War Muslim Humiliation Rape Real

War Muslim Humiliation Rape Real
This article is more than 4 years old
This article is more than 4 years old
The toll of the war on Syria has been immeasurable. The Old City of Homs has been destroyed by years of conflict. Photograph: Andrew McConnell/UNHCR
Tue 21 Nov 2017 13.10 GMT Last modified on Thu 15 Oct 2020 14.24 BST
Tortured and abused: hidden horror of 'disappeared' women in Syrian prisons | Hannah Summers
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When Sarah Chynoweth was asked to report on sexual violence against men and boys in the Syria crisis, she had no idea of the scale of the problem
L ast year I agreed to undertake a fact-finding mission for the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, on sexual violence against men and boys in the Syrian crisis. We knew that many women and girls were being targeted for rape and other sexualised violence, but we didn’t know much about what was happening to men and boys. Drawing on a few existing reports, I assumed some boys were being victimised, as well as some men in detention centres, but that sexual violence against males was not common. I worried that few refugees would have heard of any accounts and that they wouldn’t talk to me about such a taboo topic anyway. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
In October 2016, I landed in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, where more than 200,000 Syrian refugees had fled. The UNHCR arranged for a translator and discussions with refugees at a nearby camp. I met with the first group, eight Syrian men who had fled the war. I asked them about their lives in the camp, how they were getting by, and what their main concerns were. Once we had established some rapport, I tentatively probed whether they had heard of any reports of sexual violence against men or boys in Syria . They looked at me incredulously, as if they couldn’t believe that I was asking such a basic question, saying: “Yes, of course. It is everywhere. It is happening [from] all sides.”
I was surprised at their response and their candour. I was also sceptical: rumours are rampant in war zones. Had they heard any accounts from someone they knew personally? Again, resounding replies of “yes” from the men. As I met with more and more refugees – almost 200 across Iraqi Kurdistan, Jordan and Lebanon – I received similar responses, and was inundated with heartbreaking stories.
In Lebanon, a Palestinian man who had lived his entire life in Syria asked to speak with me after the group discussion. He told me how armed men had entered his village and raped him. The experience had left him devastated, and he was too emotionally distraught to work, even though he had to care for his younger sister.
In Jordan, one young Syrian man told me about his uncle, who had been randomly detained. While in detention, his captors sexually tortured him. After his release, he stopped eating and became an alcoholic, dying from liver failure soon after.
A number of women described how men changed after these experiences – isolating themselves, no longer interested in sex, and at times becoming violent. Some were not able to work because of the physical and mental impact of the violence, putting their families at risk of poverty.
I met one man who suffered from painful and debilitating injuries as a result of sexual torture, and a few aid workers said anal injuries were not uncommon for men who had been detained.
The accounts were heart-rending and horrific. They were also abundant. At a large refugee camp in Jordan, I met a group of women who were eager to talk about the issue. According to them, men and boys are routinely sexually abused during detention in Syria, a comment echoed by other refugees, and scores of men had been detained by different armed groups. I asked them to guesstimate how many men in the camp had undergone sexual violence while in detention. They said, “Between 30% and 40%. We cannot think of any family who doesn’t have someone [who was detained and sexually abused].”
Other refugees told me how armed groups would conduct raids on homes, during which “they raped everyone” – both women and men. I heard that phrase a number of times from refugees across the three countries.
People said that after having fled to neighbouring countries, some younger boys were being sexually victimised by older boys and men, who lured them with promises of food or money. A few women said that their sons were too scared to go to school, afraid of being sexually assaulted on the way or at the school by their peers.
What surprised me most were accounts of sexual exploitation at work. An 18-year-old Syrian man who was working two jobs was the first person to tell me about it. He described how his boss demanded sexual favours before paying his wages. He felt he couldn’t refuse because he had to care for his mother and two sisters; his despair and shame were palpable. It was a story I would hear from other refugee men and boys, many of whom were working without a legal permit. Faced with grinding poverty, diminishing aid and intense pressures to provide for their families, they felt they had no choice but to submit.
I also met with a group of gay and transgender refugees who faced the double stigma of being both refugees and sexual and gender minorities. One gay man told me how, in Syria, he had been detained for four months, during which he and other male detainees were raped anally with sticks and bottles. He still experiences pain when sitting. He had fled to a neighbouring country, but didn’t find safety there. He was again sexually assaulted by a local gang as well as by a security guard. He knew he was still at risk.
Other members of the group shared disturbing accounts of sexual assault by taxi drivers, neighbours, landlords and military personnel. They were too afraid to report these to the police, who could assault them again, or even arrest them under laws addressing “public morality” or “unnatural practices”.
In Jordan I met a group of psychotherapists who specialised in treating torture survivors, and asked them why sexual torture was being used in this conflict. They said torture was designed to inflict deep psychological pain that disrupts one’s sense of self. In places such as Syria, where same-sex sexual activity is strictly forbidden and traditional gender roles are entrenched, the use of sexualised torture against men and boys is unsurprising.
