Last updated on August 1, 2011
In an excellent article in Foreign Affairs, the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Amber Peterman and her coauthors discuss the under- and over-reporting of rape cases that occur in conjunction with war, and how this isn’t just an academic issue:
“So the majority of rape estimates are really nothing more than highly educated guesswork. Yet some of the world’s most trusted international news sources have cited as fact statistics that are implausible on their face. A 2002 BBC article, citing an advocacy organization, stated that ‘a girl born in South Africa will have a greater chance of being raped than learning how to read.’ It is true that South Africa has one of the highest rates of sexual violence in the world, but it is almost certainly not true that the rape rate surpasses 97.5 percent, which is the UN estimate for literacy among females aged 15 to 24 in South Africa.
Similarly, prominent advocacy organizations and media outlets have reported that 75 percent of Liberian women suffered wartime rape. The best available survey data indicates the number is closer to ten to twenty percent — a staggering problem, but nothing close to what has become the conventional wisdom, which seems to have arisen from a misinterpretation of a small-scale study.
Presenting extrapolations as fact hurts efforts to prevent and address wartime sexual violence. Falsely specific figures may attract the attention of an otherwise apathetic public, but they may also endanger future victims of rape. Will anyone care if ‘only’ five percent of women get raped in the next civil war?”