Revisiting the Structures of Sexual Violence and Transitional Justice through the 2026 UN Report

In August 2014, the Islamic State (IS), a Sunni extremist militant group, stormed the small village of Kocho in northern Iraq. Most of the men were killed, while the women and children were taken away in trucks. Among them was Nadia Murad. After being held in sexual slavery, Nadia managed to escape when security was relaxed. Since then, she has spoken out about the suffering of Yazidi women who suffered as she did and has advocated for human rights in the fight against sexual violence. Also active in this field is Denis Mukwege, a human rights advocate who supports women who have experienced wartime sexual violence around the world. He founded SEMA, a global network of victims and survivors to end wartime sexual violence. SEMA recently supported Ukrainian women in their efforts to identify Russian soldiers as perpetrators of sexual violence. An obstetrician-gynecologist, Denis Mukwege dedicated himself to treating and rehabilitating victims as sexual violence perpetrated by armed groups surged amid the escalating civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Despite political and physical threats, he has also worked to raise international awareness of wartime sexual violence and has advocated for an end to the war and the prosecution of perpetrators.

In 2018, the Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to these two individuals in recognition of their “efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of armed conflict.” The award came at a time when the global, MeToo movement was drawing widespread attention to sexual violence and raising public awareness of the issue. The Nobel Committee’s recognition of wartime sexual violence reflects how conflict-related sexual violence has come to be understood not only as a war crime but also as an issue of peace.

International Norms on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Developed by Women’s and Peace Movements

However, it was not until the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) in 2000 that awareness of wartime sexual violence became part of the United Nations’ (UN) official discourse. From the 1970s through the 1990s, women’s movement and peace movements helped foster an understanding that sexual violence in everyday life and conflict-related sexual violence were by no means separate phenomena. At the same time, they developed theoretical frameworks for understanding violence against women as an issue rooted in militarism. Building on decades of activism and research, the recognition that “violence against women is a peace issue” became embedded in international norms.

Since then, this trend has gradually taken more concrete shape. In 2008, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1820 (UNSCR 1820) was the first to explicitly recognize sexual violence in armed conflict as a war crime. It defined sexual violence as both a tactic of war and a threat to international peace and security. In 2009, the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict (OSRSG-SVC) was established, and a team of experts was deployed under UNSCR 1888. In 2010, UNSCR 1960 introduced a system for listing parties to armed conflict and established a monitoring mechanism to track perpetrators. In 2013, the UN adopted follow-up resolutions to support practical implementation, including measures emphasizing judicial accountability and the prosecution of perpetrators (UNSCR 2106). By 2019, UNSCR 2467 explicitly established a victim-centered approach as a guiding principle. This trajectory reflects how the international community has come to recognize sexual violence not as “unavoidable harm” but as a clear war crime.

Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: A Tactic of War and a Tool of Social Control

Released by the UN in April 2026, the report Conflict-related sexual violence: Report of the Secretary-General (hereinafter, “the Report”) provides an indication of how effectively the international norms developed and agreed upon by the international community are implemented in practice. The most striking finding in the Report is the sharp increase in sexual violence. In 2025 alone, 9,788 cases of sexual violence were officially “verified,” more than double the number verified in the previous year. Pramila Patten, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, notes that this surge reflects the growing brutality and protracted nature of conflicts. Moreover, the longer wars continue, the more resources are diverted to weapons production, creating a vicious cycle in which support for victims and prevention programs are sharply reduced.

The Report also highlights the increasingly diverse forms of sexual violence. It notes, in particular, that new alleged perpetrators of conflict-related sexual violence have been added to the list, including parties implicated in recent conflicts such as those between Israel and Hamas and between Russia and Ukraine. By examining the Report’s key findings, we can look beyond the numbers and facts to explore the realities on the ground and the underlying structures that sustain such violence.

The Report repeatedly emphasizes that rape, sexual slavery, and abductions are not isolated incidents but are used deliberately as “tactics.” In protracted conflicts, sexual violence instills fear in local populations, driving residents from their villages and undermining community cohesion. In the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sexual violence is used to seize control of resource-rich territories, while in South Sudan, it is deployed to punish rival communities, triggering forced displacement. In Burkina Faso, Mali, and northern Mozambique, abduction and sexual slavery are used as tactics of terror against specific groups. In Colombia, armed groups engage in both small-arms trafficking and human trafficking as revenue-generating activities, effectively turning them into a business.

The problem is that such violence does not end with temporary sexual exploitation. It can have serious consequences for women’s pregnancies and health. As in South Sudan, survivors of sexual violence and their children may be excluded from their local communities’ socioeconomic networks and subjected to discrimination. In this way, sexual violence can threaten survivors’ very survival. Reports have even documented the summary execution of survivors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar, as well as cases of suicide in Afghanistan and Myanmar.

Conflict-related sexual violence used to control, expel, or annihilate specific villages, groups, or ethnic communities is not merely a war crime; it also functions as a tool of social control through which one group or society dominates another. It is an attempt to exert control over the conflict itself through women’s bodies. This form of violence is closely linked to gender structures in peacetime. The patriarchal view of women’s bodies as symbols of family honor or national morality operates in everyday life by policing women’s clothing, behavior, and freedom of movement, thereby restricting the scope of their everyday activities. In wartime, the same patriarchal logic is deployed through sexual violence to control the men and society of the opposing group. Wartime sexual violence and everyday sexual violence are thus rooted in the same structures. Both serve to maintain a patriarchal order that controls women’s bodies and places them under male protection.

