Full Transcript for Responding to Sexual Violence in Conflict: Fighting Impunity in DRC

international donor funding on subsection GENDER-BASED violence projects significantly higher than the second, 45 00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:35,230 which was the second country. Country recipient was Uganda. 46 00:04:36,010 --> 00:04:38,950 So all that to show that this this focus on sexual violence has been sustained 47 00:04:39,220 --> 00:04:43,600 and has had very clear implications and levels of funding and in practice. 48 00:04:43,840 --> 00:04:51,860 Grant. So as as a result of that centrality, really, the documents, the documented experience, history, 49 00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:57,950 which notably emphasised the large scale of the violence committed against women and girls in the conflicts, 50 00:04:57,950 --> 00:05:00,110 as well as their extraordinary, brutal nature, 51 00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:06,590 became somewhat defining of the perceived nature of the homosexual violence and conflict, its victims and perpetrators. 52 00:05:08,160 --> 00:05:15,300 And I used to come here sort of that became quintessentially this sort of a carefully curated and sacred centralised definition. 53 00:05:15,450 --> 00:05:21,180 Our understanding of such violence was encoded in the resolution and in broader operational structures, 54 00:05:21,300 --> 00:05:27,180 notably delineating who international actors believe they are protecting from what kinds of harms, 55 00:05:27,480 --> 00:05:30,090 and crucially, for our purposes now committed by who. 56 00:05:32,150 --> 00:05:37,330 In effect, given the myriad sexual harm that are committed in context of conflicts as in any context, 57 00:05:37,330 --> 00:05:44,650 and by a myriad of myriad actors who the perpetrators of sexual violence in DRC are is in fact, far from inevitable. 58 00:05:45,280 --> 00:05:52,090 But I imagine that thinking about and maybe even coming to this presentation to think about fighting impunity for such mines in DRC, 59 00:05:52,480 --> 00:05:56,860 you possibly have a fairly clear image and mind of who it is we'd be talking about 60 00:05:57,400 --> 00:06:00,730 when we're talking about perpetrators of sexual violence in conflict in Congo. 61 00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:06,130 And I imagine that this image may be of a sort of an African black armed man in uniform. 62 00:06:08,270 --> 00:06:09,319 So through this presentation, 63 00:06:09,320 --> 00:06:15,219 we're going to talk about constructions of perpetrator hoods that are defined in discourses and responses to such violence and conflict, 64 00:06:15,220 --> 00:06:18,020 so specifically relative to eastern DRC. 65 00:06:19,370 --> 00:06:25,280 So really what I hope that we'll do through this is to unpack who we have in mind when we talk about sexual violence in DRC. 66 00:06:25,880 --> 00:06:31,100 And I want to show that the dominant constructions embedded in policy and advocacy are not accidental. 67 00:06:31,460 --> 00:06:36,980 And I do this with a particular eye to Security Council Resolution 1820 and the deliberations leading up to it. 68 00:06:38,690 --> 00:06:41,870 Having established this international policy landscape, as I mentioned, 69 00:06:43,100 --> 00:06:48,620 I seek to show that these this dominant construction is more challenging to pin down in response efforts in practice, 70 00:06:48,620 --> 00:06:56,270 and specifically in efforts to fight impunity. So as a quick clarifying note, sorry, I focus on 1820 for the reasons that I mentioned. 71 00:06:56,810 --> 00:07:01,280 It represented a significant juncture in international responses to such events and conflict. 72 00:07:02,930 --> 00:07:08,810 And so really establishing the issue is an issue of international importance on policy agendas. 73 00:07:09,800 --> 00:07:12,950 And then why the focus on the fight against impunity? 74 00:07:14,180 --> 00:07:18,770 Efforts to promote judicial accountability continues to be a very central pillar 75 00:07:18,920 --> 00:07:22,790 of internationally driven multisectoral responses to sexual violence in DRC, 76 00:07:23,240 --> 00:07:26,780 and that driven it's driven by three core and interrelated aims. 77 00:07:27,200 --> 00:07:30,830 The first is to deliver a sense of justice to survivors of sexual violence. 78 00:07:31,100 --> 00:07:36,710 The second is to restore a sense of faith in the rule of law as parts of peacebuilding and state building initiatives. 79 00:07:37,340 --> 00:07:41,870 And the third is to sort of signal to send a message that sexual violence will not go unpunished. 80 00:07:42,040 --> 00:07:49,070 So to deter would be perpetrators from committing some of the crimes by demonstrating, as I mentioned, that sexual violence would go unpunished. 81 00:07:50,480 --> 00:07:51,799 So what I hope to show, though, 82 00:07:51,800 --> 00:07:58,430 is that the fight against impunity in practice may actually be functioning in distinct ways than those intended in international policy. 83 00:07:58,970 --> 00:08:03,200 And induced in doing so is foreground the interplay of institutional mandates and imperatives, 84 00:08:03,200 --> 00:08:08,570 along with sort of operational and contextual constraints in legal practice, to account for this discordance. 85 00:08:10,750 --> 00:08:17,170 By way of broader context. As I mentioned, this is situated in my PhD thesis, which, as you may have guessed, 86 00:08:17,620 --> 00:08:22,690 examines the relationship between theory, policy and practice in responses to sexual violence in eastern DRC. 87 00:08:23,740 --> 00:08:31,780 And in particular, I'm interested in understanding the gendered assumptions that underpin and are reinforced by response mechanisms, 88 00:08:32,560 --> 00:08:37,390 and then how these bear upon our wider understandings of the way that gender operates in context of armed conflict. 89 00:08:38,710 --> 00:08:43,780 So a number of feminist scholars have noted that sexual violence responses are underpinned by the 90 00:08:43,780 --> 00:08:48,370 assumption that

