Systematic Sexual Violence

During the Serbian-Bosnian conflict of the early
1990 s, twenty thousand Bosnian women were sexually
assaulted. Several global organizations have
concluded that these assaults were not isolated by-
products of war but rather systematic and organized
commissions of sexual violence. Based on qualitative
analysis of reports documenting such assaults, this
work asserts that the governing forces of Serbia
employed systematic sexual violence as public policy
in Bosnia during the conflict of 1992 to 1995. If
systematic sexual violence can be explicitly
recognized as public policy, it can be
differentiated from other forms of sexual violence
by its intent -- that is, its policy goals. Then, as
with genocide, we can legally define systematic
sexual violence by its intent rather than its scale.
Occurrences of mass rape would no longer be
necessary in order to trigger our attention to this
policy of abuse.

Autorentext

Meena Chary holds a Ph.D. in Public Administration, as well as degrees in Electrical Engineering, Economics and Management. She is a methodologist and a public policy scholar.

Klappentext

During the Serbian-Bosnian conflict of the early 1990's, twenty thousand Bosnian women were sexually assaulted. Several global organizations have concluded that these assaults were not isolated by-products of war but rather systematic and organized commissions of sexual violence. Based on qualitative analysis of reports documenting such assaults, this work asserts that the governing forces of Serbia employed systematic sexual violence as public policy in Bosnia during the conflict of 1992 to 1995. If systematic sexual violence can be explicitly recognized as public policy, it can be differentiated from other forms of sexual violence by its intent -- that is, its policy goals. Then, as with genocide, we can legally define systematic sexual violence by its intent rather than its scale. Occurrences of mass rape would no longer be necessary in order to trigger our attention to this policy of abuse.