New ways of fighting wars have created an endless and unimaginable level of threat of violence towards civilians. This violence means that many civilians experience a threat to life, or harm, every day. This could be a random shooting, rape, an assault on a village or targeted violence directed at human rights defenders or journalists. This direct violence is the visible threat we count in ‘battle deaths’, wounded, reports of harm, casualties and violent crime rates and that is causing people both immediate and lifelong problems. It deprives people of life, families of loved ones and communities of leaders.

Civilians have become a weapon of war. Despite laws and agreements to protect civilians from harm, militaries and armed groups continue to kill and harm them wherever there is violent conflict. Sometimes the attacks are direct and blatant, as for example when a country run by a military attacks civilians in order to instil a sense of fear throughout the population. Sometimes the attacks are described as ‘collateral damage’, meaning that the desire to attack was greater than the desire to protect civilians. Or sometimes civilians are killed while being used as ‘human shields’ in an attempt to save a military target from attack – in all these cases, civilians are being used as weapons of war.

Reports and narratives about these incidents where civilians are threatened, hemmed in, prevented from escape and harmed serve to normalize violence towards civilians.