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Women and War Crimes

NCJ Number
161907
Journal
St. John's Law Review Volume: 69 Issue: 1-2 Dated: (Winter-Spring 1995) Pages: 61-68
Author(s)
R Copelon
Date Published
1995
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This article focuses on war crimes against women and discusses these crimes in the larger context of violence against women.
Abstract
The emphasis is on reconceptualizing human rights and recognizing women's human rights that have not been enforced. The examples of Haiti and Bosnia are cited to illustrate the campaign of terror against women, including assault and rape. The author points out that women suffer from many forms of violence, most often domestic violence which is endemic in societies throughout the world. Despite the fact that domestic violence may claim more lives than government-sponsored violence, domestic violence is still not widely viewed as a human rights concern. Gender violence is considered to be a human rights violation in some international documents. The International War Crimes Tribunal established to prosecute war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, however, does not list rape as a war crime. The gender dimension of assaults against women must be recognized and seen as a human rights problem and not just as a family or a social problem. 28 footnotes

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