Can tracking rape in conflict prevent genocide?
WOMEN UNDER SIEGE
By — August 7, 2013
Just as rape and other forms of sexualized violence have historically been viewed as a “natural” part of war, they have often been recognized as occurring in genocide but not necessarily as an act of genocide in itself.
That changed in 1998, with the verdict of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in the trial of Jean-Paul Akayesu—who was found to have facilitated and encouraged acts of sexualized violence, mutilation, and rape during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The ICTR determined that these acts, in and of themselves, constituted genocide under Article 2 of the Genocide Convention: “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.”
But the Convention’s definition of the term genocide, with its emphasis on perpetrator intent, makes it virtually impossible to be certain whether particular acts of violence amount to genocide until they’ve come to an end and been investigated, not to mention tried in a court of law. In other words, when it’s too late to prevent them.
Photos of Jewish victims at the Birkenau death camp. (Adam Jones)
Genocide typically involves a range of violations against members of a targeted group even before killing—or without any killing at all—and many of these can be identified in time to halt the process. One of the basic tenets for preventing genocide, after all, is the understanding that it is a process, not an event.
Today, genocide scholars, activists, and policymakers around the world recognize the need not only to end impunity and bring perpetrators to trial but, more important, to prevent these horrible acts from occurring in the first place. Still, this is more easily said than done. more »
