That is why it is aberrant and offensive to see vicious men, hateful of all s...

That is why it is aberrant and offensive to see vicious men, hateful of all society — despite anything they may say — attacking women in public, especially the most defenceless, in the name of some cause or as an act of war, or aberrant pleasure in conflict. Violence against women is merely violence, without merit or cause. It is without justification and demonstrates the abandonment of hope. And it is not merely violence against women that is unacceptable and tragic, but sexual violence in particular. Rape, as is known, is not a crime of sex but of violence, not a show of power but of immeasurable weakness. It demonstrates the worst in men and in civilization. How is it that men in conflict condone such degradation not only to the women they harm, but ultimately to themselves and all humankind, through acts of sexual violence against women during wartime?

In the end, sexual violence against women in conflict is not a sign of the strength of one power over another —although militias may believe that due to reasons that may date back to generations and civilizations when women were the property of men and their subjugation by opposing forces reflected back on the parties to the conflict.

Our world now has evolved to where it is clear and well-known that those terrible acts stand alone and apart from war, expressing the rapists' inabilities, impotencies and wrongful thinking. Sexual violence against women during conflict only reinforces in the minds of the civilized world how wrong those guilty warriors are and how bereft of merit their positions must be to fall so low as to hurt the most vulnerable, the most innocent and perhaps the least able to defend themselves in those moments, against the senseless, barbaric acts.