In this thesis, the systematic usage of sexual violence towards women as a weapon during the Yugoslavian Civil War is analyzed. The study attempts to underline the role of gender identities of women during the Civil War as a means for the victimization of women through sexual violence, especially mass rapes. It is argued that with the disintegration of Yugoslavia, as men clashed for power, the portrayal of women as mothers and carriers of the nation under the nationalistic discourse caused these women to become the primary targets of the war. It is also argued that the primary aim of rape as a weapon of ethnic cleansing during the war was to destroy the harmony and unity of the enemy by dishonoring and violating their women.

This thesis examines the relationship between justice and recovery for survivors of sexual violence in the aftermath of armed conflict. Using the case study of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the thesis evaluates whether international criminal justice can contribute positively to victim vindication and restoration. While the historical war crimes tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo have been widely criticised for exercising a “victor’s justice”, this thesis illustrates a discernible shift towards a form of “victim’s justice” that extends beyond the parameters of punishment and proportionality for serious violations of international humanitarian law (IHL). Restorative principles of justice have thus been increasingly incorporated within current international criminal jurisdictions, reflected in victim-friendly legislation at the ICTY and the recently established International Criminal Court (ICC). These developments recognise the significance of justice for victims in the aftermath of armed conflict. (For complete abstract open document)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Virginia, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available online through Digital Dissertations.

Following the 2012 gang-rape of a 23-year-old paramedic student in New Delhi, India's rape culture received unprecedented global attention. The Central Government sought to reduce the incidence of sexually violent crimes against Indian women by implementing policy changes. However, crimes against women and reported rapes have continued to rise. This paper seeks to explain the persistence of sexually violent crimes in India by arguing that contemporary public policies and the dominating presence of men's rights organizations on social media platforms have reproduced rapability in unique and dangerous ways.

The six research papers and journal articles that form this submission all focus on the nature of and response to young people and young adults who have experienced relationship violence and non-partner sexual violence in New York City (NYC). These six empirical papers are based on three primary research studies in which I was the Principal Investigator spanning four years of research work: • A quantitative study of 1,312 young people in NYC high schools, • A survey of 65 survivors of sexual violence about their experiences with services (hospital, counselling, police and criminal justice) in NYC, and • A comprehensive survey of 39 emergency departments in NYC about acute care provision for sexual assault patients. These studies are innovative in that all three are ‘firsts’ in the field of violence prevention and response: ‘Partners and Peers’ was the first study of its kind to explore the prevalence of sexual and dating violence in NYC amongst high school students. This study found that 16.2% or more than 1 in 6 students surveyed reported experiencing sexual violence at some point in their lives. Of these youth, 10.1% reported experiencing non-partner sexual violence (sexual abuse or forced sex), and 14.1% reported experiencing sexual violence from a dating partner. The survey was available in both Spanish and English (both versions translated and back-translated). Passive parental consent and student assent were obtained with parental consent letters available in English, Spanish and Chinese. Three ethical review boards, including the NYC Department of Education, approved this study. ‘A Room of Our Own’ was the first study to explore from survivors’ own perspectives their satisfaction with the care and support they received post-assault in NYC with the majority of respondents having experienced a sexual assault under the age of 25 (study was approved by eight Ethics Review Boards), and ‘How Safe is NYC’ was the first study to comprehensively map protocols, procedures and services offered across Emergency Departments in NYC including how adolescent patients are treated. All three of these studies garnering significant media coverage which appeared in the New York Sun, The Washington Post, the New York Post, The New York Daily News, El Diario and on CBS news (TV) and WBAI radio. Three of the six submitted publications have already been ranked internally as part of the Moray House School of Education’s REF submission (my 4th REF submission was another journal article on a different area of child protection) and they have all been recognised as internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour. This body of work has had and continues to have significant implications for practice as highlighted in this thesis. The study of survivors’ perspectives and acute care responses in emergency departments led directly to a change in New York State Law for ambulance destination designation and a commitment from the NYC Mayor for Sexual Assault Forensic Services in all public NYC hospitals. The school-based study findings also directly led the NYC Chancellor to change the disciplinary regulations in all New York City high schools in relation to adolescent relationship violence. This research highlights the need for practitioners, policymakers and researchers to better understand the nature of relationship violence and non-partner sexual violence among adolescents and young adults in New York City in order to develop evidence-informed programmes and policies for prevention and response.

