In July 2016, GJC staff member Michello Onello was interviewed for an article in the Myanmar Times by Malarvili Meganathan titled, "As Myanmar comes under CEDAW review, rights groups present legacy of stigma, victim-blaming."

Click here to read the article in the Myanmar Times.

Phyu Phyu Sann, far right, the Global Justice Center’s Senior Burma Researcher, is in Geneva, Switzerland for the United Nation’s (UN) review of Myanmar’s implementation of its obligations under the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)  to ensure gender equality. In Myanmar, the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee) will confront a “constitution and laws that explicitly and in effect discriminate against women,” and a country with a “history of patriarchy, negative gender stereotypes,” and marginalization of women in all parts of society, as outlined in a recent press release and shadow report by the Global Justice Center and the Gender Equality Network.

Arriving in Geneva after a long, trans-Atlantic flight, Sann immediately commenced preparations with members of local women’s groups. In an unprecedented show of cooperation, women’s groups agreed to submit a joint oral statement to the CEDAW Committee and GJC helped formulate and draft the statement.  In Geneva, Sann helped to finalize the oral statement, prepare answers to “possible questions from [the] committee,” and compare CEDAW’s list of issues with official responses from the  government in order to effectively highlight the precarious situation faced by women.

In e-mail correspondence from Geneva, Sann stresses the importance of listening to women working on the ground to effect change. She notes that, “the CEDAW Committee pays attention to these informative quick assessments and opinions of women from the ground.” Topics covered might include structural barriers and discrimination in law, underrepresentation of women at all levels of government and in the peace process and violence against women, including conflict-related sexual violence committed by the military. Between intense preparation sessions, Sann and her activist colleagues found time to celebrate the country’s rich culinary diversity, cooking “rice and Burmese soup and salad,” and “[sharing] food together.”

The women, Sann writes, are now “ready to engage with CEDAW.”

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“In the light of its factual findings with regard to the allegations of sexual violence […] the [International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda] considers the criminal responsibility of the Accused on Count 13, crimes against humanity (rape), punishable.”

(The Prosecutor v Jean-Paul Akayesu, 1998)

 

Despite the conviction of rape as a component of genocide nearly twenty years ago, the international community has yet to prosecute Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (“ISIS”) fighters for similar actions.

In 1998, a decision by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda entered legal history as the world’s first conviction of genocide by trial. 18 years later, The Prosecutor v Jean-Paul Akayesu (“Akayesu”) continues to garner significant international attention; The Uncondemned, a feature length documentary about the case, was released in 2015 and an international lawyer recently compared Akayesu’s importance in international criminal law to the US Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v Board of Education case which established the unconstitutionality of “separate but equal,” accommodations in US public education.

The genocide conviction is not, however, the case’s sole historical feature; Akayesu also marks the first conviction of rape as a component of genocide (at the time, there was not even a commonly accepted definition of “rape,” in international law). The judges unequivocally compared rape to torture, noting that “like torture, rape is used for such purposes as intimidation, degradation, humiliation, discrimination, punishment, control or destruction of a person.” In certain cases, they note, “rape in fact constitutes torture.”

Even with such clear precedent for rape in genocide prosecutions, war rape is still a common feature of modern warfare: research conducted by the Global Justice Center - and submitted to the International Criminal Court - has found that ISIS “systematically raped, enslaved, killed and tortured,” girls and women – actions potentially similar to those Akayesu was convicted for 18 years ago. Furthermore, the United Nation’s (“UN”) Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Syria recently concluded that ISIS is committing genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes against the Yazidi people.

Yet despite the UN’s documentation of ISIS-committed sexual slavery, rape, and sexual violence, “little to no action has been taken to investigate, document and ensure accountability.”

By prosecuting ISIS fighters for war rape – an act likened to torture by a criminal tribunal – the international community would provide a semblance of justice to war rape victims, follow and establish international legal precedent, and send a powerful message to potential ISIS fighters that they will be held accountable for their actions.

Join the Global Justice Center’s work for justice for war rape victims: follow us on Twitter and Facebook.