'Neglected Victims?'- Men as victims of sexual violence as a means of ethnic cleansing

• In Event: Blind Spots of International and Transitional Justice Research? (ECACTJ Working Group)

Abstract

This project advances the adoption of feminist state crime theory -a new theoretical approach- to te study of the genocidal and ethnic cleansing connotations of the widespread and systematic deployment of sexual violence in the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. The study is conducted through the application of Fairclough's (2001) model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to the testimonies of sexual violence survivors' collected from the ICTY digital archive and both Askin's War crimes against women: prosecution in international war crime tribunals (1997) and Stiglmayer's Mass Rape. The War against Women in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1994) edited volumes. The analysis of findings has led to the identification of the different connotations of the acts of sexual violence perpetrated against male victims. A previously marginalized topic of discussion among feminist scholars, the experiences of Bosniak men need as much analysis as those of Bosniak women. The study analyses what made possible for male sexual violence victimization against members of the Bosniak community to be regarded as an effective means of ethnic cleansing. To do so, notions of hyper and hegemonic masculinity are taken into consideration when analyzing male survivors' experiences of either primary or secondary victimization and when analyzing the victims status, or lack thereof, they have been granted. In particular, the study explores how notions of manliness rooted in patriarchal beliefs of what constitutes masculinity determines how male-on-male sexual violence is dealt with both during and after the conflict and how such beliefs shape the stigmatization and ostracization of male survivors of sexual violence.

Author

• Annalisa Battista, University of Edinburgh