Stopping sexual violence in Syria

Last week, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague announced the UK was sending a team of experts to gather evidence on the use of rape and other forms of sexualised violence in the conflict. As media reports of the announcement tended to focus more on Angelina Jolie’s support for the move, the true monumental importance of this has been lost somewhat. 

In international law, rape is well established as a weapon of war and genocide. Sexualised violence is used in conflict to humiliate, punish and subjugate, to destroy the social cohesion of communities and even as a form of ethnic cleansing, through forced pregnancy. When the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established in 1993, the inclusion of rape as a crime against humanity was considered revolutionary. Although important precedents have been set by the ICTY and also the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in defining rape as an act of torture, a war crime, a crime against humanity and a tool of genocide, progress in terms of prosecution has been slow and disappointing. The number of prosecutions for such crimes do not come close to matching the thousands of women, men and children raped in both conflicts. 

Why is this?  

Similar to the prosecution of rape in domestic courts, the issue usually lies with evidence or lack thereof. While the world is well aware of Bosnia's notorious 'rape camps', media reports do not stand up in international law. Cold hard facts and evidence are essential. Without these there can be no meaningful, appropriate prosecution of such hideous crimes. 

Which is why the deployment of UK backed team of 70 people, including doctors, lawyers and forensic experts, is so important. If the horrifying reports of brutal and widespread instances of sexualised violence can be verified, hopefully they can be stopped to some extent and later prosecuted.

Prevention and Deterrence

Obviously, the main goal of this initiative, and others, is prevention and deterrence. At a brainstorming conference on what can be done on sexualised violence in Syria last month, sponsored by the UK FCO's Initiative to prevent sexual violence, participants came up with some concrete actions which can be taken now- including using the resources of the UK and other G8 countries to provide mechanisms for reporting sexualised violence, pressuring Russia to make interventions on this issue and leveraging NATO and the OSCE.

Lauren Wolfe, Director of the Women Under Siege Project and one of the meetings participants who pushed for concrete recommendations has a great piece with more details on this.  

It's a start

It may not seem like much and the notion that we are not stopping such instances, merely documenting them is hard to bear. And there is so much more to be done in places like DRC.

However, it is infinitely better than doing nothing. And hopefully this is just the beginning of more concrete international efforts to halt the use of sexualised violence in conflict.