Empowering Women in the Fight Against Gender-Based Violence

Violence against women is an international problem, but many countries and policymakers turn a blind eye to the prevalence of such abuse. Although there are many obstacles to preventing gender-based violence, including misperceptions of rape survivors, lack of funding and the absence of proper sexual assault services, there is hope. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars recently hosted a panel to discuss the real statistics of GBV and plausible models for addressing this problem during conflict as well as within societies rebuilding after conflict.

Heidi Lehmann of the International Rescue Committee shared one approach in Liberia. Since 1989, Liberia’s civil war had created a breeding ground for violence against women. A 2005 survey in 4 countries indicated that 91.7% of 1,216 women and girls interviewed had been subjected to multiple violent acts during Liberia’s conflict. Displaced widows, wives, orphans, children, husbands, and brothers could be found in cramped camps around the country.

The IRC had been training health care and social workers to respond to rape survivors. However, they discovered that the most effective way to prevent gender-based violence was to involve the women in the solution. IRC conducted one-on-one interviews with women and children in the camps, assessing where the more dangerous areas were and what could be done to make them safer. Because of cramped quarters and food shortages, there were more opportunities for physical and sexual assault. Following the interviews, social workers went out into the community empowering women to come forward, seek justice and demand change. They also built a center for a group of local women who have committed to preventing gender-based violence in their community.

Still, more needs to be done in Liberia. When Refugees International was there last fall, we went looking for the text of the Rape Amendment Act that had passed in 2006 – a landmark victory for women’s groups in the country who seek justice for victims of sexual assault. However, few people had a copy of the law and groups regularly complained about its lack of enforcement. Progress in Liberia will not continue -- for women or men -- without substantially improving the nation’s justice system and giving it the resources and expertise necessary to carry out real reforms.

In order to encourage survivors to seek help and justice, it is absolutely necessary to have programs that they can depend on to provide the protective services and justice promised to them.

--Kimberly Compton

President’s Corner: Ibrahim Prize Opens New Era for Africa

Today’s announcement that Joaquim Chissano, the former president of Mozambique, won the first Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, could open a new era in African politics and governance.

The prize—the world’s largest—was established by Dr. Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese- born entrepreneur who made a fortune by bringing cell phone service to Africa, in order to focus attention on African leaders who follow the rule of law and put their country’s future above their own.

Mr. Chissano won the $5 million prize for his role in helping to end a brutal, 16 year civil war in Mozambique, for establishing democratic government in the former Portuguese colony, and for voluntarily stepping down before running for an allowed third term as president.

Ever since Dr. Ibrahim announced that he was establishing the prize a year ago, it has generated a buzz in Africa, both because of its size and its goal of improving governance in a continent known more for misrule than rule of law.

A Nigerian told me recently: “In America, the government fears the people. In Africa, the people fear the government.” Dr. Ibrahim’s goal is to change that equation by making African leaders more accountable to their people.

Earlier this month the Mo Ibrahim Foundation released the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, which ranked all 48 countries in Sub Saharan Africa. Mauritius got the top ranking, while Somalia ranked last. Dr. Ibrahim’s native country, Sudan, where a military regime is conducting a brutal civil war in Darfur, ranked number 45, even lower than Zimbabwe, a rich country impoverished by a repressive dictatorship.

“We are shinning a light on governance in Africa, and in so doing we are making a unique contribution to improving the quality of governance,” Dr. Ibrahim.

It is, of course, too early to predict the impact of Dr. Ibrahim’s focus on making African governments accountable, but the contribution to stability could be profound, particularly in helping war-torn countries return to stability. As Refugees International pointed out following a recent assessment of conditions in Liberia, the establishment of rule of law and governmental structures that help people mediate disputes peacefully and legally, rather than through violence, is a key element in helping war-torn countries rebuild.

Accountable governments are a key element in restoring stability, rebuilding war-torn economies and improving living standards. In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a new doctrine called the Responsibility to Protect. Many analysts have called this—incorrectly, I believe—a demand on Western governments to intervene in places like Sudan to stop genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity. While the Responsibility to Protect does contemplate military intervention as a last resort, it is primarily a call on governments to protect their own people and to be accountable to their needs.

In announcing the prize, Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the United Nations and chair of the prize selection panel, said: “President Chissano’s achievements in bringing peace, reconciliation, stable democracy and economic progress to his country greatly impressed the committee. So, too, did his decision to step down without seeking the third term the constitution allowed.”

There would be far fewer refugees and displaced people in Africa if other leaders followed President Chissano’s lead.

--Ken Bacon

Looking for the law in Liberia

A few weeks ago in Liberia, I met with several women’s groups who told me about the new “rape law” which had come into force last year. The passing of this law is a great achievement for the people who had campaigned hard to seek justice for victims of sexual violence in Liberia. The victims are many. A 2005 survey in 4 counties indicated that 91.7% of 1,216 women and girls interviewed had been subjected to multiple violent acts during Liberia’s conflict.

