Moving beyond men’s experiences

Much research has documented wars and their consequences, yet it is men's experiences which have dominated our understanding. But our new book, Troubling Testimonies, shows that women’s testimonies are not simply personal stories; they shape justice, accountability, and the recognition of wartime violence. Their testimonies are vital sources of knowledge about how women endure and remember war and mass atrocities.

And public testimony can be transformative. When women testify, they break silences around gendered suffering, help restore victims' dignity, and fundamentally reshape legal and societal understandings of wartime violence. They influence what counts as a war crime, and whose suffering counts.

Our analysis brings together testimonies from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sri Lanka, and Rwanda. We also gathered testimonies from Yazidi survivors of ISIS in Iraq. The witnesses share gendered traumas that include sexual violence, forced maternity, enslavement, and the experiences of secondary witnessing. These women use victimhood as a powerful platform for agency.

Women speak out to heal personally or to restore a sense of self-worth that had long been denied. Others testify as a moral obligation to those who were killed. Many do so for future generations, hoping their stories will prevent the repetition of atrocities. Still others speak to fight impunity and for governments to hold perpetrators accountable. These diverse motivations demonstrate that testimony is not merely evidence gathering. It is also a political act through which survivors reclaim agency and challenge dominant narratives of war.

Testimony is not mere evidence-gathering, but a political act through which survivors reclaim agency

We also find that silence can be an agential choice. Many survivors use silence strategically – to protect themselves, navigate stigma, or regain control of their narratives.

These are crucial insights at a time when conflicts around the world are on the rise and there is global backlash against women’s rights. Our findings have implications for how to pursue justice in today’s wars.

Formal and informal spaces for women's testimony

First, women’s testimonies appear in many forms: as evidence in courts, as statements in public commissions, as arts projects, in documentaries, and in memoirs. This diversity of platforms creates multiple avenues for women’s voices to be expressed, heard and acknowledged. Each platform carries its own limitation – and potential.

Formal spaces such as courts can constrain how women testify, yet also create possibilities for legal change. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) demonstrated this power. In Bosnia, accounts of sexual violence and rape camps in Foča during the early 1990s were based on testimonies of more than twenty women. This resulted in the UN recognising rape during wartime as a war crime, a crime against humanity, and a form of torture. Following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the ICTR delivered the world’s first conviction for genocidal rape.

Only a small number of court cases have so far sought justice for survivors of the 2014–2017 Yazidi genocide. Yet Yazidi activists and lawyers have increasingly turned to universal jurisdiction. For example, a German court’s genocide conviction for the death of a young girl, Reda, was a landmark verdict shaped in part by the testimony of her mother.

The 1983–2009 Sri Lankan civil war stands out as a case in which legal justice has been almost entirely absent. Sri Lanka's government has refused to investigate or prosecute war crimes, relying instead on superficial measures aimed at placating international criticism. Diaspora spaces thus became critical, offering platforms for women to testify when the national arena was not open to them. Yet even in exile, survivors continue to face stigma and harassment.

Testimonies beyond the courtroom

Second, beyond courts, informal spaces of testimony play an essential role for justice. Across the cases, diverse spaces have emerged. Alternative mechanisms, such as the Women’s Court in Bosnia and Herzegovina, centre survivors rather than perpetrators. This creates empowering spaces in which women can articulate the consequences of wartime violence.

Psychosocial initiatives similarly provide supportive environments. In Rwanda, Solace Ministries sociotherapy groups allow women to overcome isolation and share stories with fellow survivors.

Beyond courts, empowering spaces of testimony have emerged in which women can articulate the consequences of wartime violence

Creative spaces, such as the Herstories project in Sri Lanka, give women control over the form of their stories – through private letter writing, for example. This allows women to account for their traumas on their own terms.

Documentaries, memoirs, and other forms of popular culture similarly amplify women’s voices for global audiences. At the same time, these formats carry risks. For example, external actors may reshape women’s narratives, as we have seen in controversies over documentary portrayals of Yazidi survivors.

Memoirs allow women to tell richer, more complex stories than those permitted in courts or advocacy reports. Such stories offer literary platforms for critique and advocacy. Rwandan survivor Yolanda Mukagasana and Yazidi survivors Nadia Murad and Farida Khalaf, for example, use the memoir format to challenge patriarchal norms and break profound silences around stigmatised forms of violence.

Murad wrote about sexual violence by ISIS against Yazidi women and girls, a topic often shrouded in stigma, shame, and silence. By sharing her experiences of enslavement and rape, Murad rejects the patriarchal tendency to shame survivors rather than perpetrators. Her testimony transforms what many consider a taboo subject into a matter of public and political concern.

Women’s narrative power into the future

The stories of violence, misogyny and marginalisations are remarkably similar across the four cases. Yet women’s narrative power has strengthened over time.

The global Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda has created more enabling conditions for testimony. This has shaped how funders, NGOs, and legal institutions engage with gendered experiences of war. Early testimonies from Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina emerged in a context where sexual violence was barely recognised as a war crime. Today, Yazidi survivors speak into a more receptive global context, one influenced by the testimony of earlier generations of women.

Testimonies emerging from Ukraine, Iran, Gaza, and Sudan show a continuation of gendered patterns of violence

Despite these gains, women’s testimonies now emerging from contemporary war zones such as Ukraine, Iran, Gaza, and Sudan, show a continuation of the gendered patterns of violence our research identified.

All the more important, then, to listen closely to the women who survived earlier wars. Their experiences are more than personal stories: they are crucial for understanding how to pursue justice during and after conflict. The time has come to learn from history and translate these insights into sustained efforts to address and prevent the gendered violence that has accompanied the pursuit of war across centuries.

No.45 in a Loop series on 🌈 Gendering Democracy

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