 
|
|
  
|
|
Gender and Reparations in Sierra LeoneThe Wounds of War Remain OpenExecutive Summary
Massive human rights violations occurred during Sierra Leone's 11 years of civil conflict. The war was initiated in March 1991 by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a rebel group that claimed it was fighting to get rid of the corrupt and oppressive government that was then in power. However (and despite several peace accords), the RUF continued to wage war against successive governments until there was a complete cessation of hostilities in 2002. During the course of the conflict, women suffered greatly from human rights abuses. The three main armed groups accused of perpetrating violations against women and girls were the RUF; the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), a faction within the national army that joined forces with the rebels; and the Civil Defense Forces (CDF) fighting on the side of the government. Abuses against women were numerous and included mutilation, amputation abduction, forcible conscription and sexual abuse. Many women lost their homes, their family members and even their lives. Women continue to experience secondary harms as a result of the war: harms stemming from the increase of female-headed households; unwanted pregnancies; health problems including sexually transmitted diseases; increasing poverty; prostitution; discrimination; and increased responsibility as caregivers for victims and children born as a result of sexual crimes. Individual women activists and women's groups pioneered several peace efforts that helped lead to the restoration of democracy and eventual cessation of hostilities. However, only a few women actually took part in the negotiations between the warring factions. The Lomé Peace Agreement, signed by the warring factions in 1999, included a provision for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC was later officially created by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act of 2000, which mandated that special attention be given to the needs of women and girls, particularly with regard to their experience of sexual violence. Though the Act did not specifically provide for a reparation program, the Commissioners decided to devise one and advised the government to implement their recommendations as one way of providing redress to the victims of human rights violations. Women and the Articulation of Reparations Women contributed in the articulation of the reparations mechanisms and the design of the reparations program both before and during the TRC process. Female commissioners, TRC employees, activists, and victims were all important in adding a gender component to the reparations work. Statements taken from women activists, women's organizations and victims at public and closed hearings nationwide were recorded and then considered in the process. During the course of its work, women's organizations saw the TRC not only as a means to address the harms done to women victims, but also as a forum in which to advocate for legal reform. The inequality that women had faced in society before the war, and continued to face afterwards, had only been exacerbated by the gross violations they suffered during the conflict. The TRC adopted gender-sensitive mechanisms to ensure that the reparations program addressed the crimes committed against women and their family members. The Commission completed its final report in October 2004, though the report was not made available to the wider public until August 2005 because of printing problems. Engendering Reparations: Victims, Benefits, and Beneficiaries In designing the reparations program, the TRC adopted the definition of victim generally accepted in international law. Victims included both direct victims and indirect victims (such as the dependents or other immediate household members of a direct victim). Eligibility for reparations depended on the event or injury sustained having occurred between 23 March 1991 and 1 March 2002. The TRC did not, however, limit the potential beneficiaries of the reparations program to those who participated and co-operated with the Commission (as was done in the South African case). To have done so would have excluded a large portion of the victims from being recognized in the reparations program. The result would have been far fewer female beneficiaries, particularly because many women did not give statements for fear of the stigma attached to the violations they suffered. In particular, the reparation program provided benefits to categories of victims considered to be the most vulnerable, including amputees, other war wounded, children, victims of sexual violence, and war widows. The TRC recommended reparations measures in the following forms: physical and mental healthcare, pensions, provision of education until senior secondary school level, skills training, and micro-credit/micro projects for special categories of vulnerable victims. The various components of the reparations program designed specifically for victims of sexual violence recognized the harms these victims had to endure. In this way, by acknowledging the harms they suffered and publicly absolving them of any guilt, the reparations are likely to help victims overcome the familial and communal ostracism they sometimes endure as victims of sexual violence. On a more specific level, the TRC recommended that the government assist organizations and bodies that provide skills training to expand their efforts to all victims of sexual violence. Considering that a large number of women experienced sexual violations during the war, providing skills training and pensions to women could help equip and empower them to provide for their families. The recommendations do not state what kind of skills should be provided in skills-training programs, although they do propose including a small-scale business management training course. Skills like these that will help women engage