When Silence Screams: The Weaponization of Sexual Violence in Conflict

Every 68 minutes, someone is raped in a conflict zone. Majority of the victims never report it. Even fewer find justice, as per UN estimate, 2024. 

“They didn’t only break my body; they shattered the sound of safety.”  

(Survivor, Bosnia) 

This year, June 19 again marks the day when the international community will observe the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. Even if largely ceremonial, these observances serve as a global wake-up call. The violence they spotlight is never accidental nor collateral; it is deliberate, precise, and politically driven.

Such premeditated, calculated cruelty is weaponized with precision to disorganize, demoralize, and destroy in the hills of Rwanda, the villages of Myanmar, and the bomb-shattered streets of Gaza. In 2025, several member states are urging the UN Security Council to spotlight the overlooked crisis of healthcare attacks in war, acts that further silence survivors seeking care, truth, and justice.

The Body as Battlefield

Sexual violence in conflict is not an accessory of war but a war strategy. Historically, rape was employed in the genocides that took place in Bosnia and Rwanda and more recently in the continued conflict in Tigray, Ukraine, where rape has been used to cleanse, intimidate ethnically, and fracture society. Often, these atrocities arise from a systematic mode of committing offenses sanctioned by the state or militias to military goals. 

Mainly, women and girls are primarily targeted. However, men, boys, and LGBTQ+ individuals also endure this violence, though their stories are often buried under cultural silence. 

These are not numbers. These are lives silenced, still echoing in torturous sicknesses of broken systems.

What is the target? 

• Humiliation. 
• Displacement. 
• Setting ablaze individual and family ties. 

  In the aftermath, survivors are treated not as victims of a crime but as symbols of shame.  

When Healing is Bombed

In war zones, hospitals should be sanctuaries. But more and more, they are becoming targets. From Syria to Sudan, from Gaza to Ukraine, medical facilities are attacked without consequence and cut off survivors from even the most minimal access to care and support. In Sudan alone, over 40 healthcare facilities were rendered inoperable in 2024, many of them providing trauma recovery for sexual violence survivors.

These attacks sever lifelines in the most literal sense, stripping communities of both emergency aid and long-term psychological support. Rape crisis centers are shelled. Doctors are detained. Mental health workers are silenced. This is not accidental. It is an intentional tactic of war.

By ruining health care systems, the actors in this crime condemn survivors to live in silence over their wounds, denying trauma care and depriving them of any path to justice. When care is denied, survivors and entire societies are deprived of opportunities for healing.  

Children Born of War

Perhaps the most lasting and wrenching result of rape in wartime will be these violent births. Such children tend to live as social pariahs, having little to no identity, unrecognized citizenship, and lacking emotional acceptance. There are no good choices for these women’s mothers: to raise them side by side with their trauma or leave them to a system that rarely protects either of them. In essence, however, they are ever reminders of violence and the failure of the world to address it.   

Justice Is Forever Delayed 

Even when international resolutions exist, legal enforcement remains weak, often undermined by political influence, insufficient evidence mechanisms, or threats to survivors who dare to speak. UN Security Council Resolutions 1325, 1820, and 2467 all speak of “zero tolerance” for sexual violence in conflict.

In actuality, impunity is the rule. Survivors would need to relive the trauma at each turn of a testimony. They face public backlash, or else they will be at the mercy of the law’s technicalities, while others will be threatened into silence. 

And yet, survivors across the globe claim their tongues, proclaiming their status with voices in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, and now Ukraine: they make networks, demand for justice, rewriting the story, not as victims, but as warrior witnesses.  

There is a need to push for policy reforms, stronger refugee protections, and mental health services for displaced and conflict-affected communities.   

As we observe June 19, we must do much more than remember; we must rage, we must reform, and most importantly, we must refuse to look away. Because the opposite of violence is not silence, the opposite of violence is justice.  

“I survived not to stay silent. I survived to make sure that no one else has to.” 

(Survivor, Tigray)

Shazmah Fatima

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Shazmah Fatima is a student researcher and content creator with an interest in global affairs and emerging trends. She is passionate about thoughtfully exploring the complex realities of the world. She also runs a YouTube channel called The Global Affairs Hub by SF.

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