by P. Parameswaran (AFP)

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Rape is increasingly being used as a tool of war in ethnic conflicts in Darfur and Myanmar, wrecking families and communities, two women Nobel peace laureates warned Tuesday.

Jody Williams, who spearheaded a campaign banning antipersonnel landmines, and Wangari Maathai, an outspoken advocate for greater democracy in Africa, said women were paying “the highest price” in the violent conflicts.

The duo, accompanied by actress-activist Mia Farrow and other rights campaigners, visited clinics and refugee camps to hear first-hand the plight of women affected by the violence in the two areas.

“Unfortunately, in the ethnic cleansing being carried out by the Burmese military junta in eastern Burma, rape is being used as a tool of war, as it is in Darfur,” Williams said, using Myanmar’s former name Burma.

“The obvious purpose, in my view, is to destroy the fabric of the community. If the women are raped, they are obviously shamed in the eyes of their community. Often times the husbands divorce the women, who are left alone,” she said.

Maathai said women were the first to be “victimised” in conflicts — “victimised by the fighters and then be victimised by the men that you love.

“It is very, very painful and for the women, it is pain you live with all your life.

“As for the girls, you can imagine the trauma and sometimes, I would look at the eyes of the women in the camp and just wonder whether she is one of those who was raped and what is going on in her heart and mind,” Maathai said.

Within a camp in Chad sheltering refugees who fled the Darfur conflict in neighboring Sudan, Williams said she met with a group of about 30 to 40 women and “within the space of the hour that I had with them, I’ve heard of seven tell the stories of their gang rape.

“One woman was 35 years old and she had been raped by several of the Janjaweed (Arab militia in Sudan) and by the time she saw her husband, he already knew she was raped and he divorced her on the spot, leaving her with eight children,” she said.

“Obviously, if you do this to enough communities, you destroy the family, you destroy the fabric of a community and if you do it throughout enough villages, you can shred the fabric of an ethnic group, which is what they are doing in Darfur and which is what they have done in the eastern part of Burma,” she said.

According to the United Nations, up to 300,000 people have died and more than 2.2 million have fled their homes since the conflict erupted in Sudan’s western Darfur region in February 2003.

It began when African ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-led Khartoum regime and state-backed Arab militias, fighting for resources and power in one of the most remote and deprived places on earth.

In Myanmar, rights groups charge the soldiers from the country’s ruling military junta raped women in ethnic minority areas in an apparent bid to punish populations suspected of supporting insurgency groups.

Williams said a sister of a rape victim from Myanmar she spoke to in Thailand along the border with the military-run country was eager to complete her education so that she could return to help her people.

“This young woman was going to stand up and struggle for her sister, for her community, showing again the resilience in the face of such brutality which amazes me,” she said.