sexual and gender-based crimes

Conflict-related sexual violence: consequences and needs of female victims (part 2).

/ Morgane Greco / Leave a comment

This blogpost is the continuation of “Conflict-related sexual violence: consequences and needs of female victims (part 1)“, posted yesterday morning.

III. … and questions the importance of justice within the healing process

As potential victims of crimes against humanity, war crimes and eventually genocide, survivors of CRSV deserve justice. Congolese gynecologist Dr. Denis Mukwege, 2018 Peace Nobel Prize Laureate, explained at a University of Montreal in June 2019 that justice is an integral part of the victims’ healing process. To him, justice is key both to the victims’ psychological well-being and to the restoration of their dignity. As Dr. Yael Danieli points out in her 2014 article, reparative justice can take place at every step throughout the justice process: from the first encounter of a court with a potential victim or witness to the aftermath of the completion of the case, every step represents an opportunity for redress and healing.

Despite the increased attention of the international community towards impunity for sexual violence crimes, according to the last Secretary-General Annual Report on conflict-related sexual violence, accountability remains elusive. The ability of victims to access a justice system is frequently hindered by reporting barriers both at the individual and structural levels. Across most countries, victims are often reluctant to report their experiences owing to stigma, fear of reprisal or rejection by their families or communities, and lack of confidence in judicial and non-judicial responses. As an example, in Guinea, the 2009 repression has traumatized a large number of civilians. Even if some courageous female victims did testify before Guinean courts, the absence of specialized investigation and prosecution units within justice system to provide support to vulnerable victims, combined to the lack of relevant training for magistrates, registrars and lawyers – professions in which males are largely overrepresented –, did not encourage victims to testify in a climate of trust.

The justice process can also cause secondary victimization or second injury. Sexual violence victims often have to tell their story many times to different persons, with a high level of details, and fight to be trusted. Moreover, depending on the various national and international judicial systems’ requirements, victims may have to bring evidence of their rape, while such an evidence is expensive to obtain. They can notably have to bring a medical certificate to the court. As an example, Guinean victims of the event of 28 September 2009 did face difficulties to prove the evidentiary value of a medical certificate confirming that sexual violence took place.

It is also important to mention that, for some victims, justice does not necessarily mean seeking a reparation order or a conviction from a court. According to Salah Aroussi’s article titled Perceptions of Justice and Hierarchies of Rape: Rethinking Approaches to Sexual Violence in Eastern Congo from the Ground Up (2018), “survivors of rape by armed groups or civilians in the DRC primarily conceive justice as economic assistance and have limited interest in the prosecution of perpetrators […]. [R]epairing the harm and restoring the victim is at the heart of communities’ understanding of what justice is.” The author warns that “at the same time, survivors’ reluctance to pursue formal justice must be understood in the light of the inaccessibility of the Congolese criminal justice system and its failure to play a positive role in society.” 

CONCLUSION

Victims of conflict-related sexual violence suffer from long term, if not lifelong consequences. During the Commemoration of the 10-Year Anniversary of the Mandate on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Tatiana Mukanire, survivor from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and leader of the survivors SEMA Network, explained that raping a person amounts to killing her or him while letting him or her breathe. At the same time, impunity, corruption, lack of services and difficult access to healing resources tend to silence CRSV victims. Lack of confidence towards nationals and international justice systems are also an issue, whereas the International Criminal Court has already failed to deliver justice in the case of Jean-Pierre Bemba, despite the struggle of victims to hold him accountable. 

As a conclusion, to answer CRSV victims’ needs, it is imperative to understand the consequences of the victimization on the survivors’ lives. Otherwise, there is a chance to see the survivors’ care not to be optimal. Nobody can speak in place of victims. They have their own voice and have to be heard. Our role is to listen to them.

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This blogpost and the author’s attendance to the 18th Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court are supported by the Canadian Partnership for International Justice and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Conflict-related sexual violence: consequences and needs of female victims (part 1).

/ Morgane Greco / 1 Comment

The first blogpost of this series entitled “Conflict-related sexual violence: what are we talking about (part 1) and (part 2) aimed at providing an introduction to the issue of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). We saw that CRSV is a crime as old as war itself, targeting both women, girls, men and boys, and its use is today recognized, codified and prosecuted as one of the most serious violations of international law.

