Fighting for justice for survivors of rape in war:
Alison Des Forges, 1942-2009 – in memoriam
It is not difficult to find examples throughout history of rape being regarded as a normal part of the spoils of war, or of acts of sexual violence as something permitted to boost the morale of war-weary soldiers. It is a long way from that kind of impunity to the prosecution of rape as a crime against humanity. As RAISE pursues the work of enabling women to realize their right to comprehensive reproductive health services in the midst of war and complex emergencies, it is useful to remember those who have also struggled to ensure that perpetrators of rape are brought to justice.
Alison Des Forges of Human Rights Watch, who died tragically on February 12, 2009 in a plane crash in upstate New York, played an important part in that struggle in Central Africa. As the author of Leave None to Tell the Story, a painfully detailed chronicle of the acts that constituted the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Alison set the standard for the kind of research that would eventually enable rape to be prosecuted at the special UN tribunal on the Rwandan genocide. With Human Rights Watch colleagues, she brought the horrific facts of violent rape, degradation and sexual slavery of women and girls into the tribunal. The resulting prosecutions set an important precedent for treating rape as a crime against humanity, both in the Rwanda tribunal and later in the new International Criminal Court, where rape and sexual slavery are included among the charges in several of the cases that the Court is pursuing. More »
February 19, 2009 | RH News