Bakgrund: En av tre kvinnor i världen har upplevt sexuellt eller fysiskt våld. Det utbredda våldet som kvinnor utsätts för orsakar allvarliga kortsiktiga och långsiktiga fysiska och psykiska hälsoproblem för kvinnor. Sexuellt våld är ett omfattande folkhälsoproblem. Hälso- och sjukvården möter kvinnor som utsatts för sexuellt våld inom olika instanser och kan vara den första professionella kontakten efter sexuellt våld. Hälso- och sjukvården har skyldigheter att erbjuda adekvat vård och kompetens och kunskap är viktigt. Syfte: Syftet var att beskriva hur kvinnor som utsatts för sexuellt våld upplever hälso- och sjukvården. Metod: En litteraturöversikt har genomförts. Elva vetenskapliga artiklar insamlades från databaserna PubMed och CINAHL Complete. Likheter och skillnader i artiklarnas resultat identifierades och analyserades. Resultat: Analysen av upplevelser av hälso- och sjukvården hos kvinnor som utsatts för sexuellt våld resulterade i fem teman. Dessa var bemötande, information, delaktighet, vårdmiljö och medicinskt omhändertagande. Diskussion: Metod och resultat har diskuterats. Delar av litteraturöversiktens resultat diskuterades utifrån Callista Roys teori om adaption kombinerat med övrig litteratur, tidigare forskning och författarnas egna reflektioner. Resultatdiskussionen berör aspekter som känsla av upprepad utsatthet, mötet med hälso- och sjukvården, en jämlik hälso- och sjukvård, behovet av adaption, roller och förväntningar, stimuli och hur information skapar delaktighet. / Background: One of three women worldwide have experienced sexual or physical violence. The violence and the abuse that women face causes serious short- and long-term physical and mental problems for women. Sexual violence is an extensive public health problem. Healthcare meets individuals exposed to sexual violence in various healthcare context and have a significant functions for women. Healthcare need to provide adequate/appropriate care and knowledge is important. Aim: The aim of the literature review was to describe how women exposed to sexual violence experience the healthcare. Method: A literature review has been conducted. Eleven original scientific articles were selected from databases PubMed and CINAHL Complete. Similarites and differences were identified and analyzed. Results: The analysis of healthcare experiences of women suffered from sexual violence  resulted in five themes. These were treament, information, patient participation, the health facility environment and medical care. Discussion: Methods and results have been discussed. Parts of the literature review were discussed based on Callista Roys theory of adaptation combined with other literature, previous research and the authors own reflections. Aspects such as secondary victimization, equal healthcare, the importance of adaptation, roles and expectations, stimuli and how to improve patient involvement by information, were highlighted.

Comment rendre intelligibles les injustices de genre dans toute leur extension ? Cette démarche de philosophie politique appliquée conduit à en tenter l’approche par les violences sexuelles comprises comme extrémisation de ces injustices. Dans une première partie, les limites de l’apport des théories de la justice sont mises en lumière à travers le féminisme libéral complexe de Susan Okin, qui centre sur les injustices de genre dans le travail et dans la famille. L’examen des évolutions de son questionnement y fait apparaître l’intuition de certaines exigences pour penser les violences sexuelles comme injustices, laissées par elle inexplorées. La deuxième partie, centrée sur des études contextuelles, est consacrée à des phénoménalisations de ces violences dans la société contemporaine. À partir de la théorisation du genre par Catherine MacKinnon comme domination sexualisée, et à l’aide des données fournies par des travaux d’anthropologie, se trouvent investiguées les violences hétérosexuelles entre adultes et les violences sexuelles intrafamiliales. De ce moment d’expérimentation la domination genrée ressort comme fonction dynamique des violences sexuelles. Une ultime étape explore des remédiations. Deux pratiques collectives de réparation et de prévention ouvrent sur une éthique féministe de la reconstruction dont la portée politique fait surgir les violences comme injustices structurelles. Des travaux d’Iris M. Young sont dégagées les exigences d’une prise en charge sociale de telles injustices. Le geste est amorcé enfin d’une reconstruction normative traçant les contours d’une justice non seulement distributive et réparatrice, mais aussi transformative. / How can one think of gender injustice in all its extension ? This research in applied political philosophy seeks to shed light on this problem by focusing on sexual violence as a social and structural phenomenon.In a first part, the limits of « theory of justice approach » are highlighted through an examination of one of its fullest attempts regarding gender, that is Susan Okin’s feminist liberalism. Evolutions in her works allow me to bring out some intuitions regarding the political implications of what would be an account of sexual violence taken as social injustice, yet such intuitions remained unexplored. Taking these limits seriously, the second part of this research sets to examine sexual violence as phenomenonalized in contemporary society. With MacKinnon’s theory of gender as sexualised domination as a critical background given by Okin herself for my investigation, I tackle heterosexual violence between adults as well as intrafamilial sexual violence. This experimental gesture leads me to elaborate gendered domination as a dynamic function of sexual violence. A last moment explores the remedies implied by such comprehension. Two forms of collective and feminist praxis as reparative and preventive, are analysed so as to bring out the normative foundations of what appears as a feminist ethics of reconstruction. Its political dimension leads to an apprehension of sexual violence as structural injustice. Iris Young’s work is discussed in the respect, so as to highlight the conditions of a full apprehension of sexual violence as injustice. A normative reconstruction that leads to envisage justice not only as distributive or reparative, but also as transformative.

