Conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) refers to violent actions taken by armed personnel against women, girls, men, and boys during times of war. CRSV can take many forms, and includes rape, forced marriage, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, and other acts of similar gravity. Before the mid-1990s there was hardly any data available on the magnitude of this violence and its consequences. The wars in Bosnia and Rwanda in the 1990s drew the attention of human rights groups, civil society groups, policy makers and the social sciences to CRSV. In 2007, the Coalition for Women’s Human Rights in Conflict Situations, Women’s Forum (Sierra Leone) and others issued the Nairobi Declaration on Women’s and Girls’ Rights to a Remedy and Reparations. In 2009, Rights and Democracy in Montreal, Canada commissioned research on the application of the principles of the Nairobi Declaration in Sierra Leone. This was an attempt to find out how the government was addressing the issue of reparations for victims of sexual violence during the war.
More recently, in 2017, the justice committee of the CSIW Project conducted online research on justice mechanisms for victims. The aim of this post is to review linkages between CRSV and peacetime practices through reviewing applicable legal provisions and sharing frontline experiences from Women’s Forum Sierra Leone (WFSL). WFSL conducts research and works to promote and apply national, regional, and international law and policy on gendered violence to support victims of gender and sexual violence in Sierra Leone.
Threats to women’s human rights and gender inequality
In 1993, the International Conference on Human Rights recognised that women’s rights were human rights and that violence against women was an abuse of women’s human rights. Human rights activists made the connection between CRSV, violations of women’s human rights, and perpetuation of gender inequality, and called on states to protect and uphold the rights of women and girls, including in times of conflict. During Sierra Leone’s war, women’s human rights were violated. Physicians for Human Rights stated in 2002 that over 250,000 women and girls suffered violations. Only 3,602, however, registered with the Reparations Directorate and benefited from reparations after peace was secured. Many survivors did not register and did not benefit.
