Understanding and Addressing the Impact of Invisibility on Conflict-Related Male Sex Violence in Syria

Since November 2020, Dr Edel Hughes has been Principal Investigator on a project examining sexual violence against men in the context of the war in Syria. The project co-investigators are partners from the organisations Synergy for Justice and Lawyers and Doctors for Human Rights (LDHR) and it is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office. 

The premise of the study is that some violence has a high degree of associated social stigma and taboo, such as sexual violence - in peacetime or conflict. Prejudice and taboo shroud male sexual violence (MSV), particularly given traditional/binary gendered assumptions and prejudices which suggest “real men” are not the victims of such violations. The “taint” or criminality of homosexuality can also compound MSV stigma, especially where similar severe cultural taboos affect the LGBTQ+ community. These attitudes also form the root causes of such violence in the first place, especially in conflict where the emasculation, domination and breaking of opposition becomes a war strategy—a weapon of war. 

As drivers for invisibility post-violence, these norms isolate survivors from their support systems (family, community), resilience and recovery. Furthermore, protection strategies and responses are informed by the same social norms, failing to recognise the hidden phenomenon, and most often focus on the urgent need to tackle the same violations against women and children, thought to be more frequent and against more vulnerable groups. The situation is further influenced by the critical need to right gender inequalities which, through the same norms, have long disadvantaged women and girls across the world. As a result, male survivors are hidden and even excluded from any protection, responses or pathways to support and recovery. 

There are multiple drivers and layers of invisibility and throughout the project more than 100 men have been interviewed in order to determine what these drivers may be. We have also focused on the concept of stigma, ‘the idea that certain individuals are to be avoided or shunned, particularly in public places, as they are seen as ‘deviant’ or ‘morally polluted’, as Adler-Nissen puts it, which is central to understanding the impact of male conflict related sexual violence (CRSV). This stigma instils an “ethical loneliness” that results in “multiple lapses on the part of human beings and government institutions that, in failing to listen well to survivors, denies them redress by negating their testimony and denying their claim for justice” (Schultz/Stauffer). When applied to the Syrian landscape, this culture of silence can manifest in male survivors hiding their trauma from family and from their community. This has rendered male survivors of CRSV invisible and this invisibility maps out in a number of ways.