by Martin Shenkler

In most armed conflicts around the world the civilian population suffers from sexual violence. Most of the time women and children are targeted by soldiers and combatants who are, in general, male. Furthermore, as seen during conflicts in West Africa during the 1990s, but also in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and many more countries in the new millennium, under- age soldiers and children connected with fighting forces join their adult counterparts in fighting, looting, and in protection of their own interests to live up to violent masculinities created and proclaimed during the conflict.

The victimization of women and children, however, mistakably leads to ignoring one group of people, who also become victim of armed conflicts and sexual violence: men. Social and cultural definitions of men and masculinity hinder male victims to speak about sexual assaults, and if they try or want to, they often don’t know whom to turn to. Until a few years ago sexual violence against men in armed conflict was discussed solely by a few scholars and physicians. Even though academic work on men as victim of sexual violence in armed conflict steadily increases, the topic has broadly not reached yet national and international organizations working on gender, health and post-conflict conciliation. But there are two sides of the coin. While many organizations are limited to its funding, international action-plans and declarations, men around the world, too, are limited in what they can achieve in favor for their sex: The expected social role of men as breadwinners and protectors of the family makes it difficult to open a public debate and to access victims and perpetrators.

In Liberia, for example, sexual violence against men during the war that started 1989 and lasted until 2003 and its effects on men, women and society is an existing phenomenon that experiences little attention. It has been estimated by UNFPA that one-third of the Liberian male population were victims of sexual violence during the conflict. For entertainment purposes, men were often indiscriminately encouraged by soldiers at checkpoints to strip and pretend to have sexual intercourse with the bare ground or forced to have sexual intercourse with their mothers, sisters and daughters. Sexual abuse of male soldiers and combatants of the different warring fractions was used as torture to inflict physical and psychological suffering. For commanders and generals of armed groups, their position of power presented an opportunity to sexually abuse boys and young males to strengthen their Juju, their virility and combat power, based on traditional West African witchcraft and magic. But women, too, were perpetrators of sexual violence. They used the armed conflict to take revenge on their former boyfriends or lovers, or inflicted violence upon men to not become victims themselves.

The effects of the conflict in Liberia, but also in other past or present conflicts around the world, on both, men and women, are difficult to assess. Male and female witnesses, as well as male victims, remain haunted by emotional and psychological violence with a sexual background. In Liberia, men were witnesses of rape and sexual violence against men and women, including their own women, mothers, sisters and daughters. They were forced to undress in public places and streets. They were humiliated by words and blows on the naked body, and forced at gunpoint to simulate sexual intercourse with other men. Sexual violence was utilized primarily under the influence of drugs, another problem that does not gain much attention in the international media and on the international agenda. Men were victims when they did not cooperate with the armed factions or when they hesitated or refused to take part in the fighting. For many men joining an armed faction offered the opportunity to escape violence, to materially gain, and simply to survive.

As soon as a violent and devastating conflict ends, scholars and humanitarian personnel observe a social and demographical transformation. Internal migration in search for food, shelter and employment creates urbanization, while the reconstruction of the government, the administration and the security sector is the primary concern for a country’s institutions in rebuilding its society. During this time, a transformation of a society can touch its core, may even change its habits, norms and values, always depending on what the surviving and returning people want to remember, as well as publicly discuss and debate. In Liberia prior to the war, the relationships between males and females took place under the umbrella of hegemonic masculinities, a term that describes the power relations between the sexes, but also between masculinities within different social class and ethnic affiliation. Men dominated the social environment, controlled the political and economic structures, and dictated marital and non-marital relationships.

Many of these traditions and cultural values have been carried to the present. However, due to intervening human and social development leading to a decrease in social control and the influence of former hierarchies, these traditions and values can no longer be upheld. In the Liberian society, men define themselves through masculine attributes such as physical and emotional strength. Men hold power within their family and society, are providers and protectors. Before the war, the origin of these attributes are to be found in the Bush Schools of the secret indigenous Poro societies, where most boys were brought up and raised with masculine values and initiated into manhood. Children that were raised during the war or even fought may have other values and define their masculinities through superiority, violence and the barrel of their guns. As head of the home, the man claims control over his wife and children, but also maintains a cultural obligation to provide for his family and to send his children to school.

It may be assumed that the masculine sharing of responsibilities would relieve men of individual obligation and social pressure. However, this culture of masculine power and patronage seems to be an obstacle to men’s self-fulfillment and constrains their own development. In a society where men have live up to hegemonic masculinities it is not uncommon to see men leaving their families behind when the female partner becomes the sole breadwinner, rather than becoming subordinate to their economically stronger wives and female partners. Men put themselves and others under social pressure, and thus create a form of emotional violence from which they suffer.

Due to the visible empowerment programs for women through the government and national and international organizations, men are confronted with their own culture and tradition, but not integrated in the process of empowerment. They are instructed on how to treat women, and are sometimes even infantilized and talked down to. Billboards and stickers often show slogans that discriminate and trivialize men, and subject them to a Western image of masculinity. As in industrialized countries, men in countries of conflict or post-conflict societies are fearful of losing their position in their families and in society, the patriarchy in which they grew up. Their main focus is not upholding tradition and culture, but rather the power structures that define men as decision makers. Men want equal rights, but do not want to lose their privileges. Exposed to various forms of violence with sexual, cultural, economic, legal and social components, this violence produces physical, mental and emotional suffering, restraining men in their free development. Men feel they lack the ability to control violence against themselves, and against other men and women. The Liberian man cannot traditionally be a victim, but due to his fear of losing his role in his family and society, that limitation may be changing.

In Liberia, as in many other countries, men have not been recognized as potential change agents by national and international organizations working on gender. There is no existing networking that identifies men as victims. Masculinities and the strong idea that men can not be victims of sexual violence may be the reason for neglecting men as recognizable, valuable partners in the sphere of gender equity and empowerment. Sexual violence against men that is not discussed by men and women themselves may lead to traumatization and a generation of men that eventually blame women for being left out by gender and health programs of national and international organizations, thus creating and even increasing domestic violence against both, men and women.

1 This article is based on field research conducted in Liberia in 2010 for the author’s Masters thesis at the Center for Conflict Studies, Philipps-University of Marburg, Germany. 2 United Nations Population Fund (2010): State of the World Population 2010. From conflict and crisis to renewal: generations of change. United Nations Population Fund: New York. 3 Connell, Raewyn (2005): Masculinities. Polity Press: Cambridge.