in viable and profitable business will be preferable to those that are traditionally reserved for women but are not necessarily economically viable. Unfortunately, the individual reparations measures may not be entirely adequate in meeting victims' needs. Victims of the war, particularly women, need substantial and immediate financial, medical and psychosocial support for both themselves and their families. Sustainable employment is also important. During the hearings, most victims demanded immediate and urgent assistance in the form of housing, medical care, micro-credit facilities and education for their children. The reparation measures proposed for such victims fall short of meeting these demands and are far from adequate, given the harms endured. For victims of sexual violence, the chances of marriage, access to income, and potential for male support and protection (as that a husband or father provides) are greatly reduced. In the case of the war wounded, the program does not consider the loss of a fetus as the loss of a body part, leaving this harm unrecognized and unrepaired. The lowest amount proposed for pensions is also insufficient to meet the victims' needs or, more importantly, to counter the effects of ostracism and stigma. In addition to individual benefits, the reparations program also includes symbolic and community measures. Symbolic measures include the establishment of memorials, commemoration ceremonies and dates, and the identification of mass graves and reburials. Community measures will involve reconstructing and rehabilitating those regions and communities that were hardest hit during the conflict. These reparations will require more financial expenses than other forms of reparation, posing a challenge to the government. Though the government has already engaged in post-war reconstruction efforts outside of the reparations plans, a lot remains to be done to ensure that communities affected by the war are repaired. Despite efforts to resettle and reintegrate displaced people back into their communities, this process continues to be arduous and uncertain. A significant number of resettled people end up returning to the towns where they had sought refuge during the conflict. Gender-Sensitive Implementation of Reparations In spite of the government's expressed commitment, as voiced in its White Paper of June 2005, to ensure the full and timely implementation of various recommended reparations measures (subject to the State's resources and the assistance provided by the international community), at the time of writing it had not yet begun implementing any of them. Furthermore, there is no indication from the government as to when the program will commence. As a matter of urgency, the Sierra Leonean government should set up a sub-unit within the National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA), the government agency recommended by the TRC to implement the reparations program and to coordinate all activities pertaining to it. The government should also set up the Special Fund for War Victims, which should have been done by January 2005, three months after the TRC submitted its report to the President of Sierra Leone. The TRC recommended that contributions to the Fund be provided by the government through specific budget allocation, revenue from mineral resources, a ‘debt relief for reparation' scheme, the imposition of a reparations or peace tax, donor support, seized assets from convicted persons both inside and outside the country who profited from the conflict, and funds from ‘other legal sources' as they become available. Lack of sufficient Sierra Leonean political will and financial resources is the main challenge toward the implementation of the reparations program. Additionally, the international and donor communities' interest in the reparations program appears to be lukewarm. Unfortunately, the reparations program and its implementation require money to become a reality, and the ability of the government to pay has been a concern of the TRC and other civil society organizations. The government may need to engage the international and donor communities on the specific issue of implementing the reparation measures and to seek financial assistance. To ensure that women benefit from the program, it is important that the composition of the implementing body, the Advisory Committee, the Human Rights Commission and other agencies overseeing and monitoring implementation of the reparations program include women and gender-sensitive personnel. This will contribute towards an adequate and effective gender-sensitive implementation of the reparations program. The TRC was of the view that the proposed reparations measures can fit into existing programs currently implemented by donor agencies and NGOs. However, if this is done, the reparations effort will lack crucial governmental participation. The TRC therefore suggested that the government be obliged to assist existing institutions in faithfully executing the recommendations. This may pose a problem for women because the structures within existing donor agencies and NGOs may not be designed with easy-access for women in mind, a characteristic required by the recommendations of the TRC. Once these measures are actually implemented, civil society will need to assess them and determine whether or not women can easily access specific institutions and whether or not they are gender sensitive. Providing assistance requires the government to finance the measures prescribed by the program and may entail continuing service delivery when a particular organization or body does not have the capacity or the mandate to maintain its activities, and/or seeking outside financial or donor support for any given measure in the program. The government should therefore consult those NGOs and international organizations that are already providing assistance to victims in order to play a potential role in coordinating their activities, helping