he conviction this week by the Hague war crimes court
of three Bosnian Serbs for rape and sexual enslavement marks the
first time an international tribunal has convicted defendants
exclusively for sexual violence or prosecuted sexual slavery at
all. The decision shows the progress that women's issues have
made in international justice, which used to ignore mass rape,
considering it a natural occurrence in war. The tribunal's
verdict should also encourage individual nations to treat sexual
violence more seriously.
The three Serbs were commanders in the Bosnian town of Foca
in 1992 and 1993, where hundreds of women were abducted and
sexually enslaved by Bosnian Serb soldiers. Women and girls as
young as 12 were kept for months and subjected to repeated rape.
Some were rented or sold to other soldiers. All three defendants
were convicted of rape and torture, and two of them were
convicted of enslaving the women. The men received prison terms
of 28, 20 and 12 years.
The three-judge panel ruled that rape had been used as an
instrument of terror. Significantly, the judges ruled that mass
rape is a crime against humanity, the second most serious
category of international crimes after genocide.
Forced prostitution, though common in the Far East during
World War II, was never prosecuted in the international
tribunals that followed the war. Although the ensuing 50 years
have seen a dramatic expansion in women's legal rights, mass
rape was almost completely ignored in the Hague court's
counterpart tribunal for Rwanda for its first four years of
existence. Only the prodding of the sole female judge forced
prosecutors to go back and investigate rape, and hire female
investigators.
The tribunal for Yugoslavia, based in The Hague, has treated
rape more seriously, in part due to persistent lobbying by
women's groups. In addition, crimes like those committed in Foca
were a major reason for the world's outrage over Bosnia, which
led to the establishment of the tribunal. The Hague prosecutor
has a legal adviser for sexual crimes, and a large proportion of
the tribunal's indictments include sexual violence. Even so, the
Hague tribunal also has only one woman judge. Both need
more.
One of the most important roles played by the Hague and other
international tribunals is that of global legal model. The
Nuremberg principle that following an illegal order is no
defense, for example, has been incorporated into the laws of
most major nations. There is probably no area of law more
deficient in more places than that concerning the protection of
women's rights. The tribunal's energetic prosecution and strong
legal condemnation of rape and sexual slavery should inspire
nations around the world to be more vigilant about defending
women's rights through the enactment of strong laws and their
vigorous enforcement.