women are inevitably the victims and that men are inevitably the perpetrators. 91 00:08:49,090 --> 00:08:53,320 And while my research ultimately shows that this underlying binary is reinforced and reified, 92 00:08:53,650 --> 00:08:57,190 it is so in more complex ways than I certainly initially envisioned. 93 00:08:58,810 --> 00:09:04,980 So to be clear, I am not challenging the notion that men are the primary perpetrators of sexual violence. 94 00:09:04,990 --> 00:09:08,170 That would be untenable. I think quite an unhelpful argument to make. 95 00:09:09,700 --> 00:09:13,359 But what I'm more interested in doing here is to trace which men internationally 96 00:09:13,360 --> 00:09:18,310 driven policies target and efforts to fight impunity for such crimes in DRC. 97 00:09:18,580 --> 00:09:26,290 And then, in turn, to consider which men internationally driven efforts to fight impunity for sexual violence in DRC interact with in practice, 98 00:09:26,530 --> 00:09:32,469 or in other words, which men the policymakers intend to hold to account they believe are holding to account. 99 00:09:32,470 --> 00:09:36,160 And then which men are being held to account in practice? 100 00:09:39,130 --> 00:09:46,000 So as a brief note, I suppose, on the methods behind this research and on the in the school approach. 101 00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:53,380 So I conducted extensive research at the UN headquarters in New York and specifically with the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security. 102 00:09:53,830 --> 00:10:02,709 I spent 13 months there between 2013 and 2014 and conducted interviews with key policymakers and shapers, 103 00:10:02,710 --> 00:10:08,590 I suppose behind the resolutions in the broader gender protection platform, peace and security architecture. 104 00:10:08,680 --> 00:10:13,480 And then I've been working in Congo sort of on and off since 2014 under different institutional guises. 105 00:10:14,800 --> 00:10:21,700 So importantly, this multifaceted and multi-institutional approach is what's enabled me to sort of to discern and to see the 106 00:10:21,700 --> 00:10:26,830 different ways in which this idea of sexual violence and conflict is seen under different sets of institutional art, 107 00:10:27,370 --> 00:10:33,580 notably in relation to the victims and the perpetrators that are engaged with on a sort of everyday, daily basis. 108 00:10:34,690 --> 00:10:41,770 And doing so, I really sought to better understand the roles and constraints within which differently positioned actors or responders are operating. 109 00:10:42,760 --> 00:10:48,040 So for this particular piece I'm doing first on the research I conducted in New York and then subsequently 110 00:10:48,040 --> 00:10:53,530 on data that I sort of generated and gathered in working with the judicial system in North and South Kivu, 111 00:10:54,100 --> 00:11:02,559 which included interviewing notably sort of clerks and secretaries working in while working in police stations, 112 00:11:02,560 --> 00:11:07,690 as well as police officers themselves, prosecutors, judges, you name it. 113 00:11:08,450 --> 00:11:12,069 And one of the most I could talk about that is quite a bit now, one of the most fun, I suppose, 114 00:11:12,070 --> 00:11:16,870 aspects of sitting the clerks and secretaries going through the the records that they keep to sort of get a sense of, 115 00:11:16,870 --> 00:11:25,719 as I say, the types of cases that the numbers and types of cases that are being recorded in the institutions in which they were analytically. 116 00:11:25,720 --> 00:11:30,790 My approaches, I suppose, very much inspired by the works of postcolonial critical feminists, 117 00:11:30,790 --> 00:11:34,509 of international relations and international law who have long been attentive. 118 00:11:34,510 --> 00:11:38,589 And I quote Munro here to see the ways in which women have been excluded, marginalised, 119 00:11:38,590 --> 00:11:41,890 silenced, misrepresented, patronised or victimised by international institutions. 120 00:11:42,490 --> 00:11:46,719 And they've often used this idea of gendered subjects or figures as a key analytical 121 00:11:46,720 --> 00:11:50,920 vehicle through which to sort of draw out and communicate politics of representation, 122 00:11:50,920 --> 00:11:54,320 and that often the centralising effects as a whole. 123 00:11:54,340 --> 00:11:58,329 However, I find that this body of literature, while I'm very much inspired by it, 124 00:11:58,330 --> 00:12:04,750 tends to overlook the role of institutional imperatives and the micro politics behind micro macro policies on the one hand, 125 00:12:05,110 --> 00:12:08,800 and overlooks the role of operational and contextual constraints in practice on the other. 126 00:12:09,550 --> 00:12:11,560 So foregrounding these last two elements, 127 00:12:11,560 --> 00:12:19,270 I played a sort of critical feminist approach to think about institutional representations of and interactions with conflict affected men in DRC. 128 00:12:21,470 --> 00:12:25,990 So that takes us to the. Oh, sorry, I forgot. We fight on methods. 129 00:12:28,820 --> 00:12:33,590 So this is now into the substance. And reporting on sexual violence. 130 00:12:34,100 --> 00:12:39,860 Notably, PTSD predominantly centres on acts of sexual violence committed by armed men in uniform, all parties to the conflict. 131 00:12:40,550 --> 00:12:46,640 And from the onset, this emphasis was made explicit in 2002, as we see the report here, 132 00:12:46,640 --> 00:12:52,550 Human Rights Watch published a report entitled It's the War Within the War Sexual Violence against Women and Girls in Eastern Congo, 133 00:12:52,610 --> 00:12:54,800 which effectively sounded the alarm to the issue. 134 00:12:55,760 --> 00:13:03,410 And in fact, it was the first report to shine a spotlight on sexual violence perpetrated in these conflicts, bringing to bear its scale and brutality, 135 00:13:03,710