them carry out their programs, and ensuring compliance with the reparation recommendations. It should assess the likely duration of these activities and be prepared to take them over when the donor community no longer provides the service. Another major challenge to implementing the reparations scheme is the issue of identifying potential beneficiaries. The number of victims of the war who will be eligible for specific benefits of the reparation program is unknown. To avoid the risk, on the one hand, of failing to register victims who are entitled to reparations and, on the other hand, of registering false beneficiaries looking to abuse the system, the TRC urged registering and identifying beneficiaries with the utmost care. Instead of creating new procedures and bodies to do this, the TRC recommended that the implementing body utilize pre-existing identification mechanisms that have proven to be effective elsewhere, including traditional chiefs, religious leaders, NGOs and community based organizations, focusing on women and youth organizations. These should also be involved in the implementation of the program. On a cautionary note, however, in the past such organizations have frequently been male-dominated and very patrilineal; special efforts will have to be made to ensure that women are not excluded from accessing reparation benefits via such mechanisms. It is important that civil society groups, victims' organizations, and the general public are aware and familiar with the contents and dynamics of the reparation measures. This will empower them to advocate for a timely and effective implementation of the program. Presently, however, it appears that both victims and the general public remain unaware. Civil society groups and victims should therefore engage in outreach, especially radio programming, to create awareness about the program. While the implementation of reparations has not occurred yet, there are both positive and negative lessons to be learned from Sierra Leone's experience with gender and reparations. The proposed reparations program in Sierra Leone took into account both gender concerns and the specific needs of women. The Commission decided, for example, that the potential list of victims should be kept open in order to ensure the widest possible access to the reparations program by victims. The proposed reparations program gives unrestricted access to victims, and many women will be encouraged to access it. The Commission also argued that the State had a legal obligation to provide reparations for violations committed by both state actors and private actors. This is important for women, who are not always able to identify the perpetrators or their affiliation. Furthermore, the rebels, and not state forces, perpetrated most of the sexual violations that women experienced. Also, the Commission embraced a harms-based approach that focused on vulnerability (and not just violations) when prioritizing reparations for victims; it therefore recognized the harms done to the more marginalized groups, including women and children. Moreover, the inclusion of victims of sexual violence as a prioritized category was very positive: although the Commission's mandate did not refer specifically to victims of sexual violence as women, most of the victims of such crimes were women. If the measures are effectively implemented, women who were subjected to sexual violence will get adequate medical assistance and some financial support, however minimal, to help them cope. Furthermore, in making recommendations to address structural inequality, economic empowerment, and discrimination against women, the Commission identified war widows, elderly women, girl mothers, victims of displacement, and female ex-combatants as particularly vulnerable groups. Finally, the Commission recognized the effects of violence on the family structure, especially on women, and not just the individual victim. For example, it added war widows as one of the privileged categories for reparations, and included immediate family members (and hence so-called indirect victims) as beneficiaries of many measures, such as adequate medical and psychological treatment. On the negative side, beyond the lack of implementation, there is the insufficiency or inadequacy of some of the recommended reparations measures themselves. War widows, for example, are only recognized as beneficiaries of skills-training programs, but will not receive indemnification or pensions. Overall, the recommended measures, especially for victims of sexual violence, do not adequately address the issue of stigmatization. Clearly such victims require counseling, but there should also be measures that target more specifically the other family members and the community where victims reside to ensure that the victims are not ostracized. In a related matter, the proposed reparation measures do not give sufficient priority to providing psychological support to male spouses of victims of sexual crimes. Finally, it was assumed that victims who had children as a result of rape would be willing to care for and raise such children, which is not necessarily the case. The reparation measures do not provide such mothers with the choice of an alternative care system for their unwanted children. While peace has returned to Sierra Leone, many of the wounds of war still remain open. The survival, health, and general well-being of women who were victims of the conflict remain compelling challenges. Women and girls bear the scars and must face the consequences of the horrible experiences of the conflict. An effective and gender-sensitive implementation of the reparations program designed by the TRC would certainly contribute towards restoring their dignity. Click here for the full text of this chapter as it appears in What Happened to the Women? Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations, ed. Ruth Rubio-Marín (New York: Social Science Research Council, 2006).
|
