Sexual Violence against Women in Armed Conflict- A Hidden Atrocity

Gender based violence is a serious issue which mostly affects women. Human rights violations on the basis of gender are prevalent in times of war and armed conflict. In most of the conflict situations, women are the worst sufferers. They experience violence, sexual slavery and other human rights abuses in times of armed conflict. Gender based violence gets complicated when the civilian women are targeted at times of armed conflict. They suffer at the hands of state and non state actors, and also the peacekeeping forces. They become most vulnerable and fall an easy target to exploitation for the reason of their gender, age and status. Gender based violence is a grave human rights violation, which violates the right to security of person and freedom from torture and cruel or degrading treatment. The state actors must respond and take responsibility of the victims of such gender based violence. Timely intervention must be made so that the victims can be provided the required assistance and can be rehabilitated. Victims of sexual violence in armed conflict must be given emergency relief and assistance. Despite this, there aren’t enough guarantees that protect human rights of women in armed conflict. The paper aims at exploring the international documents related to humanitarian law, the kinds of protection available at the time of armed conflict and finally an assessment of the current mechanisms safeguarding human rights violations