Senior ICC judges authorize Afghanistan war crimes inquiry
05 Mar 2020
Senior judges at the international criminal court
have authorized an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against
humanity in Afghanistan. The ICC investigation will look at actions by US,
Afghan and Taliban troops. There is information that members of the US military
and intelligence agencies committed acts of torture, cruel treatment, outrages
upon personal dignity, rape and sexual violence in Afghanistan and other
locations, principally in the early years of the conflict.
'We lay like corpses': Bangladesh's 1970s rape camp
survivors speak out
05 Nov 2019
In 1971, during the nine-month war that gave
Bangladesh its independence from then West Pakistan, four sisters – Amina,
Maleka, Mukhlesa and Budhi Begum – were abducted by Pakistani soldiers and
local collaborators. They were among the more than 200,000 women held in rape
camps and were detained for two and a half months. The sisters’ stories are
part of Gazi’s award-winning documentary, Rising Silence, screened on Tuesday
in London, which preserves the testimony of some of the few women who are still
alive, several of whom have died since filming.
Sudanese doctors say dozens of people raped during sit-in
attack
11 Jun 2019
Doctors believe paramilitaries carried out more than
70 rapes during an attack on a protest camp in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan,
a week ago. More than 100 people were killed and as many as 700 injured in the
attack last Monday on a sit-in and clashes afterwards, as paramilitaries from
the Rapid Support Forces spread through the city. Harrowing details of rapes by
the RSF have emerged in recent days despite restrictions on communications in
Sudan, but the extent of the sexual violence has remained unknown.
El Salvador massacre: forensics teams dig for remains as US
envoy faces grilling
15 Feb 2019
Nearly 1,000 civilians – including 533 children –
were slaughtered by US-trained troops in and around the village of El Mozote in
December 1981. Eighteen former army officers now face trial for crimes against
humanity and other charges related to the massacre. This week, the memory of El
Mozote – and the legacy of US cold war-era intervention in Central America –
was evoked in Washington DC as the Democratic representative Ilhan Omar grilled
Donald Trump’s special envoy to Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, about US policies in
Latin America. The massacre came in the early stages of a civil war between
leftwing rebels and the US-backed government that eventually claimed 75,000
lives – most at the hands of state forces, according to a United Nations truth
commission. At El Mozote, soldiers from the Atlacatl Battalion – an elite
counterinsurgency unit trained, armed, and funded by the US – lined up,
interrogated, tortured, and executed villagers. They started with the men
before turning to the women and children, gang-raping women and girls. After El
Mozote, Abrams dismissed reports of a massacre as a propaganda ploy by leftist
rebels and their allies in human rights groups. In a 1982 Senate foreign
relations committee hearing, Abrams claimed reports of the death toll were “not
credible”. On Wednesday, Omar noted that Abrams had once described US policy in
El Salvador as a “fabulous achievement”.
Children 'forced to watch rape' in South Sudan
23 Feb 2018
Children
in South Sudan have been forced to watch their mothers being raped and killed,
the UN says. The UN says the testimony gathered from survivors is
"devastating", including some people being forced to rape family
members "in cases reminiscent of Bosnia". One woman said her
12-year-old son was forced to have sex with his grandmother, in order to stay
alive. The same woman also saw her husband being castrated. Another man saw his
companion, a man, gang raped and left for dead in the bushes.
When Victims of Wartime Rape Are Scorned
18 Dec 2017
Last
month, Human Rights Watch published a report confirming that Myanmar’s army is
engaged in the mass rape of Rohingya Muslim women and girls as a tool of ethnic
cleansing. The Associated Press that established the same set of facts: the use
of “sweeping and methodical” rape as a weapon of war. The reports, in all their
horror — the dehumanizing gang rapes in front of family, the forced public
nudity, the torture and sexual enslavement — all called to mind similar stories
from Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, an estimated
20,000 to 50,000 women experienced brutal sexual violence, both inside and
outside numerous “rape camps.” The largest number of these women, by far, were
Bosnian Muslims. The forced impregnation of Bosnian Muslim women by Serbian men
was among the distinctive and repugnant genocidal strategies used by the
Serbian military, policemen and members of paramilitary groups.
Male rape used systematically in Libya as instrument of war
03 Nov 2017
Male
rape is being used systematically in Libya as an instrument of war and
political domination by rival factions, according to multiple testimonies
gathered by investigators. Harrowing reports from victims and video footage
showing men being sodomized by various objects, including rockets and broom
handles. In several instances, witnesses say a victim was thrown into a room
with other prisoners, who were ordered to rape him or be killed. The atrocity
is being perpetrated to humiliate and neutralize opponents in the lawless,
militia-dominated country. Male rape is such a taboo in Arab societies that the
abused generally feel too damaged to rejoin political, military or civic life.
Rape is an instrument of war in Central African Republic
conflict
05 Oct 2017
Rape and
sexual slavery have been used as weapons of war across Central Africa Republic,
with armed groups carrying out brutal attacks with impunity. Research by Human
Rights Watch found “Armed groups are using rape in a brutal, calculated way to
punish and terrorize women and girls.” The study detailed cases of women and
girls who were held as sexual slaves for up to 18 months. Many of the women
endured multiple sexual attacks, in addition to other forms of torture. The
Central African Republic has been wracked by sectarian violence for the past
five years. Both factions, Muslims and Christians, have used sexual violence as
revenge against women perceived to be supporters of the rival party.
Sudan soldiers face trial for rape and murder
30 May 2017
Thirteen
South Sudanese soldiers accused of raping five foreign aid workers appeared
before a military court on Tuesday, a case seen as a test of the government's
ability to put people on trial for war crimes. The attack took place on July
11, 2016, as President Salva Kiir's troops won a three-day battle in Juba over
opposition forces loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar. Between 50 to 100
soldiers arrived in the hotel in the afternoon of July 11 and began looting.
Five women working with humanitarian organizations were then raped. UN
investigators and rights group have frequently accused both the army and rebels
of murder, torture and rape since the civil war began in 2013, and say the
crimes almost always go unpunished.
Philippines' Duterte under fire for second rape joke
