Specific Human Rights Issues 387extreme brutality, insufficient food, forced mar-
riages, coerced conversion to Islam, sexual slavery,
and rape. Of 234 women rescued by the Nigerian
army in one raid, 214 of them were pregnant.
These figures suggest that rape was a widespread
weapon of war. Is rape an incidental by- product of
strife— just what soldiers do and have done—from
the rape by Japa nese soldiers in Nanking, China,
in 1937 to American rape in Vietnam? This was the
view of the international community for many
years. Or is rape a deliberate strategy of war,
designed to destroy a national group or perpetu-
ate another group? The rape of Bosnian women in
1993 by Serbian and Croatian forces and the rape
of women in Burundi’s and Rwanda’s ethnic con-
flicts in 1993–94 suggest a deliberate strategy.
Indeed, according to The Genocide Convention,
forcibly transferring children, imposing mea sures
intended to prevent births, or causing serious
bodily harm in a deliberate fashion is genocide.
The Nigerian government has been unable
to stop Boko Haram’s insurgency; the vio lence
has spread to neighboring Cameroon, Chad, and
Niger. Despite the United States deploying mili-
tary advisers to help locate the girls, French
efforts to coordinate military activities, and the
African Union force, Boko Haram continues rape,
pillaging, and killing.
The human costs of the war remain. The inter-
national community through UN agencies and
NGOs is engaged in treating those affected and
trying to heal those who have suffered from the
indignations and vio lence. Liberals might point to
these positive programs. Vio lence against women
has moved from the private sphere to the public
sphere, and both international institutions and
states are responding. In 1994, the Inter- American
Convention on Vio lence against Women was
signed, and in Eu rope, the Eu ro pean Women’s
Lobby has pushed the agenda. States, too, have
taken a variety of actions, creating rape- crisis
centers and targeting vulnerable populations like
immigrants, refugees, and persons stuck in war
and strife.
For radical feminists, as long as a gendered
division of labor exists, the international commu-
nity is going to be slow to respond to abuses
against women, whether it be for sweatshop labor
conditions, prostitution, trafficking in women’s
bodies, or abuses during war. Indeed, the per-
sis tence of economic forces continues to place
women in a disadvantaged position.
For realists, many of these issues will never be
issues of “high politics,” essential to national secu-
rity. But the actions of Boko Haram are a threat to
the national security of not only Nigeria but also
of others in the region and the greater interna-
tional community. Clearly, they are a threat to
human security.For CritiCal analy sis
- Why are women and children especially vulnerable to the horrors of war?
- What is the new government in Nigeria doing to confront Boko Haram?
- What can the international community do to ameliorate the consequences of the vio lence
committed by Boko Haram?
a. Karyn Polewaczyk, “Most of the Girls Rescued from Boko Haram Are Now Pregnant,” Jezebel, May 6, 2015.