community. The erosion of identity is a direct implication of rape births, as these children are perceived as a “humiliation” that weakens the capability to maintain their identity. This then leads to social disintegration.

Finally, just as non-atonatality targets women as instruments of community identity maintenance, sexual violence and rape in Darfur have erased the plurality that Darfurians need to sustain the insurgency and keep the community sustainable. The Janjaweed’s sexual violence ultimately reflects that mass rape is an effective weapon to destroy a community by threatening its physical, social and cultural existence. Thus, thanatonatality in Darfur proves how birth can transform in its meaning into death: destroying social networks, creating collective trauma for victims, systematically undermining the identity of a community within the framework of genocide.

Diospyros Pieter
Diospyros Pieter
An undergraduate student majoring in International Relations, Gadjah Mada University. Passionate in environmental activism and International Politic and Economic Studies.