Sexual Violence and Armed Conflict

Book excerpt: This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the causes and consequences of, as well as responses to, sexual violence in contemporary armed conflict. It explores the functions and effects of wartime sexual violence as part of a global political economy of violence. To understand the motivations of the men (and occasionally women) who perpetrate this violence, the book analyzes the role played by systemic and situational factors such as patriarchy and militarized masculinity in a tangled web of plunder and profit. Difficult questions of accountability are tacked; in particular, the caes of child soldiers, who often suffer a double victimization when forced to commit sexual atrocities and other crimes.