--> 00:13:09,920 which I quote was frequently and sometimes systematically perpetrated by armed men in uniform against civilian women and girls during the war. 136 00:13:10,850 --> 00:13:16,190 In its introductory summary, the report states that most forces involved in the conflict use sexual violence as a weapon of war, 137 00:13:16,250 --> 00:13:20,120 at times raping women as part of a more general attack to terrorise communities and 138 00:13:20,120 --> 00:13:25,610 accepting their control or to punish them for real or supposed aid to opposing forces. 139 00:13:26,600 --> 00:13:31,069 But the authors also note that sexual violence is increasingly committed by a variety of perpetrators, 140 00:13:31,070 --> 00:13:34,430 but that nevertheless the focus of the report is on crimes of sexual violence 141 00:13:34,430 --> 00:13:38,150 committed by soldiers and other combatants against parties to the conflict. 142 00:13:39,320 --> 00:13:43,670 Now the focus was sustained by feminist and women's rights activists. 143 00:13:44,270 --> 00:13:48,620 Advocates are here working with and within the UN in the pursuit of a key advocacy goal, 144 00:13:48,710 --> 00:13:53,690 which was to establish sexual violence and conflict as a self-standing issue on the UN Security Council agenda. 145 00:13:54,530 --> 00:13:57,829 So if anybody wants to ask about this later, I think it's quite fun story. 146 00:13:57,830 --> 00:14:05,510 But this is a picture of a documentary that actually played a really key role in generating and effects a lot of the momentum in the party, 147 00:14:05,920 --> 00:14:09,470 the political will to get Resolution 1820 off the ground. 148 00:14:10,790 --> 00:14:14,510 It's on. I haven't been able to find the full the full film online, 149 00:14:15,650 --> 00:14:20,150 but it was once available on Amazon and it mentions that it's credited, in effect, for the resolution. 150 00:14:21,020 --> 00:14:25,100 So if anybody wants impacts in the policy world, it seems as though documentaries are all the way to go. 151 00:14:27,470 --> 00:14:34,879 So achieving this goal of establishing sexual violence and conflict as a self-standing issue on the council's agenda requires some 152 00:14:34,880 --> 00:14:42,530 strategic manoeuvring largely to persuade a resistant council of the importance and even the relevance of sexual violence to its mandate. 153 00:14:44,420 --> 00:14:50,090 So personally, to this discussion, this meant sort of delimiting when and what types of sexual violence fall within 154 00:14:50,090 --> 00:14:55,400 the remit of the Council and is quite crudely stated by one of my respondents. 155 00:14:55,700 --> 00:14:58,100 I don't think Russia's ever going to believe that, you know, 156 00:14:58,220 --> 00:15:05,570 a husband raping his wife unless he's being held at gunpoint by a military officer should count on the sexual violence and conflict agenda. 157 00:15:06,560 --> 00:15:13,250 And as we can start to glean

from this quote, the profile of the perpetrator was quite an important distinguishing factor and effect. 158 00:15:13,460 --> 00:15:20,240 Clarifying this point, the respondent explained that some member states don't want to understand the coercive atmosphere that's created. 159 00:15:20,510 --> 00:15:25,430 That's not to say that every act of sexual violence that happens in countries in conflict is that chance in conflict. 160 00:15:25,910 --> 00:15:31,340 But I think that lots of member states don't want to understand that beyond the sort of very clear he's in a military uniform. 161 00:15:32,210 --> 00:15:37,790 So from this perspective, the presence of a military uniform sort of automatically comes to represent the symbol, 162 00:15:37,800 --> 00:15:40,730 quoting from another interview, the symbol of being a sexual predator. 163 00:15:42,440 --> 00:15:47,629 And it's clear that just viewing it in this way, it glosses over a host of sexual harms that are committed in conflict contexts, 164 00:15:47,630 --> 00:15:50,150 including intimate partner violence committed by civilians, 165 00:15:50,150 --> 00:15:57,680 as well as violence against sexual gender minorities, for example, against women in civilian spaces. 166 00:15:58,130 --> 00:16:01,970 But what also became clear over the course of my research was that not all military 167 00:16:01,970 --> 00:16:05,960 uniforms are treated equally under the Security Council's institutional eyes. 168 00:16:06,860 --> 00:16:13,159 Not all acts of sexual violence committed by an individual in a military uniform constitute sexual violence in conflict under the women, 169 00:16:13,160 --> 00:16:17,870 peace and security agenda. Nor do they therefore trigger the same institutional response mechanisms. 170 00:16:19,040 --> 00:16:22,070 Notably, while it's widespread across peacekeeping missions, 171 00:16:22,520 --> 00:16:28,549 sexual violence perpetrated by U.N. peacekeepers falls under the separate policy category of sexual exploitation and abuse, 172 00:16:28,550 --> 00:16:31,940 or SGA, and is addressed under the remit of conduct and discipline, 173 00:16:32,030 --> 00:16:35,840 which is just a completely different part of the House, again, as it was described by a respondent. 174 00:16:37,250 --> 00:16:41,090 So this policy and in effect, operational distinction is no coincidence. 175 00:16:41,510 --> 00:16:48,260 According to a UN women's rights advocate who again was quite prominent in getting 1820 off the ground, 176 00:16:48,650 --> 00:16:54,620 the conflation between conflict relates to sexual violence and sexual exploitation, and abuse creates a number of closed doors. 177 00:16:55,160 --> 00:17:02,420 This is particularly challenging in relation to troop contributing countries or ticks on the council who were concerned that, she recounted. 178 00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:05,960 We were just there to point the finger at them for incidents. 179 00:17:07,070 --> 00:17:12,889 As she

