Volume 6, Issue 1, 2025, pp. 16-26

ABSTRACT: When we think about weapons of war at first glance we remember guns, bullets, and bombs, not rape or sexual violence. But Rape does more than just wound which is a military strategy used to deny and destroy the identity of a targeted community. Historically, sexual violence in armed conflicts was considered a byproduct of war, simply as unrestrained sexual behavior amid lawlessness and a breakdown of societal infrastructure. When one digs deeper into the aims and intentions, sexual violence came out as a strategic tool of discrimination and hate, and a weapon of warfare, largely targeted at humiliation, torture, demoralization, and individual or collective shaming. In many recent conflicts, like in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Myanmar even in Ukraine rape and sexual violence were used as a weapon of terrorizing and showing of power to the enemy group by targeting civilians. But as history remains silent about punishing the perpetrators the same is happening today. Most of the time perpetrators go away with it. This study will discuss why it is important to consider rape or sexual violence in armed conflict as a weapon of war to separate them from generalized and to determine how it can be prosecuted. There will be a discussion on how perpetrators exploit sexual violence as a tactic of war in modern-day armed conflicts exemplifying some recent atrocities. By spotlighting these atrocities, this study will also underscore why international accountability fails to prosecute perpetrators and how justice will be served to the victims.