The Christian Science Monitor: The phenomenon of "bush wives" plagues many of the world's conflicts. Innorthern Uganda, for example, an estimated 1 in 6 young girls in the war-affected region have been kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army.
The pattern has existed under a veil of silence. The abused women rarely comeforward to challenge their abusers. Until recently, there have been nomechanisms within peace agreements for addressing these and other sexual abusesagainst women.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone ruled in a landmark case that the soldiersin Sierra Leone's rebel Armed Forces Revolutionary Council who forced young girls into marriage committed a "crime against humanity."
Donald Steinberg says: Labeling forced marriage a crime against humanity has a number of importanteffects. 1) It allows the international community to step in and prosecute whether or not local laws and legal authorities wish to pursue the cases. 2) It validatesthe suffering of these women and at least partially removes the shame in suchcases. 3) It helps remove the stigma of "victimization" of women in conflict that has led to their systematic exclusion from peace processes and post conflict governance.
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It has one other benefit (or disadvantage, depending on your point of view). At least in some cases it gives the victims, or the potential victims, of forced marriage an opportunity to apply for refugee status in several countries that find the practice abhorrent.
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