Repertoires of conflict-related sexual violence: Introducing the RSVAC data package

Logan Dumaine, Ragnhild Nordås, Maria Gargiulo and Elisabeth Jean Wood
Additional contact information
Logan Dumaine: Independent scholar
Ragnhild Nordås: Department of Political Science, University of Michigan & Peace Research Institute Oslo
Maria Gargiulo: Department of Sociology, University of Oxford
Elisabeth Jean Wood: Department of Political Science, Yale University

Journal of Peace Research, 2022, vol. 59, issue 4, 611-621

Abstract: Scholars increasingly call for documentation and analysis of specific forms of conflict-related sexual violence. Moreover, accountability for crimes is stronger when specific patterns of victimization are documented. This article introduces the Repertoires of Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict (RSVAC) data package, which assembles reports from 1989 to 2015 of forms of sexual violence by government/states forces, insurgent/rebel organizations, and pro-government militias for each conflict and year. RSVAC compiles the reported prevalence of eight forms of sexual violence – rape, sexual slavery and forced marriage, forced prostitution, sexual mutilation, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization and abortion, non-penetrative sexual torture, and sexual abuse (as well as that of multiple-perpetrator reports of each form). It includes extensive qualitative notes on reported incidents, as well as ‘conflict manuscripts’ that include the relevant portions of source documents. Disaggregating ‘sexual violence’ into its distinct forms enables analysis of the reported presence of forms of sexual violence across time, conflicts, and organizations. We illustrate its usefulness by highlighting hitherto neglected global patterns it suggests, and also discuss limitations, potential biases and underreporting that users need to take into account. We outline several research questions that the data can help answer and suggest how the data package could inform policy efforts to address sexual violence and its consequences.

Keywords: armed conflict; rape; sexual violence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00223433211044674 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:joupea:v:59:y:2022:i:4:p:611-621

DOI: 10.1177/00223433211044674

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Peace Research from Peace Research Institute Oslo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().