Discrimination against women has always been a prevalent topic in history and continues to be. Specifically the way women are treated in times of war stands out to me personally. In times of war, every civilian is clearly treated wrong but the way women, especially young women, are treated is so outstandingly different from the way men are treated.
Wartime Sexual Violence
Throughout history, sexual violence has been used countless times during armed conflicts. These acts of sexual violence are said to be used as means of psychological warfare to intimidate and humiliate the victims but in cases like these, they are more a power move for self pleasure rather than psychological warfare which is sadly just the outcome.
Being tortured and captured is obviously a very heartbreaking situation that happens to both men and women, but wartime sexual violence primarily happens to women and female children. Wartime sexual violence is not okay under any circumstances and is being used for self pleasure of the men committing these acts. Sexual violence is for the satisfaction of the abuser and nothing more and should not be normalized no matter the situation.
Current Times
With the current war between Israel and Palestine, many videos have been circulating and many have been able to see this difference of treatment first hand. During Gaza’s initial attack a specific shocking video of an unknown captured Israeli woman being forced into a car was shared. In this video, we see an unfortunate sight as she is turned around and her entire bottom half is covered in blood. Instead of just beaten and captured she was raped so vigorously by an unknown number of men that her bottom half most likely torn open.
Another unfortunate case of this was a video taken on the same day of another captured woman, this time the woman’s clothes were ripped off with most of her limbs being broken as she was shown off by her capturers, it is unknown if she was raped or not but picking up on the little things in the video we can sadly infer that she was. German woman, Shani Luok, was the woman in this video and was identified by her family from a specific tattoo on her leg that appeared in the video. Once again instead of just beaten and captured she was humiliated and possibly sexually assaulted.
Both of these situations are very unfortunate and inhumane sights to see and sadly shows another form of torture used against woman. As the war between Israel and Palestine continues, we may only hope and pray for the people of Israel and Palestine to be safe and protected.
Past Times: Comfort Women
A very major and heartbreaking example of wartime sexual violence in past times is Japan’s comfort women. During 1932 and 1945 a system of sexual slavery was created by the Imperial Japanese government to “serve” soldiers, this system was called “Comfort Women.” According to The Brutal History of Japan’s ‘Comfort Women’ written by Erin Blakemore, women from different backgrounds were kidnapped or manipulated into joining this system, the youngest being 12. While being raped on a daily basis by multiple men with numbers varying from 6-60 they were also living in horrible conditions.
As result of the multiple rapes, many women were living in pain and sadly contracted many sexually transmitted diseases and did not get proper medical attention. Some stations were set at the front lines and the women at these stations often faced the fate of the soldiers at the front lines. Women were also beaten and tortured if they refused to serve the soldiers and threatened to be murdered if they tried to escape. Teaching about the Comfort Women during World War II and the Use of Personal Stories of the Victims states only about 25% of Japan’s comfort women survived these inhumane conditions while most were murdered or abandoned by retreating Japanese soldiers and unfortunately the remaining were outcast from society after WWII.