Latest news with #Unsilenced:SexualViolenceinConflict
The Wire
3 days ago
- General
- The Wire
An Exhibition in London's Imperial War Museum Breaks the Silence on Sexual Violence in Conflict
Everybody knows it happens; nobody talks about it. Sexual violence seems to be endemic to conflict and war. Men in uniform, with guns and a sense of entitlement, acting when formal and informal policing of conduct is absent, have at times been prone to perpetrate rape. It is, says Charu Lata Hogg – founder of the All Survivors Project which supports efforts to eradicate conflict-related sexual violence and support survivors – a reflection of 'toxic gender norms'. The Imperial War Museum is currently hosting the first major exhibition in any western museum on sexual violence in conflict. It aims to break the silence and deepen understanding of this gendered aspect of war and civil upheaval. The museum has long had an admirable focus not simply on military strategy and the hardware of war, but its social aspects and the hardships inflicted on civilians. 'Sexual violence is a devastating aspect of conflict and very difficult to talk about,' says Upcraft. 'This silence creates significant barriers to recovery, justice and lasting change'. Part of the purpose of the Imperial War Museum's new exhibition, 'Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict', is to contribute to the demands for change in the fight to banish sexual violence in conflict. Displays include testimony of survivors It's not straightforward curating exhibits about an issue so intimate and concealed. As you can imagine, there aren't many artefacts which speak to the subject of sexual violence. So the displays are largely of documents, drawings, posters and art, along with testimony of survivors and the words of experts and activists. These are often deeply unsettling. The Japanese army's forced conscription of 'comfort women' across south-east Asia during the Second World War, who were required to have sex with Japanese soldiers, is a deeply shocking example of wartime sexual slavery. But it is sadly not unique. The Islamist militants of ISIS imposed sexual slavery on Yazidi women in Iraq a decade ago in what has to be described as an attempt at genocide against a minority community. During the First World War, German soldiers perpetrated well-documented sexual violence against women in occupied Belgium. A generation later, the soldiers of the Soviet Red army stood accused of widespread rape as they pushed Hitler's troops back towards Berlin. While women have been the principal victims, men too have suffered sexual abuse and humiliation in war, as evidenced by the treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib at the hands of members of the US military in 2004. South Asia's painful experience of rape and abduction is not reflected in the exhibition to any great extent. But the scale of sexual violence in Bangladesh in 1971, and amid the communal violence and commotion which accompanied Partition in both Punjab and Bengal, are among the most terrible examples of men seeking to humiliate the 'other' – the enemy, the rival community, the contenders for land or status – or seeking revenge by violating the bodies of the 'other's' women. The war in Ukraine has again made the issue of sexual violence in conflict tragically topical. President Zelensky has talked openly, and with deep anguish, about the rape of Ukrainian women by the Russian military. Also Read: Reform UK's Local Election Win Could Be a Turning Point for British Politics In the Gaza conflict, and in Sudan's civil war, we have also witnessed appalling incidents of rape and abduction. Awareness of the issue is increasing, but the prevalence is not diminishing. This is a brave initiative by the Imperial War Museum. As the lead curator, Helen Upcraft, says: 'Survivors face immense challenges in sharing their stories, while the public lacks the knowledge or language to talk about these issues with confidence.' Yet the exhibition feels a little tentative and tucked away. There is no curatorial centrepiece; no image, or item, which lingers in the mind; no abiding sense of shock and outrage. As for addressing the scourge of sexual violence, Christina Lamb, a globetrotting correspondent who has written a powerful book about 'what war does to women', makes the most powerful point in one of the videos displayed. To tackle the problem, perpetrators need to face justice because at the moment there is 'no price to pay – [the rapists know] nothing's going to happen to them'. Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict , a free exhibition, is at the Imperial War Museum, London, until November 2. Andrew Whitehead is a former BBC India correspondent. London Calling: How does India look from afar? Looming world power or dysfunctional democracy? And what's happening in Britain, and the West, that India needs to know about and perhaps learn from? This fortnightly column helps forge the connections so essential in our globalising world. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh issues heartfelt plea against sexual violence: 'We must do better'
