The Memorialization of Sexual Violence in Conflict and War

Abstract

This paper investigates the similarities and differences in memorializing wartime sexual violence through three case studies. The first is Comfort Women memorials in the United States, the second case study looks at the national memorial in Srebrenica in the wake of the Bosnian genocide and its counter-memorial, and the third case study examines the differences between national and counter-memorials after the Rwandan genocide. This paper also examines how and why the meaning of the memorials has changed or why a counter-memorial was established. It relies on newspaper articles, city and county government documents, and interviews with individuals important to the process of creating the monuments as well as those who opposed and continue to oppose the monuments. This paper reveals an absence of rape discourse within war memorialization that is gendered and problematic.