
The narrative of a female war victim is often assigned without choice or individual agency, acting in many cases to dehumanize and delegitimise the individual as a woman and concurrently their suffering. The discussion will largely feature narratives surrounding female victimhood in the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s. Sexual violence in war was not a phenomenon particular to this conflict, yet widespread knowledge of it across the world provoked intense global emotions. The Creation of the ICTY and its decision to prosecute sexual violence as a war crime was thus largely applauded and deemed progressive. Yet, in doing so did it create a specific victimised narrative for women that would inhibit agency and ignore gender? The creation of a rape victim narrative in the media and feminist scholarship and the affect it had on the prosecution of rape at the ICTY were in some cases damaging to female individual agency and often conformed to traditional gendered stereotypes.