Review: Our Bodies Their Battlefield by Christina Lamb

A timely and important book, Christina Lamb’s account of the weaponisation of sexual violence in conflict is essential reading, writes Baroness Helić

In Our Bodies Their Battlefield Christina Lamb describes rape as “the cheapest weapon known to man”, vividly conveying the way it “devastates families…empties villages…turns girls into outcasts” and yet “is always ignored in history books”.

This timely and important book should be essential reading for ministers and Parliamentarians. It shows why any UK foreign policy that failed to attempt to prevent and punish these crimes would have a moral and practical void at its heart.

The weaponisation of sexual violence is a major factor in contemporary conflict, insecurity, and refugee flows. It is impossible to achieve equality and freedom for all women worldwide while systematic rape and sexual violence goes undeterred and unpunished.

Christina Lamb retrieves the stories of women and girls who have suffered in this way from antiquity to modern times, but who have been largely left out of the historical record. We read about the rapes carried out by Roman forces, by the armies of 15th century Europe, by Soviet Troops in occupied Germany and by Falangists during the Spanish Civil War. The author gives voice to the so-called “comfort women” enslaved by Japanese forces in World War Two, and to the women of Bosnia, Kosovo, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, DRC, Argentina, Colombia, Cyprus, Cambodia, and Myanmar.

Christina’s women are not connected by geography, cause, religion, ethnicity or age, yet they share an invisible bond. Their accounts are a painful reminder that warzone rape and sexual violence are the world’s least prosecuted war crime, despite over 70 years of prohibition in international law.

Article 27 of the 1949 Geneva Convention states that “women shall be especially protected against any attack on their honour, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault”. But as Christina points out, it took the discovery of rape camps in Bosnia – in the heart of Europe –in the 1990s, to galvanise international attention.

In 1998, rape was enshrined as a war crime in the International Criminal Court. Yet this was not the end of injustice or beginning of accountability. Despite the heroic efforts of survivors, doctors, lawyers and NGOs, the political will necessary to bring about prosecutions has ebbed and flowed depending on individual governments – and indeed individual politicians.

“Rape remains a weapon of choice equally for an Isis terrorist, Burmese soldier, or DRC militiaman”

William Hague made the campaign to end impunity for conflict-related sexual violence a hallmark of his tenure as Foreign Secretary – with an energy and determination none of his four successors have been willing to muster.

Whether or not the United Kingdom throws its weight and influence into stopping the mass abuse of women and girls should not depend on the personal priorities of any given foreign secretary. There are some issues that should be above politics and personalities.

That is why this book matters. Rape remains a weapon of choice equally for an Isis terrorist, Burmese soldier, or DRC militiaman. UK foreign and security policy is incomplete without a renewed strategy to tackle this violence, along with all the other manifestations of insecurity and terrorism.

For instance, those who commission, condone and carry out sexual violence as a strategy of war rely on the assumption that they will get away with it: that their victims will be ashamed to speak, that evidence will be lost, and that the international community will lack the will to hold perpetrators to account. There is an urgent need for a permanent investigatory body to collect evidence that can be used in court.

As the International Rescue Committee has shown, a miniscule fraction of all humanitarian funding worldwide – less than 0.12% – goes towards addressing sexual and gender-based violence. The UK could lead by dedicating a minimum of 1% of its aid budget to fighting sexual and gender-based violence. Even such a small increase would have a transformative effective on the lives of millions of women and girls.

Baroness Helić is a Conservative peer