Examining Male Wartime Rape Survivors’ Perspectives on Justice in Northern Uganda
| Author | Philipp Schulz |
| Published date | 01 February 2020 |
| Date | 01 February 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0964663918822158 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Social & Legal Studies
2020, Vol. 29(1) 19–40
Examining Male Wartime
ª The Author(s) 2019
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Rape Survivors’ Perspectives
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663918822158
on Justice in Northern
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Uganda
Philipp Schulz
University of Bremen, Germany
Abstract
This article examines how male survivors of wartime sexual violence in Northern
Uganda conceptualize justice. Whereas recent years have witnessed increasing consid-
eration for redressing conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence against women,
specific attention to justice for male-directed sexual violence remains absent. Drawing
on the empirically-grounded perspectives of 46 male survivors, this article incorporates
the seldom-heard voices and perspectives of male wartime rape survivors into debates
about justice in the context of sexual violence, thereby contributing towards a gender-
inclusive and holistic understanding of gender justice debates. The findings underpinning
this article demonstrate that male survivors’ justice priorities primarily centre around
three interrelated themes: (a) justice as recognition, (b) government acknowledgement
and (c) reparative justice. According to male survivors, these three aspects of justice
imply the potential to respond to the misrecognition of male survivors’ experiences and
to remedy their sexual and gendered harms in a reparative and gender-sensitive capacity.
Keywords
Gender, justice, recognition, sexual violence, Uganda, victim-survivor
Corresponding author:
Philipp Schulz, Institute for Intercultural and International Studies (InIIS), University of Bremen, UNICOM R.
7.2030, Mary-Somerville-Straße 7, 28359 Bremen, Germany.
Email: pschulz@uni-bremen.de
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Social & Legal Studies 29(1)
Introduction
Owing to the growing academic and policy attention towards preventing and responding
to sexual violence, recent years have witnessed a variety of interventions and policy
measures intended to close what has been termed the ‘sexual violence justice gap’ (see
McGlynn and Westmarland, 2018: 1), that is, the lack or absence of justice, redress and
accountability for survivors of sexual violence. Despite steady progress and success in
this regard, and notwithstanding numerous articles and reports on this topic, however,
the justice gap persists (see Hohl and Stanko, 2015) and survivors face great difficulties
in attaining justice in response to their sexual harms. As I demonstrate in this article, this
gap is particularly pronounced in war-affected and post-conflict and transitional settings,
as well as for male survivors of sexual violence, both during wartime and in the context
of liberal democracies.
Whereas recent years have witnessed increasing consideration for redressing conflict-
related sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) against women and girls, specific
attention to justice for male-directed sexual violence remains remarkably absent. Despite
‘a pressing imperative for accountability [ . . . ] that takes specific account of gender-
based violence, [only] scant attention has been paid to the sexual integrity and dignity
harms experienced by [ . . . ] men’ (Ni Aola´in et al., 2015: 99). Therefore, and regardless
of increasing efforts at the United Nations level ‘to ensure that transitional justice
processes address the full spectrum of gender-based and sexual violence’ and that the
‘effective participation of victims [ . . . ] are necessary to address different needs and
opportunities of women, men, girls and boys’ (UN, 2014: 2), male survivors’ concep-
tions of justice remain remarkably absent, both from the scholarly literature and from
transitional justice praxis. To date, barely a handful of studies have focused on the
intersections between wartime sexual violence against men and transitional justice pro-
cesses, characterized an almost exclusive emphasis on retributive means (Schulz, 2015)
and a ubiquitous lack of empirically-grounded survivors’ perspectives.