explained in our interview, she and her colleagues thus pushed to formalise the distinction between conflict related sexual 180 00:17:12,890 --> 00:17:18,140 violence perpetrated by our two parties to the conflict and perpetrated by peacekeepers, 181 00:17:18,440 --> 00:17:21,950 another intervening actors to keep these political jaws ajar. 182 00:17:23,510 --> 00:17:28,669 So when I asked if this was the reason why there exist is clear delineation in no uncertain terms, she responded. 183 00:17:28,670 --> 00:17:34,160 Yeah, yeah. That's the reason why it's a tactical and strategic decision that we made very deliberately. 184 00:17:34,280 --> 00:17:38,500 And I can tell you honestly that had we not done that, we'd be nowhere to compete with sexual violence. 185 00:17:39,680 --> 00:17:44,480 So as a result, perpetrators of conflict related sexual violence became defined as armed men in uniform, 186 00:17:44,630 --> 00:17:47,780 crucially, who do not sport a blue U.N. peacekeeping helmet. 187 00:17:48,800 --> 00:17:53,570 So sexual violence committed by this category of perpetrators that response efforts intend to target, 188 00:17:53,720 --> 00:17:56,630 including in efforts to promote accountability and fight impunity. 189 00:17:57,470 --> 00:18:03,470 Yet, as Judy stated by the authors of the Independent Review of SCA in the Central African Republic for victims of sexual violence, 190 00:18:03,470 --> 00:18:06,500 it's immaterial whether the perpetrator was wearing a blue helmet or not. 191 00:18:08,900 --> 00:18:13,860 So I want to turn to a video. But this focus as I try to find it. 192 00:18:13,860 --> 00:18:20,749 So see from the quote, this focus was on armed men in uniform and not peacekeepers. 193 00:18:20,750 --> 00:18:25,729 It's very clear. And so that statement context there from the former excuse me, 194 00:18:25,730 --> 00:18:34,220 when I play around with technology for the representative of the Secretary-General to sexual violence and conflict to very clearly how do I. 195 00:18:37,330 --> 00:18:49,250 Yeah, I was. I removed. So very clear references to two military uniforms and badges. 196 00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:54,500 And in this video, as I mentioned, was produced by the FCO in the run up to the global summit. 197 00:18:54,770 --> 00:18:59,560 To find such a complex, the same kind of the same emphasis is, is quite evident. 198 00:18:59,570 --> 00:19:13,760 And I thought I'd give you a break from my voice and let you know we disagree with you or there's a weapon that doesn't just in physical. 199 00:19:14,750 --> 00:19:19,290 Any violation over. A lot of power buyers. 200 00:19:19,570 --> 00:19:20,260 I'll catch up. 201 00:19:21,250 --> 00:19:32,620 A weapon that is just as scary as bombs and bullets, but invisible when rape and sexual violence is used against women, girls, men and boys. 202 00:19:33,310 --> 00:19:42,290 Victims are sometimes abandoned by their families and the armed have communities of colour like wars massacre, 203 00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:50,170 especially when the monsters who did it are allowed to get away with even the murder victims. 204 00:19:53,000 --> 00:20:02,050 But it doesn't have to be this way. Rape and sexual violence are the worst crimes we can imagine, but they are not an inevitable part of war. 205 00:20:03,100 --> 00:20:10,520 It's time to act. And sexual violence. Time to act, to bring those responsible to justice. 206 00:20:11,270 --> 00:20:14,660 Time to act to let governments know that enough is enough. 207 00:20:15,920 --> 00:20:22,639 Time to act so that those who live in fear of sexual violence have a chance to fill some time. 208 00:20:22,640 --> 00:20:28,720 To act. To make your voice heard. Okay. 209 00:20:32,220 --> 00:20:38,100 Back to the presentation. Yeah. 210 00:20:46,950 --> 00:20:54,150 Is it, Gene? Yeah. As movies become more and more reliant on computer effects. 211 00:20:54,750 --> 00:21:03,090 This is not what we want. Okay, let's just get. Sorry, everyone. 212 00:21:03,230 --> 00:21:15,490 Technology rally on my side. So as we can see from the video, there is a clear idea. 213 00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:22,120 I mean, I think if the nature of the harm of sexual conflict and notably of who the 214 00:21:22,120 --> 00:21:25,689 perpetrators of such violence and conflict are and the redress that's thus warranted, 215 00:21:25,690 --> 00:21:28,750 which is fighting impunity for judicial accountability. 216 00:21:30,160 --> 00:21:34,390 So with this in mind, who is the fight against impunity reaching in practice in DRC? 217 00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:41,259 So to explore this question, I'll first barely walk through the outcomes of the high profile trial, 218 00:21:41,260 --> 00:21:44,500 which took place, as I mentioned, the town of Minova in May 2014. 