‘I’d rather they killed us’ How rape became a weapon in war

Drita* was a widow with two sons when Serbian forces entered her village in Kosovo. As they began separating the old men, women and children, she says her community ‘knew what was going to happen’.

‘They tore my clothes, they ripped them lengthwise. I started to scream and cry. After, the paramilitaries came. Long, greasy hair, unwashed, dressed in black clothes. I just cannot describe what we went through… the sexual violence was horrible.’

Recalling her trauma in a book called I Want To Be Heard, which contains stories from torture survivors of the war, Drita added: ‘I’d rather they killed us, slaughtered us to death, decapitated us, or mutilated us by cutting an arm or a leg, but not experience that. It was horrible.’ 

Thousands of women became the target of Serbian soldiers during the 1988 Kosovo war, which saw forces commit genocide and displacement against Kosovar Albanians, in the belief that their land belonged to Serbia. 

But this isn’t an isolated case. Referred to by foreign correspondent and author Christina Lamb as the ‘cheapest weapon known to man’, rape has been used as a weapon in every recorded human conflict, dating as far back as Roman times.

Following the First World War, hundreds of soldiers recounted coming across women who had been sexually assaulted and had their breasts cut off with bayonets, while in the Second World War, in some countries, women were raped and had their heads shaved if soldiers thought they had ‘collaborated’ with the enemy.

In the last 40 years an estimated 500,000 women and girls were raped during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, more than 60,000 were assaulted in the Sierra Leone civil war, and since 1996, at least 200,000 women and girls have been raped in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

While the statistics are staggering, it can never be forgotten that behind these figures is a person whose life has been torn apart, never to be the same again.

‘These numbers represent individual women,’ Vianney Dong, Country Director of Women for Women (WFW) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, tells Metro. ‘Beyond the figures, we need to see the humanity – we need to see the women who came forward and have been brave.’

Earlier this week, the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict was marked for the eleventh year to raise awareness of the need to put an end to conflict-related sexual violence and honour victims and survivors. 

Even with strides made in recent decades in terms of victim support and prosecution for rape, sexual violence still continues in conflicts today.

No accountability 

On October 7, 2023, a cross-border attack by Hamas at the Nova music festival in Israel left 1,200 dead and saw women sexually assaulted and mutilated, while 250 people were taken hostage in Israel. Those kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip were believed to have been raped. Since then, sexual violence has been recorded on both sides of the conflict. 

‘There have been exacerbated attacks by soldiers on Palestinian people – including women and children – particularly at checkpoints, in the past year and a half,’ Amani Mustafa, Country Director for WFW Palestine, tells Metro, adding, ‘there are 900 checkpoints across the West Bank.’

She adds that some female residents of Gaza who were detained by Israeli forces after October 7 have come back with ‘obvious’ signs of rape, unable to speak after their ordeal.

Similar instances were recorded when some of the female Israeli hostages, taken by Hamas, were returned. One, Moran Yanai, said she wasn’t sexually assaulted but claimed other women hostages were raped.

Palestinian detainees have been subject to continued sexual assault and torture by Israeli authorities, Amani says.

WFW Palestine was told the account of one man who was forced to watch his wife raped in front of their children – ‘His wife is a victim, but so is his family,’ Amani explains.

But there are effects beyond breaking apart families and creating cracks in society in these circumstances, as the psychological damage can also be devastating. 

‘It is not OK for any human to live with this level of fear. And the perpetrators are enjoying impunity without accountability,’ Amani explains.

‘It is vital to raise awareness of sexual violence in conflict globally, but it is important that we do not turn a blind eye to a certain conflict because we have a political opinion on it. 

‘Women’s rights issues and the humanitarian situation in Palestine have been highly politicised, because people are still busy identifying who to blame.

‘They may have the liberty to identify and determine who’s to blame, but there are victims who need support, which needs to address the root cause of the issue and conflict. But this is our reality.’

I returned to the camp, hiding my torn clothes

Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been ongoing for over three decades. Generations of family have lived through war, and the high levels of rape in the conflict have persisted. 

When the fighting approached her village, teenager Françoise* decided to flee. Today, the 17-year-old lives in an Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP) camp on the outskirts of Goma, but she’s still not safe.

In a testimonial for the Red Cross, she describes the horrific abuse she suffered recently.  

‘I started going to the forest to collect firewood for sale with a group of other women,’ she explained.

‘About two weeks ago, we came across a group of uniformed armed men. We ran and they chased us. Two of them caught me when I fell on the ground and couldn’t run any more. They raped me one by one. They didn’t say anything. I could see they were also scared.

‘When I could stand up and walk, I was afraid I would get pregnant. I was afraid to tell anyone. I felt useless, scared and alone.’

Henriette* was also sexually assaulted by a man carrying a machete after she was separated from friends as they went to collect firewood on a different occasion. ‘I was terrified, thinking about my children,’ the 30-year-old told the Red Cross.

‘He pushed me into a hole in the ground and raped me. When he finished, he told me to leave and never come back. Said I was lucky he didn’t kill me.

‘After I returned to the camp, and didn’t go out for several days. I wanted to throw myself into the lake – the only reason I didn’t was because there was nobody to take care of the children.’

Between February and March of this year alone, ActionAid recorded a 700% increase in sexual violence against women and girls in the DRC.

Provisions to help tackle the issue, such as mobile clinics in IDP camps for rape victims and distribution of post-rape kits by midwives have been introduced by the government, Vianney Dong tells Metro. 

Still, there are gaps in implementing the changes and seeing progress. If a woman is sexually assaulted, it’s known that they should go to the police station to report the crime. 

‘But before going to report it, women need to feel safe. The place where you are reporting a rape should be safe enough that you don’t face retaliation. This is the gap: there is no safe space for a victim to come and say, ‘This happened to me,’’ Vianney explains.

Many of the rape victims in the DRC live in rural areas and are uneducated, making outreach difficult for organisations like Women for Women. Even with education on what to do in case of a rape, the stigma remains.

‘It’s very difficult for women to open up. It has a lot of cultural implications,’ she adds, explaining that in the DRC, many victims of sexual assault are accused of prostitution and exiled from their communities, which often places them in even more danger. 

‘We need to shift this mindset, speak to community leaders and have them understand – these women are victims of rape. We need to support them.’ 

Wounds which never heal

During the Kosovo War in the late 1990s, thousands of women and girls – like Drita – were raped at the hands of Serbian soldiers. The young country is still reckoning with the aftermath, 25 years later.

Iliriana Gashi, Executive Director for WFW in Kosovo, tells Metro: ‘When politicians began to be more supportive of survivors of sexual violence in the war, it changed things. But there is still so much shame.

‘It’s like when you throw a stone in the lake – the ripples reach far and wide. Shortly after the war ended, women were more open to speaking about their rapes. But it was male members of the family who didn’t allow them to speak.’

The public testimonies of many survivors of wartime sexual violence in Kosovo, along with time, have helped shift the blame from victims onto the perpetrators, Iliriana says.

‘But this trauma is intergenerational,’ she adds. ‘I hope that people will understand that sexual abuse is a weapon of war. It is used for many purposes: to destroy the person, their family and their communities. 

‘As a world, we need to work on the prevention of using this weapon, which creates wounds that never heal.’ 

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