Morung #2 Blaming the Victim
THE MORUNG EXPRESS
www.morungexpress.com
http://www.morungexpress.com/Columnists/Patric.html
Blaming the Victim
by Patrick J. Pierce
September 26, 2005
In February, 2004 Mi Bakao (not her real name) fled her village in Mon State, Burma. The other villagers had let her know she was not welcome. For what actions would such treatment be expected in a community where she had spent the entire 25 years of her life? What shame had she brought on her community? What crime had she committed? Men and women, young and old, boys and girls alike condemned her.
Indeed, there had been a crime, but rather than the perpetrator, she was the victim. Earlier in the month, soldiers from Burma’s Light Infantry Battalion #586 had gang-raped her. She had shouted for help, and villagers had come and saved her. But after the soldiers left, the villagers scorned her so severely that she could no longer stay in her community. Now, twice-violated – first by the sexual assault, then by the stigma in her community – she has taken refuge with relatives in a nearby town.
The blame and disparaging remarks did not end there. Mi Bakao’s story also appeared in a new report on rape in Mon State, Burma. At the press conference announcing the release of the report, young journalists asked boorish questions of the reports’ author, questions that, unfortunately, are all too familiar to rape victims. Did she have a previous history of being promiscuous? What was she wearing? Had she said anything rude, flirtatious, or inappropriate to the soldiers? The questions displayed a number of assumptions that were likely also held by the villagers who scorned Mi Bakao: that she had somehow invited the rape, that she was “loose,” and that as a rape victim her continued presence in the community would bring shame on the entire community.
While rape and the accompanying stigma of “blaming the victim” remain prevalent in almost all societies, and particularly widespread in areas of armed conflict, significant progress has been made in international law to address the gravity of the crime of rape. Credit for this development must go to many of the grassroots women’s groups that, blocked at local and domestic levels to instigate change, have found solidarity with other women’s and human rights groups, and raised the issue at international forums.
Current international attempts to bring justice for crimes against humanity had their genesis in the aftermath of World War II, with the Nuremberg trials against Nazi perpetrators of the Holocaust and the Tokyo War Crimes Trials against Japanese troops for atrocities carried out in occupied territories. While those forums established important international legal standards, the fell far short of bring justice to female victims of sexual violence. At Nuremberg, rape was treated as a “crime of honor,” committed against society as a whole, rather than against the individual women. In Japanese-occupied territories, soldiers carried out systematic rape by instituting the practice of “comfort women,” forcing women from communities under Japanese control into sexual slavery in service of the Japanese troops. This issue was never addressed at the Japanese war crimes trials. Now, 60 years later, it still has not been addressed by the Japanese government. However, pressure for Japan to address this issue has grown in recent years, due largely to the influence of survivors and women’s groups who have drawn on the recent developments in international law to urge the Japanese government to issue an apology and offer reparations.
The recent developments in recognizing rape as a tactic of war have been unprecedented. The statues of by the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and for Rwanda (ICTR) explicitly incorporate rape as a crime against humanity. Rulings at these tribunals have included the identification of sexual violence as both a crime against humanity and as genocide. The Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC), also recognizes widespread or systematic rape and sexual violence as a crime against humanity.
How have these developments affected women’s lives in communities dealing with violent conflict? Earlier this year, the UN Security Council authorized the ICC to investigate and prosecute serious crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region, and the investigation opened in June. Despite the increased international attention on the region, recent reports detail the ongoing campaign of rape being carried out by the armed forces there. Time will tell if perpetrators will be brought to justice, but such measures are of little benefit to women there now, living with the threat or the aftermath of systematic sexual assault.
In Rwanda, the ICTR has made progressive rulings to convict perpetrators of rape and commanders who ordered the rapes in the 1994 genocide. One outcome of the sexual violence that was part of the genocide is that HIV spread significantly. A 2000 study by AVEGA, an association for genocide widows, found that two-thirds of women who survived rape in 1994 have HIV. Tragically, while HIV-positive male perpetrators awaiting trial at the ICTR are provided treatment for HIV, the female victims have very little access to treatment. One reason for this difficulty in accessing treatment is the stigma associated with being a rape survivor, with community members and even family humiliating and tormenting them.
