It is hard to say.
Rape has always been viewed as an opportunity for soldiers to do what they want or as a wartime reward. That is the conventional view.
However, I believe that, given the way it actually happens, it cannot be seen as a reward for soldiers who can then do what they want with women. The way they mock them or toy with them, the violence with which the act is committed, the fact that it is always a gang act and that a leader is always present all indicate that this is another system.
These women told me how exhausted and dirty they were. Pardon me for citing these details. They are in appalling conditions. This happens on the prison floor. It cannot be viewed, in any way, as soldiers enjoying themselves.
I forgot to tell you what I was told by one activist who is trying to document as many of these firsthand accounts as she can, which is obviously very complicated. She told me she had photographs of stimulants. No one mentioned viagra to me. However, that was the case in Libya because invoices were found for shipments of viagra that Gaddafi had ordered for his soldiers. The drug was found in the pockets of Gaddafi's soldiers during the revolution.
I have not heard that that is the case in Syria. However, I have been told that soldiers are using stimulants so they can rape at will. One activist who is trying to document this in order to prove that the crime is premeditated assured me she had taken photographs.