219 00:21:44,920 --> 00:21:49,479 And then I'll walk through cases that we see making it to and through courts on a more sort of quotidian, 220 00:21:49,480 --> 00:21:52,600 everyday basis in these less exceptional trials. 221 00:21:53,590 --> 00:21:56,430 So to explain why, I suppose to explain this picture, 222 00:21:56,440 --> 00:22:02,049 it's it was one of the most iconic pictures that came out of the of the trial that was spread around media. 223 00:22:02,050 --> 00:22:06,250 It's also the cover of a militia group. I don't know if you've come across her work. 224 00:22:06,250 --> 00:22:10,420 I highly recommend it. Interested in this in this area and more generally. 225 00:22:11,170 --> 00:22:16,060 But these were the protective clothing that were given to victims who testified 226 00:22:16,420 --> 00:22:21,570 at the trials and the microphone sort of concealed their voices and signature, 227 00:22:22,530 --> 00:22:28,480 but sort of backtracking. So a handful of incidents of mass rape have become particularly notorious in eastern DRC. 228 00:22:28,930 --> 00:22:36,940 And one such event took place in November 2012 when

following the defeat of the M23 armed group, hundreds of soldiers from the national army, 229 00:22:36,940 --> 00:22:45,910 the FARC, retreated to Minova, which is a town on the shores of beautiful Lake Kivu, bordering between the north and South Kivu provinces. 230 00:22:46,690 --> 00:22:51,640 What ensued was a ten day frenzy of destruction, as it was sort of described by Human Rights Watch, 231 00:22:52,180 --> 00:22:54,370 which included widespread looting and sexual violence, 232 00:22:54,760 --> 00:22:59,620 with some reports estimating that more than a thousand women, children and men were raped in this town alone. 233 00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:07,450 Most reports estimated the numbers of instance to be around 230, but some such descriptions of the attack, importantly, 234 00:23:07,450 --> 00:23:12,729 seem to align quite closely with the policy definitions or the ideas that we just talked about above, 235 00:23:12,730 --> 00:23:18,930 including in terms of the perpetrators of the harm as the national army, as well as the nature of the harms to. 236 00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:22,329 Now, because of the scale of the attack and the outcry that followed, 237 00:23:22,330 --> 00:23:26,830 Congolese authorities came under quite significant pressure to hold those responsible to account, 238 00:23:27,460 --> 00:23:35,050 which led to this sort of high profile, highly media time trial. Some six charges were brought were brought against 39 defendants. 239 00:23:35,620 --> 00:23:41,290 33 of the charges were for rape as a war crime, and one was for a rape of a minor under domestic legislation, 240 00:23:42,610 --> 00:23:46,480 76 civil parties or victims testified at the trial, 241 00:23:46,900 --> 00:23:50,980 which included 50 testimonies for rape and 26 testimonies for crimes of pillage, 242 00:23:51,340 --> 00:23:55,360 although most of the parties testifying for rape also victims of pillaging. 243 00:23:56,290 --> 00:24:01,870 However, only two convictions were secured for sexual violence and only one of which was for rape as a war crime. 244 00:24:02,020 --> 00:24:05,830 The other was for the rape of a minor under ordinary as an ordinary crime that I just mentioned. 245 00:24:06,940 --> 00:24:13,090 So all defendants accused of rape as a war crime, but one were acquitted, although some were charged with lesser crime. 246 00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:21,190 This verdict was widely viewed as a disappointment, as a failure to deliver justice and as a new insult to the victims of sexual violence in DRC. 247 00:24:21,790 --> 00:24:27,220 And it was seems to confirm this idea of a dysfunctional state, the dysfunctional state of the Congolese justice system. 248 00:24:29,110 --> 00:24:32,290 Now I don't have the time and probably wouldn't want to bore you with going through 249 00:24:32,290 --> 00:24:36,040 the legal reasoning behind the acquittals because you don't really have the time. 250 00:24:36,610 --> 00:24:40,600 But I do have a more

extensive discussion that I'd be happy to share with anybody if you're interested. 251 00:24:41,050 --> 00:24:44,050 But ultimately, a combination of sort of political military dynamics, 252 00:24:44,050 --> 00:24:48,880 evidentiary constraints and resource limitations contributed to the acquittals, as far as I can see. 253 00:24:49,390 --> 00:24:55,660 It seemed to be I mean, it was legally reasoned. What is more relevant for our purposes, though, 254 00:24:55,660 --> 00:25:02,280 is to think about that one soldier who was convicted for sexual violence and for rape specifically as a war crime. 255 00:25:02,290 --> 00:25:12,920 And, you know. So this indictment as if this was not a command responsibility indictment, but one of individual criminal responsibility, 256 00:25:13,370 --> 00:25:19,520 which meant that it required both evidence of this individual criminal responsibility and contextual elements linking to the crime of the conflict. 257 00:25:20,060 --> 00:25:23,390 Our focus on the form as it's most relevant to our conversation now. 258 00:25:24,140 --> 00:25:30,440 So proving individual criminal responsibility and beyond reasonable doubt can be especially challenging in conflict contexts, 259 00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:33,620 as explained by the verdict at the court. 260 00:25:33,890 --> 00:25:38,870 Generally, with respect to sexual violence, perpetrators take measures to not be identified by their victims. 