WUNRN
WAR CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN: A PRIVATE
TRAUMA
By Laura Carlsen
In memory of Bety Cariño
"Gender justice is not a subcategory of social justice; it’s an essential component."
Gender justice is an unfamiliar term to most people. Many assume it is merely a feminine (and therefore diminutive) form of justice, created by adding an awkward adjective to an abstract ideal.
But thanks to years of documenting gender-based crimes, pressure from women’s movements, testimony from victims and legal arguments, there is now a body of jurisprudence and a history of movements that define gender justice and promote it internationally.
At an historic conference in April, organized by the Women’s Initiative for Gender Justice (WIGJ) and the Nobel Women’s Initiative, fifty women gathered in a Mexican beach town to evaluate the progress of gender justice and set forth a three-year work agenda.
I had the good fortune and tremendous responsibility of being
among the luchadoras
–women who struggle—charged with beginning this task. Participants made a
collective promise to work closely with organizations back home and with the
International Criminal Court and other bodies to end gender-based crimes in
armed conflict and attain justice.
No small task. In a place as orienting as the edge of the
Some are immersed in internationally recognized conflict
situations, others in peace processes, and others in rebuilding post-conflict
societies. The law provides some framework, albeit insufficient, for their
demands for punishment and reparations for gender-based crimes. They are
learning to use those legal tools.
But many of us from Latin America came from countries where
conflict situations are not
internationally recognized; peace in Honduras and Colombia has been restored,
we are told, even as murder, displacement and crimes against women continue on
a daily basis.
Some women spoke the language of the courtroom and explained the
international instruments that have been developed to document and punish
gender-based war crimes. Other women talked of grassroots organizing tactics
and how to build peace movements that take women’s demands and realities into
account. Their experiences combined provided a broad and complex range of
strategies. They reflected what Brigid Inder of WIGJ called “the tension
between the punitive formal justice model and the more comprehensive and
complex agenda for what we call transformative justice, where the finding of
guilt or innocence is accompanied by efforts to transform both communal and
gender relations.”
Common themes soon emerged. Testimonies from brave women revealed
that within the hell of war lies a private hell. The hell of sexual violence–an
inner circle shielded from scrutiny by the socially imposed shame of its
victims and the willful ignorance of legal and political systems.
Our Latin American perspective required us to interpret from a
framework of recognized conflict with an applicable body of international law,
to a continent of emerging threats including the drug war and local battles
over natural resources. The thread that united our experiences was the role of
women as the leaders of social justice movements and the victims of conflict.
The sands beneath our feet shifted during the conference. Not when
the tide rolled over during early morning walks on the beach–although those
moments were also an important part of forging a common commitment–but when we
heard survivors´ stories and statistics like these, from Joan Chittister:
Forget the complaints of “collateral damage”. As military leaders
brag that modern technology has produced the most accurate weapons in history,
during war strikes in places like
They are not the collateral damage—they are the targets.
When finally, through the efforts of women like those at the
Dialogue, international agencies produce some statistics on rape and other
forms of sexual violence in conflict situations, the figures are so staggering,
the stories so shockingly brutal, that all attempts to explain away the
phenomenon as the acts of a few rogue soldiers or part of the pillage of war
fall away. Rape is a calculated weapon of war. It decimates communities,
destroys families, spreads disease and leaves deep physical and psychological
scars. That is the purpose.
No geographic region has a corner on barbarity when it comes to
gender-based crimes. For example, women reported sex crimes and violence by
paramilitary and military forces against displaced populations in
Many speakers noted that the use of women’s bodies as both the
spoils and the battlefields of war appears to be on the rise. In some cases,
women organizers for peace and justice have made progress, such as the fight
against land mines and for peace in
The International Criminal Court as a Tool of Gender Justice
The timing of the Dialogue responded to an immediate challenge: in
early June the Assembly of State Parties will hold a 10-year Review Conference
of the International Criminal Court. In addition, the year marks the fifteenth
anniversary of the Beijing World Conference on Women, the tenth anniversary of
the UN Security Council resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, and the
dawn of a new “gender architecture” within the UN to promote women’s rights. As
the organizers explained, “This is an opportune moment to reflect on the
progress and work of the ICC, the possibilities embodied in the Rome Statute
for the accountability of conflict-related crimes, and the responsibilities of
the United Nations for the deterrence and resolution of armed conflicts,
women’s global citizenship and gender-inclusive international justice.”
The ICC is currently hearing cases from four armed conflicts—
The ICC takes a case when national systems of justice will not or
do not function. It can be a blow against impunity. It is easy to think of
impunity as a sin of omission. The hand not raised in protest appears genteel
alongside the hand stained with the blood of the victim. And yet we learned
from the testimonies of women on the frontlines of the battle for gender
justice that impunity not only perpetrates crimes against women, it teaches
generation after generation how to continue the practice.
Dialogue members noted that the international system offers both
opportunities and limitations. Joanne Sandler of UNIFEM warned that Resolutions
are not always proof of resolve. Since the Security Council issued Resolution
1325, there have been 24 formal peace processes. Women have been only 10% of
the negotiators and 2% of the signatories. Worse yet, she said, there doesn’t
seem to be progress. More formal mechanisms are needed to assure compliance
with gender policies. Without permanent pressure from women organizers and
experts, legal advances could remain a dead letter.
From the Courts to the Streets and Back Again
Gender-based crimes require responses in three areas: Prevention,
protection and reparation. Experts working in the international legal system
noted that prevention, the most important of all, is given fewer resources
because it does not have measurable benchmarks. How do you measure the number
of lives not
nearly destroyed by horrors we can scarcely imagine? Participants agreed that
although bureaucrats have yet to come up with a formula, prevention should be
our ultimate goal.
To prevent sex crimes requires nothing short of a revolution in
cultural, political and social norms. This group has demonstrated its
willingness to step up to the task. The Nobel Women’s Initiative was founded by
six women Nobel Prize winners who refused to rest on their laurels. Then there
is Yanar Mohammed of Iraq, who went out into a Baghdad street to speak on
International Woman’s Day in a bullet-proof vest, following numerous death
threats, and then went on to denounce the rape of women in detention centers
and sex trafficking, and create a vibrant cultural movement for youth.
Or Gilda Rivera, who was kidnapped and beaten during Honduras´
dirty wars of the eighties, then saw the nightmare return when a military coup
d’état took over her country in June of 2009. It would be enough to drive
anyone into exile or retreat. It drove Gilda into the streets of
Too often the cry is not heard. Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda,
in a taped message, called rape “the silent crime against communities.” Then
she immediately questioned the terminology, asking “Is rape really silent?” Women
scream, yet far too often no one hears. Just sharing stories was a sort of
catharsis for women who see far too much suffering in their work and lives. The
Dialogue provided a forum to cry out to a gathering that will not only hear,
but act.
What to do faced with such a daunting challenge?
The question was on the table, and since this was an
action-oriented gathering there was no escaping it. The International
Gender Justice Dialogue sketched out ideas for the coming years in three areas:
peace talks and implementation, justice and jurisprudence and communications.
Dialogue members came up with lists of tactics, hints, strategies and
challenges for the coming years, from Nobel Laureate Jody Williams´ creative
messaging in the successful campaign to ban land mines, to lawyers´ advice on
using the court.
But the key message was just one: Don’t give up. Ever.
As I write this, we have just received word that human rights
defender Bety Cariño was murdered by paramilitary forces in the Mexican state
of
Bety´s assassination, the recruitment of girl soldiers in the DRC,
rape in
Gender justice is not a subcategory of social justice; it’s an
essential component.
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