What's Olive Squalane

"rape destroys people"

Today marks the 10th Anniversary of UN Resolution 1325 The Ugandan Lawyer Jane Adong Anyware has launched an initiative to help victims of rape. This would be protected by UN Resolution 1325 is not sufficient.

appeared in TAZ: 29.10.2010

are often treated as inferior beings: women in countries like Sudan.
Photo: Reuters

taz: Ms. Adong Anyware, the "Fraueninititiave for gender justice" has emerged in Uganda. There, the LRA rebels have abducted women and girls systematically. Why women are their victims?

Jane Adong Anyware: The LRA has abducted from the start, women and young girls. The reason is that in the culture of the Acholi, so the tribe from which make up the rebel army, the men are served by women. Women are lower beings whose purpose in life is to strive for the welfare of man and bear children to him. LRA leader Joseph Kony has acquired a whole harem. These women have borne him a huge crowd of children. I know one of these women very well. She was still a child himself, 12 years old when Kony took her to wife. She has borne him three children. Today she is 20, and the children are old enough to go to school. Kony they returned to their village. But when she returned, her family has refused to take them back and to recognize the children. She now lives alone, her village she treated like a leper.

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How your organization will help these women?

The International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes through procedures that are defined in the Rome Statute, including crimes against women and rape as a weapon of war. We want to give women the opportunity to be heard in the trial, without having to fear for their lives.

try to improve the witness protection?

are often made the simplest things wrong. An example: most staff drive the Court in a white UN vehicle into a small village to pick up a woman. However, even in remote areas it gets around that at the other end of the world just this or that case is heard. As soon see the villagers, which house the car stops in front, everyone can imagine that the woman is called as a witness. It does not work witness protection. We are committed to ensuring that women get with their families a chance to look too far away from their village or a new home to even get asylum in Europe. The opportunity to adopt a new identity should be considered - to the option of a facial plastic surgery.

What problems do you continue to encounter?

Take Uganda, where I come from themselves. Here, the perpetrators were not just rebels. The Uganda have left many years ago, they rage now in neighboring countries. During the war, but government soldiers have raped women - soldiers who are supposed to protect the population. It is a difficult task to find justice in this case.

How important is it that your organization is representative these women have a voice?

The crimes are usually committed in remote regions. If we as an organization is not there to record their statements, their stories would never be heard. For the majority of these women are illiterate. You have the Rome Statute have never heard of. You need intermediaries, an initiative such as ours to them at all only declared that there are ways of righteousness. We have also taken the initiative to women who were either abused by the rebels as sex slaves or raped by soldiers in the peace negotiations be included. The statements of the women have at least means that we can now be involved in the establishment of the National Court for war crimes in Uganda.

How important is it that crimes against women are recognized as war crimes?

I have to say first: I am not a victim of rape. But I know the victim and I am their lawyer. From this perspective I can say that rape is a very intimate crimes. It destroys the people's hearts. One can compensate someone whose house was burned down. But rape is not irreparable. The pain in the soul remains forever. But it is important to say that these victims may, what exactly would help them to alleviate their pain. Many do not know necessarily the perpetrators behind bars for life. To some it would already be enough to hear a confession and an apology from their mouth. We are talking not only about the way women and girls. We have called "Women's Initiative for Gender Justice," because we are also to offenses against boys and men. The LRA abducted mostly boys, and the Congo are increasingly being abused by rebel men sexually.

How important is the 1325 for your work?

The resolution was a milestone. But there are still problems in practice. Because women have to prove in court that they were raped. How does it work if, in fact, no medical examination was made? There are also cultural and psychological barriers. I have seen court cases where the woman said, "it has taken me by force." The word "rape" they did not say easy. But the judge has questioned until she had almost collapsed mentally. For women, such statements are a risk of traumatization. You need psychological help. These factors would need in the Resolut ion

be considered.

INTERVIEW: Simone Schlindwein

INFO BOX

The conflict: Uganda

The decades-long civil war in northern Uganda is one of the most brutal in the world. The rebel movement Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) formed at the end of the 80 years against the current president Yoweri Museveni. The LRA under Joseph Kony, who ascribes to supernatural abilities, trained mostly under-age youths abducted from schools, they fight, or held them as sex slaves. It is said that Kony had dozens of women who bore him several children each. Once the LRA had been forced back to Sudan, she took in 2006 with Ugandan government peace talks. At the same time presented the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants against Kony and other LRA leaders from. The talks broke down 2008th LRA fighters are raging today in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and the Central African Republic, but not in Uganda. (Dj)

JANE Adong ANYWARE

is a lawyer of International Criminal Law. She comes from Gulu in northern Uganda. It has a half years worked as a prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. There, she says, she has experienced for the first time how great the need of women to do justice and to know the perpetrators punished. Since 2004 she has been in the "Women's Initiative for Gender Justice in charge of legal affairs. She lives most of the time in The Hague, seat of the International Criminal Court. For security, they will publish a picture of yourself. (Taz)

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