Banwell, S. (2017). “This is beyond something we've seen before:” unpacking orientalist and ethnocentric interpretations of wartime rape

The ‘rape-as-a-weapon’ of war narrative has been particularly influential in the securitization of sexual violence. UN Security Resolution 1820 (2008) identifies rape and sexual violence during armed conflict as a war crime and a threat to international peace and security. More recently, in the context of the civil war in Syria, the UN has reported ‘catastrophic’ new trends of extremist groups using Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) to terrorize civilian populations. Drawing upon ideas about the fetishization of CRSV (Meger, 2016a, 2016b), this paper analyzes policy and news media accounts that sensationalize and objectify war crimes perpetrated by terrorist ‘Others’ in ISIS-controlled areas of Syria. It argues that the selective focus on wartime rape marginalizes other more common and complex patterns of conflict-related violence. Additionally, focusing on ISIS obscures the diverse actors and ideologies that are caught up in this conflict. Reports singling out attacks by ISIS, as barbaric examples of sexual slavery, are in danger of invoking both Orientalist and ethnocentric interpretations of violence perpetrated in the Global South. On a broader level, this piece argues that the political economy of this conflict is being overshadowed by a security agenda that prioritizes sexual violence