Attacking the civilian population is a major objective of war. Eric Hobsbawn, the British historian, wrote in his "The Age of Extremes: The Short XXth Century" that the dawn of the XXth century came with new hope: the feeling that wars no longer targeted civilians, or substantially less than in the past. Yet we all know the record of the XXth century: the world had never seen the scale of the systematic elimination and genocide of civilian populations that took place in WWII.

Rape has often been a by-product of war. But Nicholas Kristof's op-ed in today's New York Times sums up the harsh reality of what we have seen over the last few years, and what is taking place today: rape is being used as a primary war objetive, to permanently destroy women's and children's lives. And the international community is not taking action.
The UN sponsored a Conference on rape in war in 2006, Link to BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
yet the international community and the Security Council have done virtually nothing to stop it.