Studies from other wars where sexual violence was documented – such as in Liberia, northern Uganda and the former Yugoslavia – also show that men and boys are targeted for a range of sexualised violence. Wartime sexual violence is a complex issue, but it can also be a very effective way to humiliate, terrorise and subjugate women and men.
And though women and girls are the main victims during conflict and displacement – with an estimated one out of five forcibly displaced women having suffered sexual violence, and this is likely to be an underestimate – it doesn’t mean the number of male survivors is small. For example, a 2010 study in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo found that almost one-quarter of men in selected conflict-affected territories had experienced sexual violence: an estimated 760,000 men. LGBTI people are particularly at risk of sexual violence in detention and as refugees.
The good news is that some humanitarian organisations are beginning to recognise the issue and are providing basic services for male survivors. But much more is needed to prevent this violence and to provide support and care to the men and boys who have been sexually victimised. This work should complement and, where possible, reinforce, programmes for women and girls, who bear the brunt of sexual violence and who face myriad forms of violence, discrimination, and subjugation.
In our report we ask for improved advocacy and staffing, and more data. But we also ask donors to fund desperately needed programmes in this area. Key to preventing and responding to sexual violence against men and boys is raising awareness, sensitising aid personnel, and working with communities to establish targeted programmes. This cannot be achieved without funding. Money for programmes addressing violence against women and girls is already scarce, and additional targeted funding for men, boys, and sexual and gender minorities is needed. The US is one of the few donor governments that has provided funding to address sexual violence against men and boys in humanitarian settings.
The Trump administration has proposed steep cuts to the 2018 international affairs budget, which would impact overseas development aid and support for UN agencies. This would be devastating not just for Syrians, but for the 65 million people worldwide grappling with the horrors of war, disaster and displacement – and, in some cases, sexual violence.
The cuts would be catastrophic for smaller and often local organisations, which provide life-saving services in dangerous settings where few if any international humanitarian agencies operate. Most of the organisations providing care to male sexual violence survivors in the areas I visited were local women’s, LGBTI and human rights groups, many of which relied on funding from the UN and other international agencies supported by the US government.
Stories of the refugees I met remind us that the proposed cuts would affect the life chances of some of the world’s most vulnerable people. These men and boys – like all those surviving war and disaster – deserve and have a right to protection, support and good quality care.
Sarah Chynoweth wrote the UNHCR-commissioned report We Keep It in Our Hearts: Sexual Violence Against Men and Boys in the Syria Crisis

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Andrew Holt, Ph.D.

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Above Image : Francis Rita Ryan’s translation of Fulcher (Fulk) of Chartres A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem- 1095-1127 (University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1969).
On January 3, 2015, I had the chance to present a paper for the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in New York City. I am presenting the basic text of my talk below. Anyone familiar with the dynamics of presenting papers at academic conferences will realize this is a very condensed overview of my broader consideration of the topic.
My paper was titled “Rape and the First Crusade.” It considers the oddity of the First Crusade as it related to the issue. While the wartime rape of captured women (and sometimes men) was common by all medieval armies, Christian or Islamic, the participants of the First Crusade generally seem to have avoided the practice. Indeed, the sources, whether friendly or hostile to the crusaders, seem to agree on the issue. This presentation pulls together some disconnected themes already considered by other historians into a broader and more comprehensive narrative to argue that the theoretical framework of the First Crusade contributed to a new mentality among warriors by which they sought to avoid sexual immorality, including rape, if they were to be successful on the battlefield.
This seems worthwhile to post here because the wartime rape of captive women continues to be a major problem today. One need only consider events in Rwanda and the Balkans in the 1990s, or more recent events with Boko Haram in Nigeria or ISIS in Iraq over the past few months. See my recent blog post on the issue here . What is most interesting about the First Crusade (as it relates to this topic) is that this potentially represents a case in which a theological framework for warfare seems to have, at the least, diminished instances of rape by otherwise violent warriors who had become accustomed to such practices prior to the First Crusade. If medieval Christian clerics could find a way to curtail, if not eliminate, such a brutal practice by Christian warriors in their day, then perhaps there is some small kernel of value in studying this for dealing with similar problems in the present.
Andrew Holt- Presented to the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship, AHA Annual Meeting, Jan. 3, 2015.
I’d like to begin by pointing out that there has been a lot in the news recently, and unfortunately, about the topic of rape and warfare. Just to highlight two of the most prominent recent examples, the Islamist group Boko Haram has kidnapped 200 Christian girls in Nigeria, who they then forcibly married off to various jihadists to provide them with wives. More recently, forces of the Islamic State (formerly known as ISIS) have kidnapped large numbers of Yazidhi women in Iraq and held the equivalent of public auctions for them. A youtube video claims to show the enthusiastic jihadists waiting around, with one of them smiling as he announces how happy he is to be getting a “sex slave,” and that he hopes to get a “young one.”
