Page - 127 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/01

The Tattoos of Armenian Genocide Survivors | 127www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/1, 123–143 Gender and the Armenian Genocide An estimated 1.5 million Armenians were killed during the Armenian Geno- cide of 1915–1917 in the Ottoman Empire.14 The genocide was planned and executed under the leadership of the Committee for Union and Progress, also known as the “Young Turks”. Gender played a crucial role in the organization of the genocide.15 Katherine Derderian asserts the existence of a “definite link between genocidal and gender ideologies”,16 which included the assimilation of women and children and the prevention of childbirth. The genders were separated; the male population was then massacred, while many members of the female population were raped, abused, and taken as slaves or brides, in addition to being forced to convert from Christianity to Islam. This separation of the genders was grounded in the assumption that only adult males acted as carriers of “ethnicity”, while women (and children) could be assimilated into non-Armenian society, their cultural values erased and reprogrammed. As- similation and conversion were thus important structural components of the genocide and aimed at erasing Armenian identity.17 As a result of this world- view, many Armenian women and children experienced different horrors than the men. Instead of being immediately put to death, they often faced months- long death marches, marked by recurring sexual violence. Rape, prostitution, and murder were widespread, and camps and deportation convoys evolved into slave markets. Karen Jeppe stated in 1926 that amongst the thousands of Armenian women and girls she had encountered, all but one had been sexu- ally abused.18 A huge number of Armenian women and children had ended up kidnapped, sold, or “voluntarily” living among their captors to escape depor- tation. It is estimated that around 5–10 percent of the Armenian survivors re- sided in non-Armenian communities. In the course of their assimilation, many Armenian women were tattooed in the same way as the members of their new communities. At the time of the genocide, tattooing was a widespread prac- tice in eastern Anatolia and the northern Levant. Kurds, Turks, Arabs, Yazidis, and many other ethnic groups decorated their bodies with tattoos. How- ever, the use of tattoos was not a common custom among Armenians.19 14 The number of victims varies depending on factors such as the period considered. 15 Bjørnlund 2009, 17. 16 Derderian 2005, 13. 17 Derderian 2005, 2, 10, 13–15; Bjørnlund 2009, 17, 34; Üngör 2012, 182. 18 Bjørnlund 2009, 24–25; Akçam 2012, 312, 315. 19 Akçam 2012, 314; Okkenhaug 2015, 440; Jinks 2018, 86; Smeaton 1937, 53; Field 1958.