In this blogpost, we will first demonstrate that conflict-related sexual violence has long-term consequences on female victims’ lives and on their communities. Even if men and boys also suffer from conflict-related sexual violence, this post will not address their particular situation, and will specifically focus on women and girls. Then, we will address the needs of these female victims. Finally, we will discuss the importance of justice in the victims’ healing process.

I. Understanding the consequences of CRSV on victims…

Sexual violence results in multiple consequences for survivors and their communities. These consequences can be classified in four categories, namely social, psychological, medical and economic consequences. 

Social consequences of CRSV may include the rejection of the female victim by her own family, her husband and her community. The raped woman is considered as impure: for example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a raped woman is often considered as unworthy of respect in her community. Rape is taboo – but while taboo is sometimes perceived as needed to preserve societal welfare, in the context of CRSV, it rather appears as a powerful tool of domination of men over women.

In many societies, raped unmarried women can forget the idea of getting married one day. Especially when a child is born from a rape committed by an enemy group, the mother tends to be considered as an “affiliate of the enemy,” and both the mother and the child are highly stigmatized. To avoid stigma, women and their children often have to flee from their homes. Women in this situation are then alone to take care of a child they did not necessarily want to have, and to meet the family’s financial needs. The economic consequences of rape tend to bury women in poverty. Also, ostracized young victims usually quit school. In addition to rejection, as explained in the work of a University of Montreal PhD student, raped women can notably face depression and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, which may drive them to suicide. Last but not least, CRSV threatens the victims’ physical integrity: in addition to the physical violence inherent to it, it can also infect women and children born of rape with HIV or other sexually transmissible diseases. Furthermore, in places where abortion is not accessible, women can resort to illegal and clandestine abortion threating their lives. Lots of women lack resources to receive proper medical treatment or surgery or suffer from the lack of medical structures in some remote areas. 

Conflict-related sexual violence can result in a highly traumatized population. This victimization tends to modify social relationships, pervert the community dynamics and even cause intergenerational trauma.

II. …allows to better respond to their specific needs…

Having a look to CRSV consequences is useful to provide a better response to victims’ needs. Professor Jo-Anne Wemmers, in her book entitled Victimology: A Canadian Perspective (2017), explains that some similarities exist between the fundamental needs of human beings and those of victims. The first are illustrated by Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, as illustrated below. This pyramid, created in 1940, exposes the hierarchy of human needs and should be read from the bottom up. The transition from one step to another requires the entire fulfillment of the need below.

Source: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

If Professor Jo-Anne Wemmers mostly supports Maslow’s hierarchy of needs when it comes to assessing victims’ needs, she prefers to summarize the range of their needs as falling into these five categories: medical needs, financial needs, need for protection, need for support in order to help them deal with the psychological effects of their victimization, and need for recognition and respect in the criminal justice system. A comparison between these two pyramids shows us that victims of crimes have specific needs and concerns compared to “un-injured” human beings.

The United Nations Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, in its last Annual Report also shares a similar approach. The report mentions that survivors often require immediate life-saving health care, including comprehensive clinical management of rape, and medication to prevent sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies. Survivors may also require life-saving psychosocial support to recover from the psychological and social impacts of conflict-related sexual violence. 

Applying this framework to CRSV victims leads to think that the importance of fulfilling their needs of safety and security cannot be overstated. On the one hand, for victims of sexual violence, feelings of security, serenity and trust are key for them to be able to speak out about what they experienced. On the other hand, a context of armed conflict tends to lower the victims’ feeling of security, making them even more vulnerable and less likely to have access to relevant services. 

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To read the second part of the piece, click here: Conflict-related sexual violence: consequences and needs of female victims (part 2).

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This blogpost and the author’s attendance to the 18th Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court are supported by the Canadian Partnership for International Justice and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Conflict-related sexual violence: what are we talking about? (Part 2)

/ Morgane Greco / 3 Comments

This post is a continuation of “Conflict-related sexual violence: what are we talking about? (Part 1),” posted yesterday morning.

