Gender and International Justice:
Reparations for Crimes against Women in Conflict and Post-conflict Contexts
Peace Research Center, Bulletin InfoCIP 7, November 2005

New conflicts presume consequences especially harmful for women and children. About 90% of all victims of war belong to one of these two collectives. In addition, women are subject to different manifestations of sexual violence that have traditionally remained silenced, considered to be offences that are domestic in nature, rather than being deemed war crimes and violations of human rights. Unfortunately, impunity with respect to these types of crimes has become the norm rather than the exception.In current conflicts, the generalization of these types of offences has been to define them as gender-based crimes. To name these transgressions is to acknowledge them and to raise them from the invisibility in which they were previously submerged. In recent years, encouraging advances have been produced from the fields of the United Nations, international justice, academic, and civil society organizations that have put sexual violence in a new perspective as a crime against humanity.

Despite the fact that the IV Geneva Convention points to sexual violence as a war crime, it wasn’t until the ad hoc courts of Rwanda and Ex Yugoslavia in the 90’s that rape was considered an act of genocide. The International Criminal Court has gone further to include rape as a crime against humanity and an act of genocide when it is perpetrated systematically against civil population.

Gaby Oré Aguilar, researcher and contributor to the Peace Research Center (Centro de Investigación para la Paz, CIP-FUHEM) and the director of the project “Gender Justice: Reparations and Armed Conflicts” in her article Gender and Justice in Transitional Societies: An Approximation from the Perspective of Human Rights, deals with key questions on violence against women in contexts of armed conflict and the possible responses from the international justice. This article is a summary of the paper presented by the author to the International Seminar “The Gender Perspective in the International Relations Agenda and Peace Building”, held on November 18th 2004 organized by the Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales (ICEI) – Area of Gender and Development, Complutense University of Madrid. This document is next to be published by the said institution.

Gender Justice, Reparations and Armed Conflicts

The new possibilities opened by international justice promoted a debate from civil society about the need to strengthen national and international judicial norms towards reparation relating to gender crimes. To contribute to this debate, the Peace Research Center (Centro de Investigaciónpara la Paz (CIP-FUHEM), along with Women’s Link Worldwide has just organized a meeting of international experts focused on legal reparations for gender crimes in the context of armed conflicts, which took place in Madrid on the 10th and 11th of October, 2005. This meeting was framed around the project “Gender Justice, Reparations, and Armed Conflicts”, which is carried out by these two organizations. The project focuses its research on the internal judicial treatment of these crimes and examines two case studies: Colombia and Sri Lanka. In the framework of this meeting was a roundtable titled “Gender and Justice in Armed Conflicts”, which raised key aspects and questions pertaining to justice and reparation for female victims of sexual violence in the framework of armed conflicts. The roundtable brought together more than twentyinternational experts from Europe, Latin America, and the United States.

More information on the project can be found at: www.genderjustice.org

Study cases: Colombia and Sri Lanka

In the armed conflict in Colombia, crimes against women are widespread. Susana Villarán de la Puente, Speaker for Colombia and for Women’s Rights of the Inter-American Commission for HumanRights (CIDH) visited Colombia in June 2005 with the intention of getting to know the situation of women’s rights there. José Zepeda, director of the Latin American Department in Radio Nederland, gathers some key aspects of this visit in his interview with the Speaker.

For a profile of the armed conflict in Colombia and its impact on women, please visit:
www.womenwarpeace.org/colombia/colombia.htm

The principles of Truth, Justice and Reparation are of application to the gender crimes. An analysis on the right to reparation in the context of the present demobilization process of the paramilitary groups in Colombia is presented in the article by Gaby Oré “The Right to Reparations in the Demobilization of Colombian Paramilitaries”, published in the CIP Yearbook 2005, Cartographies of Power. Hegemony and Responses, edited by the Peace Research Center (Centro de Investigación para la Paz, CIP-FUHEM).

Sri Lanka is one of the very few cases in which, after the signing of peace agreements, formally included women in the negotiation table throughthe formation of a Gender Sub Committee. Kumudini Samuel is founder of the organization Women and Media Collective, and was a member of the Sub Committee on Gender Issues of the Peace Process in Sri Lanka. Samuel revisits the obstacles and achievements for this subcommittee in heri nterview with Nuria del Viso.For a profile of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka and its impact on women, please visit:
http://www.womenwarpeace.org/sri_lanka/sri_lanka.htm

More information on the work of the Sub Committee of Gender in the Peace Process in Sri Lanka, please visit http://www.peaceinsrilanka.org/insidepages/SubCommittees/SubComonGender.asp


Resolutions and pending challenges

Resolution 1325 by the United Nations Security Council, now five years old, recognized the inclusion of women in the operations relating to peace and in decision making processes for the prevention and resolution of conflicts. This Resolution was followed in the same year by other passed by the European Parliament on women, peace and security. On the fifth anniversary of these resolutions, the challenge remains. To change these declarations into reality implies resolute actions on the part of the international community together with specific mechanisms to implement them, and staff policies with a gender perspective in all making-decision levels. In addition, it needs on the part of national governments in conflict or post-conflict contexts specific measures to include women and the gender perspective in peace building and to include violence against women in conflict contexts as crimes in national law.

On the analyses of Resolution 1325, we recommend the articles by Elisabeth Porter, “Women and Security: ‘You Cannot Dance if You Cannot Stand”, and by Lesley Abdela, “1325: Deeds not Words”, which underline the importance of including women in the formal peace processes. These articles were published by Open Democracy, and offered in Spanish by the Peace Research Center (Centro de Investigación para la Paz, CIP-FUHEM).

“Women and Security: ‘You Cannot Dance if you Cannot Stand”
http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-resolution_1325/dance_2937.jsp

“1325: Deeds not Words”
http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-resolution_1325/conflict_2929.jsp

From: http://www.cipresearch.fuhem.es/