Show me a woman! : narratives of gender and violence in human rights law and processes of transitional justice

Abstract

‘Show me a woman who wasn’t raped!’ These words, thrown down like a gauntlet by a genocide survivor disrupted the narrative of transitional justice as the panacea to redressing gross human rights violations committed against civilian women. The challenge to ‘show me a woman’ is made from a local perspective of intimacy between perpetrators and victims sharing homes and community space. In this study it represents the binary position of victims who seek justice and those ‘legal people’ who dispense justice. The latter hear survivor testimony only to the extent that it complements the legal parameters set by their mandates and prosecutorial strategy. Ultimately, so few survivors of armed conflict can tailor their war narrative to fit the stringent requirements of international criminal law that prosecutors struggling to select credible victims and witnesses are left asking ‘Show me a woman who was raped.’ Narratives of violence and the way it is shaped by local and international constructions of masculinity and femininity are complex and intersecting. The author acknowledges that political scientists, anthropologists and other social scientists have developed a substantial body of work demonstrating this in the African context and beyond. She argues that in comparison, legal scholars deny any complexity in the reconstruction of gender and violence by transitional justice processes: The gendered dimensions of armed conflict are evident in the Rwandan genocide and civil war and Sierra Leonean civil war. The experience of civilian women in armed conflict is visible in the case law of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Sierra Leone Special Court and in the final report of the Sierra Leone Truth Commission - crimes such as sexual slavery and genocidal rape are prosecuted and adjudicated upon. The author does not claim otherwise. Rather she asks the reader to interrogate the process of international justice for gender stereotypes in its analysis of violence against women that produce an essentialising outcome to the extent that; adding a rape charge is regarded as sufficient proof that gender has been mainstreamed into the legal construction of gender based violence. With this study the author specifically urges legal scholars and practitioners to examine and acknowledge their personal and institutional assumptions of legitimacy, impartiality and knowledge in the administration of justice in the wake of armed conflict. The author introduces an interdisciplinary discussion about the humanitarian yet flawed responses to women, gender, and violence seen in transitional justice processes. She concludes that dominant justice narratives lead to rape convictions, but also entrench harmful stereotypes about masculinity(s) and femininity(s) that conceal the nature and root causes of gender based violence in ‘peace’ and war and prevent a thorough gender analysis that correctly categorizes crimes against men and women committed in Africa’s civil wars. Throughout this study, the use of narratives, particularly personal narratives taken from field observation in Rwanda and Sierra Leone, serves to enhance the dynamic and unpredictable nature of gender relations as well as the problematic and hegemonic relationship between the legal-justice process and victims and witnesses of gross human rights violations.