During the fall of 2017, a campaign named #metoo went viral on Twitter. The purpose of #metoo was to highlight how many that had experiences of sexual harassments and assaults. The campaign did also gain a lot of attention in traditional Swedish media. By looking at #metoo in Swedish printed media during the month of November in 2017, I have examined how the concept of sexual violence have been articulated, negotiated and represented. Sexual violence is a matter that has been important for both feminist scholars and activists for a long time, both from a theoretical and material perspective. Guided by a critical discourse analysis and a feminist poststructural approach, I have looked at sexual violence as a phenomenon that is discursively made and therefore, also non-stable and always up for negotiation depending on the specific time, place and context it is produced in. In my material, I have found three themes, boundaries, institutionalisation and tensions. They all, in different ways, support that by providing a picture of sexual violence as a fluid concept without clear boundaries, a tendency to turn all the issues of sexual harassments into a failure of the employer liability and the working environment. Also, by providing a picture of a colliding word view of sexual violence as both a brand new phenomenon in Sweden (especially related to immigration) and something that has always been a reality in many people’s life.

This essay aims to highlight and explain the gender inequality, the sexual assault and the rape in Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale from a feminist perspective, using the theory of the individualist, interactionist and institutional approach to gender found in Wharton’s The Sociology of Gender. Research questions: How does gender inequality shape the characters in the novel? What does it mean for them? How can the gender inequalities seen in Gilead society, as well as the sexual violence in the novel, be explained using sociological perspectives on gender? Gender inequality, which is what leads to the sexual violence, is produced on every level of society, and especially at the institutional level of society, that is, the culture of the society.

Objetivos: Desenvolver e validar instrumento que auxilie o pediatra a determinar a probabilidade de ocorrência do abuso sexual em crianças. Métodos: Estudo de caso-controle com 201 crianças que consultaram em ambulatórios de pediatria e locais de referência para vítimas de abuso sexual, entre março e novembro de 2004: grupo caso (com suspeita ou revelação de abuso sexual) e grupo controle (sem suspeita de abuso sexual). Aplicou-se, junto aos responsáveis, um questionário com 18 itens e cinco opções de respostas segundo a escala Likert, abordando comportamento, sintomas físicos e emocionais apresentados pelas crianças. Excluíram-se nove crianças sem controle esfincteriano e um item respondido por poucas pessoas. A validade e consistência interna dos itens foram avaliadas com obtenção de coeficientes de correlação (Pearson, Spearman e Goodman-Kruskal), coeficiente α de Cronbach e cálculo da área da curva ROC. Calculou-se, após, a razão de verossimilhança (RV) e os valores preditivo positivos (VPP) para os cinco itens do questionário que apresentaram os melhores desempenhos. Resultados: Obteve-se um questionário composto pelos cinco itens que melhor discriminaram crianças com e sem abuso sexual em dois contextos. Cada criança recebeu um escore resultante da soma das respostas com pesos de 0 a 4 (amplitude de 0 a 20), o qual, através do teorema de Bayes (RV), indicou sua probabilidade pós-teste (VPP) de abuso sexual. Conclusões: O instrumento proposto é útil por ser de fácil aplicação, auxiliando o pediatra na identificação de crianças vítimas de abuso sexual. Ele fornecerá, conforme o escore obtido, a probabilidade (VPP) de abuso sexual, orientando na conduta de cuidado à criança. / Aims: Develop and validate an instrument to assist the paediatrician in determining the probability of the occurrence of sexual abuse in children. Methods: Case-control study with 201 children that attended the paediatric out-patient services and the referral facilities for victims of sexual abuse, between March and November 2004: case group (suspicion or disclosure of sexual abuse) and control group (without suspicion or disclosure of sexual abuse). The responsible adults were invited to answer a questionnaire containing 18 items and five answer options, in accordance with the Likert scale, that dealt with the behavioural, physical and emotional symptoms presented by the children. Nine children that lacked sphincter control and one item that was answered by few people were excluded. The validity and internal consistency of the items were assessed by obtaining the correlation coefficients with the (Pearson, Spearman and Goodman-Kruskal), Cronbach’s α coefficient and the calculation of the area of the ROC (Receiver Operator Characteristics) curve. Later, the Likelihood Ratio (LR) and the positive predictive values (PPVs) for the five items in the questionnaire that presented the best performance were calculated. Results: A questionnaire was obtained, composed of the five items that best discriminated children with or without sexual abuse in two contexts. Each child received a score consisting of the sum of the responses with weights from 0 to 4 (range from 0 to 20) that, through the Bayes theorem (LR), indicated his/her post-test probability (PPV) of sexual abuse. Conclusions: The proposed instrument is useful as it is easily applied, is of assistance to the paediatrician in the identification of child victims of sexual abuse. It will give, according to the score obtained, the probability (PPV) of sexual abuse, and so offer guidance in the care of the child.