Iraqis Push to Prosecute Rape in War Crime Trials

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Iraqis Push to Prosecute Rape in War Crime Trials

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

Womens ENews - Jun 26, 2006
http://www.womensenews.org


Iraqis Push to Prosecute Rape in War Crime Trials

By Elizabeth Dwoskin
WeNews correspondent

(WOMENSENEWS)--A prominent women's group in Iraq, along with advocates of
international law in the United States, are beginning to demand justice for
thousands of Iraqi women who suffered under the regime of Saddam Hussein.

They are working with and lobbying the Iraqi High Tribunal--the temporary
court now trying the crimes of Hussein's Baathist regime--to prosecute and
punish perpetrators of gender-based violence, including allegations of women
being raped in prison and politically motivated public beheadings.

The group in Iraq, whose members request anonymity, formed in 2003 as a
network of expatriate women, some of whom have returned to the country. They
are supported in part by a grant from the New York-based Open Society
Institute.

"I do not want our name to be used to protect our members in Iraq from being
targeted," said the group's director, who is based in the United States. She
said she has also concealed her work with the tribunal from many members of
her own organization. "To protect them, I didn't tell them," she said.

On June 21, a senior lawyer defending Saddam Hussein before the tribunal was
murdered at his home in Baghdad, dramatizing the level of sectarian violence
and danger surrounding the proceedings.

In August 2004, the Iraqi women began working with the New York-based Global
Justice Center, a group that advises female leaders in transitional
democracies.

Chance to Strengthen Precedent

The activists say their work with the tribunal is a chance to strengthen
recent precedents in international law that can be used to prosecute
violations of women's rights and sexual violence within Iraq, even after the
tribunal itself has ended.

"If we can get the prosecutors to make indictments for the Baathist crimes
and the judges to recognize sexual violence, it is going to open a door that
can change the local laws on rape and on honor killings. Once that door is
open, it cannot shut," said Janet Benshoof, director of the Global Justice
Center. "Today under the domestic Iraqi penal code, if a man runs out on the
street and rapes 40 different women in complete view of the public, that act
is not considered a crime unless one of the women or her relatives come
forward. The tribunal, on the other hand, is working with the progressive
and comprehensive legal code on sexual violence in the world."

The tribunal was formed in 2003; its mandate is to try the Baathist regime
of Saddam Hussein for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity
committed between 1968 and 2003. It includes approximately 70 judges; all
but the chief investigative judge are anonymous. One of the judges and one
of approximately 20 prosecutors are female.

The tribunal is scheduled to hold 12 trials in all. The first trial, which
began in October and is expected to last at least until August, includes the
trial of Hussein and seven others for a 1982 massacre in the Iraqi city of
Dujail.

The next trial will be for the Anfal campaign, described as a
three-year-long murderous rampage that Hussein is accused of waging upon the
Kurds, the minority population in northern Iraq.

The U.S. State Department and KurdishMedia.com, an independent online news
source, have alleged that Kurdish women were raped and trafficked during the
Anfal campaign. The women's groups are compiling such reports in an attempt
to organize pieces of evidence of violence against women during the Baathist
regime.

Rape Charges Unsure

While the tribunal's statute identifies rape as a war crime, a crime against
humanity and a form of torture, some international lawyers and members of
the Global Justice Center say that the wording of the statute itself does
not ensure that the group of predominately male judges and prosecutors will
include rape in their list of charges in future cases.

One reason for this is that such progressive laws for prosecuting sex crimes
are new, first established in the 1990s by the war crimes tribunals in
Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. The International Criminal Court was
established in 2002, but hasn't issued any rulings yet that could influence
future cases.

Another reason is that Iraq's domestic rape laws--those with which the
judges are most familiar--are far less progressive than the laws they will
be using in the tribunal. In Iraq today, for example, a rapist can escape
prosecution by marrying his victim.

Nehal Bhuta, a research fellow at New York-based Human Rights Watch, says
that sexual assaults in connection with the 1982 massacre have come up
before the Iraqi tribunal but have not become a focus.

"The witness evidence indicated that there were some forms of sexual
assault, but it is not in the charges," Bhuta told Women's eNews. "It could
be that they are not paying attention to it, that they don't want to
emphasize it. All I can say is that it is there in the evidence, but for a
reason I do not know, the prosecution has not chosen to focus on it."

Trainings on Sex Crime Laws

Benshoof says that the tribunal judges and prosecutors have asked the
women's groups for training in the international legal precedents on sex
crimes. In her opinion, they are eager to prove the legitimacy of the court
to the international community, which has questioned whether Iraqi judges
can give their former dictators a fair trial.

In March training sessions, the women's groups emphasized that contrary to
the Iraqi Penal Code, under the tribunal's statute, rape can happen to a man
or woman, it does not limit the crime to an act of penetration and a person
does not have to say no to establish that she or he has not consented to
sex.

The women are also advocating that the tribunal set up videoconferencing in
Kurdistan so that women there can testify from the safety of their homes and
communities. They want the tribunal to create a reparations fund for the
women if judges rule in their favor.

Along with other human rights groups, the Iraqi women's group is considering
submitting a friend-of-the-court brief to the tribunal, which will argue
that, while sexual violence against women has traditionally been treated
with impunity, the tribunal has the opportunity to make history by
addressing it.

As part of an effort to sensitize the judges to the psychological dimensions
of rape, the women showed the judges a videotape of a woman who said that
she was raped by Saddam Hussein himself.

"The point is we are trying to bring this before the judges, because when
the tribunal is over, they will go back to their benches and be the elite
judges of Iraq," said the leader of the Iraqi women's group. "So we want
them to see how women suffer."

[Elizabeth Dwoskin is a freelance writer and radio producer based in New
York City. She will be beginning a yearlong Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship
in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, starting this July.]

For more information:

Global Justice Center: - http://www.globaljusticecenter.net

Grotian Moment: The Saddam Hussein Trial Blog: -
http://www.law.case.edu/saddamtrial/

Iraqi Women Under Saddam's Regime: A Population Silenced: -
http://www.state.gov/g/wi/rls/18877.htm

Dr. Sahib al Hakim (Arabic only): - http://www.alhakim.co.uk/ -

Copyright 2006 Women's eNews.

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