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The starvation and dehydration lead to many deaths of elderly and young Armenians.  Many of whom were too weak to partake in such a journey, let alone survive under the extreme circumstances.  This lead to many elderly and children being abandoned along the death march.  Women who were physically exhausted could no longer bear the burden of carrying their children, let alone feeding them.  It is hard to imagine circumstances where mothers would abandon their live infants on the side of the road. But during the Armenian deportation this became commonplace.  Miriam Hanem had to make a difficult decision, which came to haunt her for the rest of her life.  She lost her two young children while being deported, one she abandoned, while the other died in her arms.  She was able to burry the one child that died, but had regrets about abandoning her other child.  One eyewitness claims that Miriam would sit alone pulling out her hair repeating, “What happened to the one who was alive?  The wolves ate him; the wolves ate him.  One died, I know.  The other one the wolves ate” (Miller 100). 

These women were forced to make a horrible decision; whether or not to save their lives or their children.  Some even had to decide between children, or determine if they themselves should die.  Mothers had to decide “whose life should be given priority: an infant who was being carried and nursed or a child who was older and strong enough to walk” (Miller 97).  Survivors have told numerous stories about seeing abandoned infants along the roadside.  Many justify this action by saying the mothers simply could not carry their children anymore, which under the circumstances makes complete sense.  One survivor remembers that infants “sometimes were put under the shade of a tree, and other times they were simply left along the roadside to die” (Miller 98).  This image is both horrible and hard to believe, but it truly illustrates the amount of despair the Armenian women were facing.  Their husbands had been killed, they were marching through the desert with no food, children were starving, and on top of all of this women were constantly being violently raped or abducted.

            These cruelties inflected upon the Armenian women and children were even more aggravated that nightly their camps were raided.  This resulted in not only valuable possessions being stolen, but young women and girls as well.  The Turks and Kurds would fall upon the camps at night and abduct the girls and force them into a life of involuntary servitude.  A survivor from Konia recounts that “the soldiers would come and give us a bad time.  Others from the hills and mountains would come and snatch girls and baggage” (Miller 88).  Many would never again see their families again, or even know what became of their families.  Girls would huddle together at night and try to stay awake because they were terrified of being abducted.  This only added to their sense of exhaustion and all around feeling of hopelessness.  Attractive women were seen as valuable commodities.  Many of the girls who escaped being abducted had to deal with being abused and raped by the Turks.

            Rape plays in interesting role in extreme violence and genocide.  The Armenian genocide is considered a “military” or “government” genocide, meaning that most of the violence was coordinated by the government and performed by the military.  Though some of the general public did get involved with riots and raiding, this percentage is relatively small; “there were attacks by citizens on the target groups, but the preponderant violence was government orchestrated” (Dutton 104).  No where in the Turkish military were soldiers taught to rape and humiliate women; this makes military rape so interesting.  One must wonder if this is a primal human instinct brought out by violence and rage, or if there is something more to it.  It is possible that by raping and humiliating Armenian women the Turkish soldiers were once again asserting their dominance.  “Rape is the quintessential act by which a male demonstrates to a female she is conquered” (Dutton 125).  This act is aggressive and though somewhat rare in the everyday world seems to become common during wartime.  Some scholars theorize that because wartime is so hectic and there is very little chance of a solider ever being caught or punished for rape it becomes acceptable.  “In military situations, the chances of being caught and punished for rape diminish to near zero….military rape is especially problematic, it serves no military purpose, soldiers are not trained to rape” (Dutton 125). 

This leads one to question why rape became so prevalent during the Armenian Genocide.  There may not be a definite answer to this question, but many scholars agree that rape cases like these are a form of punishment.  One must consider the differences between the two cultures again; the Armenians were wealthy and educated, while the Turks were mostly poor farmers.  Hatred grew out of this relationship and this could have caused some of the Turks to think that raping women was justifiable on some level.  The Armenian women were raped in public as a form of humiliation, resulting from the loathing the Ottoman Turks had for the Armenians.

