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VoxEU

The economic roots of conflict-time sexual violence

GSEM Professor Jeremy Lucchetti co-authors a column that exploits novel data to show that armed groups in Africa perpetrate sexual violence against civilians in response to local economic shocks.

Sexual violence is a weapon of war. Their research shows that armed groups’ economic motives contribute to the perpetration of sexual violence against civilians in conflict times. In line with their empirical results, sexual violence increases more in the vicinity of labor-intensive and easy-to-conceal resources (artisanal mines) than around capital-intensive resources (industrial mines) or outputs difficult to conceal (agricultural goods).

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