Our bodies, their battlefield: What war does to women

Sexual violence remains an ongoing problem all over the world. Despite decades of advocacy, societal growth, and advancement in all possible spheres of life, and the great amount of knowledge and research on mechanisms guiding human relationships, the public health lens is still dark as the horror of sexual abuse continues to be a tool of unequal combat and abuse of power. To add to this issue, I would like to draw further attention to sexual violence and abuse as one of the traumatic stress aspects that should be addressed in a global public discussion, by reviewing Christina Lamb’s book Our bodies, their battlefield: What war does to women (Lamb, 2020). Lamb uncovers all the horrors of rape, which is a prevailing act of destruction and manipulation leading to the annihilation of individuals. At the same time, the book leaves readers with the unanswered question of the essence of the public lens of sexual abuse trauma.

Sexual harassment and abuse are no longer taboo. In the era of #MeToo, the current war in Ukraine, and years of advocacy, sexual violence has ceased to be covered by a conspiracy of silence. It has become an issue that should be addressed from a public health perspective (Olff, 2022). Up to 44% of women experience sexual assault in their lifetime (Breiding et al., 2014; Dworkin et al., 2021; Olff, 2022; Smith et al., 2018), but if we take into consideration countries involved in hostilities, the numbers are even larger (Dalgaard et al., 2021; Kaysen et al., 2020; Mutuyimana et al., 2021). Many suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or other trauma-related disorders, yet (early) interventions for survivors of sexual assault are often unavailable, with many barriers to service utilization (e.g. Bach et al., 2021; Covers et al., 2021; Oosterbaan et al., 2019). The Editorial’s question of how to reduce shame and guilt in survivors is also raised in Our bodies, their battlefield (Lamb, 2020). In her text, Lamb gives voice to women and shows that sexual violence is a tool of control in warfare areas. ‘Rape is not a side effect of war, but a powerful instrument of destruction, as effective as chemical weapons’ (says the text on the back cover), and she documents its methodical use as a weapon in ethnic cleansing and genocide on every page of this harrowing book, which was a finalist for the 2021 Orwell Prize for Political Writing and the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.

The book starts with maps of Argentina, Syria and Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Rwanda, Burma, Bangladesh, and the Philippines (today, Ukraine would have been added), all involved in hostilities, and the sentence: ‘violence is blind to race, class and national borders: it happens everywhere’ (Prologue, p. 24). The readers witness the experiences of Yezidi women kidnapped by ISIS members, Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Boku Haram, women from the Tutsi tribe sexually assaulted by the neighbouring tribe of Hutu, Muslim women raped by Bosnian Serbs, Japanese sex slaves or women of Bengali descent abused by Pakistani soldiers during the war between India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The author documents images that are impossible to forget: an image from Bangladesh of a raped woman crawling among the corpses to finally find the body of her dead little son; a hospital image from Congo showing the red anal wound of a 7-month-old raped girl, or images of mutilated women raped with sharp fuel-soaked instruments, victims of brutal rapes causing the internal organ walls to rupture; an image of a map of Bosnia with 57 red dots marking rape camps where tens of thousands of women were brutally, collectively, and repeatedly raped.

Lamb creates a deliberate and very clear gender opposition and points out that wars are not caused by women. This book is an indictment of masculinity and at the same time a juxtaposition of male gender with instinct – incomprehensible and increasingly aberrant in every relationship. Our bodies, their battlefield is the story of how masculinity appropriates, objectifies, and disempowers women. The intimate nature of rape means that few cases are reported. In conflict zones, it is further fraught with fear of reprisal and stigmatization. This violence does not often end with an attack on the female body: ‘When they raped me, they killed me. You condemn people for killing, but what they did to us is worse, because they left us alive, but with the feeling that we don't exist at all, we are already dead inside’, the book's heroines say (Chapter 7, p. 174). Acts of bestiality are not at all associated with sex; rather, the theory of manifestation of power and strength emerges: barbaric wartime rapists are men without honour, morality, or any form of humanity. For the victim, the experience of this violence mostly means ruined life and psyche, and stigmatization in society. ‘What makes you think that telling my story will help me?’ asks Turko, one of the first heroines of Lamb's book (Chapter 2, p. 34). She and the other women leave the discomforting sphere of silence and stand up to the most courageous confrontations, bearing witness to powerlessness, anger, and almost unimaginable trauma. It is only through their courage that we can at least minimally understand that their experiences are beyond any cognitive categories. They bear witness to the struggle for justice: a difficult, arduous, painful, long-lasting, and sadly but often failed struggle. With their stories they question a number of definitions of humanity, they turn pain into power; they are survivors who, together with the author, give a signal for action. Our bodies, their battlefield is a very difficult, frightening, and heartrending read. The enormity of the suffering is overwhelming. As is its universality: it does happen, in all latitudes, in the twenty-first century. It should be noted that the author quotes facts and statements of the heroines with great respect and sensitivity, outlining the historical, political, social, and cultural background of the crimes described, making this shocking story a very valuable work. Especially now that we are witnessing hostilities in Ukraine, as the media report on group rapes of Ukrainian women, witnessed by their children, Lamb's book should be discussed and its contents should not go unnoticed. ‘In many ways it was a journey through the worst wickedness committed by man, and I thank you for persevering in it with me, as I know it was not an easy read. However, I hope ( … ) it made you realize why so much more needs to be done to end this bane’, says Lamb to her readers at the end of her work (Acknowledgements, p. 400). At the same time, she challenges us to seek answers to the questions raised in Olff’s Editorial.