Wartime Sexual Violence: Research Trends and Future Directions

• In Event: Sexual Assault Victimization

Abstract

Over the last two decades the legal, academic, and policy communities have encouraged the rapid proliferation of scholarship on sexual misconduct during wartime. The aim of this piece is to evaluate the literature on the prevalence of and motivations for wartime sexual violence (WSV). It does so by organising theories of WSV into three levels: macro (state) level, meso (community or peer) level, and micro (individual) level. It finds that fundamental research problems exist at all levels and almost no scholarship emphasises interactions between the three strata. Evidence from the literature suggests that the speed of development in this research and policy area may have led to the entrenchment of a number of biases and expectations, particularly in terms of perpetrator and victim roles, motivations for the commission of violent sexual acts, and the global scale of WSV. Recommendations include the integration of scholarship on peacetime sexual violence into WSV research, increased emphasis on perpetrator motives and behaviours, and a more rigorous approach to data collection and analysis.

Author

• Melissa Gregg, Simon Fraser University