Difficulty to speak and hear about CRSV

Speaking about conflict-related sexual violence – in and outside legal settings – has generally proven to be a difficult undertaking, foremost for those who experienced such crimes. Many survivors of conflict-related sexual violence suffer from depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, low self-esteem, and suicidal thoughts, and speaking about the atrocities brings back painful and traumatic memories. Furthermore, when victims speak in court, the demanding legal structure may require victims to speak before complete strangers in detail about very intimate and painful experiences. Even more so than for victims of other international crimes, victims of sexual violence may also experience stigmatization, isolation, and rejection from their spouses, families, and communities if they find out what happened to the victim. For victims of CRSV, this stigmatization may include ridicule; becoming unmarriageable; having children of rape, who moreover become the society’s laughingstock; discrimination because of their HIV/AIDS status; and even convictions of adultery, homosexuality, or some other crime. In far too many societies, sexual violence victims are looked down upon as if they did something wrong, thereby placing the guilt and shame on the victim instead of the perpetrator [See also subtheme “consequences and needs of victims/survivors of CRSV”].

However, it is certainly not true that victims/survivors of CRSV generally don’t want to testify in court. Such presumptions keep CRSV rather under-investigated and under-prosecuted. Some victims wish to testify (with or without protective measures), while others don’t want to. For example, in the ICTY Kunarac et al. case, a victim of CRSV who testified said: “I simply cannot think about these things because I was exposed to so much torture. But I’m proud to be here. Let the world know what they did.” For her and many other victims of conflict-related sexual violence who testified before international, national, and local tribunals, it provided a space to tell judges, society, and the world the truth of what happened to them and provided them recognition for the harm committed against them, and therefore a sense of justice. Many victims also saw the opportunity to face their attacker in court as empowering. When done under the right circumstances, testifying in court – and participating in court to express one’s views and concerns – can indeed be an empowering experience for victims of sexual violence.

It has slowly become clear, that not only victims of sexual violence may find it difficult to speak or hear about sexual violence themselves. Others, in different capacities (within the legal settings of tribunals or otherwise) and who have had no involvement in sexual violence as such, find it similarly difficult to speak or hear about conflict-related sexual violence. For example, during the Nuremberg war crimes trials after World War II, where sexual violence was not prosecuted despite evidence available, a prosecutor – shortly after reporting one or more rapes on three different occasions – simply remarked as follows: “The Tribunal will forgive me if I avoid citing the atrocious details which follow (…) I will not mention any more of the atrocities described in this document,” and “I pass on” (Askin, 2013). A study done by Sara Sharratt which included interviews with court officials of the ICTY and the Bosnian War Crimes Court, revealed that most prosecutors did not like to prosecute sexual violence cases and that some judges also did not particularly like to deal with such cases.

According to Usta Kaitesi (2013) who was a trainer on legal issues related genocidal sexual violence before the Rwandan gacaca courts, which dealt with around 7,000 cases of sexual violence post-genocide: “Even as a trainer [on sexual violence] I wished that I did not have to do this, but the greatest challenge for justice, especially criminal justice and more so transitional justice, is that detailed accounts are required of issues that we are neither prepared to speak about nor to hear. Consequently, those with the power to decide or even help tend to silence victims by not creating mechanisms through which they may receive justice or by silencing them even when they want to have access to such mechanisms because we have socially labelled their experiences as unspeakable or unbearable.”