In exceptional cases is sexual violence not perpetrated in conflict or very rare. According to Elisabeth Wood, this is, for instance, the situation “where the organization prohibits sexual violence and effectively enforces that decision through a tightly controlled military hierarchy in which punishment is swift and severe” and cites the case of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam of Sri Lanka as an example. The organization and structure of military organizations, and the types of training, indoctrination and punishment schemes that exist within armed groups, could therefore explain the (relative) absence of conflict-related sexual violence in some instances. Reasons for such prohibitive and preventative rules on CRSV within the organizations’ structure can be: 1) normative (ideological) reasons; 2) strategic reasons (e.g. it may reduce access to high-quality intelligence from the civilian population); 3) practical reasons (e.g. risk of diseases or a general detoriation of discipline); and 4) sanctions and punishment (e.g. international naming and shaming of governments, perpetrator(s) (groups)). In other words, if the costs of CRSV are high enough, armed groups may refrain from committing CRSV.

Conflict-related sexual violence is therefore not necessarily an inevitable product of conflict, as has oftentimes and long been stated, which means that CRSV can also be prevented.

Listen to Elisabeth Wood’s interview “Sexual Violence During War” to understand under what circumstances CRSV may be absent or rare: