Over recent years, there has been much discussion, debate and advancement in understanding how international law of starvation might apply to on-going crises. Significantly, few of these conversations have considered the intersection of crimes of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and starvation.
Yet, evidence from across cases of famine and mass starvation demonstrate that SGBV and starvation are mutually reinforcing harms and crimes. When mass starvation conditions exist, SGBV, particularly against women and girls, increases in ways that respond to and are shaped by the conditions driving mass starvation. There are also specific conditions where SGBV could increase the likelihood of starvation, for example, when breastfeeding infants or young children are forcibly separated from their mothers who are being sexually violated and they starve.
This project probes the intersection of the law of starvation and SGBV, with the goal of sharing expertise across currently siloed research and policy arenas. We aim to develop new ways of understanding, documenting and analyzing, preventing, responding to and punishing actors who perpetrate these harms.
