Vergewaltigung von Männern in Kriegs- und Krisengebieten stärker Thema

Eine Passage meiner aktuellen männerpolitischen Bücher beschäftigt sich mit einem Thema, das in der Geschlechterdebatte sonst noch weitgehend tabuisiert wird: sexuelle Gewalt gegen Männer insbesondere in Gebieten, wo Krieg, Bürgerkrieg oder eine andere Krise dieser Art herrscht. In den vergangenen Tagen gingen zwei weitere Artikel online, die an diesem Tabu rütteln.

So heißt es in dem Artikel Men as Victims of Rape:

Male rape is widespread, particularly in conflict situations. Because only few men report cases of rape, statistics underrepresent the actual number of men who are sexually assaulted. In addition to Egypt, the rape of political prisoners has been reported in Chile, Greece, Iran, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), El Salvador, and Sarajevo during the Bosnian conflict.

The number of male victims of rape in some conflict situations is staggering. The United Nations stated that, out of 5,000 males held in detention in Sarajevo during the Bosnian conflict, 80 percent acknowledged having been sexually abused. During the war in El Salvador, 76 percent of male political prisoners reported having been sexually abused.

In Iran, allegations of rape and sexual abuse of both males and females in prison started to emerge after the Republic of Iran was established in 1979. In Uganda, Sudan, South Africa, and the Democratic Republic of Congo there are many personal testimonies that attest to the continuation of this practice.

At the Sexual Violence and Research Initiative (SVRI) meeting carried out in Cape Town, South Africa, in October 2011, Jocelyn Kelly of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative at Harvard University stated that the term “sexual violence” in the DRC had become synonymous with the rape of women by armed militia. As a consequence, programs excluded male survivors of abuse and gender-base violence (GBV).

(...) Men are particularly reluctant to denounce that they were subjected to rape. When men who were raped return to their communities they—and their families—face stigmatization. A study on rape of men quotes a respondent saying, "When a man is raped, his family is also raped." Frequently, families who have one of its male members raped lose their status in their community.

Another reason why males resist denouncing their rape is that they are afraid of being branded as homosexuals, in countries where there is strong discrimination against gay people. Moses Kamba, who was raped by soldiers in his hometown in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, told Al-Jazeera, "After what they did to me, I felt ashamed. It was a bad experience in my life. I left Congo when I was broken and confused. I felt I had lost my dignity, with too much pain on my body."

Physicians and paramedical personnel must be trained on how to deal with the victims of male rape. These men need counseling and support to denounce the abuse and they need help with legal and labor matters. Addressing sexual violence both against women and men is one of the critical human rights challenges of our time.

Wie schade, dass sich dieser wichtigen menschenrechtlichen Herausforderung fast nur die Männerrechtsbewegung stellt, die vom geschlechterpolitischen Mainstream gerne mit Rechtsextremen verglichen und ausgegrenzt wird. Und wie schade, dass einer der Wortführer dieser Ausgrenzung, Thomas Gesterkamp, bizarrerweise Stichwortgeber für das sogenannte "Bundesforum Männer" ist, das Männerrechtler als "antiemanzipatorisch" zurückweist.

Demselben Problembereich widmet sich der Artikel Powerful myths silence male victims of rape in war, wo es heißt:

In a sign of increasing recognition of the issue, last year, for the first time, men and boys were named as victims of sexual violence in conflicts in a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Resolution 2106 calls on member states to hold perpetrators of sexual violence to account, but privately, U.N. officials say many states still refuse to acknowledge the possibility of male victims of sexual violence.

This denial could be because some abuse is taking place in prisons or detention centres, or equally, because discussions about sex are largely avoided in conservative countries.

What's clear is that few male victims of conflict-related sexual violence can rely on the state for justice.

Up to 90 percent of them are from countries where the law provides no protection for them, Refugee Law Project said. Sixty-three countries, representing almost two-thirds of the world's population, recognise only female victims of rape - and 70 states criminalise men who report being raped.

Neglected by the state, male victims have also been neglected by humanitarian groups, some aid workers admit.

Rocco Blume, Plan UK's policy and research manager, said he had come across a number of cases of sexual violence against men in his career working for a clutch of organisations, primarily in South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia.

But none of his employers had a system for dealing with it, or even recognising it.

"There was never a recognition that this is a phenomenon that needs to be addressed," Blume told Thomson Reuters Foundation. "All of us have been complicit in neglecting to address this issue."

(...) Some of the resistance is from those who believe the problem is so negligible it barely merits attention, experts say. Others are worried that a focus on male victims harms another hard-fought battle, to improve the status and rights of women.

There are many who are still do not see sexual violence against men as an act of brutality to humiliate and disempower the victim, but rather an act of homosexuality, experts say.

"Survivors ... report that doctors, counsellors and even aid workers frequently endorse homophobic ideas that male victims of rape are gay," Refugee Law Project's report said, adding that this discrimination reduces the support on offer and contributes to the stigmatisation and isolation of survivors.

Immerhin werden in den Artikeln einige zentrale Ursachen für dieses Missverhältnis klar benannt: Stramm konservative Geschlechterbilder. Homophobie. Und die Vorstellung, dass Hilfe, die Männern zuteil werden könnte, den offenbar einzig würdigen Opfern – den Frauen – schaden könnte.