‘Target’, ‘cancer’ and ‘warrior’: Exploring painful metaphors of self-presentation used by girls born of war rape

Abstract

Children born of war rapes continue to be a marginalized political, media and academic topic in Bosnian and other post-war societies. The goal of this article is to contribute to the research that deals with the life situations of children born of war rape, and to show the usefulness of an analysis of metaphors when a specific topic is emotionally difficult to talk about. The metaphor analysis of life stories of 19 adolescents — all Bosniak girls — born of war rapes in Bosnia and Herzegovina shows that metaphorical language provides abused girls with the only way to express their painful situations. The authors identify three main uses of metaphors as discursive strategies. These are the only possible articulations of their painful situations: the avoidance of the use of vocabulary from the primary domain, the repetition of the metaphor and the immediate use of the metaphor when it collapses into the primary domain. There were three major metaphorical frames that dominated the self-presentation of the girls: ‘ shooting target’, ‘cancer’ and ‘warrior’.

Children born of genocidal rape: What do we know about their experiences and needs?

“…Youth born of genocidal rape grew up almost solely with their mothers. In some cases, the fathers killed the mothers’ family members and other people in the neighborhood (Erjavec & Volčič, 2010a; Godard & Ukeye, 2012). The discovery of their birth origins was a long process that required, for some, an intervention from a third party such as a counselor.…”

“…They became aware of their birth origins through unintended or unplanned disclosure. For example, the mother might get angry with her child and tell them that they look like their father‐perpetrator, or a neighbor might disclose who their father was (Denov et al., 2017; Erjavec & Volčič, 2010a; Kahn & Denov, 2019).…”

“…While the young people experienced a strong desire to know their origins, the discovery of the truth brought challenges (Denov et al., 2017; Erjavec & Volčič, 2010a; Godard & Ukeye, 2012). For some, it was the knowledge of their violent conception by unknown perpetrators.…”

“…Knowing the truth of their birth origins was a painful experience, both because of knowledge their mothers had been raped and that their fathers had committed a heinous crime. Awareness of this truth was often accompanied by personal shame because the children often felt guilty about their fathers’ crimes (Erjavec & Volčič, 2010a; Godard & Ukeye, 2012; Hogwood et al., 2017).…”

“…Genocidal rape was implemented as an explicit military policy during the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Bosnian‐Herzegovinian and Croatian people by Serbians between 1991 and 1995 (Allen, 1996). It was estimated that 35,000 women, primarily Muslim, were raped, impregnated, and prevented access to abortions so that they would give birth to Serbian children (Daniel‐Wrabetz, 2007; Erjavec & Volčič, 2010a). In Rwanda, Hutu extremists used genocidal rape to humiliate the Tutsi and induce a painful death during the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi in 1994 (Mukamana & Brysiewicz, 2008; Nowrojee, 1996).…”