29 Fall 2026 include shaving body hair, attempts to “strip” the victims of their gender identity, forced marriage, and viewing naked bodies. Additional atrocities, such as mutilation of a dead body, are also not always included in a state criminal code.9 International law has defined crimes of sexual violence perpetrated as part of a conflict as “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity,” and they may, in certain circumstances, also constitute genocide.10 This reflects an understanding and recognition that, as noted above, these crimes embody characteristics which distinguish them from sexual violence directed at the individual, such as the scope of the acts, their purpose and underlying motive, as well as their extreme brutality and recurring patterns.11 For example, the “Rome Statute,” that defines when sexual violence constitutes a “crime against humanity,” refers to acts of rape and other forms of sexual violence committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population.12 Noteworthy also is the language employed in the definitions of genocide and war crimes, which underscores the scale and magnitude of such conduct.13 The elements articulated in these definitions must be taken into consideration when constructing the legal and evidentiary framework. These considerations are further reflected in the Policy Paper on Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes issued by the office of Prosecutor of the ICC in June 2014,14 which provides important interpretation and guidance for addressing sexual violence as a weapon of war. It is essential to ensure that these definitions are also embedded within domestic legal systems, something which, regrettably, is not the case in all jurisdictions. Understanding the various aspects of the phenomenon is thus the first necessary step in constructing a legal roadmap that enables prosecution. The next stage is to examine the challenges that arise and, subsequently, progress towards finding viable solutions. Conflict Related Sexual Violence – Evidentiary and Substantive Legal Challenges Confronted with the need to achieve justice and hold to account assailants who employ CRSV, the challenges impeding such efforts – which stem from the inherent characteristics of such attacks – continue to mount. Irrespective of their legal classification,15 attacks involving sexual violence as a weapon of war are often rooted in genocidal or dehumanizing indoctrination. The nature of sexual violence crimes, their intensity, scale, and the circumstances in which they are perpetrated cast a heavy shadow over the ability to prove them and result, inter alia, in the near-total destruction of the ability to establish a legal foundation that proves the existence of these crimes. Below, I outline and illustrate the principal challenges, using examples from the events of October 7. As noted, in most cases where sexual violence is directed at the individual, the sexual offense typically occurs behind closed doors and there is some degree of acquaintance between perpetrator and victim that enables the victim to identify the perpetrator. In cases of CRSV, however, the sexual assault is perpetrated as part of a broader attack where the victim does not know the perpetrator and cannot identify him; at times, there is more than a single assailant. Accordingly, even where the victim survives and summons the strength to report the attack, it is exceedingly difficult 9. Supra note 4, at 327-328. 10. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, July 17, 1998, 2187 U.N.T.S. 90, arts. 6, 7(1)(g), 8(2) [hereinafter: Rome Statute]. 11. Supra note 2, at 24-25, 43. 12. Supra note 10, § 7(1)(g). 13. Supra note 10, § 6, 8(2). 14. ICC OTP, “Policy Paper on Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes” (2014), available at https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/ default/files/Policy_Paper_on_Sexual_and_Gender-Based_Crimes-20_June_2014-ENG.pdf [hereinafter: ICC Policy Paper] 15. In addition to constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity, crimes of sexual violence and rape have historically also become an integral and recurring feature of all modern instances of genocide; see Gregory H. Stanton, “The Ten Stages of Genocide,” GENOCIDE WATCH (2023), available at https://sl1nk.com/KBahp
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