Rape during the Armenian genocide

Young Armenian woman looking to the side — Armin Wegner's description: "Looking at you is the dark [and] beautiful face of Babesheea who was robbed by Kurds, raped, and freed only after ten days; like a wild beast the Turkish soldiers, officers, and gendarmes swept down on this welcome prey. All the crimes that had ever been committed against women, were committed here. They cut off their breasts, mutilated their limbs, and their corpses lay naked, defiled, or blackened by the heat on the fields."^[1]

During the Armenian genocide, which occurred in the Ottoman Empire under the leadership of the CUP, Armenian women in the Ottoman Empire were targets of a systematic campaign of genocidal rape, and other acts of violence against women described by scholars as "instruments of genocide" including kidnapping, forced prostitution, sexual mutilation and forced marriage into the perpetrator group.^[a]^[3]^[4]

Heinrich Bergfeld, the German consul to Trabzon, reported "the numerous rapes of women and girls," a crime he regarded as being part of a plan for "the virtually complete extermination of the Armenians." The systematic use of rape during the genocide was testified to by Turkish, American, Austrian, and German witnesses and officials.^[5]

^ Ihrig, Stefan (2016). Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismark to Hitler. Harvard University Press. pp. 200–201. ISBN 978-0-674-50479-0.
^ Derderian 2005, pp. 1–25.
^ Herzog 2011, p. 47.
^ Miller & Miller 1999, p. 24.
^ Dadrian 2008, p. 83.

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[1] Ihrig, Stefan (2016). Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismark to Hitler. Harvard University Press. pp. 200–201. ISBN 978-0-674-50479-0.

[FOOTNOTEDerderian20051–25-2] Derderian 2005, pp. 1–25.

[FOOTNOTEHerzog201147-4] Herzog 2011, p. 47.

[FOOTNOTEMillerMiller199924-5] Miller & Miller 1999, p. 24.

[FOOTNOTEDadrian200883-6] Dadrian 2008, p. 83.

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