So the women’s groups were understandably proud of the new law, but were disappointed by its lack of enforcement. The Rape Amendment Act has had little, if any, effect on stemming the high incidence of sexual violence so far. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) told me that in just one hospital in the capital, Monrovia, there were 513 cases of rape reported in the first 6 months of 2007, 174 of them involving victims under 12 years of age. The cases reported to MSF are probably only the tip of the iceberg, because of the stigma attached to reporting rape in this society. Aid groups and other non-governmental organizations feel that the police, lawyers and judges do not understand the law, and that rape cases are not being dealt with properly by the courts.

Having heard so much about the rape law, and since I am a lawyer, I decided that I wanted to see a copy of it. So I asked the next organization I visited for a copy, but they didn’t have one. I asked a number of other organizations, with the same reply. Even groups who were running awareness-raising programs with communities about the rape law didn’t have a copy of it! By this time I was beginning to question whether or not a new rape law had really been enacted.

Finally, while visiting Lofa county in the north-west of Liberia one organization gave me a summary of the new rape law, which was a good start. Later, I had the opportunity to sit in on a child protection meeting – where representatives of government, UN agencies and NGOs meet to discuss issues affecting children in the county. Someone talked about a rape case where the victim was a 9-year-old girl and the alleged perpetrator was a 15-year-old boy. The magistrate had thrown the case out of court because he said that this situation was not covered by the rape law, as the boy was under 18 and there was no evidence that the girl had not consented (despite her young age). The magistrate had apparently told the families that they should just talk to the boy and girl and tell them not to do this again.

Many meeting participants were understandably outraged by this decision of the court – surely this situation must be covered by the rape law? Surely the magistrate’s ruling was not a legal one? While a heated discussion raged, it became apparent that, of the gathering of 25 people responsible for child protection in the county, no one had a copy of the rape law. I was a researcher who had just come to observe the meeting, but I ended up sharing my copy of the summary of the rape law with these well-meaning people.

However, it soon became clear that having the “rape law” alone – in full or in summary - was not sufficient to determine legality in any event - since it is an amendment to another law (which does deal with children’s legal incapacity to give consent), and none of us had a copy of that law.

I was puzzled by this difficulty in obtaining the laws of Liberia; there is no Government gazette, and – unsurprisingly in a country that had no electricity for 15 years – no website on which they are posted. So I asked a member of the American Bar Association in Monrovia if he could explain why the law is so inaccessible. He told me that, a while ago, the Liberian government had sought assistance to codify the laws of Liberia. US funding was granted for this undertaking, and the contract had gone to one private company, which had subcontracted to another private company – a Liberian-owned company registered in the US. This company claims to have copyrighted the laws and law reports of Liberia, and is charging US$5,000 for copies of the compilations of the laws. The Rape Amendment Act is not even included in the compilation. So with the puzzle partially solved – I certainly did not have $5,000 to spare -- I left Liberia without fully understanding or analyzing the Liberian laws on rape (although I did at least find an organization with a copy of the rape law amendment).

And I was further perplexed by another piece that my friend from the American Bar Association added to the puzzle. He informed me that one of the directors of the company that claims to have copyrighted Liberia’s laws has been nominated to become the country’s new Minister of Justice! There ought to be a Liberian law on conflict of interest - but how to afford a compilation of the laws of the country?

What does this strange story say about the situation in Liberia? Well, it’s just one example of the many areas in which the Liberian government has taken bold steps forward to try to address injustices, but where the resources and expertise are just not yet there to back up their initiatives. And there are idiosyncracies – like the copyrighting and commercial sale of copies of Liberia’s laws – that compound the problem. Passing the rape law was a very progressive move for which the Liberian government should be congratulated, but it will not translate into greater protection for survivors of rape if the law is not widely disseminated and if the people who have to implement the law are not trained to understand it.

The good news is that the American Bar Association has come up with a proposal to post all Liberian laws on the internet – and at least the international agencies in the country have generators and access to the web. Of course, this proposal will have to be approved by the Liberian government – specifically, the new Minster of Justice…

--Melanie Teff

Advocates Melanie Teff and Mark Malan recently returned from a mission to Liberia

Happy International Women's Day

From Senior Advocate, Sarah Martin:

Today is International Women's Day and the theme is Ending Impunity for Violence Against Women and Children. This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. For the past ten years, I've been very interested in this topic and trying to find ways to help the survivors of rape. Refugees International has allowed me to pursue this passion and along the way, I've met some absolutely amazing refugee and displaced women, as well as the humanitarians who risk their lives to help them.