III. …and took time to be prosecuted as a crime against humanity and a war crime.

For centuries, CRSV crimes did not preoccupy international tribunals. While sexual violence had been committed during World Wars I and II, impunity for such crimes was considered as normal before the Nuremberg or Tokyo tribunals. Rape was assimilated to bad treatments committed against civilians, and sexual violence in conflict was perceived as a collateral damage. If none of CRSV crimes were prosecuted at that time, it is because these crimes did not exist under international law. Pursuant to the principle of legality, developed by Cesare Beccaria in the 18th century and also known as nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege, no one can be convicted of a criminal offence in the absence of a clear and precise legal text.

The first major step in the criminalization and recognition of sexual violence in conflict was the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. Common article 3 does not expressly mention rape nor other forms of sexual violence, but bans “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture,” and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention holds that “women shall be especially protected against any attack on their honor, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution or any form of indecent assault.” In addition, rape is expressly mentioned in article 4§2 of Additional Protocol II of 1977, which states that outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment, rape, enforced prostitution and any form of indecent assault are and shall remain prohibited at any time and any place.

The NGO We ARE Not Weapons of War notes that, in 1992, the issue of the mass rape of women in former Yugoslavia came to the fore at the United Nations Security Council, which declared that the mass, organized, and systematic detention and rape of women, in particular Muslim women, persecuted in Bosnia and Herzegovina constituted “an international crime that was not to be ignored.”

A few years later, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) were the first tribunals whose Statutes explicitly included CRSV crimes. Article 5 of ICTY Statute and Article 3 of ICTR Statute included rape as a crime against humanity, alongside other crimes such as torture and enslavement. In 1998, the ICTR became the first international tribunal to consider the acts of sexual violence as constituting genocide. In its judgment against a former Rwandan mayor, Jean-Paul Akayesu, it considered rape and sexual assault to be acts of genocide insofar as they were committed with intent to destroy a protected group, in whole or in part.

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Conflict-related sexual violence: what are we talking about? (Part 1)

/ Morgane Greco / 2 Comments

In the context of the author’s attendance to the 18th Assembly of State Parties to the International Criminal Court, this blogpost aims at sharing knowledge about conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) and providing a preliminary understanding of the issue. It first explores the use of CRSV through history. Then, it highlights how it targets both women, girls, men and boys. Last but not least, this blogpost depicts the slow development of international tribunals’ responses to this scourge.

I. Conflict-related sexual violence is an old phenomenon…

According to the United Nations, CRSV refers to rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls or boys that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict. The term also encompasses trafficking in persons for the purpose of sexual violence or exploitation, when committed in situations of conflict. 

The French NGO We are NOT Weapons of War stresses that sexual violence used as a weapon of war has always been present in conflict, even though its victims have long seemed invisible. This idea is also supported by Stand Speak Rise Up, a non-profit organization from Luxembourg. In its white book, we can read that sexual violence in conflict is not new and the historical roots of this phenomenon are deep: from the Viking era to the Thirty Years’ War and the Second World War, rape has been part of the “spoils of war” throughout history, a weapon of the victors and conquerors. War rape is rarely the result of uncontrolled sexual desire, but rather a way to exert power and install fear in victims and their community. 

In the 1990s, the conflicts in Bosnia, Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region marked a major turning point in the use of sexual violence as a weapon to weaken and subdue vulnerable populations or to advance a political agenda. The Stand Speak Rise Up white book explains that CRSV was methodically organized and implemented in cold blood on a very large scale. Sexual violence in particular was also a tool of submission and terror at the end of the Cold War. 

Still nowadays, sexual violence can play a vital role in the political economy of terrorism, with physical and online slave markets and human trafficking enabling terrorist groups to generate revenue from the continuous abduction of women and girls. As an example, the Yezidi community in Iraq suffered and still suffers from these crimes, as the so-called Islamic State continues to target women and girls, abducting them and reducing them to sexual slavery and forced marriages. 

Perpetrators of such acts are often affiliated with States or non-State armed groups, including terrorist entities.

II. …that targeted and still targets both men, boys, women and girls…

In September 2019, during the United Nations 74th General Assembly, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict recalled that conflicts exacerbates existing gender inequalities, exposing women and girls to various forms of sexual and gendered-based violence. Women and girls, in particular, suffer sexual violence in the course of displacement, navigating their way through checkpoints and across borders without documentation, money or legal status. It is also important to note than men and boys also suffer from conflict-related sexual violence . 

