Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

‘Our Place Under the Sun’: Survivor-Centred Approaches to Children Born of Wartime Sexual Violence

  • Published:
Human Rights Review Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Children ‘born of war’ refer to people of any age conceived as the result of sexual violence at the hands of armed forces or groups during war, displacement, genocide or military occupation. Due to the circumstances of their birth, children ‘born of war’ can experience social stigma, discrimination and exclusion, resulting in diminished life chances and opportunities. At the same time, children ‘born of war’ fall through the cracks of global policy frameworks. In this article, we explore the reasons for this, arguing that the nature of the harm these children endure renders their status as a victim group elusive. We propose a survivor-centred approach drawing on the lived experiences of children ‘born of war’. The approach recognizes the agency of children and draws attention to their expressed desire to contribute to, and participate in, processes of social reconstruction and reconciliation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. CBC (2012) ‘Born of War’ Documentary, https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2218893549

  2. Džonlic, Amra (n.d.) ‘War’s Forgotten Children’, https://balkandiskurs.com/en/2019/01/25/wars-forgotten-children/

  3. Ibid.

References

  • Akullo, Eunice (2019) An Exploration of the Post-Conflict Integration of Children Born in Captivity living in the Lord Resistance Army War-Affected Areas of Uganda. PhD dissertation, University of Southampton.

  • Allen, Beverly (1996) Rape warfare: The hidden genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

  • Amony, Evelyn (2015) I am Evelyn Amony: Reclaiming My Life from the Lord’s Resistance Army. Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press.

  • Apio, Eunice Otuko (2016). Children born of war in northern Uganda: kinship, marriage, and the politics of post-conflict reintegration in Lango society. Diss. University of Birmingham.

  • Atim, Teddy, Dyan Mazurana, and Anastasia Marshak (2018) Women survivors and their children born of wartime sexual violence in northern Uganda, Disasters 42(1): 61–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baines, Erin. Forced marriage as a political project: Sexual rules and relations in the Lord’s Resistance Army. Journal of Peace Research 51.3 (2014): 405–417.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baines, Erin. Buried in the heart: Women, complex victimhood and the war in northern Uganda. Cambridge University Press, 2017.

  • Baines, Erin, and Camile Oliveira. Securing the Future: Transformative Justice and Children ‘Born of War’. Social & Legal Studies 30.3 (2021): 341–361.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baldi, Giulia, and Megan Mackenzie (2007) Silent Identities in Charli R. Carpenter (ed) Born of War: Protecting Children of Sexual Violence Survivors in Conflict Zones, pp. 78-93. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.

  • Boesten, Jelke, and Polly Wilding (2015) Transformative Gender Justice: Setting an Agenda, Women's Studies International Forum 51: 75–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brehm, Hollie N. and Shannon Golden (2017) Centering Survivors in Local Transitional Justice, Annual Review of Law and Social Science 13: 101–121.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Card, Claudia (1996) Rape as a Weapon of War, Hypatia 11(4): 5–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carpenter, R. Charli (2000) Surfacing children: Limitations of genocidal rape discourse, Human Rights Quarterly 22(2): 428–477.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carpenter, R. Charli (2007) Gender, Ethnicity, and Children’s Human Rights: Theorizing Babies Born of Wartime Rape and Sexual Exploitation in Born of War: Protecting Children of Sexual Violence Survivors in Conflict Zones, pp. 1–20. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.

  • Carpenter, R. Charli (2010a) Theorizing Child Rights in International Relations in Forgetting Children Born of War, pp. 1–16. New York, Columbia University Press.

  • Carpenter, R. Charli (2010b) Particularly Vulnerable: Children Born of Sexual Violence in Conflict and Postconflict Zones in Forgetting Children Born of War, pp. 17–38. New York, Columbia University Press.

  • Carpenter, R. Charli (2010c) Protecting Children in War, Forgetting Children of War in Forgetting Children Born of War, pp. 80–98. New York, Columbia University Press.

  • Clark, Janine Natalya (2014) A Crime of Identity: Rape and Its Neglected Victims, Journal of Human Rights 13: 146–169.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark, Janine Natalya (2021) Beyond a ‘survivor-centred approach’ to conflict-related sexual violence?, International Affairs;, iiab055, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiab055

  • Clarke, Kamari Maxine (2009) Fictions of justice: The International Criminal Court and the challenge of legal pluralism in Sub-Saharan Africa. New York, Cambridge University Press.

