INTERNATIONAL: Muna Khan: Why are Women Used as Trophies in War? Or How to Win the Battle Against Rape

What is it about war that sees an increase in rapes being committed against women? History is replete with examples of the uncomfortable silence on female casualties of war. We know women are raped as a form of psychological warfare and treated like spoils of war for combatants.

The numbers vary, sometimes they shock, other times they appear meaningless when pitted against the, say, genocide in Rwanda—what's a few thousand rapes compared to the millions killed? As an investigator on a UN report for Rwanda found in 1996, “rape was the rule, its absence the exception.”

Imagine telling women who are raped that they should be thankful to be alive.

Tell that to the estimated 200,000 Bangladeshi women raped by Pakistani army officers in their war of independence in 1971, or to the 5,000 Kuwaiti women raped by Iraqi officers in the war in 1990, or between 20,000 to 50,000 Bosnian women raped by Serb soldiers in the Bosnian War in the 1990s. (These figures were so alarming that it prompted the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia to talk about sexual crimes in the open.)

We don't have concrete numbers of women raped in Libya other than an estimated “hundreds” and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's condemnation on June 16 of Muammar Qaddafi's troops use of rape as a weapon of war.

Libya's most “famous” rape victim is Eman Al Obeidi who was in the international media spotlight for blaming Colonel Qaddafi troops for sexually assaulting her. After being deporting from Qatar where she initially sought refuge, she is in Romania awaiting clearance for asylum.

But not every woman raped can be relocated in the hope of a brighter future. For every Eman Al Obeidi there are an un-imaginable number of women who have to stay in the same place they were sexually assaulted. And they have to lives shrouded in secrecy and shame.

This is perhaps the sole thing that unifies women who have been raped—the feeling of shame; that they are victims of the worst crime, that their lives might as well be over.

This is true in Syria where access to independently verifiable information on rapes being committed poses a great challenge.

We only have gruesome stories emerging from refugees trying to recover from the trauma of escape or abuse at the hands of soldiers to rely on.

One story, reported in the Washington Post on June 20, tells the story of four Syrian sisters—whose names have been withheld to respect their privacy—who were raped by pro-government militia.

What makes the story unique is that men have been so outraged by their story that they have pledged to marry them—and other raped women—as if to challenge the violence or reclaim the honor that women are made to feel they have lost in sexual assault.

Many women are unconsidered unworthy of marriage after being raped. To hear of men who stepped forward to challenge that notion is welcome as it proves that men's inclusion in changing gender-based biases is critical.

“We sat and discussed that we want to change this,” Ibrahim Kayyis, a 32-year-old baker from Jisr Al-Shugour told the Washington Post. “We don't want to change just the regime in Syria, but also this kind of stuff. So we will marry them in front of everyone.”

Another man, Mohammed Mourey, a pharmacist from Jisr Al-Shugour said: “They are victims of the revolution, and we will protect them.”

This isn't enough but it's certainly a start—to a better future for post-conflict Syria.