Conflict-related sexual violence refers to incidents including rape, gang rape, forced nudity and other forms of inhumane and degrading treatment in a context of armed conflict. A disturbing trend is that sexual violence is increasingly perpetrated against very young children. The Secretary-General emphasized that during the Colombian civil war, that has lasted for 50 years, rebels systematically used sexual violence against the civilians, targeting women as well as their children. The Colombian Constitutional Court has recognized “a widespread, systematic and invisible practice.” It is also important to keep in mind that both men and women can be perpetrators. 

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To read more, click here: Conflict-related sexual violence: what are we talking about? (Part 2)

Calling it what it is: It is time to define “sexual violence”

/ melisahandl / Leave a comment

From 5-12 December 2018, International Criminal Court (ICC) member states are convening at the World Forum Convention Center in The Hague for the 17th annual session of the Assembly of State Parties (ASP) to the Rome Statute. Serving as the governing body of the Court, the ASP meets in full plenary once a year to discuss and decide upon matters key to the future functioning of the ICC. Civil society is there every step of the way, monitoring sessions and interacting with delegates, in order to advocate for an independent, effective and fair ICC.

The issue of gender justice, and more specifically of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), takes relevance in the side meetings. In this regard, one of the most anticipated events took place on December 10, 2018, titled “What makes violence ‘sexual?’,” including the launch of the “Call it what it is” campaign and the “Gender Report Card” on the ICC 2018. The event was organized by the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice with the support of the governments of Australia, Korea, Switzerland, Argentina, Canada, United Kingdom, Costa Rica, Sweden, Switzerland, and New Zealand.

Side-event “What makes violence ‘sexual’,” including the launch of the “Call it what it is” campaign and the “Gender Report Card” on the ICC 2018 @HandlMelisa, the Canadian Partnership for International Justice

The panel was moderated by Siobhan Hobbs, Legal and Program Director Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice. The opening remarks were made by H.E. Matthew E.K. Neuhaus, Australian Ambassador to the Netherlands, who briefly talked about the challenge of dealing with the impunity of sexual crimes in conflict situations. Peter Wilson, British Ambassador to the Netherlands, also joined the opening remarks.

The side-event featured three speakers: Patricia Sellers, Special Adviser on Gender to the ICC Prosecutor; Dr. Rosemary Grey, Postdoctoral Fellow from Sydney University and author of academic analyses on SGBV; and Jihyun Park, survivor of gender-based violence and women’s rights activist from North Korea. H.E Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godinez, Costa Rican Ambassador to the Netherlands, presented the closing remarks.

Patricia Sellers explained the genesis of how we came to conceptualize sexual violence in international criminal law, how it is addressed today, and how we want to address it in the future. She concluded by explaining that history shows us that sexual violence is something that can destroy towns, nations, communities, and can be used as means of genocide to destroy groups. Dr. Rosemary Grey stated that the ICC was the first tribunal with a statute recognizing a wide range of SGBV. However, she emphasized that the statute does not clarify the question of what makes an act sexual by nature and that, in the jurisprudence, there is no answer to what makes an act “sexual.” Dr. Grey explained that, in the Bemba case, the prosecutor alleged sexual violence was committed as Bemba’s soldiers subjected men and women to forced nudity in order to humiliate them. However, the Pre-Trial Chamber did not include those acts of forced nudity as “sexual violence” as it did not regard them to be of “comparable gravity.” In the Kenyatta case, perpetrators forced a group of people to remove their clothes and circumcised the men using rough tools and, in some cases, amputated the victims’ genitals. The Prosecutor described these acts as “other forms of sexual violence.” The victims agreed. However, the Pre-Trial Chamber characterized forcible circumcision and penile amputation as “other inhumane acts” under Article 7 (1) (k) of the Statute because it did not regard them as “sexual in nature.”

From left to right, Dr.Rosemary Grey, Patricia Sellers, Siobhan Hobbs and Jihyun Park. @HandlMelisa,Canadian Partnership for International Justice

The side event also included the launch of the campaign “Call it what is!” with remarks by H.E. Sabine Nolke, Canadian Ambassador to the Netherlands. The “Call it what it is!”campaign addresses the issue of lack of accountability for sexual violence. It is a civil society campaign that aims to think about options that otherwise we would have not have been contemplated in the definition for sexual violence, expanding our understanding of sexual violence around the world in a way that is inclusive, culturally sensitive, responds to the realities around the world, and is forward-thinking. The campaign would support the Court in considering how sexual violence is understood in different cultures by “creating a vocabulary so the ICC can speak in an inclusive language.” It aims to do so by creating a definition of sexual violence in order to serve as guide for prosecutors, victims’ representatives, defense counsel, and other judicial actors to better understand what an “act of sexual nature” involves. The campaign also included the launch of a survey (available in English, French and Spanish) that mapped different cultural perceptions on sexual violence available at the Women’s Initiative for Gender Justice webpage.