  • Daniel-Wrabetz, Joana (2007) Children born of war rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Charli R. Carpenter (ed) Born of War: Protecting Children of Sexual Violence Survivors in Conflict Zones, pp. 21–39. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.

  • Denov, Myriam and Atim Angela Lakor (2017) When war is better than peace: The post-conflict realities of children born of wartime rape in northern Uganda, Child Abuse and Neglect 65: 255–265.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Denov, Myriam, Leah Woolner, Jules Pacifique Bahati, Paulin Nkusi, and Obed Shyaka (2017) The Intergenerational Legacy of Genocidal Rape: The Realities and Perspectives of Children Born of the Rwandan Genocide, Journal of Interpersonal Violence 35: 1–22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Denov, Myriam and Sara Kahn (2019) ‘They Should See Us as a Symbol of Reconciliation’: Youth Born of Genocidal Rape in Rwanda and the Implications for Transitional Justice, Journal of Human Rights Practice 11(1): 151–170.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Denov, Myriam, Laura Eramian, and Meaghan C. Shevell (2020) “You Feel Like You Belong Nowhere”: Conflict-Related Sexual Violence and Social Identity in Post-Genocide Rwanda, Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal 14(1): 40–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Denov, Myriam, and Antonio Piolanti (2020a) Identity formation and change in children and youth born of wartime sexual violence in northern Uganda, Journal of Youth Studies: 1–13.

  • Denov, Myriam, and Antonio Piolanti (2020b) “Though My Father was a Killer, I Need to Know Him”: Children born of genocidal rape in Rwanda and their perspectives on fatherhood Child Abuse & Neglect 107: 1–8.

  • Des Forges, Alison (1999) Leave none to tell the story, New York: Human Rights Watch.

  • Dowds, Eithne (2019) Children born of sexual and gender-based violence in conflict: The International Criminal Court, ecological environments and human development, Children and Society 33(3): 226–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edström, Jerker, and Chris Dolan (2019) Breaking the Spell of Silence: Collective Healing as Activism amongst Refugee Male Survivors of Sexual Violence in Uganda, Journal of Refugee Studies 32(2): 175–196

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edström, J., Dolan, C., Shahrokh, T., & David, O. (2016). Therapeutic activism: Men of Hope Refugee Association Uganda breaking the silence over male rape in conflict-related sexual violence (No. IDS Evidence Report; 182). IDS.

  • Erjavec, Karmen and Zala Volčič (2010) Living With the Sins of Their Fathers: An Analysis of Self-Representation of Adolescents Born of War Rape, Journal of Adolescent Research 25(3): 359–386.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eramian, Laura, and Myriam Denov (2018) ‘Is it always good to talk?’ The paradoxes of truth-telling by Rwandan youth born of rape committed during the genocide, Journal of Genocide Research 20(3): 372–391.

  • Farmer, Paul (2004) An Anthropology of Structural Violence, Current Anthropology 45(3): 305–325.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, Rebekka (2018) Implementing transformative justice: survivors and ex-combatants at the Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación in Peru, Ethnic and Racial Studies 4(14): 701–720.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodhart, Michael (2007) Sins of the fathers: War rape, wrongful procreation, and children's human rights, Journal of Human Rights 6(3): 307–324.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gready, Paul and Simon Robins (2014) From Transitional to Transformative Justice: A New Agenda for Practice, The International Journal of Transitional Justice 8: 339–361.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hagen, Jamie J. (2016) Queering women, peace and security, International Affairs 92(2): 313–332.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hogwood, Jemma, Christine Mushashi, Stuart Jones, and Carl Auerbach (2018) “I learned who I am”: Young people born from genocide rape in Rwanda and their experiences of disclosure, Journal of adolescent research 33(5): 549–570.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hogwood, Jemma, Carl Auerbach, Sam Munderere, and Emilienne Kambibi (2014) Rebuilding the social fabric: community counselling groups for Rwandan women with children born as a result of genocidal rape, Intervention 12(3): 393–404.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • James, Allison (2016) Learning from Lived Experiences of Wartime Sexual Violence Survivors, Unpublished report, Vancouver, Canada. School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia.

