A Continuum of Violence? Linking Sexual and Gender-based Violence during Conflict, Flight, and Encampment

During the past years, scholars have studied sexual and gender-based violence during conflict and in refugee situations worldwide and produced a significant body of literature. However, little attention has been paid to connecting this type of violence during different phases, instead presenting it as different sets of cases. This article challenges this prevailing notion that violence during conflict, flight, and displacement are separate cases but suggests that it forms a continuum of violence. Based on a case study in Uganda, the article provides in-depth insights of scope, forms, and conditions of violence, and informs about factors impacting the violence. It is eventually argued, that the linearity of the prevalence of sexual and gender-based violence during conflict, flight, and encampment reveals a continuum with widening patterns since especially the forms, perpetrator structures, and conditions show a diachronic increase of complexity.