Family is tiw basic unit oi society It bonds the so lety culturally and econo mically. Family is a social instl tution which everyone belongs to at some Mate ol his/twi Ilk It plays the tnosl important roles to mould the life of an Individ ual. It transmits traditions, values. etc from older to younger generations and perforins many functions without which human life becomes unworthy and or intolerable. A family provides emotional as well as economic needs to Its mem bers. In providing these needs women as members of the family play the most Important roles. In addition to bearing . and raring children, historically women have been responsible for most domestic works. Through their roles they keep the family integrated In fact, in the absence of appropriate and adequate roles of women, a family lends to disintegrate. To ensure sus-twined welfare of the society ' there’ is a need to keep families Integrated so that they can ■ play their appropriate roles.

Fortunately, this need has been recognized by the world com rtiunity.

War_violates many human rights. It creates havoc, confu sion disillusion among people. Wars are usually the result of political, economic, commercial and religious or ideological conflicts between nation^. In ■ most cases it Is the strong who tries to exploit the weak. War causes brutal widespread genocide, and is obviously Is full of Violence which affect adversely all walks of human life. The genocide and violence caused by wars adversely affect all people, in general, but women and family in particular. much more severely. During and after wars women become the worst victim. Due to their physical and biological vulnerability, women suffer more than their male counterparts in wars and civil strives. As a result, families disintegrate.

’ Violence against women Ie almost a- universal phtHiome-non. In almost every country of the world women share at least one element in common i.e. a frighteningly high proportion of violence that strike them. Violence generated - during ware take many forms.. One form is rape. Another form is disintegration of family.

Wars and Violence

Although rape has been fre--quently treated as an incidental atrocity of war. It is also used in a planned way as a political and military weapon to terrorise the opponents in wars. History is full to these examples. To make our point, we presen; below on a few selected examples.

1. The world community can not forge the widespread genocide and atrocities of the Second World War. The well-documented cases of the Nazi Atrocities In Europe and those Inflicted upon the Korean by the Japanese are well known. During the WWII. the Nazis tortured, systematically raped and killed thousands of Jewish and other women not only in

the concentration camps but also outside the camps. During the same war. the Japanese raped the Korean women indiscriminately: in both cases women were the worst victims.

2. The case of Bangladesh also demonstrates the havoc of war Thirty million people were killed by the occupation arrnv during our liberation war tn 1971 Obviously, hundreds and thousands of families, par ticularly women and children were adversely affected. The brutal occupation army looted add burned houses, tortured and killed men. women and children indiscriminately: they violated many women includ Ing very old women and under aged girls Many of the women raped were killed by the viola tors after barbarian assault: many of the victims could not go back tq their family because of the social stigma the rape carried. Perhaps a sizable number of them opted for suicide Reportedly. many took up

prosti'ulion as a profession to earn their livelihood. Obviously Hjany of the rape victims -became pregnant but did not have knowledge of or access to available abortion services.

Eventually, they became mothers of unwanted children. As* a result they avoided their relatives. friends and.acquaintances. The children born to them also became a social burden in our conservative culture ahd poverty ridden economy. A large number of these "illegi- . timate" babies were sent to out side Bangladesh for adoption. In the process^ the original family disintegrated. This was a highly undesirable impact of war on tyomen and family which we experienced .in our life time.

3: More recently, mass rape of women in Bosnia perhaps surpassed the Naziz or Japanese atrocities during the WWII in Germany and Korea respectively. In a Report pre-

pared by International Human Rights Law Group. USA. "No Justice. No Peace1, it Is stated "Raped was being used (in Bosnia) as a weapon of war in massive scale". To provide some more detail, let me quote (rom Newsweek dated January 11. 1993. pp 30-34 "On the top of documented cases of systematic torture and murder in Bosnia, comes the charge of a new Serb atrocity mass rape No one knows how many victims there are though estimates range from 30.000 to 50.000 women most of them Muslim They tell of se peated rapes of girls as young as 6 and 7; gang rapes were so brutal that their victims die ... Rapes were committed explk Itly to impregnate Muslim women and held them captive until they gave birth unwanted Serbian babies A 21 year old (soldier) from Sarajevo admits to raping seven women and to killing two of his victims in addition to the 18 murders to which he has already con fessed He asserted we weir

ordered to rape so that our morale would be higher... we avere told we would fight better if we raped,the women" ... The solders were ordered to rape and murder for the amusement of their commander.

