Den kvinnliga kroppen som militär strategi : En kvalitativ studie om sexuellt våld i väpnad konflikt och dess efterverkningar

Sammanfattning: Sexual violence has long been portrayed as an inevitable side effect of warring. The phenomenon constitutes a complex dynamic of shifting power structures and arbitrary gender expectations. Conflict-related sexual violence operates within different social contexts where the female body becomes a battlefield where dominance and superiority are sought. The following paper is formulated as an interdisciplinary case study where a feminist framework and social constructivism are used to examine the multifaceted phenomenon of conflict-related sexual violence. The aim of the study has been to delve into underlying factors to its prevalence in the conflicts of Democratic Republic of Congo and Bosnia Herzegovina. Furthermore, the curtailed agency of women is elucidated when analyzing the repercussions of conflict-related sexual violence, which poses as the second question of the study. The result of the study reveals that the prevalence of sexual violence as a military strategy is not caused by single-issue factors, rather by interconnected elements such as patriarchal notions, power structures and gender normative behaviour. To conclude, the phenomenon has an extensive destructive capacity and affects several societal levels where the current study enhances previous research by its adoption of an interdisciplinary perspective that integrates the embedded practices of gender repression and military strategies.