If women had been more involved in the transitional policies that were addressed after the genocide in Rwanda, would they have foreseen this impending HIV tragedy? Perhaps. Involvement of women in the political process is a first step, but broader institutional reform holds the potential for affecting a true reconciliation and a just peace in Rwanda, and in other societies emerging from violent conflict and/or authoritarian rule.
These societies have a unique opportunity to re-consider the assumptions on which the previous, oppressive regimes were based. Putting the role of women at the center of that analysis could unleash incredible potential to make a radical break from the violent past and build a society not only free of gross human rights violations against individuals, but also a progressive society free of systematic gender discrimination and sexual violence.
At the press conference about the report on rape in Mon State, a colleague with the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN) who had written a similar report about another area of Burma was asked if their report had stopped further rape from happening. She responded that unfortunately, it had not. Stopping rape is, of course, the goal of such reports, but that singular goal cannot be the only measure. For, in fact, the reports on rape in Burma take two essential and difficult initial steps.
First of all, they provide a forum for women of Burma to develop the solidarity that has proved effective on the international stage in advancing the agenda to make the rights of women a priority. Journalists at the press conference challenged the Mon woman’s credibility, suggesting that the rapes she reported were not, in fact, rape. She was able to defend her credibility herself, but her points were strengthened by the support of her Shan colleague, who drove home the point that the Burmese military practices of raping with impunity are widespread, occurring not only in Mon and Shan States, but in many other areas of conflict as well.
The reports take another initial step that is perhaps even more fundamental than solidarity: they break the silence. They shift the framework of our understanding of the nature of the conflict in Burma. In solidarity with several women’s organizations in Burma as well as with international women’s groups and human rights organizations, they remind us, urge us, demand of us, to not blame the victim.
Copyright 2005, Morung for Indigenous Affairs & JustPeace. All rights reserved.
www.morungexpress.com
http://www.morungexpress.com/Columnists/Patric.html
Blaming the Victim
by Patrick J. Pierce
September 26, 2005
In February, 2004 Mi Bakao (not her real name) fled her village in Mon State, Burma. The other villagers had let her know she was not welcome. For what actions would such treatment be expected in a community where she had spent the entire 25 years of her life? What shame had she brought on her community? What crime had she committed? Men and women, young and old, boys and girls alike condemned her.
Indeed, there had been a crime, but rather than the perpetrator, she was the victim. Earlier in the month, soldiers from Burma’s Light Infantry Battalion #586 had gang-raped her. She had shouted for help, and villagers had come and saved her. But after the soldiers left, the villagers scorned her so severely that she could no longer stay in her community. Now, twice-violated – first by the sexual assault, then by the stigma in her community – she has taken refuge with relatives in a nearby town.
The blame and disparaging remarks did not end there. Mi Bakao’s story also appeared in a new report on rape in Mon State, Burma. At the press conference announcing the release of the report, young journalists asked boorish questions of the reports’ author, questions that, unfortunately, are all too familiar to rape victims. Did she have a previous history of being promiscuous? What was she wearing? Had she said anything rude, flirtatious, or inappropriate to the soldiers? The questions displayed a number of assumptions that were likely also held by the villagers who scorned Mi Bakao: that she had somehow invited the rape, that she was “loose,” and that as a rape victim her continued presence in the community would bring shame on the entire community.
While rape and the accompanying stigma of “blaming the victim” remain prevalent in almost all societies, and particularly widespread in areas of armed conflict, significant progress has been made in international law to address the gravity of the crime of rape. Credit for this development must go to many of the grassroots women’s groups that, blocked at local and domestic levels to instigate change, have found solidarity with other women’s and human rights groups, and raised the issue at international forums.
