Breadcrumbs: the beginning of history.

By: Jenny Alvarez

Photos by: Courtesy.

From the beginning of history, we have been aware that the rape of the defeated, principally women, is a sort of triumphant affirmation by occupying armies.

In innumerable armed conflicts during the XX century, women belonging to the enemy side were regarded as spoils of war for the winners. As a form of torture, threat and punishment, the women of the vanquished were systematically enslaved, prostituted and turned into wives and lovers.

The Nazis in the concentration camps sexually enslaved tens of thousands of women and girls; the Soviet army, in its advance towards Germany at the end of the Second World War, also raped tens of thousnands of women. The recent armed conflicts in former Yugoslavia, Kosovo and Iraq are yet more examples of the attitude of victorious armies towards the women of the defeated.

In Latin America, systematic torture and rape were a terrorist tool used by the state in an attempt to destroy psychologically those who opposed it.

In June 1973, the Uruguayan army, with the approval of a group of civilians, orchestrated a coup d´état and took power. They declared a state of emergency and unleashed military and police persecution against any opposition group.