  • Kagovire, Marie G. and Annemiek Richters (2018) “We are the memory representation of our parents”: Intergenerational legacies of genocide among descendants of rape survivors in Rwanda, Torture Journal: Journal on Rehabilitation of Torture Victims and Prevention of Torture 28(3): 30–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink (1998) Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. New York: Cornell University Press.

  • Kent, Lia (2011) Local memory practices in East Timor: Disrupting transitional justice narratives, International Journal of Transitional Justice 5(3): 434–455.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Killean, Rachel, and Luke Moffett (2017) Victim Legal Representation before the ICC and ECCC, Journal of International Criminal Justice 15(4): 713–740.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kirby, Paul and Laura J. Shepherd (2016) The futures past of the Women, Peace and Security agenda, International Affairs 92(2): 373–392.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koomen, Jonneke (2013) ‘Without These Women, the Tribunal Cannot Do Anything’: The Politics of Witness Testimony on Sexual Violence at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 38(2): 253–277.

  • Lambourne, Wendy (2009) Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding after Mass Violence, The International Journal of Transitional Justice 3: 28–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Sabine (2017) Children Born of War in the Twentieth Century. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

  • Patricia Lundy Mark McGovern 2008 Whose justice? Rethinking transitional justice from the bottom up Journal of Law and Society 35 2 265 292

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Margaria, Alice (2011) The Right to ‘Genetic Truth’ of Children Born of War. A Particular Focus on Bosnia and Herzegovina, International Journal on Rule of Law, Transitional Justice and Human Rights 2(2): 159–171.

  • McEvoy-Levy, Siobhán (2007) Human Rights Culture and Children Born of Wartime Rape in Charli R. Carpenter (ed) Born of War: Protecting Children of Sexual Violence Survivors in Conflict Zones, pp. 149–179. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.

  • McEvoy, Kieran, and Kirsten McConnachie (2012) Victimology in transitional justice: Victimhood, innocence and hierarchy, European Journal of Criminology 9(5): 527–538.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McGill, Dáire (2019) Tackling Structural Violence through the Transformative Justice Framework in Matthew Evans (ed) Transitional and Transformative Justice. Routledge.

  • Mertus, Julie (2007) Key Ethical Inquiries for Future Research in Charli R. Carpenter (ed) Born of War: Protecting Children of Sexual Violence Survivors in Conflict Zones, pp. 180–187. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.

  • Mitreuter, Saskia, Marie Kaiser, Sophie Roupetz, Barbara Stelzl-Marx, Philipp Kuwer, and Heide Glaesmer (2019) Questions of Identity in Children Born of War – Embarking on a Search for the Unknown Soldier Father, Journal of Child and Family Studies 28: 3220–3229.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mullen, Matthew (2015) Reassessing the focus of transitional justice: the need to move structural and cultural violence to the centre, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 28(3): 462–479.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mutsonziwa, Tinashe B.C., Ketty Anyeko and Erin Baines (2020) Child Tracing: Locating the paternal homes of ‘children born of war’, Development in Practice: 30(5): 635–644.

  • Neenan, Joanne (2017) Closing the Protection Gap for Children Born of War: Addressing stigmatization and the intergenerational impact of sexual violence in conflict, London: The London School of Economics and Political Science.

  • Nowrojee, Binaifer (1996) Shattered lives: sexual violence during the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath, Human Rights Watch 3169 (164).

  • Oliveira, Camile and Erin Baines (2020) Children ‘born of war’: a role for fathers? International Affairs 96(2): 439–455.

  • Pham, Phuong N., Patrick Vinck, and Eric Strover (2008) The Lord’s Resistance Army and Forced Conscription in northern Uganda, Human Rights Quarterly 30(2): 404–411

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Provost, René and Myriam Denov (2019) From Violence to Life: Children Born of War and Constructions of Victimhood, SSRN (October 25).

  • Robbins, Simon (2011) Towards victim-centred transitional justice: Understanding the needs of families of the disappeared in postconflict Nepal, International Journal of Transitional Justice 5(1): 75–98

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rohwerder, Brigitte (2019) Reintegration of children born of wartime rape. Report submitted to the Institute of Development Studies.

  • Sanchez Parra, Tatiana (2020) (Re)Productive Discourses: Media Coverage of Children Born of War in Colombia, Bulletin of Latin American Research 39(1): 22–36.