4. Undoubtedly, there are many other cases in the history which prove that during wars parties ipvolved do not hesitate to use rape in a planned way as a toll of terrorizing their opponents. One report emerged that rape was being used as a weapon of war on.inassive scale in Bosnia.

Available evidence suggests that rape has been used to humiliate womdn 4s direct targets and to humiliate their communities, thereby inducing" members of the local non-Serb population to leave their homes.

Wars and Disintegration of Family

1. Wars have been the cause

of inhuman sufferings, displacement and disintegration of numerous families Genocide. violence, tension, and total disregard of human rights during wars, specially towards women create situations which disintegrate family Wars and civfl strives cause millions of famflies flee their homeland and take shelter in refugee camps. The members of the refugee families most of which disintegrated move from camp to camp as refugees According to an UN study there are 20 million refugees In the world today and 20 million displaced within the borders' of their own countries. Many of these refugees are the victims of wars and civil strives About 80 per cent of these uprooted people are women and children (Susan F Martin. "Refu gee Women" Zed Books Ltd London. 1991. p-11 Family and community structures are profoundly affected by dlspla cement caused by wars, civil strives violence etc

Once In a camp, the refu-

gees often find themselves living with strangers. In this situation young women become target of additional violence. Many of them are raped even by the guards, not to speak of strangers living in the camps as refugees. The frustration experienced by both men and women, particularly women, result in increased family tension and potential violence.

While in camps, the refugees tend to .develop psychological problems afflicted by depression. suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism. crime etc. According to a report receqtly published in UNDP circular, the Secretary General of All Africa Council of Churches, remembers stories from 1970s told by Burundi mothers. Their families were "pursued by .soldiers from burning villages into tali grass, where, to prevent the discovery of the entire group, they had to silence crying Infants for ever by

crushing their babies skulls between knees." Another report published in a local daily, described how the Afghan male refugees forcefully abused the young refugee girls/ women in the same camps located in Delhi areas in India. This Implies that the Impact of war Is worse on women, even when both men and women I Iva under the same refugee status.

2 During war many family units are destroyed completely. For example, boys from souther Sudan are tn fear of at tack by one side in the civil war on conscription by the other For years they have been fleeing en masse. by 1988 four out five of 180.000 inhabitants of the Hang camp tn Ethiopia were unaccompanied young males The fathers of many of them have been killed, and sisters and mother had been raped and abducted. (UNIC March 1994)

3. The Sudanese refugees inc lude .1 percentage of unac com pan led young male, and fagiilles flees Somalia and Ethiopia have suffered tremendous dislocations l-arge numbers of men have been killed or l»cen separated front their families.

4 During the wars between Arab and Israel, thousand of Palestinians were refugees Many families have dlslnte grated. The broken families are scattered In Jordan. Syria. Lebanon. West Bank. Gaza, and many other places in the Middle East. For Palestinians, as for Arab culture tn general, the family is at centre of life Their family Ilves were disin tegrated because of death. Imprisonment of the male mem bers .

5 Civil war launched in 1989 in Liberia Ignited brutal tribal conflicts, it Is estimated that nearly half of Liberia's population of 2.5 million has been displaced, making for the largest percentage of refugees and internally displaced peo-ple of any nation.

6 Refugee women (ace par ticular hardships. A particular problem for a refugee women is her own physical protection and that of her family.

7. Quarter of a million people were murdered in Rwanda this year. In all theses cases, millions of fanfllies were disintegrated and women had to bear the worst of the brunt.

Conclusion

All these confirm that wars and civil strives cause widespread genocide and severe violence. They hurt innocent men. women and children. Rape is no longer an accidental atrocity of wars, rather it Is used as an weapon of wars. Therefore, women suffer most. Wars and civil strives destroy the peace of a country, region and in fact the entire world. If we want development and progress, we must unite to stop the on-going wars and prevent future wars.

The writer is Chairperson. Department of Philosophy. Jahangimagar University