Rape Reporting During War
Why the Numbers Don't Mean What You Think They Do
Article Summary and Author Biography
Although cases of sexual violence have been undercounted during some wars, during others, such as the ongoing unrest in Libya, they have been vastly overcounted. To understand the real magnitude and impact of the problem, researchers and politicians need to be more careful about how they get their numbers and how they present them to the public.
AMBER PETERMAN is a Gender and Development Specialist and Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute. DARA KAY COHEN is Assistant Professor at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. TIA PALERMO is Assistant Professor in the Graduate Program in Public Health at Stony Brook University. AMELIA HOOVER GREEN is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at Yale University and a consultant to U.N. Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict.
Reports of sexual violence during the ongoing unrest in Libya have captured headlines across the world. Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi's forces, some have alleged, were given Viagra to facilitate their rape of hundreds, if not thousands, of victims. Recently, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both expressed outrage at what was apparently a purposeful campaign. Yet recent reports by the U.N. and by advocacy groups shed doubt on these claims. Amnesty International, for example, has been unable to locate a single rape victim, or even anyone who knows a victim.
As the veracity of stories about sexual violence in Libya came into question, the American Journal of Public Health published a study estimating that the prevalence of rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was far worse than previously documented. The article estimated that between 2006 and 2007 more than 400,000 women between the ages of 15 and 49 were raped during the war there -- 26 times the U.N.'s official count.
Read more at at Foreign Affairs' Special Report: Global Public Health.