As recently attested by McGlynn and Westmarland in this journal, ‘one of the reasons
why the sexual violence gap remains is because we have yet to fully understand the
justice interests of victim-survivors of sexual violence’ (2018: 2). Against this backdrop,
in this article, I begin to remedy this gap in the literature, by exploring how male sexual
violence survivors in Northern Uganda – as a particularly marginalized populace of
victims – conceptualize justice in response to their sexual and gendered harms. I also
investigate to what extent and how prescribed transitional justice processes respond to
sexual violence against men, thereby juxtaposing survivors’ justice views with dominant
efforts towards redress in transitional contexts, to scrutinize synergies, gaps and limita-
tions between universalized and externally-driven processes vis-a`-vis survivors’ priori-
ties. Drawing on newly generated findings derived from 7 months of field research, this
study constitutes the first-ever systematic and empirical analysis of how to deliver justice
for male sexual violence survivors in a post-conflict and transitional justice setting, in
Northern Uganda as elsewhere globally. By employing a masculinities perspective, the
article thereby complements growing efforts of thinking about justice in the context of
sexual violence and contributes to a more holistic and inclusive picture concerning the
gender-specific justice needs of both female and male sexual violence survivors.
Schulz
21
At the core of this article lies the observation that despite a heterogeneity of percep-
tions, a consensus prevails amongst survivors that justice processes crucially need to
respond to their gendered harms as a result of the sexual violations. Especially, recog-
nition and official acknowledgement, to be materialized in various ways and at different
levels, imply the potential to address the prevailing silencing of survivors’ violations and
harms. Further, reparations – and especially material compensation and physical reha-
bilitation – are expected to re-enable male survivors to provide for their families and thus
live up to gendered expectations and responsibilities, and therefore constitute primary
justice needs for Northern Ugandan male survivors. Drawing on these findings, I argue
that most male survivors who participated in this study desire ‘justice as a better future’
(Nickson and Braithwaite, 2014: 449), in which they are able to fully participate in
community life and renegotiate their previously impacted masculine identities. Male
survivors’ views thus stand in contrast to the legalist orientation of contemporary debates
about justice in response to sexual violence (see Daly, 2017) and of the global transi-
tional justice project (see McEvoy, 2007; Robins, 2011). At the same time, however, the
analysis unveils a vacuum of post-conflict justice in response to wartime sexual violence
against men, characterized by numerous gendered blind-spots that leave male sexual
harms un-accounted for, severely limiting male survivors’ prospects for justice.
In making my arguments, I employ a broadened conceptualization of justice, moving
beyond legalistic and institutionalized conceptions, and towards a thicker understanding
of justice in transition (McEvoy, 2007). I recognize that ‘justice is an amorphous and
elusive concept that can be interpreted and experienced in a myriad of ways’ (Kent,
2012: 33) and ‘may have multiple socially meanings’ (p. 43). Rather than a distinct goal,
justice ultimately exists more as a ‘notion’, which ‘will probably never have a universal
meaning’ (McDonald and Allen, 2015: 289)
Further, interpretations of justice are far from static, but able to fluidly evolve. This
expanded understanding of justice is furthermore reflective of the locally-contingent
meaning of justice among the Acholi ethnic group in Northern Uganda. In this socio-
cultural context, justice is commonly translated as ngol matir, to be translated as a
process of determining ‘a right way forward in the aftermath of wrongdoing’ (Porter,
2017) in a broadened sense.
The article proceeds as follows: First, I contextualize debates and common assump-
tions about transitional justice in the context of wartime SGBV in general and context-
specifically in Northern Uganda, and I then outline the methodological framework
behind this study, paying particular attention to ethical considerations. In the ‘Transi-
tional justice and sexual violence in Northern Uganda’ section, I analyse and discuss
male survivors’ views on justice, structured along the most prevalent themes of (a)
recognition, (b) official government acknowledgement and (c) reparations, as emerged
during the research.1 The final part concludes by teasing out implications of my findings
for debates along the intersections of transitional justice and wartime sexual violence.
Wartime Sexual Violence Against Men and Transitional Justice
Wartime sexual violence against men is committed more frequently than popularly
assumed, but remains notoriously under-explored (Sivakumaran, 2013). Throughout the
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Social & Legal Studies 29(1)
past decade, a limited yet growing body of scholarship has documented cases of conflict-
related sexual violence against men and boys in at least 50 contemporary armed conflicts
(see Dolan, 2014), including (but not limited to) Syria, Libya, Peru, the former Yugo-
slavia, Sri Lanka, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Northern Uganda, to name
just a few. Despite continuous efforts to integrate male survivors into...
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