  • Schulz, Philipp (2019) ‘To Me, Justice Means to Be in a Group’: Survivors’ Groups as a Pathway to Justice in Northern Uganda, Journal of Human Rights Practice 11(1): 171–189.

  • Schulz, Philipp (2018) The “ethical loneliness” of male sexual violence survivors in Northern Uganda: gendered reflections on silencing, International Feminist Journal of Politics 20(4): 583–601.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Seto, Donna (2013) No Place for a War Baby: The global politics of children born of wartime rape. Farnham: Ashgate Publishers.

  • Skjelsbæk, Inger (2006) Victim and survivor: Narrated social identities of women who experienced rape during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Feminism & Psychology 16(4): 373–403.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stauffer, Jill (2015) Ethical Loneliness: The Injustice of Not Being Heard. New York,: Columbia University Press

  • Stewart, Beth W. (2017) ‘I feel out of place’: children born into the Lord’s Resistance Army and the politics of belonging. PhD dissertation, University of British Columbia.

  • Stewart, Beth W. (2020) Place-making and the everyday lives of children born into the Lord’s Resistance Army, Children’s Geographies 19(1): 113–26.

  • Stienstra, Deborah (2019) WPS, Gender, and Disabilities in Sara E. Davies and Jacqui True (eds) The Oxford Handbooks of Women, Peace, and Security. Oxford University Press.

  • Stiglmayer, Alexandra (1994) Mass rape: The war against women in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

  • Takševa, Tatjana (2017) Negotiating identities in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina in Trošt, Tamara P., and Danilo Mandić (eds) Changing Youth Values in Southeast Europe: Beyond Ethnicity. pp. 19–38. Routledge.

  • Theidon, Kimberly (2015) Hidden in Plain Sight: Children Born of Wartime Sexual Violence, Current Anthropology 56 (12): S191–S200.

  • UN (2018) Opening Remarks of SRSG Pramila Patten, Commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, 19 June 2018.  https://www.un.org/sexualviolenceinconflict/statement/opening-remarks-of-srsg-pramilapatten-commemoration-of-the-international-day-for-the-elimination-of-sexual-violence-in-conflict-19-june-2018/. Accessed 20 November 2020.

  • UN (2019) Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Ms. Pramila Patten’s Opening Statement at the Event to Commemorate the 10-Year Anniversary of the Mandate on Sexual Violence in Conflict. https://www.un.org/sexualviolenceinconflict/statement/srsg-svc-pramila-patten-opening-statement-event-to-commemorate-the-anniversary-of-the-mandate/. Accessed 20 November 2020.

  • Van Ee, Elisa and Rolf J. Kleber (2013) Growing Up Under a Shadow: Key Issues in Research on and Treatment of Children Born of Rape, Child Abuse Review 22: 386–397.

  • Watson, Alison M. S. (2007) Children Born of Wartime Rape: Rights and Representations, International Feminist Journal of Politics 9(1): 20–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weitsman, Patricia A. (2008) The politics of identity and Sexual Violence: A review of Bosnia and Rwanda, Human Rights Quarterly 30 (3): 561–578.

  • Woolner, Leah, Miriam Denov, and Sarilee Kahn (2018) ‘I Asked Myself If I Would Ever Love My Baby’: Mothering Children Born of Genocidal Rape in Rwanda, Violence Against Women 25(6): 703–720.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank all those whose research and advocacy on children ‘born of war’ before us disrupt and challenge the silence. We are also grateful to Camile Oliveira who provided invaluable feedback and company during the writing of the article, as did the editors and reviewers of Human Rights Review.

Funding

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Centre (SSHRC) Insight Grant provided financial support in the realization of the article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, The University of British Columbia, 6476 NW Marine Dr, Vancouver, BC, V6S0G6, Canada

    Alessia Rodríguez Di Eugenio & Erin Baines

Authors
  1. Alessia Rodríguez Di Eugenio
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Erin Baines
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Erin Baines.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Di Eugenio, A.R., Baines, E. ‘Our Place Under the Sun’: Survivor-Centred Approaches to Children Born of Wartime Sexual Violence. Hum Rights Rev 22, 327–347 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-021-00631-3

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-021-00631-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation