Friends of “Comfort Women” in Australia (FCWA)

by, Michael Gawenda

IT WAS mentioned only in passing amid the extensive reporting of the conflict in Georgia: rape had, apparently, once again been used as a weapon of war. This is not surprising.

Rape has been used as a weapon of war for thousands of years. It is still used this way, despite the fact that it has been declared a war crime and a crime against humanity by the United Nations. Thousands of women were raped during the conflict in the Balkans in the 1990s; thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, were raped in the civil war in the Congo; and thousands have been raped in Darfur in the decades-long campaign of genocide by the Sudanese Government and their Janjaweed militia.

Rape as a weapon of war has been extensively employed by soldiers across vastly different cultures. The consequences for the women subjected to this form of violence are lifelong: in many instances, they are cast out – or subjected to further violence – by their families and their communities.

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