Sexual abuse was common during the deportations.  The younger and therefore more desirable females rarely made it through the journey; they were either abducted by Kurds, forced to by wives of Turks, raped and abused to the point of death, or committed suicide to avoid one of these fates.  In one of the more brutal accounts was about a young girl who was raped by a Turkish leader in a town their caravan passed.  The gendarmes dragged the girl away from her family, promising them that she would be returned.  The girl was eventually returned “but she had been terribly abused and died.  The witness to this event said that the women gathered around the mother, attempting to comfort her.  Several; of them dug a hole near the wall of the city of Dikranager” (Miller 103).  It is amazing to read these accounts and still be in awe of the strong and powerful spirit of the Armenian women.  These women must have been exhausted, but managed to ban together and dig a grave for a child that was not even their own.

Mothers feared for the sake of their daughters lives all the time.  A survivor from Hadjin recounts how her mother would disguise her daughter so the raiding Turks and Kurds would think they were ugly and unattractive.  “My mother used to keep us dirty intentionally – in the face especially – and would wrap rags on our heads” (Dutton 101).  Armenian women also had to deal with childbirth along with way while they were being deported.  Many Armenian’s reported having children as a result of being raped.  They were then faced with conflicting emotions about their new children.  A rape survivor revealed “her conflicting emotions toward this child, she recalled that she would lay the baby on a rock, unattended…when she came back hours later the baby would be there crying” (Dutton 102).  Her child lived for about a week and when he died there was no burial, many infants were left behind in such a way.

The trauma created by the extreme violence towards the Armenian women caused many to commit suicide.  There are many firsthand accounts of groups of young girls jumping into the Euphrates River in order to escape their lives.  This reveals a complete lack of hope.  According to some accounts hundreds of girls would drown themselves every single day.  “It appears that a form of group hysteria developed in which groups of young women elected to die together.  As best as we cab reconstruct, these girls would link arms…and leap from a bridge or cliff into the turbulent waters of the Euphrates or other rivers” (Miller 104).  It is thought that many of these young girls died because they did not want to be raped or forced into a life of servitude.  Their suicides were out of desperation and are disheartening stories. 

Throughout the whole experience one must wonder why and how such acts of violence could be committed.  These events were orchestrated through the Turkish government, a new government with an agenda.  World War I was just beginning and things were in a state of transition in Turkey.  The Young Turks needed something to unite the country against and the Armenians proved to be an easy target.  Michael Ghiglieri analysis this idea from a sociobiological perspective and comes up with an interesting idea that humans want to belong and therefore create “in” groups, desirable, and “out” groups, undesirable or different.  He takes this idea one step further and elaborates on what it means to be part of the in group.  “To remain members of the in-group, individuals initially move away physically and attitudinally from the identified out-group.  Perceived threat inspires the requisite social polarization, initial avoidance, and eventual hostility” (Dutton 111).  This gives one a better understanding to how and why the Turks came to hate the Armenians so much and maybe a glimpse into the beginning stages of extreme violence and eventual genocide.

Throughout the whole ordeal the Armenian women remained resilient.  Aghavni was a married, twenty year old mother of two when she was deported from Sivas.  She walked for seven months through the desert; she lost her husband, her children, her mother, and multiple aunts.  Aghavni recalls a time when she was in such despair she through herself into the Euphrates River in hopes of drowning, but was pulled out by a kind gendarme.  Once the caravan reached its final destination of De-Zor “exhausted, she lay down naked on the banks of the Euphrates River, ready to die” (Miller 97).  Two elderly Turks came upon her and took her home, where she was nursed back to health.  Aghavni eventually married one of their sons and had more children; she named her two firstborn sons after her deceased first husband and abandoned brother.  This survivor’s account reveals many of the themes that occurred during the deportations.  She lost her family, tried to commit suicide, but managed to somehow survive.  This account is also interesting and important because it reveals that though many Turks committed atrocities, not all Turks are “evil” or “bad people.”  One must always remember that humans cannot be generalized by cultural, ethnic, or religious groups.

The Armenian Genocide is a controversial subject even to this day.  The Turkish government will not admit that this event occurred, leaving many Armenians feeling neglected.  It is important to remember genocides such as this because of the survivors and their descendents.  It is a true test to the human spirit that women like Aghavni were able to not only survive the genocide, but start a new life afterwards.  Women were abused and raped to the point that death was easier than living.  These stories must not be forgotten; the Armenians must not be forgotten.  Violence towards women presents an interesting problem when examining the reasons behind genocide.  It is completely unnecessary, but becomes a common occurrence.  It demoralizes one’s victim and humiliates them.  Rape becomes another way for a man to dominate a woman and perhaps this is why so many Armenian women had to face such violence.