Years ago, I bore witness as a journalist to the brutal violence in the Balka...

Years ago, I bore witness as a journalist to the brutal violence in the Balkans. There, mass rape was used as a tactic of war and the means of accountability had to be created through the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia – but it was created only after tens of thousands of people had already died. We've learned through hard experience that wars are increasingly carried out less by professional troops than by irregular forces – leading to more civilian casualties, economic disruption, and displaced families. During the chaos of armed conflict; legal systems are often bypassed and sexual predators, we found, do their worst.