261 00:25:39,500 --> 00:25:43,760 They favour acting when it's dark, blinding their victims with the light of their torches, 262 00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:46,460 intimidating them with threats to stop them from staring at them, 263 00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:51,440 warding off potential witnesses so the victim becomes the only witness to the aggression. 264 00:25:51,890 --> 00:25:55,460 Herein lies the importance of a statement so the judge can appreciate her credibility. 265 00:25:57,260 --> 00:26:03,080 So the officer who was convicted on the charge of rape as a war crime was recognisable by virtue of an exceptional physical feature. 266 00:26:03,260 --> 00:26:05,150 You can see on the picture a missing thumb. 267 00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:11,660 According to the verdict, the victim recognised the suspect, whom she previously seen fetching water from the fountain, 268 00:26:11,780 --> 00:26:15,830 who had a missing finger on his on his hand, a feature she easily remembered. 269 00:26:15,860 --> 00:26:20,329 I'm quoting from the verdict again. So central was this feature to the proceedings. 270 00:26:20,330 --> 00:26:25,880 The suspect's defence argued that the victim had only noticed the missing thumb during preliminary investigations, 271 00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:28,670 a claim that was later proven unfounded because, in effect, 272 00:26:28,670 --> 00:26:37,370 in the aftermath of the attack, she had gone to a local cleric and in her seeking support from him, 273 00:26:37,370 --> 00:26:42,470 had given some had mentioned

this distinctive sign on his body of his thumb. 274 00:26:44,300 --> 00:26:50,150 So what does this mean? It suggests that even when or maybe especially when circumstances of such violence 275 00:26:50,150 --> 00:26:53,770 and conflict align closely with those associated with the sort of consensus, 276 00:26:53,790 --> 00:26:56,150 this narrative, and therefore what is quintessentially the perpetrator. 277 00:26:56,900 --> 00:27:03,020 The outcome of Minova indicates the necessity of an exceptional physical feature to prove individual criminal responsibility. 278 00:27:06,110 --> 00:27:10,579 So every day justice coming to the end, I promise. 279 00:27:10,580 --> 00:27:13,970 This is probably the most dense part, though, so bear with me. You come to the end. 280 00:27:14,750 --> 00:27:17,450 So, as I mentioned, Minova was exceptional in several regards, 281 00:27:17,780 --> 00:27:22,880 not least the resources that were invested in that one particular trial, as well as the high level media attention. 282 00:27:24,770 --> 00:27:34,219 But on an everyday basis that, you know, similar important insights to be going to and doing my research, including with the Human Rights Centre, 283 00:27:34,220 --> 00:27:40,590 the sexual violence program at the Bexley School of Law, and certainly in the early phases of it with local judicial actors. 284 00:27:40,610 --> 00:27:47,750 We saw me and my colleague Suzanne Oldham were surprised to find that judicial systems were, in effect, functioning. 285 00:27:48,350 --> 00:27:55,400 Almost everything I had read or knew about in the Times pointed to their deplorable or dysfunctional states, 286 00:27:55,790 --> 00:27:58,010 both of the civilian and military justice systems. 287 00:27:58,820 --> 00:28:05,250 We were all the more surprised to find that the justice system was, in fact functioning, to investigate and prosecute sexual violence crimes. 288 00:28:05,330 --> 00:28:09,950 So we're talking about it's different to the Minova space, which was an operational military court, 289 00:28:11,270 --> 00:28:13,970 but these were functioning to investigate and prosecute sexual violence crimes. 290 00:28:14,450 --> 00:28:20,290 And in fact, this would be prioritised conviction rates once cases reach the courts. 291 00:28:20,290 --> 00:28:27,940 So to the point of judgement, conviction rates are actually high, in some cases up to 80%, which is much higher than you see in the UK. 292 00:28:27,980 --> 00:28:32,870 I think in London this year it was about 7% conviction rate conviction rates for sexual violence. 293 00:28:34,250 --> 00:28:38,780 However, it also became clear the more we sort of dug into the cases that the types of such ones 294 00:28:38,780 --> 00:28:42,830 cases that local judicial actors were prosecuting were not of the kinds that we imagined. 295 00:28:43,370 --> 00:28:47,690 In other words, they were a far cry from those depicted in the sort of quintessentially narrative. 296 00:28:49,270 --> 00:28:53,889 So my thesis, I show that this has implications for both female victims as well as for the male perpetrator or 297 00:28:53,890 --> 00:28:58,060 men and boys who have been suspected or accused of having committed an act of sexual violence. 298 00:28:58,750 --> 00:29:05,320 But in line with a sort of general focus on perpetrators, I won't talk about it to say about happy to sort of merit the analysis of mirrors. 299 00:29:05,470 --> 00:29:11,680 They marry each of them. So it's important to give a little bit of legislative context with domestic legislative context. 300 00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:14,830 In 2006 and new sexual violence law was passed in DRC, 301 00:29:15,370 --> 00:29:22,360 which has been widely heralded nationally and internationally for its expansive and progressive nature, as well as its strong punitive measures. 