Governments, international organizations, and international laws and courts increasingly pay attention to conflict-related sexual violence. The core of the UN Women Peace and Security Agenda is stopping conflict-related sexual violence against women. Yet, with over two decades of grappling with conflict-related sexual violence and its legacies, there is only passing mention of the potential and obvious outcomes of sexual violence: pregnancy, abortion, forced maternity. What do we know about children conceived through acts of sexual abuse? What are their life chances? How do they exist with their mothers and within their families? In this collection we hear from the leading researchers and practitioners from around the globe, each of whom has spent decades working with women who survived wartime rape and with their children who were the result of that violence.
This ground-breaking collection explores the life cycles of children born of wartime rape across time and space. It shines light on why young people born of rape are or are not able rejoin their families and society in the post-conflict. It explores the different ways these children learn about their origins and how they, their families and societies react to that understanding. It reveals the local, national, and international actions of how children born of wartime rape and their families are positioned in society and how they strive to transcend this and position themselves as they move from abuse, marginalization and pain into belonging and justice.
Author(s): Dipali Anumol, Kimberly Theidon, Dyan Mazurana
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 352
City: New York
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Author Biographies
1. Challenging Conceptions
Part I Life Cycles: Children Born of Wartime Rape Across Time and Space
2. “They’re Called Bui Doi”: (Re)framing the Politics of Amerasians and Children Born of War
3. Reconstructing the Small Family After Democratic Kampuchea: Forced Marriage, Ritual Renewal, and Parent–Child Entanglement in Cambodia
4. Unintended Consequences or Desired Outcome? Children Born of War and Their Role in National Rebirth
Part II Beyond Stigma: Gender, Kinship, and Belonging in Northern Uganda
5. Gender, Kinship, and Affiliation of Children Born of War in Patriarchal Northern Uganda
6. Kinship and Belonging Among Children Born of War in Northern Uganda: “I Am a Child Who Is Not from Here”
7. Missing Fathers: Children Born of Wartime Rape and Their Perspectives on Fathers and Fatherhood in Northern Uganda
Part III (In)visibility: Concealment, Disclosure, and the Question of Categories
8. Triptych: Seeing Children Born of Wartime Rape
9. The Unknown Youth of Al-Shabaab: Children Born from Al-Shabaab Sexual Violence
10. Contested Identities: Gender, Reproduction, and War in Colombia
11. The Complexity of Sexual Violence, Birthing, and Status After the Fall of the Caliphate
Part IV Transformations: Intergenerational Reconciliation and Justice
12. “Where Do You Send the Pain?”: Agency and Resilience in Three Children Born of War in Bosnia and Herzegovina
13. The Role of Spirituality in the Acceptance of Children Born of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence
14. Moving Beyond Rwanda’s “Children of Bad Memory”: A Conversation on Working with Mothers and Children Born of Wartime Rape
15. Local Inspiration, Global Implementation: Upholding the Rights of Children Born of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence
References
Index
