GIWPS Special Report: Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict

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THE GLOBAL SUMMIT TO END SEXUAL VIOLENCE: GIWPS SPECIAL REPORT ON HIGHLIGHTS AND IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS

Mayesha Alam and Ségolène Dufour-Genneson

The Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict was co-hosted in London from June 10 to June 13, 2014 by British Foreign Secretary William Hague and UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie to raise awareness about this urgent issue, bring together stakeholders from around the world to brainstorm solutions, broaden networks, and to launch a new International Protocol.

Thousands of participants attended from all over the world, including ministers, government officials, grassroots activists, survivors, civil society organizations, researchers, lawyers, judges, students, doctors and others. The Summit comprised of a series of plenary and breakout sessions as well as fringe events including a marketplace for survivor-made goods, photo and art exhibitions, discussion forums, film screenings, musical performances, and dance/theatre productions.

Some of the key themes that stood out throughout the proceedings include: ending impunity by bringing justice to survivors, linking between security to sexual violence in conflict, providing support to victims and survivors, and preventing sexual and gender based violence in war as well as in peace. This report provides an overview of the most central issues as well as brief summaries of a select few breakout sessions.

Impunity and Justice

Sexual violence in conflict is a heinous crime against humanity and yet, too often, goes unpunished. There was a significant emphasis at the Summit on ending the culture of impunity and bringing victim-sensitive justice. Several workshops and discussion sessions at the Summit focused on ending impunity but with different agendas and actors. For example, there were sessions on mechanisms to identify the crime and evidence collection from a legal standpoint, on training judges and lawyers to deal with the crime, on psycho-social support for victims, on drafting legislation codifying sexual violence in conflict as a crime and strengthening international and domestic institutions, as well as other relevant topics.

Throughout the conference, one message was repeated over and over again: sorrow and compassion are not enough and, rather, action is essential. Many speakers also emphasized that we must end the shame that surrounds this issue and relegates women’s experience to the dark, suffering in silence and in private. But how do we move from condemnation to action? Here is where the new International Protocol on Documentation and Investigation of Sexual Violence in Conflict can serve as a roadmap for future practice. The International

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Protocol has already garnered widespread international support at the UN and beyond but implementation will be the key test of its efficacy.

Sexual Violence and Security

Sexual violence is a fundamental security issue that demands protective measures and stronger policies. For too long, sexual violence has been treated as a spoil of war and a phenomena to be swept under the rug. However, today it is incontrovertible that sexual violence can and is used as a ‘weapon of war’, whereby it is a tactic used by armed groups to terrorize civilians, destroy communities, and further political objectives. Sexual violence, furthermore, is a significant threat to security because it breeds fear and instability, in addition to wreaking havoc on the lives of victims by resulting in medical and psychological trauma. At the same time, sexual violence does not magically end when a ceasefire is achieved or a peace agreement is signed. The crime can continue, especially when impunity is normal and accountability is lacking. Sexual violence is also part of a broader continuum of violence. This means that we must rethink what we consider to be conflict zones to include countries and regions at peace but that still experience waves of violence and, in doing so, make sure that instruments in the international toolbox – such as the new International Protocol – are appropriate and applicable for a multitude of contexts affected by armed conflict. If the crime of sexual violence is to be perceived as a security issue and acted upon accordingly, it is essential to integrate gender awareness in all security related operations, to put in place accountability mechanisms, to have clear cut guidelines for how to detect and respond to the crime, and incorporate this into mission mandates. Finally, it is necessary to build expertise and capability in the security sector. This will enable the creation of better early warning monitoring systems and support prevention efforts.

Prevention

Prevention is critical because it is not enough to react or respond to the crime of sexual violence in conflict, we must also try to eliminate it from the lexicon of war. Ending impunity, and thereby ensuring justice, is a central component of prevention but there are other mechanisms as well.

