KRM 220 SECTION B – POLITICAL OFFENCES UNIT 6
KRM 220
SECTION B – POLITICAL OFFENCES
UNIT 6
MILITARY RAPE & ENFORCED PREGNANCIES
At the end of this study unit, the student will be able to:
- Discuss what the Brana plan entails
- Provide an exposition of three forms of mass rape
- Discuss the logic behind enforced pregnancies
- Discuss the statement that sperm can be used as a biological weapon
- Discuss enforced pregnancies as the cause of destruction and social death of a community
- Discuss male genocidal rape
INTRODUCTION
BRANA PLAN
- This plan was endorsed in 1991 by military officers is apparently key to distinguishing the
Serbian rapes (morally, politically, and militarily) from retaliatory rapes that were committed
by Bosnians and others
- Plan was to forcibly impregnate Muslim women
- Plan had genocidal intent
- Not all war rapes are committed with genocidal intent
- Not all war rapes aim, as policy, to destroy the groups to which victims belong
- Serbian officers targeted women, adolescents and children, as the most vulnerable spots in
social and religious structures of Muslim communities:
Women and children are almost always unarmed
Not trained to fight
Vulnerable because they cannot put up resistance
Adolescent women are an especially vulnerable part of the community with respect
to their sexual innocence (they have something to lose that could be considered
precious to the future of the community)
- Brana plan similar to ethnic cleansing
MASS RAPE
- 3 forms:
1. FIRST FORM
- Military forces enter a village, take several women of varying ages from their homes, rape
them in public view and depart
- Several days later, soldiers from the army arrive and offer the now terrified residents safe
passage away from the village
1
, KRM 220 SECTION B – POLITICAL OFFENCES UNIT 6
2. SECOND FORM
- Persons held in concentration camps are chosen at random to be raped
- Often as part of torture preceding death
- Genocidal intent = severe physical and mental consequences
- Victims are of any age and any gender
- Torture and murder can also be used to terrorise
- But they can serve other functions, such as rewards for and bonding among rapist soldiers
3. THIRD FORM
- Women are imprisoned in rape/death camps and raped systematically for extended
periods of time
- Either as torture preceding death or as torture leading to forced pregnancy
- Torture = amputating limbs and fingers, burned
- Pregnant victims are raped consistently until its not safe to abort
- They are then released in 8th month of pregnancy
- Aims for genocide by means of reproduction
LOGIC BEHIND ENFORCED PREGNANCIES
How can rape, enforced pregnancy, and resultant childbirths, be genocide?
- Intent of Serbian rapists appears to have been to produce Serb children
- Serb perpetrators, may have thought that the presence of these children would change the
identity of the next generation thus altering identity of the community to something more
Serbian
- Ironically, the child born of military rape will contain genes of both biological parents, but
will most likely be raised by its mother, if she survives
- Consequently the child will take on the mother’s culture
Military rape aimed at enforced pregnancy in the rape/death camps was apparently
committed with genocidal intent
- 1948 Genocide Convention did not anticipate that acts of rape might be committed with
intent to destroy a group
- Taken at face value, a plan to produce births seems contrary to genocide, as it appears to
increase rather than decrease the target population
- Forced pregnancies could become genocidal because of misogynous cruelties of the culture
to which the women belong (EG Bengali women raped by Pakistani soldiers)
- In some cultures, if a women is raped, she is removed from the society
SPERM AS A BIOLOGICAL WEAPON
Enforced pregnancy uses sperm as a biological weapon
Genocidal rape can be viewed as a crime of biological warfare
Biological warfare:
2
KRM 220
SECTION B – POLITICAL OFFENCES
UNIT 6
MILITARY RAPE & ENFORCED PREGNANCIES
At the end of this study unit, the student will be able to:
- Discuss what the Brana plan entails
- Provide an exposition of three forms of mass rape
- Discuss the logic behind enforced pregnancies
- Discuss the statement that sperm can be used as a biological weapon
- Discuss enforced pregnancies as the cause of destruction and social death of a community
- Discuss male genocidal rape
INTRODUCTION
BRANA PLAN
- This plan was endorsed in 1991 by military officers is apparently key to distinguishing the
Serbian rapes (morally, politically, and militarily) from retaliatory rapes that were committed
by Bosnians and others
- Plan was to forcibly impregnate Muslim women
- Plan had genocidal intent
- Not all war rapes are committed with genocidal intent
- Not all war rapes aim, as policy, to destroy the groups to which victims belong
- Serbian officers targeted women, adolescents and children, as the most vulnerable spots in
social and religious structures of Muslim communities:
Women and children are almost always unarmed
Not trained to fight
Vulnerable because they cannot put up resistance
Adolescent women are an especially vulnerable part of the community with respect
to their sexual innocence (they have something to lose that could be considered
precious to the future of the community)
- Brana plan similar to ethnic cleansing
MASS RAPE
- 3 forms:
1. FIRST FORM
- Military forces enter a village, take several women of varying ages from their homes, rape
them in public view and depart
- Several days later, soldiers from the army arrive and offer the now terrified residents safe
passage away from the village
1
, KRM 220 SECTION B – POLITICAL OFFENCES UNIT 6
2. SECOND FORM
- Persons held in concentration camps are chosen at random to be raped
- Often as part of torture preceding death
- Genocidal intent = severe physical and mental consequences
- Victims are of any age and any gender
- Torture and murder can also be used to terrorise
- But they can serve other functions, such as rewards for and bonding among rapist soldiers
3. THIRD FORM
- Women are imprisoned in rape/death camps and raped systematically for extended
periods of time
- Either as torture preceding death or as torture leading to forced pregnancy
- Torture = amputating limbs and fingers, burned
- Pregnant victims are raped consistently until its not safe to abort
- They are then released in 8th month of pregnancy
- Aims for genocide by means of reproduction
LOGIC BEHIND ENFORCED PREGNANCIES
How can rape, enforced pregnancy, and resultant childbirths, be genocide?
- Intent of Serbian rapists appears to have been to produce Serb children
- Serb perpetrators, may have thought that the presence of these children would change the
identity of the next generation thus altering identity of the community to something more
Serbian
- Ironically, the child born of military rape will contain genes of both biological parents, but
will most likely be raised by its mother, if she survives
- Consequently the child will take on the mother’s culture
Military rape aimed at enforced pregnancy in the rape/death camps was apparently
committed with genocidal intent
- 1948 Genocide Convention did not anticipate that acts of rape might be committed with
intent to destroy a group
- Taken at face value, a plan to produce births seems contrary to genocide, as it appears to
increase rather than decrease the target population
- Forced pregnancies could become genocidal because of misogynous cruelties of the culture
to which the women belong (EG Bengali women raped by Pakistani soldiers)
- In some cultures, if a women is raped, she is removed from the society
SPERM AS A BIOLOGICAL WEAPON
Enforced pregnancy uses sperm as a biological weapon
Genocidal rape can be viewed as a crime of biological warfare
Biological warfare:
2
