Incidents of Sexual Violence against Females in Halima Bashir's Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur

Abstract

Issues of sexual violence across the globe are alarming. Rape and gang rape of vulnerable women and girls have become commonplace in many countries. Victims experience physical, emotional and psychological abuse. This paper examines sexual violence against women and girls as recorded in the novel Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur. The paper attempts to identify the causes and consequences of sexual violence against females in the selected novel. This study employs feminism and New Historicism as its theoretical framework. The findings revealed that sexual violence is an outcome of a larger problem of gender inequality and that rapist use rape as a weapon to instill fear and humiliate vulnerable women and girls. The study further reveals that gang rape of women and girls during wartime situations has been used as war tactics. Females have been regarded as one of the legitimate spoils of war.