302 00:29:23,710 --> 00:29:32,320 What is less frequently noted, though, is that it increased the age of legal marriage and sexual consent from 15 as it was in the Family Code to 18, 303 00:29:33,130 --> 00:29:36,190 which effectively created a whole new category of legal, statutory, 304 00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:41,020 statutory victims under the law for whom the notion of consent is, in effect, legally void. 305 00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:47,760 You don't need to prove consent if you can prove that the young girl is under 18 while the devil really is in the detail here, 306 00:29:47,770 --> 00:29:54,129 I'm going to try and not get too lost in the numbers, but we'll try and pull out some of the some of the key trends on this. 307 00:29:54,130 --> 00:29:57,910 In the next slide, I include a couple of tables with cases recorded by the peer, this, 308 00:29:57,910 --> 00:30:03,970 which is the specialised sexual violence unit set up specifically to receive and investigate cases of sexual violence. 309 00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:07,120 And the officers in that have received extensive training, 310 00:30:08,290 --> 00:30:15,130 extensive and specialised training by including some of the European and European police as well as as well as others. 311 00:30:15,550 --> 00:30:21,970 So they don't represent the whole justice system by any means, but they're intended to be the first stop or point of entry to the judicial system for 312 00:30:21,970 --> 00:30:26,860 survivors to report to their also needs specific to the military or civilian justice systems, 313 00:30:26,860 --> 00:30:32,710 meaning that we can expect to see or we could expect to see cases perpetrated by the civilians or parties to the conflict, 314 00:30:32,890 --> 00:30:38,320 a uniformed personnel, members of armed groups. So they offer a good starting point for this discussion. 315 00:30:39,220 --> 00:30:43,870 So as you'll see from the numbers here, this is in Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu. 316 00:30:44,620 --> 00:30:49,510 There were 477 total cases reported to the unit between 2013 and 14. 317 00:30:50,830

--> 00:30:58,450 But of these, only three of the suspected perpetrators were identified as being from the ongoing armed group in Bukavu. 318 00:30:59,380 --> 00:31:06,820 We see that nine of the 236 this was just for 2014 were identified as being uniformed personnel. 319 00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:10,240 So in effect, 96% were identified as being civilians. 320 00:31:11,450 --> 00:31:16,690 Now, what I'm not depicted in the table data from Bukavu, which is the provincial capital of South Kivu sorry. 321 00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:21,609 They're also in the records that give insights into the suspects ages, their professions, 322 00:31:21,610 --> 00:31:27,490 sort of allowing me to have a more nuanced analysis and more nuanced and textured analysis of the profiles of perpetrators. 323 00:31:28,660 --> 00:31:40,660 The age of the suspected perpetrators was specified in 107 of the cases 3040 and is varied between from 12 and one case as the youngest to 67, 324 00:31:41,740 --> 00:31:52,510 which was the highest. The average age of the suspected perpetrators of this hundred and seven was 25, with 82% being between 15 and 30. 325 00:31:53,560 --> 00:32:00,130 And this actually equates exactly with numbers found in previous years by UNDP. 326 00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:06,560 And it's also worth noting here that the average age of victims recorded for 2014 was was 16 years. 327 00:32:07,150 --> 00:32:11,889 So with regards to professions, when recorded or known on the civilian side, 328 00:32:11,890 --> 00:32:19,210 there was some variation ranging from sort of students and pupils to unemployed cultivators, motorbike drivers, construction workers, among others. 329 00:32:19,570 --> 00:32:22,960 But the most highly represented were students and those unemployed. 330 00:32:23,590 --> 00:32:27,249 And when asked about the trends in perpetrator profiles reported, 331 00:32:27,250 --> 00:32:34,270 the officer from the commanding officer from the unit in Goma emphasised their young age and low socioeconomic status. 332 00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:42,810 Perpetrators are usually young, usually between 1745. They usually have an education level that's not surpassed the average and they are unemployed. 333 00:32:44,290 --> 00:32:50,260 Similar patterns were identified across magistrates courts and tribunals further along the judicial chain. 334 00:32:51,430 --> 00:32:57,759 Echoing this, the police officer above, the general prosecutor, also in Goma, stated that very often, 335 00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:01,629 very often the idle young men, they're generally people of the same generation. 336 00:33:01,630 --> 00:33:04,840 The girl is 14, the perpetrator is 21 when they're both minors. 337 00:33:06,310 --> 00:33:08,350 What about in the justice, the military justice system? 338 00:33:08,710 --> 00:33:15,310 So here several trends were notable to the numbers of reported cases were significantly lower than in the civilian justice system. 339 00:33:16,750 --> 00:33:18,490 For example, the magistrate's office in Goma. 340 00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:27,820 On the civilian side, we saw 857 cases reported between 2013 2014, but there were only 122 on the equivalent military side in the same period. 341 00:33:28,330 --> 00:33:34,180 And the higher up the military judicial chain and therefore the higher the jurisdiction of the higher ranking officers, 342 00:33:34,180 --> 00:33:38,049 the numbers just got lower and lower, like in the civilian justice system. 343 00:33:38,050 --> 00:33:43,150 Military officers, often reported, tended to to be known or identifiable to the victim, 344 00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:47,830 which is quite in contrast to what we heard in terms of being over and concealing identity. 