The Duchess of Edinburgh has spoken passionately of her campaign to highlight the plight of victims of sexual violence in conflict, saying: 'We must do better.' Sophie, 60, who has spoken out on the issue for years and met hundreds of survivors around the world, was visiting the UK's first exhibition dedicated to the subject on Wednesday. Featuring shocking stories ranging from the First World War until the present day, the royal expressed her frustration as she toured the displays at the way the issue is still swept under the carpet - and the cultural norms that give rise to the degradation of women even today. She looked amazed when told that the British Royal Air Force didn't ban 'nose art' - the drawing of scantily-clad women on the front of their fighter planes - until 2007. 'Surprising….' she said, clearly unimpressed and raising an eyebrow. Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict has opened at the Imperial War Museum in London and will run until November 2. It is a subject the duchess - who was making her visit to the exhibition ahead of International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict on June 19 - says is woefully 'under-discussed'. In recent years the King's sister-in-law, who is married to his brother, Prince Edward, has travelled to current and former war zones including Chad, the Congo, Kosovo, South Chad, Lebanon and Sierra Leone. She has devoted much of her latter working life as a royal to supporting the Women, Peace and Security Agenda and is passionate about championing gender equality. Shocking stories of the use of rape and sexual assault as a weapon of war against both women and men have emerged from the current conflict in Ukraine, including a powerful report just weeks ago in the Daily Mail. Sophie, dressed elegantly in a Gabriela Hearst pink silk maxi dress and Jimmy Choo heels, was keen to ensure that survivors has been consulted on the exhibition, saying: 'This is about them, their voice matters'. The Duchess of Edinburgh with curator Helen Upcraft during a visit to the Imperial War Museum's new exhibition. Sophie looked amazed when told that the British Royal Air Force didn't ban 'nose art' - the drawing of scantily-clad women on the front of their fighter planes - until 2007 And she was assured their stories had been 'integral' to the process by exhibitions manager Jack Davies manage and curator Helen Upcraft. 'Unsilenced' examines how and why gender violence is perpetrated, its impact on victims and the pursuit of justice and reconciliation, with powerful testimonies from survivors and interviews with experts in the field. The Duchess spoke movingly about a visit she had made to Kosovo in 2019 and how deeply moved she had been when speaking to women about the 'shame and stigma' they experienced as a result of being brutalised. Discussing the horror of the many women who fell pregnant by their attackers, she said: 'The stigma that is sadly placed on the women….it's about the mothers. In so many countries they can't even go back into the home place,' she said. 'I met a woman in Kosovo. A number of years ago there was a programme on what had happened [there] and the numbers they estimated of the women who had been raped. She told me how her husband had been so empathetic and he had been horrified [about the statistics] because they didn't know. And because he had been so empathetic and saying this was just so awful that she felt brave enough to admit to him that she had been one of them. And that was the end of her marriage. 'This is the problem. It's the legacy. And unless we as a society help, we have to help people understand that they are not the ones who have the shame. It is not their lives who should be destroyed. We have to do better.' Sophie was also shown displays of wartime propaganda, which can itself create an atmosphere where sexual violence can occur. This includes the sexual slavery of the 'Comfort Women Corps' in the Second World War, the state-sanctioned violence against Yazidi women and girls by ISIS in 2014, as well as the Soviet Red Army in Berlin in 1945 , and even the US treatment of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib in 2004. 'This is not just something that happens to foreigners by foreigners, this is something we all need to address,' the duchess said. Turning to another display on women forced to have sex for rations so that their families can survive, she added sadly: 'It's a way of some people staying alive.' The duchess also looked particularly horrified at a display of drawings by Sudanese children depicting the sexual violence they had seen their mothers, sisters and even grandmothers subjected to, including a particularly shocking image of a soldier turning his eyes away in shame at what his colleague was doing. 'It's so vivid,' she gasped. Justice, she said, was a perennial problems for victims. 'It's a tiny, tiny scratch on the surface…The issue of prosecution, it's so hard to ever get any kind of closure on any of this. To try and prosecute. Where do you start? Do you prosecute a country? A leader? Of course this does happen. But it's important to recognise this at the highest level,' she insisted. Thanked for her own role in highlighting the issue, the royal added: 'It's a privilege. If we could all do ourselves out of a job…it would be great.'
