(iPoster) What Explains Multiple Perpetrator Rape in War: Evidence from Ethiopia

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Health Politics and Policy & Wartime Violence, Armed Actors, and Civilian Agency
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Wartime Violence, Armed Actors, and Civilian Agency

Abstract

Multiple perpetrator rape (MPR) is by far the most common form of conflict-related sexual violence. But why does wartime sexual violence—in stark contrast to peacetime—so often take the form of MPR? While scholars increasingly agree that conflict-related sexual violence may be motivated by opportunism, strategy, and organizational practice, there is much less understanding of why sexual violence is perpetrated in pairs or groups in nearly three-quarters of cases.
This paper argues that small-unit social dynamics generating participation through pressure to conform or coercion—discussed in the literature on MPR in peacetime, particularly in the context of criminal gangs, fraternities, and sports teams—are essential for understanding the occurrence of sexual violence in armed conflict. Group processes that have been linked to MPR include, for example, deindividuation, social comparison theory, conformity, and modelling. Contrary to existing understandings in the field, these processes help explain conflict-related sexual violence in armed group units with low, medium, or high levels of cohesion. I further argue that the extreme brutality related to MPR documented in Ethiopia can be understood as soldiers communicating norms of masculinity and virility to their peers.
I analyze support for my hypotheses drawing on 20–30 interviews, planned to be conducted between April and August 2026, with former rank-and-file combatants from the various armed groups involved in the Tigray War (2020–2022) in Ethiopia. Crucially, these armed groups differ along two key dimensions: the commander’s stance toward the use or tolerance of sexual violence, and recruitment practices (which relate to unit cohesion), ranging from voluntary recruitment to conscription and gang pressing.
My results contribute to debates on wartime sexual violence as well as the broader category of group violence perpetrated by armed group members, including killings and torture.

Author

• Leonardo Steinfeld, University of Oxford