My very first mission for Refugees International was to Guinea and Liberia in November 2003. This is where I truly learned how widespread the problem of gender-based violence is during conflict. A mental health worker in a camp in Guinea let me sit in on a small counseling session of Liberian refugee adolescents who talked about the atrocities they had seen and discussed ways to deal with their anger. One of the most powerful articles I've ever read about the widespread problem of abuse of women in Liberia is Kenneth Cain's "The Rape of Dinah" in Human Rights Quarterly. I would urge you to read it. Liberia has made great strides - electing Ellen Sirleaf Johnson as the first democratically elected woman president in Africa but it's still slowly recovering from the civil war that tore it apart. There is still not enough being done to address the impunity that the rapists in Liberia enjoy.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, I visited the site of the infamous UN sexual exploitation and abuse scandal in Ituri. The UN was desperately trying to address this problem and there was nary a uniformed man in sight at the bars and restaurants there. There I met Mirella, an Italian aid worker who ran a psycho-social program for raped women in the Congo and tried to help them put their lives back together. The ICC actually indicted Thomas Lubanga Dyilo - the former leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots, a group notorious for abducting child soldiers and for rape. This action gives us hope that the women of the DRC will see some justice.

In Sri Lanka, I met with young women who were former soldiers in the LTTE: The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. When these young women are taken for the LTTE, their hair is cut off - something rare for women in Sri Lankan society. These young women often hide out for months until their hair grows out so as to avoid being stigmatized as former combatants. With the war in Sri Lanka raging again, more girls and boys are being abducted into the LTTE and rapes by government soldiers continue.

The most difficult mission I undertook while at RI has to be the mission to Darfur in 2004 where we focused on the problem of gender-based violence there. Amna and Maha, two Sudanese aid workers who took my colleague Mamie and I underneath their wings and translated for us, introduced us to women, and even cooked us dinner. The warmth and the hospitality of Darfuri women has to be experienced to be believed. I've spent many afternoons sitting in IDP camps drinking tea with women listening to their stories about the abuses and the rapes that they endure.

For my last act at RI, I'm helping to field a mission of two lawyers that specialize in gender-based violence who are going to Sudan. By focusing on the laws and implemenation (or lack thereof), we hope to hold the Government of Sudan accountable for their appalling actions. Even if women are able to register a complaint about rapes, they are rarely investigated, or the defendents fail to show up for trials. By shining a bright light on the government of Sudan's inability to end the rapes in Darfur and punish the perpetrators, RI hopes to engage women's organizations around the world to stand up and demand justice.

So for all of you out there reading this, thank you for your support in helping us fight impunity for violence against women in every country that we work in. The women need to know that their voices are not being ignored.

The New Face of Peacekeeping

One of the more notable headlines from the past week is the arrival of the first ever all-female peacekeeping force to Liberia. The force, consisting of more than 100 Indian policewomen, has been training since September 2006. They will initially be deployed to Liberia for 6 months.

The all-female Formed Police Unit (FPU) is a welcome addition to the 15,000 peacekeepers already with the UN Mission in Liberia. The female police force will help in rebuilding the Liberian National Police (LNP). Few women in Liberia currently consider pursuing a career in the national police force. This is due to lower educational standards for women in Liberia, as well as lingering negative views of the Liberian police, who have a history of corruption and took part in fighting during the country's civil war. The hope is that the involvement of the female Indian police force and a special UN education program for women interested in joining the force can reverse this trend.

With continuing reports of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA) by UN peacekeepers, including in Liberia, an all-female force will also hopefully make it easier for victims of abuse, particularly women and girls, to come forward and receive assistance. Refugees International’s own report on the topic, Must Boys Be Boys? Ending Sexual Exploitation and Abuse In UN Peacekeeping Missions, recommended that more women be included in peacekeeping missions, but noted that a “hyper-masculine culture that encourages sexual exploitation and abuse” has evolved in UN peacekeeping missions. The UN has made important steps to address the problem of SEA. However incidents are still taking place despite the UN’s official policy of zero tolerance. More needs to be done to ensure that UN staff in the field implement the rules set forth by headquarters.

An all-female peacekeeping force is an important step in combating the prevalence of SEA in UN peacekeeping missions. As this recent Washington Post article quotes, "Women police are seen to be much less threatening, although they can be just as tough as men. But in a conflict situation, they are more approachable and it makes women and children feel safer." The UN also reports that there are less incidents of SEA when there is a significant presence of female peacekeepers in a larger force.

More than 250,000 people were killed in the 14-year civil war in Liberia and an estimated 500,000 out of a population of 3 million were internally displaced. In 2005, RI conducted a mission to Liberia to look at the return of displaced persons in time for the presidential elections, which consequently saw the election of the first female president in Africa, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Our findings from that mission included the need for UN peacekeepers to do more to assist internally displaced persons (IDPs) returning home. The good news is that the majority of those who were displaced during the conflict have since returned home, but Liberia still continues to need humanitarian assistance and international support.