Abstract :
This paper examines the subhuman conditions of two critical war cases
in Bosnia and Rwanda involving massive sexual violence. The rape of
women by soldiers during wartime is considered an unfortunate
accompaniment of war. Most scholars in war studies depart their
research from a state-centric view rather than from a human security
perspective. Therefore, This paper aims to investigate the role of rape
and the politics of sexual violence in arms conflicts through the lenses of
the "subhuman" theory. The authors seek to shed light on how women
raped in war acquire the condition of "sub humans," where they do not
have their rights and voices heard and do not exist in the legal
framework of any state. Using the theoretical framework offered by the
"subhuman" theory, this paper analyses two case studies - the Serbian
militia's rape campaign in Bosnia in the 1990s and the mass rape of
Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994. The paper concludes that both cases have
exemplified that the military conflicts created acutely vulnerable
conditions, which resulted in massive sexual abuse and violence against
women. This paper concluded that in the two cases illustrate that
subhuman conditions appear at the individual (women victims) and
collective (the entire community) levels that we need to pay attention to
capture the bigger picture of the incidents.
Keyword :
Sexual Violence; Subhuman conditions; Bosnia; Rwanda; War crimes