War Rapes in Bosnia: On Masculinity, Feminity and Power of the Rape Victim Identity

Rape during the Bosnian War (1992-95) was a policy of systemic mass violence targeted against women and – what tends to be overlooked, this article argues – also men. While men from all ethnic groups committed rape, the vast majority of rapes were perpetrated by Bosnian Serb forces of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) and Serb paramilitary units, who used rape as an instrument of terror and key tactics as part of their program of ethnic cleansing. Estimates of the number of women raped during the war range between 10,000 and 50,000, with the further estimate that for one reported rape there are 15 to 20 unreported cases. This article explores rape of men and women in the Bosnian war and their public perception