That the UK’s first major exhibition dedicated to highlighting sexual violence in conflict is only opening in 2025 seems like an aberration, until the exhibition itself reminds the viewer that, historically, it has been either overlooked or dismissed as an inevitable by-product of war.
Although, at the end of the second world war, evidence of widespread sexual violence was presented at both the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes tribunals, no formal charges were filed. It was the best part of half a century later, in 1993, that the first international arrest warrants for the specific use of rape during war were issued, during the war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia. It would take a further five years for the International Criminal Court to recognise sexual violence in conflict, in any form, as a crime against humanity.
It is that which Imperial War Museums (IWM) seeks to address in the aptly-titled Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict, which has just opened at IWM London. It was while redeveloping the site’s second world war and Holocaust galleries six years ago that the museum decided it needed a dedicated space to tell the story from start to finish, looking at all of its underlying societal structures and causes.
“There was a feeling, looking at the collection, that the museum did have the objects to tell the stories about sexual violence, and that it was important to have a dedicated space for those objects,” Nathan Doherty, a curator on the exhibition, tells me. “And then there was a full review of the collection to find exactly what stories we have already in the collection and how we can tell it.
“Sexual violence has happened in almost every single conflict under the Imperial War Museum’s scope, from the first world war to conflicts happening today, so it was very difficult to find which topics and which themes to put into the exhibition… it was very much centred around picking ones which contributed towards our three key themes. The first one is the representations and structures, the second is the actual manifestations and some of the big-scale examples, and the third is justice and reconciliation, so we’re looking at exactly that: justice, that process for survivors and victims. And so trying to find the stories which best told those themes became a priority.”
The result is a vital if inevitably deeply uncomfortable (the museum advises the exhibition is only suitable for those aged 16 or over) exploration of how and why sexual violence is perpetrated, its impact on victims and survivors and the pursuit of justice and reconciliation.
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It begins by highlighting how war and conflict reinforce and exacerbate pre-existing gender roles: men strong, dominant and aggressive, women at best to be protected, at worst not to be trusted. Wartime propaganda posters either urge British men to wreak vengeance for the women killed in bombing raids (“Men of Britain! Will you stand this?”), not to discuss plans around them (“Keep mum – she’s not so dumb!”) or avoid contracting sexually transmitted diseases from them (“Beautiful? If you could see what the doctor sees you’d ‘leave ‘em alone!’”).
Therefore, inequalities reinforced and exacerbated, it does not require a huge leap in faith to move on to the second part, where, through personal testimony, papers and artwork, Unsilenced highlights the different ways in which sexual violence in conflict can manifest.
Exhibits explore Germany’s invasion of Belgium in August 1914, marking the beginning of the first world ar, and within months of which witnesses reported German soldiers raping women and torturing civilians before killing them. Others investigate the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces’ creation of the ‘Comfort Women Corps’ during the second world war in an attempt to minimise rape against civilian populations and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. A sign taken from the door of a Japanese brothel in Burma in 1944 is spattered with the words “closed/just having a temporary ‘rest’” on one side and “sold out” on the other, a reminder these women were mere commodities.
70 years later, Islamic State carried out a genocide against the Yazidi people, with women and girls sold as slaves, forced to convert to Islam and repeatedly raped. An ISIS Q&A pamphlet is on display here, explaining to their fighters that it is permissible to keep “slave women” who are “disbelievers” and that it is acceptable to “lie carnally” with these women as they are now deemed possessions. They go on to explain the appropriate punishment should she disrespect her “master” or attempt to flee.
Even domestically in the UK, there are harrowing tales of how conflict can lead to sexual abuse. The wartime evacuation of children during the second world war is now portrayed in popular culture as a sort of jolly Famous Five adventure; private papers of those who experienced abuse while far from their families paint a rather different picture.
It is with the noticeably brighter final section that ongoing and historic battles for justice and reconciliation are spotlighted, from the grassroots activism of Korea’s ‘comfort women’, who to this day continue to demonstrate outside Seoul’s Japanese embassy every Wednesday, to the legal challenges of children born as a result of sexual violence during the 1990s Bosnian war to the work of four key NGOs who have contributed to this exhibition: Women for Women International, All Survivors Project, Free Yezidi Foundation and Waging Peace.
Because this isn’t history. The exhibition’s introductory video reminds the visitor that sexual violence continues to be wielded as a weapon by Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, on men as well as women. Indeed, when reminded that Stalin, far from condemning the rapes carried out by Soviet soldiers in the spring of 1945, asked what was the harm in “having fun with a woman”, I was reminded of reports early in the current conflict of Russian wives promising to turn a blind eye to what their husbands did to Ukrainian women.
“As far back as history goes and war goes you’ll find examples of conflict, in ancient history, Roman times, ancient Greek times, you’ll be able to find examples of sexual violence in conflict,” says Doherty. “It’s a war crime which is still happening today and is still happening in conflicts all around the world today and so it’s important. It’s still somewhat of an under-discussed topic and a neglected topic, but it is happening today, and so it’s so important to spread awareness and understanding of it.”
Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict runs at IWM London until November 2
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