This obviously offends modern sensibilities. Indeed, some popular news commentators have, unsurprisingly, referred to the actions of the Islamic State and Boko Haram as “medieval.” Certainly, modern medieval historians often roll their eyes at the use of the term. We all know that a lot of modern popular writers and commentators use the term indiscriminately and (often enough), improperly.
Yet in this case, the claim that the seizure of enemy women in combat for sexual purposes was rather typical of the Middle Ages is, essentially, correct. As many scholars have long argued, this was indeed a common practice among medieval armies, both Christian and Islamic. On the Islamic side, for example, perhaps the best known text revealing this reality for captured Christian women during the crusading era is found in Imad ad Din’s account of the aftermath of Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem. Although undoubtedly engaging in some degree of hyperbole, Imad ad Din highlighted the triumph of Muslim warriors who, in his words, “deflowered,” “tamed,” and “stripped of their modesty” thousands of Christian women. Why was this an important topic for Imad ad Din to so gleefully highlight in the wake of the conquest? Because the mistreatment of the enemies’ women in such a way suggested both the totality of the conquest and the humiliation of their enemies.
Although typically condemned by clerical authorities, medieval Christian warriors also often engaged in rape. As has been widely researched by many others (Bradbury, Keen, etc…), siege warfare customs dating back to Greek and Roman times, held that the populations of towns under siege had an important choice to make. It was customary that if a defending population negotiated the surrender of a town and most of its possessions to an attacking army, agreeing to hand over the town or city, they could leave with their lives (at least) and typically avoid captivity. Yet if the defending population decided that they could withstand the siege successfully, then they risked capture and often brutal treatment as captives of their conquerors. All bets were off, so to speak, concerning the fate of the captured townspeople. Although medieval clerical writers often condemned rape, as an extension of their general concerns about non-marital sexual relations, it remained a major concern as late as the Hundred Years War, when wartime rape was prohibited as a crime punishable by death.
The circumstances of the First Crusade (specifically, and not necessarily later crusades) provide some interesting insights into this clash of clerical expectations and military custom. It was then that, at least in theory, that clerical authorities had the opportunity to establish new rules for warfare due to their spiritual oversight of the expedition. Indeed, it was the Pope who called for the crusade and put it under the oversight of the Church, requiring participants to take pilgrimage vows (later known as crusading vows) demanding the monk like virtues of chastity and humility for the duration of the crusade.
The thinking behind requiring such vows, at least as espoused by clerical writers of the time, was that since this was a type of holy war, the warriors needed to be holy. The success of holy wars did not depend on the prowess of the fighters, but rather the good will of God, who enabled victory for those who were faithful to him. If such warriors claiming to represent God sinned during the course of the crusade, then they no longer represented him, and thus lost his favor and would surely lose on the battlefield as well (e.g. example of the events at Antioch).
Obviously, the vow of chastity prohibited, in theory at least, the customary practice of raping captured women during the course of the crusade. Unchastity in any context, customary or not, was forbidden. This is not to suggest that knights and others who participated in the crusade were always chaste. Clerical sources are full of complaints by clergymen over crusaders cavorting with washer-women, prostitutes, etc… But what about the specific issue of rape?
A number of books published since the 1970s claim that the participants of the First Crusade regularly engaged in rape. An oft-mentioned line I came across was that the knights and pilgrims who participated in the First Crusade all “took time off “for the rape of Muslim women as they made their way on their crusade. On further inspection, it turns out that nearly all of these secondary source claims can be traced back to one book- Susan Brownmiller’s now classic and once bestselling work, Against our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, published in 1975. So I checked the reference in Brownmiller’s book and, disappointingly, she did not provide a footnote for this information.
Moreover, and in contrast, a few crusades historians have highlighted that the clerical Latin sources of the First Crusade do not claim the crusaders raped captive women. If so, this would represent a significant change from how medieval warfare was typically carried out. The crusaders were, after all, very successful militarily, conquering a number of cities and populations during the First Crusade. It would be odd if they avoided availing themselves of what they would have understood as the customary act of imposing themselves on captured women in the wake of a successful conquest.
Was this a case of the crusaders’ religious beliefs having a mitigating effect on one of the most brutal crimes associated with warfare, ancient, medieval, or modern? If so, based on current events, then this is certainly a topic worthy of study. From what I have seen most historians have only given this topic a few lines or paragraphs here and there, without a focused study on crusader attitudes toward rape.
First, let me begin by considering how some, specifically, crusades specialists have dealt with the issue of the crusaders possibly committing rape. Concerning the sources, Yvonne Friedman in her essay, Captivity and Ransom: The Experience of Women, very briefly addresses this topic and corr
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