The Elephant in the Room

The report traces the conceptual shift of sexual violence in conflict, moving from the 'lootpillageandrape' nexus of early 20th-century wars to the systematic 'rape camps' of the 1990s. It examines the role of the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides in establishing rape as a weapon of war and a crime against humanity. The document analyzes three theoretical frameworks—essentialism, structuralism, and social constructionism—to explain the motivations of perpetrators and the targeting of victims. It further details the development of international legal mechanisms, including the ICTY, ICTR, and the ICC, and the impact of UN Security Council Resolutions 1325, 1820, and 1888 on the protection of women and the institutionalization of gender units in peacekeeping missions.

• Prior to the 1990s, sexual violence in war was largely under-documented and misunderstood as a private matter, often grouped with looting and pillaging, which marginalized the victims' experiences from policy and research analysis.
• During World War II, the Japanese military established a systematic regime of sexual slavery known as 'comfort stations,' where an estimated 200,000 women, primarily Koreans, were abducted and forced into prostitution as a 'military necessity'.
• The conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992-1995) marked a turning point where sexual violence was recognized as a systematic tool for 'ethnic cleansing,' characterized by the creation of 'rape camps' used to crush the morale of the target group.
• In the 1994 Rwandan genocide, sexual violence was used as an integral part of the process to destroy the Tutsi ethnic group, with estimates suggesting between 250,000 and 500,000 women and girls were victims.
• The report identifies three epistemological frameworks for understanding war-time sexual violence: essentialism (focusing on militaristic masculinity), structuralism (focusing on targeted ethnic or political identities), and social constructionism (focusing on the transaction of identities to masculinize the perpetrator and feminize the victim).
• The establishment of the ICTY and ICTR, and later the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC), ended the tradition of impunity by classifying rape, sexual slavery, and forced pregnancy as war crimes or crimes against humanity.
• UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) was a breakthrough that linked women's rights to international peace and security, though its implementation was initially hindered by a lack of political will and accountability mechanisms.
• UNSCR 1820 (2008) and 1888 (2009) shifted the focus toward the practical protection of women and girls, making sexual violence a formal responsibility of states and militaries rather than a private suffering.
• In East Timor, the UNTAET operation introduced a designated Gender Unit to mainstream women's security needs, though the mission faced challenges with sexual abuse committed by its own international staff.
• Post-2000 documentation reveals continued systematic use of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where at least 200,000 cases were recorded in the eastern part of the country since 1996.

APA

Skjelsbæk, I. (2010). The Elephant in the Room. Peace Research Institute Oslo. https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/7ef7f089-5d10-49f3-b2c7-7aca7de61af3/The Elephant in the Room.pdf?inline=true

Chicago

Skjelsbæk, Inger. The Elephant in the Room. Peace Research Institute Oslo, 2010. https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/7ef7f089-5d10-49f3-b2c7-7aca7de61af3/The Elephant in the Room.pdf?inline=true.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Skjelsbæk |first1=Inger |title=The Elephant in the Room |publisher=Peace Research Institute Oslo |date=May 2010 |url=https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/7ef7f089-5d10-49f3-b2c7-7aca7de61af3/The Elephant in the Room.pdf?inline=true |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{skjelsbk2010elephant, author = {Skjelsbæk, Inger}, title = {{The Elephant in the Room}}, institution = {Peace Research Institute Oslo}, year = {2010}, month = may, url = {https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/7ef7f089-5d10-49f3-b2c7-7aca7de61af3/The Elephant in the Room.pdf?inline=true}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }