Fachtagung: Trauma – Erinnerung – Mahnung. Sexuelle Gewalt in kriegerischen Konflikten

In the organizer's words:

Sexual violence in armed conflicts is a global phenomenon. It has devastating consequences for victims and survivors, causes trauma, destroys families and damages social structures over generations. In long-standing conflicts, sexual violence was hardly documented or was strongly marginalized. Such acts are now punishable under international law. And yet for most survivors, their voices are not heard enough.

The aim of the conference is to take stock of the current state of interdisciplinary research. Renowned international academics will address the topic from different geographical, regional and temporal perspectives and ask how sexual violence in wars is located in different cultures of remembrance.

PROGRAMME

9.15 - 9.30 a.m.

Welcome

Dr. Christin Pschichholz, Documentation Centre Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation

9.30 - 11.00 a.m.

Panel 1: Sexual violence in armed conflicts: Forms, explanations and visualization

Chair: Dr. Claudia Kemper, LWL Institute for Westphalian Regional History Münster

PD Dr. Regina Mühlhäuser, Hamburg Institute for Social Research:

Military, Body, Politics. Sexual violence in armed conflicts and rape as a weapon of war

Prof. em. Dr. Rolf Pohl, Gottfried Wilhelm-Leibniz-Universität Hannover:

Sexual violence in civilian life and in war. On gender, sexism and destructive sexuality in male-dominated societies

Helen Upcraft, Imperial War Museum, London:

Unsilenced: An Exhibition about Sexual Violence

Talk

11.00 - 11.15 a.m.

Break

11.15-12.45

Panel 2: When are survivors allowed to speak? Perspectives in the context of the Second World War

Chair: Prof. Dr. Sebastian Conrad, Free University of Berlin

Dr. Sachiyo Tsukamoto, University of Newcastle (AUS):

The Politics of Trauma and Integrity. Stories of Japanese "Comfort Women"

Dr. Insa Eschebach, Free University of Berlin:

Forms of sexual violence in the Second World War: Wehrmacht, SS, Red Army

Prof. Dr. Maren Röger, Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO)/University of Leipzig:

Speaking out loud, eloquent silence: On wartime sexual violence by the Red Army and the comparative approach after 1945

Discussion

12.45 - 14.30

Lunch break

14.30 - 16.00

Panel 3: Rwanda and Bosnia: The long shadows of violence

Chair: Dr. Sabine Rutar, Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, Regensburg

Dr. Jennie E. Burnet, Georgia State University, USA:

From Solidarity to Abandonment: How International Activism Tokenized Rwandan Genocide Sexual Violence Survivors

Dr. Monika Hauser, medica mondiale e.V.:

Weapon of war or patriarchal continuum? Dimensions of sexualized war violence - medica mondiale's experience since Bosnia and Herzegovina

Prof. Dr. Heide Glaesmer, University of Leipzig:

Children of war - concealed origins and intergenerational consequences

Discussion

16.00 - 16.15

Break

16.15 - 17.45

Panel 4: Current conflicts and new dimensions of sexualized violence

Chair: Dr. Alex Kay, University of Potsdam

Prof. Dr. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan:

Accountability for Conflict Related Sexual Violence: October 7 as a Case-Study

Dr. Alexander Schwarz, European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights e.V.:

Gender-based violence against Yazidi women and the role of international criminal justice

Dr. Sabine Fischer, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Berlin:

Russia's war in Ukraine: Sexual violence against men and women

Discussion

17.45 - 18.00

Break

18.00 - 19.30

Panel discussion

The concluding panel discussion will ask how sexual violence in armed conflicts can be incorporated into historical awareness and remembrance work. What role can visual forms of remembrance play in this? And what is necessary in order to understand the topic not as a "women's issue", but as a challenge for society and security policy as a whole?

Panel guests:

Reem Alabali-Radovan, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development (requested)

Serap Güler, State Secretary at the Federal Foreign Office

Düzen Tekkal, HÁWAR help e.V.

Maria Werthan, Honorary President of the Women's Association of the Federation of Expellees e.V.

Moderation: Prof. Dr. Kerstin von Lingen, University of Vienna

FURTHER INFORMATION

Admission time: 09.00 a.m.

Language: Conference languages are German and English. Simultaneous translation will be provided.

FREE ADMISSION

WITH REGISTRATION

• Opening evening
  November 4, 6:00 - 9:00 p.m.
• Workshop: Genocide against the Yazidis - remembering and documenting
  November 6, 10.00 - 12.00 a.m.
• Workshop: Painterly expression of inner experiences. Biographical workshop
  November 6, 10.00 a.m. - 12.00 p.m.

The event takes place in cooperation with the Frauenverband im Bund der Vertriebenen e.V. and HÁWAR help e.V.

Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Senate of Berlin and the District of Mitte.