The engagement of men and boys is critical to ending violence altogether and essential when it comes to sexual and gender-based crimes. The education of boys, and the engagement of men in educating their communities, must be made a priority. Second, we must further investigate and understand the breeding grounds for sexual violence: gender imbalance, inequality and poverty are both linked to high instances of rapes in war, and we must work to understand the links between them. As such, preventive actions must involve all sectors of public life in order to ensure that rape is no longer considered a marginal issue. Finally, sexual and gender based violence in war is but an extreme version of what communities experience in peacetime. It is dangerous to forget that rapes occur in times of peace, and to think that a country or community in which rapes occur out of conflict will not experience a surge in sexual violence in war. The preventative effort must therefore begin before the threat of war, and in every country.

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Break Out Session: Closing the Impunity Gap: building the Architecture of Prevention: Serving and Protecting People

Justice and Legal Structures Rule of law can only be achieved when women’s security is central to the legal system. If justice is the key to reconciliation and the end of impunity, we must identify the limits of justice systems for victims, and look at what countries can do in terms of legal structures and legal cultures. At the international legal level, norms and frameworks do exist for countries to abide by, and to support their domestic legal development. We must reinforce the fact when a country commits to ending warzone rape, this becomes a part of broader foreign policy goals and ending this global scourge is in its international and security interests to do so. Countries must understand what in their legal culture and structure makes it difficult for sexual crimes to be reported and prosecuted. Are services unavailable? Is justice unaccountable? Are legal institutions inaccessible? Is there a lack of precedents? Are lawyers and judges inadequately aware of international laws and instruments? Legislative reform can be used to address this concerns and better equip the judicial sector in any given country but, at the same time, it is important that laws and legal practices are sensitive to the needs of victims and survivors.

Finally, in post-conflict societies, transitional justice mechanisms can be put into place on a case-by-case, country by country basis but it is crucial that these initiatives are carefully planned, inclusive, well resourced, victim-focused and reflect the political and social realities on the ground.

Interdisciplinary approach

Beyond traditional justice, it is important to widen the scope of accountability in conflict and in peacetime. While the legal framework is important, the real work is done at the grassroots level, and therefore cross-sector cooperation and the integration of the issue across sectors has transformative potential. Gender awareness and a focus on the security of the most vulnerable populations must be integrated into our development efforts, global health programs and humanitarian aid. For example must enable the development and humanitarian sector to scale up program for survivors of sexual violence. It can be particularly useful to engage religious leaders to call out those who hide behind misinterpretations of holy teachings in order to justify rapes in wartime or peacetime. Educators in any capacity must be engaged to raise awareness amongst populations about rape, and victimization. This includes engaging with men in the communities, and educating boys. Finally, we need to ensure that there is a greater balance in terms of the participation and leadership of women in all of these fields, particularly in the justice, health and security sectors.

Early Warning Monitoring The summit marked an important step towards changing the way we view this issue. Rape is not a private matter, but a voluntary and designed destruction of human dignity, and as such a security issue as well as a moral one. In order to end impunity we must learn to recognize the threat behind the horizon. Massacres do not happen out of the blue and the brutalities of the 20th century have taught us that we can no longer claim a lack of awareness as the reason for

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inaction. Sexual violence is not a form of collateral damage, it does not happen by accident.

Working preemptively and recognizing, for example, a surge in sexual violence, will help not only to end warzone rape, but also to foresee security threats and prevent other crimes against humanity.

Women’s Agency and Leadership Sexual violence in conflict disproportionately – but not exclusively – affects women. However, this does not mean that women are merely victims. Indeed, solutions for preventing and responding to sexual violence in conflict can and should incorporate the perspectives and needs of women survivors. At the same time, it is important that competent women are recruited and relied upon to design camps for displaced persons, provide medical services, investigate and prosecute crimes, negotiate peace, lead governing structures, etc. Women represent half the population and it is not enough to focus on the plight of women when it comes to sexual and gender based violence in conflict; it is essential to engage women and tap their agency. Participation, in this sense, is inseparable from prevention and protection.

