Despite increasing international attention to this problem, perpetrators are rarely prosecuted and victims do not receive adequate services. There are many steps that governments could take to prevent sexual violence during armed conflict including improving women’s status and overall respect for women in times of peace, educating and training of soldiers and combatants regarding international humanitarian law during armed conflicts, and increased follow-up on crimes of sexual violence.

Sexual violence during armed conflicts has been prosecuted mainly at the international level in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), although after strong beginning convictions both tribunals have faced difficulties prosecuting crimes of sexual violence due to lack of financial resources, insufficient evidence, or victims unwilling to testify for fear their identity will be released. Despite these difficulties, the tribunals have seen landmark cases that included the first decision in which individuals were indicted exclusively for sexual violence against women , a ruling that included rape as a crime against humanity where the ICTY set an international precedent in the cases against Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovac, and Zoran Vukovic, as well as the first time that rape was included as an act of genocide in the ICTR case against Jean-Paul Akayesu.