The Rome Statute is the first instrument of international criminal law to expressly include a wide range of crimes of sexual violence. However, jurisprudence of the ICC highlights the need for a working definition of what sexual violence could entail. Specifically, the ICC legal framework lacks a definition of “act of a sexual nature” (found in the ICC Elements of Crimes for sexual slavery, forced prostitution, and “other forms of sexual violence”).


Women’s Rights Activist Jihyun Park, sharing her experience as a sexual violence and forced marriage survivor in North Korea @HandlMelisa, Canadian Partnership for International Justice

One of the questions asked in the survey is what makes an act “sexual.” There are several characteristics that could help define and conceptualize a “sexual” act; it could be that the act involves contact or exposure with sexual body parts; that the act affects the victims’ sense of sexual identity; that the act affects the victims’ reproductive capacity; that the act is widely regarded as “sexual” in the victims’ community; that the act results in sexual gratification of the perpetrator; or/and that the act affects the victims’ capacity for sexual activity. The survey also asks participants to provide examples of an “act of sexual nature” — other than those listed in the Rome Statute — that could amount to sexual violence. Examples of such acts could include forced nudity, forced abortion, and genital mutilation, among many other. Finally, the survey asked participants to contextualize by explaining in which country, region, culture, or religion this“act” may be considered as an “act of sexual nature.”

As of this morning, there were more than one hundred responses from diverse geographical regions that will inform a civil society effort to develop a declaration on sexual violence, probably a non-exhaustive list.

Dr. Rosemary Grey explained how initial responses to the survey showed the range of thinking in this topic, including many acts such as forced nudity, sexual mutilation, forcing victims to watch an act of sexual violence, and forcing victims to rape others. One response that appeared many times is the “non-consensual circulation of sexual images” in media. Other examples also included forced virginity testing in order to check the condition of the hymen, groping, total abortion bans, forced abortion, and denial of contraception methods, among others. Some responses also referred to historical precedents: human experiments of a sexual nature, such as Nazi experiments on homosexual men and practices in concentration camps whereby homosexual men were not allowed to put their hands under their blankets under the presumption that they would otherwise masturbate, “weaponizing the victims’ sexuality against them.” Shaving the heads of women who have had sexual connection with the enemy as a way to humiliate them, unwanted or forced touching of body parts, violating a victim’s sexual privacy, and violations affecting reproductive rights and reproductive autonomy, were also among the sexually violent acts mentioned in some of the responses to the survey.

The expressive harm of denying diverse sexual-based crimes their recognition as related but distinct crimes is silencing the wide-ranging spectrum of gender-related harms that victims often experience.Victims of gender-based crimes not only experience forced penetration. There are gender-based harms that are equally or even more physically, psychologically, socially and emotionally harming than rape. Crimes such as enforced prostitution, sexual slavery, forced abortion, the transmission of sexual diseases, and forced pregnancy often provoke irreversible internal organ damage, psychologically traumatize the victims for the rest of their lives, subsume them in shame and guilt, and socially stigmatize them within their communities.

The ICC – a role model organization with a clear gender-sensitive mandate – has the capability to establish a gender perspective that can guarantee the effective investigation, prosecution and trial of gender-based crimes. No other institution in the world has such a significant power to contribute to ending the era of impunity for gender-based crimes.

This blogpost and my attendance to the 17th Assembly of States Parties are supported by the Canadian Partnership for International Justice and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Yazidi Women and Girls’ Resistance Against Genocide, Enslavement and Sexual Violence: Report from the First International Yazidi Women’s Conference

/ Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum / Leave a comment

“Those awaiting help from others are condemned to disappear.” – International Yazidi Women’s Conference participant, quoting a proverb.