New European
23-05-2025
- New European
The hidden war crime
Although, at the end of the second world war, evidence of widespread sexual violence was presented at both the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes tribunals, no formal charges were filed. It was the best part of half a century later, in 1993, that the first international arrest warrants for the specific use of rape during war were issued, during the war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia. It would take a further five years for the International Criminal Court to recognise sexual violence in conflict, in any form, as a crime against humanity. That the UK's first major exhibition dedicated to highlighting sexual violence in conflict is only opening in 2025 seems like an aberration, until the exhibition itself reminds the viewer that, historically, it has been either overlooked or dismissed as an inevitable by-product of war. It is that which Imperial War Museums (IWM) seeks to address in the aptly-titled Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict, which has just opened at IWM London. It was while redeveloping the site's second world war and Holocaust galleries six years ago that the museum decided it needed a dedicated space to tell the story from start to finish, looking at all of its underlying societal structures and causes. 'There was a feeling, looking at the collection, that the museum did have the objects to tell the stories about sexual violence, and that it was important to have a dedicated space for those objects,' Nathan Doherty, a curator on the exhibition, tells me. 'And then there was a full review of the collection to find exactly what stories we have already in the collection and how we can tell it. 'Sexual violence has happened in almost every single conflict under the Imperial War Museum's scope, from the first world war to conflicts happening today, so it was very difficult to find which topics and which themes to put into the exhibition… it was very much centred around picking ones which contributed towards our three key themes. The first one is the representations and structures, the second is the actual manifestations and some of the big-scale examples, and the third is justice and reconciliation, so we're looking at exactly that: justice, that process for survivors and victims. And so trying to find the stories which best told those themes became a priority.' The result is a vital if inevitably deeply uncomfortable (the museum advises the exhibition is only suitable for those aged 16 or over) exploration of how and why sexual violence is perpetrated, its impact on victims and survivors and the pursuit of justice and reconciliation. Suggested Reading Amsterdam's new Holocaust museum Ferry Biedermann It begins by highlighting how war and conflict reinforce and exacerbate pre-existing gender roles: men strong, dominant and aggressive, women at best to be protected, at worst not to be trusted. Wartime propaganda posters either urge British men to wreak vengeance for the women killed in bombing raids ('Men of Britain! Will you stand this?'), not to discuss plans around them ('Keep mum – she's not so dumb!') or avoid contracting sexually transmitted diseases from them ('Beautiful? If you could see what the doctor sees you'd 'leave 'em alone!''). © IWM Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict at IWM London (23 May – 2 November 2025). Therefore, inequalities reinforced and exacerbated, it does not require a huge leap in faith to move on to the second part, where, through personal testimony, papers and artwork, Unsilenced highlights the different ways in which sexual violence in conflict can manifest. Exhibits explore Germany's invasion of Belgium in August 1914, marking the beginning of the first world ar, and within months of which witnesses reported German soldiers raping women and torturing civilians before killing them. Others investigate the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces' creation of the 'Comfort Women Corps' during the second world war in an attempt to minimise rape against civilian populations and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. A sign taken from the door of a Japanese brothel in Burma in 1944 is spattered with the words 'closed/just having a temporary 'rest'' on one side and 'sold out' on the other, a reminder these women were mere commodities. 70 years later, Islamic State carried out a genocide against the Yazidi people, with women and girls sold as slaves, forced to convert to Islam and repeatedly raped. An ISIS Q&A pamphlet is on display here, explaining to their fighters that it is permissible to keep 'slave women' who are 'disbelievers' and that it is acceptable to 'lie carnally' with these women as they are now deemed possessions. They go on to explain the appropriate punishment should she disrespect her 'master' or attempt to flee. Even domestically in the UK, there are harrowing tales of how conflict can lead to sexual abuse. The wartime evacuation of children during the second world war is now portrayed in popular culture as a sort of jolly Famous Five adventure; private papers of those who experienced abuse while far from their families paint a rather different picture. It is with the noticeably brighter final section that ongoing and historic battles for justice and reconciliation are spotlighted, from the grassroots activism of Korea's 'comfort women', who to this day continue to demonstrate outside Seoul's Japanese embassy every Wednesday, to the legal challenges of children born as a result of sexual violence during the 1990s Bosnian war to the work of four key NGOs who have contributed to this exhibition: Women for Women International, All Survivors Project, Free Yezidi Foundation and Waging Peace. Because this isn't history. The exhibition's introductory video reminds the visitor that sexual violence continues to be wielded as a weapon by Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, on men as well as women. Indeed, when reminded that Stalin, far from condemning the rapes carried out by Soviet soldiers in the spring of 1945, asked what was the harm in 'having fun with a woman', I was reminded of reports early in the current conflict of Russian wives promising to turn a blind eye to what their husbands did to Ukrainian women. 'As far back as history goes and war goes you'll find examples of conflict, in ancient history, Roman times, ancient Greek times, you'll be able to find examples of sexual violence in conflict,' says Doherty. 'It's a war crime which is still happening today and is still happening in conflicts all around the world today and so it's important. It's still somewhat of an under-discussed topic and a neglected topic, but it is happening today, and so it's so important to spread awareness and understanding of it.' Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict runs at IWM London until November 2