Current international attempts to bring justice for crimes against humanity had their genesis in the aftermath of World War II, with the Nuremberg trials against Nazi perpetrators of the Holocaust and the Tokyo War Crimes Trials against Japanese troops for atrocities carried out in occupied territories. While those forums established important international legal standards, the fell far short of bring justice to female victims of sexual violence. At Nuremberg, rape was treated as a “crime of honor,” committed against society as a whole, rather than against the individual women. In Japanese-occupied territories, soldiers carried out systematic rape by instituting the practice of “comfort women,” forcing women from communities under Japanese control into sexual slavery in service of the Japanese troops. This issue was never addressed at the Japanese war crimes trials. Now, 60 years later, it still has not been addressed by the Japanese government. However, pressure for Japan to address this issue has grown in recent years, due largely to the influence of survivors and women’s groups who have drawn on the recent developments in international law to urge the Japanese government to issue an apology and offer reparations.
The recent developments in recognizing rape as a tactic of war have been unprecedented. The statues of by the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and for Rwanda (ICTR) explicitly incorporate rape as a crime against humanity. Rulings at these tribunals have included the identification of sexual violence as both a crime against humanity and as genocide. The Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC), also recognizes widespread or systematic rape and sexual violence as a crime against humanity.
How have these developments affected women’s lives in communities dealing with violent conflict? Earlier this year, the UN Security Council authorized the ICC to investigate and prosecute serious crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region, and the investigation opened in June. Despite the increased international attention on the region, recent reports detail the ongoing campaign of rape being carried out by the armed forces there. Time will tell if perpetrators will be brought to justice, but such measures are of little benefit to women there now, living with the threat or the aftermath of systematic sexual assault.
In Rwanda, the ICTR has made progressive rulings to convict perpetrators of rape and commanders who ordered the rapes in the 1994 genocide. One outcome of the sexual violence that was part of the genocide is that HIV spread significantly. A 2000 study by AVEGA, an association for genocide widows, found that two-thirds of women who survived rape in 1994 have HIV. Tragically, while HIV-positive male perpetrators awaiting trial at the ICTR are provided treatment for HIV, the female victims have very little access to treatment. One reason for this difficulty in accessing treatment is the stigma associated with being a rape survivor, with community members and even family humiliating and tormenting them.
If women had been more involved in the transitional policies that were addressed after the genocide in Rwanda, would they have foreseen this impending HIV tragedy? Perhaps. Involvement of women in the political process is a first step, but broader institutional reform holds the potential for affecting a true reconciliation and a just peace in Rwanda, and in other societies emerging from violent conflict and/or authoritarian rule.
These societies have a unique opportunity to re-consider the assumptions on which the previous, oppressive regimes were based. Putting the role of women at the center of that analysis could unleash incredible potential to make a radical break from the violent past and build a society not only free of gross human rights violations against individuals, but also a progressive society free of systematic gender discrimination and sexual violence.
At the press conference about the report on rape in Mon State, a colleague with the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN) who had written a similar report about another area of Burma was asked if their report had stopped further rape from happening. She responded that unfortunately, it had not. Stopping rape is, of course, the goal of such reports, but that singular goal cannot be the only measure. For, in fact, the reports on rape in Burma take two essential and difficult initial steps.
First of all, they provide a forum for women of Burma to develop the solidarity that has proved effective on the international stage in advancing the agenda to make the rights of women a priority. Journalists at the press conference challenged the Mon woman’s credibility, suggesting that the rapes she reported were not, in fact, rape. She was able to defend her credibility herself, but her points were strengthened by the support of her Shan colleague, who drove home the point that the Burmese military practices of raping with impunity are widespread, occurring not only in Mon and Shan States, but in many other areas of conflict as well.
The reports take another initial step that is perhaps even more fundamental than solidarity: they break the silence. They shift the framework of our understanding of the nature of the conflict in Burma. In solidarity with several women’s organizations in Burma as well as with international women’s groups and human rights organizations, they remind us, urge us, demand of us, to not blame the victim.
Copyright 2005, Morung for Indigenous Affairs & JustPeace. All rights reserved.
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