Last weekend, on March 11 & 12, 2017, I led a researcher and two students from the Benjamin B. Ferencz Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention Clinic to accompany Patricia Viseur Sellers, Special Adviser to the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC to the first International Yazidi Women’s Conference in Bielefeld, Germany. Our Clinic has been working with Ms. Sellers for the past two years on criminal accountability for the gender dimension of atrocity crimes, especially as these crimes affect children, in several national and regional cases. Our collaboration currently is focused on the sexual enslavement and other gender-based crimes against the Yazidis.

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From left: Kerrijane John, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Leyla Boran, Patricia Viseur Sellers, Alexandra Insinga and Samantha Hechler.

Days after International Women’s Day, the Yazidi Women’s Council, the Kurdish Women’s Peace Office (Cenî), and the Platform for Struggle for Women Held in Captivity gathered over 200 participants and prominent Yazidi organizations to denounce the atrocities—including, among others, the crimes of genocide, enslavement, rape, and torture—that have been and continue to be perpetrated against Yazidi women and girls. The attendees—all women—predominantly hailed from the Yazidi and Kurdish refugee and diaspora communities. After the German government did not grant several speakers visas to attend, they participated via Skype from Shengal (Sinjar) in Northern Iraq.

Experts from the legal, political, historical, medical and psychosocial fields contributed to the panel presentations, which centered on the concepts of genocide and femicide, enslavement, sexual violence, trauma, and resistance. Prominent Yazidi and Kurdish women’s human rights lawyers, including Leyla Boran and Faika Deniz Pasha, the first Turkish Kurdish woman parliamentarian, Feleknas Uca, and allies among women’s rights activists in Germany led the discussions, which included arguments supporting the link between genocide and femicide and the legal requirements of intent under international law. In addition, historians contextualized the current genocide against the Yazidis with previous genocides that have occurred against the group and in the region. Importantly, first-hand survivor accounts of genocide, sexual violence and enslavement bore witness to the crimes as well as to this community’s experience when ISIS invaded their homeland. The voices of the powerful speakers from Shengal also stressed the multiplicity of ways in which Yazidi women are organizing and resisting ongoing attacks on their people and homeland in northern Iraq. All the speakers stressed that they will take whatever steps are necessary to prevent the continued kidnapping, enslavement and sale of Yazidi girls and women.

Ms. Viseur Sellers keynoted the conference and provided the international human rights and criminal law frameworks to name the atrocities being committed against Yazidi women and girls by ISIS. Sellers explained the value in protecting group identities as well as preserving racial, religious, national, and ethnic differences. The international community’s prohibition against the intentional destruction of such groups under the Genocide Convention, she stated, was evidence of such values of diversity. In addition, Ms. Sellers detailed what the crimes of enslavement and slave trading are; she emphasized that these international crimes, along with genocide, are regarded the most heinous crimes under international law. She asserted that, undeniably, ISIS has and continues to perpetrate acts of genocide, enslavement and slave trading against Yazidi women and girls in violation of treaties and jus cogens norms. Sellers concluded by recognizing the intergenerational harms of genocide and enslavement while giving language, voice and operational tools to assist the Yazidi women and girls’ continuing struggle and resistance.

According to the Yazidi community, the August 2014 massacre in Shengal was the 74th recorded genocide against the religious minority group. The United Nations International Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, among others, has provided evidence and analysis of the crimes here. As the struggle for group survival continues, Yazidi women have organized themselves to resist multiple threats, including ISIS. Accountability for past, present and future crimes is recognized as a necessary component of justice for the Yazidis. The group’s concerns for survival, safety and return of thousands of their women and children held in captivity or forced to join ISIS forces, however, necessarily overshadowed these discussions.

What the future holds is unclear, especially given the military actions against ISIS in Syria and Iraq and the implications of the military solution for the remaining estimated 3000 Yazidi women and girls in captivity—some already sold by ISIS to slave-holders outside the contested areas. What our team did find is the need for dialogue between international lawyers familiar with the issues and representatives of these communities to develop and refine creative, pragmatic and comprehensive legal strategies to open avenues of accountability and justice for the atrocity crimes committed in the past and still being perpetrated against Yazidi women and girls. The time to act is now. Our Clinic, in concert with Patti Sellers, will continue our work on these issues and would welcome the opportunity to coordinate with others in the IntLawGrrls network who are working on the Yazidi genocide or on the gender dimensions of these atrocity crimes.