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Dictionary of Gross Human Rights Violations

Rape, the Crime Against Humanity of

Rape, when committed as part of a systemic or widespread attack directed against a civilian population, is a crime against humanity. Rape was defined by the Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in the Akayesu Case as “a physical invasion of a sexual nature, committed under circumstances which are coercive.” Rape has long been diminished by being considered a “private” crime of an individual soldier rather than a systematic crime (for example rape was not explicitly mentioned in the list of crimes of the statute of the Nuremberg Tribunal), but this is no longer the case.

The utility of rape as a weapon to terrorise women arises from the horrific nature of the crime itself. Sexual violence almost always accompanies other forms of mass violence. Rape, and other sexual crimes, must be understood to be motivated less by sexual impulses and more by the will to impose power and control over another human being. Rape was used as a systematic tool in the Bosnian Civil War with an estimated 20 000 (the estimate of the European Community) to 50 000 (the estimate of the Bosnian government) women being raped.

Rape is a crime against humanity under Article 5 (g) of Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Article 3 (g) of the Statute of the ICTR, Article 7 (g) of the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court (ICC), and Article 2 (g) of the Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Under the Rome Statute other forms of (sexual) violence of similar gravity may be considered crimes against humanity. Rape can also be a war crime when committed in the context of an armed conflict. Finally, rape can be considered to be genocide when it is committed in a systematic manner with the intent to destroy an ethnic, racial, national, or religious group (i.e. rape is used to ensure that all offspring are mixed).

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