This thesis analyze the relationships between mechanisms of transitional justice and gender-specific crimes. The work is based on a study of two case studies. The first is South Africa, which, after Apartheid, favoured restorative justice; and whose leading initiative was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The second case study concerns Cambodia which has set up, with the help of the UN, a hybrid tribunal.
The article emphasizes on the important role of government to secure and support the TRC’s recommendations otherwise “survivors lack the means to deal with material and psychological consequences of apartheid violence, and must face enormous hurdles to have their demands heard”. Contains a rhighly relevant intervju with ICTJ Senior Program Adviser Howard Varney, a practicing advocate at the Johannesburg Bar, who worked with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and continues to represent victims of past conflicts in the courts of South Africa to vindicate their rights.
Global Submission by the International Save the Children Alliance UN Study on Violence against Children
The present study evaluates Save the Children’s experiences with work against child sexual abuse and exploitation around the world. We focus on the essence of our programme experiences, our insights and the ‘main jewels’ of our learning in the form of 10 essential learning points. We have investigated if and how our work has been in the best interest of children and whether it contributed to their development. How do we perceive the challenges and strategies that have been successful? The examination led to the formulation of the learning points, which may serve as a guide for establishing good practice and policies.
Thirteen country programmes within Save the Children – Canada, Colombia, Brazil, Nicaragua, South Africa, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda, Syria, Nepal, Bangladesh, Romania and Spain – have been involved in the present examination, drawing on their own and partners’ experiences as well as the experiences of governments and civil society in general in combating child sexual abuse within a number of cultural, socio-economic, political and religious contexts. Good practice from other Save the Children members, academic and other sources has also been included. We have emphasised that the learning reflects what boys and girls of different ages themselves feel, think, reflect and experience around sexual abuse.Turid
In many ways, researching violence against women is similar to researching other sensitive topics. There are issues of confidentiality, problems of disclosure, and the need to ensure adequate and informed consent. As the previous quote from an interviewer illustrates, however, there are aspects of gender-based violence research that transcend those in other areas becauseof the potentially threatening and traumatic nature of the subject matter. In the case of violence, the safety and even the lives of women respondents and interviewers may be at risk .
For the last few decades, the prevailing approach to sexual violence in international human rights instruments has focused virtually exclusively on the abuse of women and girls. In the meantime, men have been abused and sexually humiliated during situations of armed conflict. Childhood sexual abuse of boys is alarmingly common.
While outside of South Africa the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was widely perceived as a model process for dealing with a legacy of violence and human rights violations, within the country substantial criticism has been voiced as to how “just” the TRC really was and on which level shortcomings and failures – either of a fundamental nature, rooted in the concept of the TRC, or as an artefact of how an “initially good idea” was carried out – may be located.
South Africa´s gendered past was never substantially addressed by the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) despite attempts by women groups to ensure its inclusion
IBUKA and its 15 member organisations, the Survivors Fund (SURF) and REDRESS (the Organisations) submit this discussion paper to the Government of Rwanda to help progress discussions on reparation for survivors of the genocide with survivors, survivor organisations and other stakeholders. The Organisations propose a range of options that could be explored further with a view to ensuring that survivors ultimately secure reparation, in particular in the form of rehabilitation, restitution and compensation.
OMCT established a full programme to focus on the socio-economic dimensions of torture, arbitrary detentions, summary executions, enforced disappearances and other forms of illtreatment. OMCT has also established specific programmes addressing violence against women, violence against children and violence against human rights defenders.
The SVRI aims to promote research on sexual violence and generate empirical data that ensures sexual violence is recognised as a priority public health problem. The SVRI does this by building an experienced and committed network of researchers, policy makers, activists and donors to ensure that the many aspects of sexual violence are addressed from the perspective of different disciplines and cultures.
Strategies for the use or containment of violence have played a greater role in the dynamics of South Africa than in many other societies. As a result, references to the violent practices and policies of the past are prominent in the popular and political rhetoric of 1990s, and contemporary efforts to deal with the problem of violence are shadowed by what went before them. New policies should therefore be formulated with reference to what these historical strategies may teach us about the management of violence in the present.
In the absence of official records, this report uses media reports to explore torture and CIDT in South Africa today. There are multiple methodological problems associated with such a method. While victims of alleged torture usually complain to official mechanisms, the media often provides a more immediate avenue of complaint, and it may become a prompt for official action
The transitional justice mechanism in South Africa,that operated between 1995 and 1998 was not seen by women`s organizations as a priority in the years following the first democratic elections. Instead, women focused their energies on the task of building a new society. It is possible that the TRC was seen as a somewhat backward-looking project, when so much had to be done around reconstruction and social transformation.
Rather than starting out from a preconceived list of items that a gender sensitive reparations program has to abide by, it would seem that, in order to claim that women have been taken into account, a policy of reparations must begin by including the voices of women .
Countries going through democratic transition have to address how they will deal with the human rights crimes committed during the authoritarian era. In the context of amnesty for perpetrators, truth commissions have emerged as a standard institution to document the violent past. Increasingly, claims are made that truth commissions have beneficial psychological consequences; that is, that they facilitate ‘catharsis’, or ‘heal the nation’, or allow the nation to ‘work through’ a violent past. This article draws upon trauma counseling experience and anthropological fieldwork among survivors to challenge these claims in the context of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Proceedings of a joint APT – ACHPR Workshop, Robben Island, South Africa, 12-14 February 2002
A book published on the occasion of the IRCT’s 20th anniversary, in 2005, tells the history of the organisation through personal tales and testimonies.
The KwaZulu-Natal Programme for Survivors of Violence aims to assist the individuals, families and communities of KwaZulu-Natal through the prevention of all forms of violence and through rendering services which are both healing and empowering.
The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) is a multi-disciplinary South African non-governmental organisation. Since its inception in 1989, the CSVR has been dedicated to making a meaningful contribution to peaceful and fundamental transformation in South Africa, and in the Southern African region.
This report examines the relationship between Peace/Conflict Resolution Organisations and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
It is hoped that this research will act as a first step towards a better understanding of what survivors want and expect from reparation. This in turn will help to make the services offered as effective as possible. The survey details what research has already been undertaken in this area and identifies gaps in that research, with a view to determining the needs for additional courses of action.
The Trauma Centre for Survivors of Violence and Torture is a non-governmental organisation that provides professional mental health services to victims of violence and torture, primarily within the Western Cape Metropole region, South Africa.