Intertwined Harm and Erased Lives

The Report also highlights that rape rarely occurs in isolation but is part of a complex pattern of interconnected violence involving abduction, forced marriage, sexual slavery, human trafficking, and even the recruitment of girls for use as child soldiers. These interconnected forms of violence are also linked to a war economy that relies on recruiting combatants and securing funding. The UN notes that sexual violence within these networks is perpetrated by a wide range of actors—not only state military personnel and police officers, but also resistance fighters, smaller armed groups, and gangs—making it difficult to identify and hold individual perpetrators accountable.

Another point worth noting is that, although women and girls remain the overwhelming majority of victims, sexual violence against men is also being reported. Such violence typically occurs in detention facilities alongside physical abuse, including beatings. Yet many male survivors describe what they experienced as “torture” rather than “sexual violence.” As a result, they often fail to access appropriate support services for survivors of sexual violence. In Israeli detention facilities, sexual violence in the form of torture targeting men and boys has been frequently reported. Reports have also revealed that survivors of rape, attempted rape, and genital violence were left without medical care despite suffering physical aftereffects such as rectal bleeding and swelling. These incidents were also accompanied by threats warning them not to report the abuse.

In Ukraine, 52 cases of sexual violence against male detainees were confirmed. In many cases, the violence was used to punish, coerce confessions, or humiliate the victims. The Report also highlights the risks faced by LGBTQ+ people in detention facilities.

Male survivors and LGBTQ+ people are likewise subject to gender norms. The shame and stigma associated with a perceived loss of masculinity lead some male survivors to describe what they experienced solely as torture rather than sexual violence, effectively rendering them invisible in statistics and support systems. The Report also documents the emergence of digital sexual violence as a further form of abuse. In Haiti and South Sudan, perpetrators filmed and stored videos of sexual violence to threaten and humiliate survivors, while in Colombia, there were cases in which such videos were circulated to create an atmosphere of fear. Technological advances are also changing the ways in which violence is perpetrated.

Those Who Go Unpunished

Calling for the public disclosure of perpetrators’ names and monitoring their activities are important measures for holding them accountable and preventing further violence. Yet one of the central challenges in addressing sexual violence is that perpetrators and the states involved often refuse to acknowledge the violence or take steps to remedy it.

This is particularly evident in the recent conflicts between Israel and Hamas, and between Russia and Ukraine. In connection with the attacks of October 7, 2023, Hamas was listed in the Report but did not acknowledge any incidents of sexual violence. In 2025, the UN verified cases of sexual violence amounting to torture against 31 individuals from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. However, most of the incidents attributed to Israeli military and security forces—including the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Special Forces Units of Israel in the IDF, and the Israel Police’s Counter-Terrorism Unit (Yamam)—remain uninvestigated or unresolved, as the Government of Israel continues to deny access to detention facilities and to Gaza. Human rights violations have also occurred at checkpoints in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and during Israeli military operations, yet the Israeli government has continued to evade responsibility.

In July 2024, there was evidence that five reservists had sexually assaulted a detainee at the Sde Teiman military camp. Yet the indictment did not include charges of sexual violence or rape, and all charges were dropped in March 2026. Meanwhile, reports of sexual violence by victims have continued to emerge, but UN entities have been unable to verify them because the Israeli government has continued to deny access. Similarly, in 2025, Russia blocked UN Watch from accessing areas where sexual violence was being documented, both in occupied Ukrainian territories and within the Russian Federation. As a result, the international community has struggled to obtain information or even check what is happening on the ground.

Transitional Justice: A Difficult but Necessary Path

Conflict-related sexual violence is a universal human rights issue and an important agenda for peace. Therefore, it must not be treated as an isolated matter that is resolved simply by punishing a few perpetrators. Establishing the truth and ensuring that perpetrators acknowledge their actions and accept responsibility must go hand in hand with safeguarding survivors’ dignity and safety and enabling them to rebuild their lives free from discrimination, stigma, and economic hardship. This requires transitional justice: a process of social recovery that includes measures to prevent sexual violence from recurring. Even when a war ends, peace cannot be said to have been achieved if the structures that sustain violence remain intact. Accordingly, the Report also examines whether states have provided reparations to survivors and implemented measures to support social recovery, as illustrated by the experiences of survivors in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, as well as Yazidi women.

Why, then, does transitional justice keep being sidelined? One reason is the disproportionate allocation of material resources to national security and militarization. By contrast, the support infrastructure provided by women’s organizations and state agencies for survivors remains weak. Indeed, the 2026 Report expresses concern that declining material support from the international community is leading to cuts in shelter services, hospital closures, and the suspension of counseling services. Meanwhile, misogynistic speech and online threats are further constraining the work of human rights activists.

Therefore, the international community must now ask how militarization erodes the material conditions necessary for achieving transitional justice. It must also examine what fiscal austerity under neoliberal economic structures entails and whose lives become more vulnerable as a result. What, then, does holding perpetrators accountable involve? Perpetrators are not merely individuals; they belong to institutions and groups such as the military, the police, armed organizations, and political elites. Holding them accountable therefore entails the complex task of challenging the legitimacy of these institutions and addressing state responsibility. In other words, uncovering the truth and establishing accountability ultimately involve critiquing power and reshaping a male-dominated security order.

This is why the issue of sexual violence is often sidelined in peace negotiations. It is precisely at this point that the need for women and marginalized groups to participate directly in every stage of truth-seeking and peace negotiations becomes all the more evident.