345 00:33:49,050 --> 00:33:52,620 And I only am one of the 122 cases reported in Goma that I mentioned. 346 00:33:52,620 --> 00:33:55,080 Was the suspect not identified or known to the victim? 347 00:33:56,160 --> 00:34:01,319 They also tended to be lower military grades, and that is of lower socioeconomic class military stature, 348 00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:07,470 which also aligns with the findings of the civilian justice system. And echoing the civilian prosecutor that I mentioned, 349 00:34:07,740 --> 00:34:14,380 the secretary of the military magistrate office in Goma stated that the 2006 law came in with a lot of vigour. 350 00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:19,530 We arrest boys who are 19 or 20 here in the garrison who rape young girls and who are minors. 351 00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:25,260 So what was made clear across the military in civilian jurisdictions is that the vast majority 352 00:34:25,260 --> 00:34:29,820 of cases of sexual violence reported to and addressed by formal judicial systems in the region, 353 00:34:30,240 --> 00:34:36,600 including in the specialised units, the magistrate's offices, the courts and tribunals for statutory rape that is involving and goes under 18. 354 00:34:37,470 --> 00:34:42,240 So this doesn't tell us much about the dynamics behind the cases in each of the cases, 355 00:34:42,240 --> 00:34:47,299 but there was a to the terms are used colloquially to refer to these cases of statutory rape that involved 356 00:34:47,300 --> 00:34:52,860 a female minor who in most cases is engaging for an intensive purposes in consensual sexual relationships. 357 00:34:52,860 --> 00:35:00,209 And that time is, of course, finished. So these cases are often reported by a family member who either doesn't approve of their 358 00:35:00,210 --> 00:35:04,860 daughter's relationship or to pressure their daughter's boyfriend in delivering a bride price. 359 00:35:05,580 --> 00:35:09,270 Now, I do want to be clear in saying that I'm not stating that every case of sexual violence 360 00:35:09,270 --> 00:35:14,370 reported to the justice system in eastern DRC constitutes coming out in this way. 361 00:35:14,850 --> 00:35:21,990 But during our research, we heard story upon story of young

girls visiting either their legally prescribed perpetrator in jail, 362 00:35:22,350 --> 00:35:28,470 bringing their children to visits in jail, and even threatening to kill themselves if their boyfriend was convicted or imprisoned. 363 00:35:30,390 --> 00:35:35,490 So such cases, as we heard them, don't seem to be delivering justice for sexual violence in the way that it's intended, 364 00:35:35,910 --> 00:35:38,280 nor is it reaching those it seems to be intending to. 365 00:35:39,330 --> 00:35:45,390 Rather, it seems to signal the often overlooked and disproportionate effect of socio economic class and indeed of age in the operation of the law. 366 00:35:46,980 --> 00:35:53,430 The law in this way seems to be operating more as a means of sexual regulation rather than one of delivering justice or redress to the survivors. 367 00:35:55,400 --> 00:36:01,910 So to conclude, I want to highlight three points. And before doing so I want to emphasise that responding to sexual violence in 368 00:36:01,910 --> 00:36:05,720 conflict as in any context is important and should be appropriately resourced. 369 00:36:06,230 --> 00:36:09,680 But in doing so, we need to keep in mind how response structures are operating, 370 00:36:09,740 --> 00:36:12,770 how they perceive you operating in policy, and how to operate in your practice. 371 00:36:13,700 --> 00:36:18,379 So I've showed through this presentation notions of perpetrator heard of such violence and conflict and 372 00:36:18,380 --> 00:36:24,050 injustice specifically were carefully and strategically delineated for international peace and security policy. 373 00:36:24,380 --> 00:36:25,730 As armed men in uniform, 374 00:36:25,730 --> 00:36:33,770 all parties to the conflict producing this sort of centralising narrative of sexual violence and in turn producing potentials perpetrator. 375 00:36:34,670 --> 00:36:36,180 And this highlighted the importance, though, 376 00:36:36,230 --> 00:36:41,240 of accounting for institutional imperatives and political dynamics in defining a policy issue in any given political moment. 377 00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:45,319 But through the second and third parts of the presentation, 378 00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:49,820 it was clear that this quintessentially spoke is less easily discernable in domestic legal practice. 379 00:36:50,060 --> 00:36:55,970 And so it's important to account for contextual realities and the often overlooked influence of class and age and the operation of the law. 380 00:36:56,960 --> 00:36:57,650 And with that, 381 00:36:57,890 --> 00:37:03,860 if we return to the fact that the fight against impunity is deemed to be important for its effects and signalling certain messages to the population, 382 00:37:04,010 --> 00:37:08,930 notably the crimes of sexual violence and conflict will not go unpunished. And the current functioning, 383 00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:13,370 it seems as though efforts to fight impunity seem to say as much about who is punished and 384 00:37:13,370 --> 00:37:16,850 punishable under the law as it does about what is punished and punishable under the law. 385 00:37:17,750 --> 00:37:23,090 So with that, I'll leave it there and open two questions and thank you for bearing with the presentation. 386 00:37:23,450 --> 00:37:23,810 Thank you.