© June 2014 Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security

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Break Out Session: The Hidden Victims of Sexual Violence

Identifying Hidden Victims of Sexual Violence

The goal of rape is not sexual it is an attack on humanity, the negation of the humanity and dignity of individuals, treated as objects. As such the ramifications of rape are endless, not just for the victim but for the community, and for some of the perpetrators. Many of these victims can be considered “hidden”. First, because barriers to entry in the justice system stop many victims of rape from reporting the crime. These barriers are as diverse as stigmatization, religious and social pressure, as well as corruption and inability to access legal facilities. Men and boys victims of rape are particularly unlikely to come forward, with the added trauma of the destruction of their masculinity. The other hidden victims are the indirect victims of sexual violence. Children, husbands, parents being forced to watch as crimes were committed. In many countries, a surge in sexual violence has led to an increase in the destruction of families, as victims are ostracized, family members abandon their families, out of shame of not having been able to protect them, children are abandoned and orphaned. As a result, the entire fabric of a community is destroyed. Finally, we must also think about the trauma suffered by some of the perpetrators of rape, often child soldiers who are forced by their commanders, having often themselves been subjected to sexual violence, to rape civilians.

Protecting the Hidden Victims of Sexual Violence In order to address the ramifications of sexual violence in conflict, we need urgent and comprehensive measures to identify the victims, and support them. Protecting the victims of sexual violence will take three elements. First, we need to be better at identifying the victims.

Research and data is still too poor and anecdotal, and we need to partner with those on the ground with access to the victims and with academia in order to produce better, more comprehensive data on the hidden victims of warzone rape. Civil society organizations and survivor organizations, but also medical professionals and peacekeeping personnel are key actors to train and engage thanks to their access to populations likely affected by sexual violence. We also need to break stereotypes about who the victims are, and create support systems for all victims, particularly male survivors who are particularly difficult to identify, as they are the least likely to be recognized. Second, we must develop frameworks to empower survivors to break the stigma of rape, and learn from their experiences to develop lasting solutions, in preventing rape and supporting survivors. Finally, we must work towards reinforcing local, national and international legal frameworks to end impunity. This is particularly tricky when in lawless and/or fragile states. This will require creative solutions that bring justice to the survivors, rather then making survivors try to access justice alone.

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Break Out Session: Investigating and Documenting Sexual Violence in Conflict: Lessons Learned and Future Strategies Protocol The protocol is a roadmap for intervention and implementation but also tool for advocacy. The protocol applies to state actors and non state actors but their roles and processes (let alone agendas) differ. A multi disciplinary approach is necessary because at the table are a competing set of priorities, and increasing input from various realms of society will guarantee that the interests of the majority are taken into account.

There is a range of actors involved in mass perpetrations of rape in war, and any attempt to end warzone rape will require a comprehensive approach that remembers all those involved.

Ending impunity will require dealing with perpetrators but also enablers, by standers and those who profit from sexual violence.

The Challenges of Documenting Sexual Violence The challenge is to deal with the lack of universal standards and criteria for the collection and documentation of evidence. Different legal systems have different requirements, and we must find a way to harmonize these practices while keeping them adapted to each individual legal system. Another challenge is avoid conflating ideological objections with technical limitations on investigation and documentation in order to ensure that political unwillingness to prosecute is not masked behind technical difficulties.

Any intervention must be centered on the immediate and long terms needs and wants of the survivors. At the center of the protocol is the principle to do no harm, but there is a challenge in even simply defining harm. Sometimes not documenting outweighs documenting because of the wishes of the survivor as all as the risks associated with documenting. Stigma here too remains an impediment. For the protocol to work, we must think of not just the survivor but her family and community too, even if the direct victim has consented to the release of the information. We must particularly aware of the ethical considerations of how information is collected and shared, allowing for the protection and the privacy of the survivors. For example, harnessing mobile technologies for documenting sexual violence is a helpful idea, but there are risks associated with this.

There are steps we can take to mitigate the harm: - assess risk - interview process creates a power dynamic, need to be cognizant of this - consent is essential but not sufficient - managing expectations once you've gained trust of a testimony giver (whether witness or survivor)

Š June 2014 Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security