 |
|
The RINJ Foundation as an International Non-Government Organization relies on six United Nations’ resolutions and in particular Res. 1820 in declaring its evidence-gathering mandate targeting anyone who does commit acts of sexual violence in situations of armed conflict.
Civilians comprise the majority of persons adversely affected by armed conflict. Women and children are particularly targeted by the use of sexual violence, including rape as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, instill fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or ethnic group as happened in the Rwanda and Bosnia/Herzegovina conflicts.
One of the problems facing NGOs in the past year has been the collection of useful evidence relating to rape used as a tactic of war or other armed conflict.
There is a venue for the prosecution of war-time gender violence. The United Nations has since the Nuremburg trials twice convened a tribunal in the Hague, once for crimes in the former Yugoslav states and once for Rwanda. Those experiences led to the creation of the ICC. Continue reading… (opens in a new tab or window)
Sexual violence in warfare is the most obvious distinctive experience of women in armed conflict; it is not something that they experience to any great degree in common with civilians generally, it results in immense suffering and trauma, unrelated to any arguments as to military necessity, and is almost universal in all types of warfare.
It is only relatively recently that rape has been recognized as a war crime and that prosecutions have been undertaken by international courts.
Despite the prohibition on rape under various international treaties, there were no prosecutions (domestic or international) for rape in the context of armed conflict until the late 1990s. It was the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) that were the first international courts to prosecute rape as an international crime in armed conflict, even though rape was not expressly mentioned in either statute governing these courts.
Rape was first prosecuted as the war crime of inhuman treatment under Article 2 of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the case of The Prosecutor v Delalic (The ‘Celibici Camp’ Case) In the Delalic case rape was found to constitute ‘torture’ and ‘cruel treatment’ In the case of Kovac, & Vukovicxiii the ICTY found that, independent of another crime, rape constituted a war crime. This was the first time rape was found as a stand-alone international crime.
It is on this precedent that The RINJ Foundation relies. The RINJ Foundation theory of opposing this war crime is based on large numbers of volunteers and the surreptitious ability of every woman and some children to make a small contribution which in aggregate will comprise the best and most comprehensive compilation of witness accounts and suspect photo/video identification using the most sophisticated technology ever before available to consumers, in all history.
Once the evidence is submitted to the UN and the ICC, the carriage of the file falls to the national government of Iraq, or the ICC if Baghdad refuses. Baghdad has said it will not refuse and in fact is welcoming the RINJ Foundation’s submissions. – The RINJ Foundation.
Case Report of Rape in A War Zone
Please Complete This Form
With volunteer investigators in the field and with online data collection our goal is to gather evidence and build a war-crime case to arrest and imprison war criminals who have committed the war crime of rape in a war zone. If you have pictures of the location of the crime or the perpetrator(s) or any pictures or documents that would help the case please upload them here. You can come back to this form and complete it. In the message area of the form, please provide as much information as possible including languages you speak. A representative of the RINJ Foundation will contact you to get more details. If you have questions the following links may provide you with answers. Feel free to phone Tel:+14164839279
