The “secret war”: Silence, testimony, and wartime sexual violence
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00207020231168900 |
| Author | Erin Baines,Ketty Anyeko |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essays |
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DOI: 10.1177/00207020231168900
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The “secret war”: Silence,
testimony, and wartime sexual
violence
Erin Baines
School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Ketty Anyeko
Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Abstract
Breaking the silence around wartime sexual violence is often understood as paramount
to ending it. Many survivors feel compelled to publicly testify to prevent future harms,
contest denial, and hold perpetrators to account. Yet, testimony is not always spoken,
and silence should not be elided with powerlessness. In this article, we conceptualize
the space in-between silence and voice as a form of multi-modal testimony that is given
to protect, sustain, and reimagine relationships. We consider this in relation to the
efforts of Adok, a woman abducted and forced into marriage by a rebel group in
northern Uganda. Following her escape and return home with two children, Adok
faced what is described as the “secret war”: ongoing structural and lateral violence. Her
efforts to hold the father of her children to account attests to the “secret war,”and calls
for a collective response to protect the future of her children.
Keywords
Silence, testimony, conflict-related sexual violence, structural violence, transitional
justice, social repair, gender
Corresponding author:
Erin Baines, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, 251–1855 West
Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada.
Email: erin.baines@ubc.ca
2022, Vol. 77(4) 572–591
Scholarly Essay
Breaking the silence surrounding wartime sexual violence is often understood as
paramount to ending it. Many survivors feel compelled to testify to prevent future
harms, contest denial, and hold perpetrators to account. In the past two decades,
wartime sexual violence has been prosecuted as a war crime and crime against hu-
manity, made possible only with the determination of survivors to provide testimony.
Yetthe act of testifying carries with it great risk.
1
Survivors may remain silent due to the
fear of accusation and/or retaliation. To testify is to contest the powerful, and so likely
places survivors and loved ones in jeopardy. This is even more so when a survivor is
someone who lives in the margins, whose worth is devalued socially or politically.
2
The
perpetrator and those who seek to cover up their own complicity are quick to blame the
victim or deny what happened. The state may co-opt testimony to shore up national
identity, appeal to some sense of masculine pride, or to gain international favour.
3
Survivors are silenced when they are not believed. They are silenced by shame, name-
calling, and fear.
4
To speak “truth to power”is an extraordinary act of courage, made
possible with the collective efforts of communities of survivors, journalists, policy-
makers, activists, and scholars who strive to “stop rape now.”
5
Testimony before special courts and tribunals brings limited gains for survivors.
6
Referring to the manifold ways wartime sexual violence continues to effect the lives
and relationships of women in post-conflict northern Uganda, one survivor concluded
that “prosecution will not solve my problems.”
7
It is well documented that legal
practices tend to silence women’s everyday struggles, reproducing women as victims
without agency.
8
Silence is associated with vulnerability, rather than a strategic choice.
9
1. Philipp Schulz, “The ‘ethical loneliness’of male sexual violence survivors in Northern Uganda: Gendered
reflections on silencing,”International Feminist Journal of Politics 20, no. 4 (2018): 583–601.
2. Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—From Domestic Abuse to
Political Terror (London: Hachette, 2015).
3. Bina D’Costa, Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes in South Asia (London: Routledge, 2011);
Nayanika Mookherjee, The Spectral Wound (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015); Nira Yuval-
Davis, Gender and Nation (London: SAGE Publications, 1997).
4. Philipp Schulz, Male Survivors of Wartime Sexual Violence(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
2020).
5. Rosemary Grey and Laura J. Shepherd, ‘Stop rape now?’Masculinity, responsibility, and conflict-related
sexual violence,”Men and Masculinities 16, no. 1 (2013): 115–135.
6. Chiseche Salome Mibenge, Sex and International Tribunals (Philadelphia, PA:University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2013).
7. Ketty Anyeko, Evelyn Amony, and Angela Atim-Lakor, “Prosecution will not solve my problems: Women’s
senses of justice and reparations after conflict-relatedsexual violence in northern Uganda,”Wom en’s Advocacy
Network Report, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC,
October 2021.
8. Fiona C. Ross, Bearing Witness: Women and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission
(London: Pluto Press, 2002).
9. Jane L. Parpart, “Choosing silence: Rethinking voice, agency and women’s empowerment,”in Roisin
Ryan-Flood and Rosalind Gill, eds., Secrecy and Silence in the Research Process: Feminist Reflections
(London and New York: Routledge, 2010), 15–29; Jane L. Parpart and Swati Parashar, eds., Rethinking
Silence, Voice, and Agency in Contested Gendered Terrains (London: Routledge, 2019).
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Baines and Anyeko
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