by Elizabeth Blunt, IRIN, Switzerland – Through conflict after conflict, sexual violence persists, not just as individual crimes but as a weapon of war, from the Balkans to the Congo, from Liberia and Sierra Leone to present day Iraq. It persists, says Madeleine Rees, the secretary general of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, because it’s effective.
“It works in conflict,” she told a meeting at London’s Chatham House, “because it helps destroy and tear apart communities. And the reason it works to tear apart communities is to do with our social mores. It does work and if you want to win a war, then you do it.”
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