Sexual Violence in the Shadows: Private Military Contractors and Sexual Violence

• In Event: Human Rights and Sex Trafficking

Abstract

To what extent does the presence of private military contractors in conflict influence the perpetration of sexual violence? Private military contractors (PMCs) are utilized for security, operations, logistical support, intelligence, and training in all forms of conflict by both state and nonstate actors. Armed groups often recruit PMCs due to their level of professionalism, cost efficiency, and speedy mobilization (O’Brien 2000; Whyte 2003; Shearer 1998). Their presence has multiplied in the past two decades and now outnumbers official state militaries in defense settings (Casendino 2017). Yet they operate in the shadows with little known about their impact in conflict zones. Qualitative accounts report contractor misbehavior such as perpetrating sexual violence, but to date, the relationship between contractors and sexual violence has not been empirically evaluated. Drawing on extant research of sexual violence in armed conflict (Cohen 2013; 2017; Wood 2006; 2009), I contend that contractor presence influences the scale of sexual violence committed in armed conflict. The elusive nature and lack of oversight of contractors may lead to an increase in sexual violence in conflict. Furthermore, PMCs are highly professionalized and may train armed groups on how to use sexual violence to gain intelligence, deter the enemy, and advance their goals. Alternatively, I propose that PMC presence may sometimes lead to a decrease in sexual violence. Contractors’ level of professionalism and employment may act as an additional monitoring mechanism leading to armed groups committing less sexual violence for fear of getting caught and reported. Consequently, these opposing impacts of contractor presence should offset one another at the aggregate level. I hypothesize that overall PMC presence should have little to no impact on the perpetration of sexual violence when employed in a conflict. However, I expect PMC presence should have different outcomes for state versus nonstate groups. I argue that state armies employing contractors should be more likely to abstain from committing sexual violence when contractors are present because PMCs may be perceived as monitors over a state’s military, and state actors are more likely to face repercussions for bad behavior. Meanwhile, contractors may be associated with an increase in sexual violence by nonstate groups. Because nonstate groups do not face the same constraints as states and are more difficult to observe, PMCs may be more likely to teach nonstate groups how to utilize sexual violence to their advantage in a conflict. Drawing on the Private Military Contractors (Akcinaroglu and Radziszewski 2012) and Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict (Cohen and Nördas 2014) datasets from 1990-2008, I examine how the employment of contractors in armed conflict influences armed groups’ propensities to commit sexual violence. Using ordered logit models, I assess how PMC presence influences sexual violence in conflict in a variety of ways. In brief, I find no effect on sexual violence in the aggregate, but I find important differences across state and nonstate groups. My analyses show that overall, contractor presence is not associated with a change in sexual violence across conflicts. However, further inspection reveals that state armies are strongly influenced by contractor presence. State militaries are negatively associated with sexual violence when they employ contractors. Furthermore, armed groups fighting on the side of the state decrease their perpetration of sexual violence when using contractors. Meanwhile, PMCs have less influence on the behavior of nonstate actors. Contractor employment by nonstate groups does not appear to alter the perpetration of sexual violence by these nonstate groups. It is only when PMCs are employed by armed groups fighting in opposition of the state that we see an increase in sexual violence by these state opposition parties. My findings speak broadly to scholars studying conflict processes, sexual violence, military contractors, and gender and conflict, as well as having important implications for policymakers related to the use of PMCs in conflict.

Author

• Baylee Harrell, University of Kentucky