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. 

Women Under Siege: Rape as a weapon of war

The Women Under Siege Project, an independent initiative of the Women's Media Centre, documents how rape and other forms of sexualised violence are used as tools of genocide and conflict in the 20th century and into the 21st. Less than a year old, Women Under Siege is a really original research site. It has original content, interesting blog posts and uses technology to document offences in real time- such as creating a live, crowd sourced map of rape in Syria (Disclaimer: I am a sometime contributor to their blog).

Rape is often considered to be something which 'happens' during conflict as if it is somehow insignificant or less serious than other crimes. Rape is much more than that however- it is a weapon which can be deployed to devastating effect. The International Criminal Court has recognised in numerous indictments that rape can be used as a tool of genocide. Rape can be used to destroy the social fabric of communities and forced pregnancies are also a way of 'cleansing or diluting' a particular ethnic group.

There is growing awareness of the reality of the use of rape as tool of conflict. Although it is hardly a new phenomenon, the use of sexualised violence in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and Darfur in the early 2000s really brought the issue to attention.

There are a number of high level international initiatives aimed at combating the use of sexualised violence in conflict such as the UN's Stop Rape Now campaign. In May this year, the UK's Foreign Secretary William Hague launched the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative.

These initiatives may not seem like much - too theoretical perhaps- but they are highly significant. They signify a massive change in how sexual violence is viewed and are a massive step forward for the prevention of such crimes.  Hopefully concrete action will follow.