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'Forced Marriage' in
Conflict Situations: Researching & Prosecuting Old Harms & New Crimes
Annie
Bunting, Associate Professor of Law & Society, York University
In 2008, the
Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) found “forced
marriage” to be a new crime against humanity, distinct from the crime of sexual
slavery. With expert evidence on the abduction and forced labour of women and
girls during the extended conflict in Sierra Leone, the SCSL found such forced
conjugal association to be part of the widespread or systematic attack on the
civilian population in Sierra Leone.
This article
examines the Court’s decision in the context of developments of international
criminal law and with comparisons to similar gender violence in Liberia,
Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The author argues
that practices described as “forced marriage” in these conflict situations
ought to be charged as “enslavement” and not a new crime against humanity – the
other inhumane act of forced marriage.......
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