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WHAT HAPPENED to the WOMEN? Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations

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WHAT HAPPENED to the WOMEN? Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WOMEN? Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations EDITED BY RUTH RUBIO-MARÍN INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE Advancing Transitional Justice Series WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WOMEN? ADVANCING TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE SERIES WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WOMEN? Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations EDITED BY RUTH RUBIO-MARÍN, INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE FOREWORD BY COLLEEN DUGGAN SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL • new YORK • 2006 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THIS PUBLICATION WAS SUPPORTED BY : INTERnatIONAL CENTER FOR TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) assists countries pursuing account- ability for past mass atrocity or human rights abuse. The Center works in societies emerging from repressive rule or armed conflict, as well as in established democracies where historical injustices or systemic abuse remain unresolved. In order to promote justice, peace, and reconciliation, government officials and nongov- ernmental advocates are likely to consider a variety of transitional justice approaches includ- ing both judicial and nonjudicial responses to human rights crimes. The ICTJ assists in the development of integrated, comprehensive, and localized approaches to transitional justice comprising five key elements: prosecuting perpetrators, documenting and acknowledging violations through nonjudicial means such as truth commissions, reforming abusive institu- tions, providing reparations to victims, and facilitating reconciliation processes. The field of transitional justice is varied and covers a range of disciplines, including law, public policy, forensics, economics, history, psychology, and the arts. The ICTJ works to develop a rich understanding of the field as a whole, and to identify issues that merit more in- depth research and analysis. Collaborating with colleagues in transitional societies and often commissioning outside studies, the Center targets its research to address the complex issues confronting policymakers and activists. Identifying and addressing the most important gaps in scholarship, it provides the benefit of comparative analysis to its staff and to practitioners worldwide. SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) leads innovation, builds interdisciplinary and international networks, and focuses research on important public issues. Independent and not-for-profit, the SSRC is guided by the belief that justice, prosperity, and democracy all require better understanding of complex social, cultural, economic, and political processes. The SSRC works with practitioners, policymakers, and academic researchers in all the social sciences, related professions, and the humanities and natural sciences. With partners around the world, the Council mobilizes existing knowledge for new problems, links research to practice and policy, strengthens individual and institutional capacities for learning, and enhances public access to information. The SSRC brings necessary knowledge to public action. A new publications initiative, represented here in this co-publication with the ICTJ, complements and enhances the SSRC’s mission to disseminate necessary knowledge in inno- vative ways. INTERnatIONAL DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH CENTRE The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is a Canadian public corporation created to help developing countries use science and technology to find practical, long-term solutions to the social, economic, and environmental problems they face. Support is directed toward developing an indigenous research capacity to sustain policies and technologies that developing countries need to build healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous societies. In carrying out its mission, IDRC provides funds and expert advice to developing-country researchers working to solve critical problems. The Peace, Conflict and Development Pro- gram, the unit that funded the research contained in this book, promotes research for the development of public policies and the strengthening of research capacities in societies affected by conflict and violence. Questions about transitional justice, trauma and reconcilia- tion occupy an important place on this agenda. © 2006 Social Science Research Council All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Published by the Social Science Research Council Printed in the United States of America Distributed by the Chicago Distribution Center Designed by Julie Fry Cover photograph by Steven Nilsson (The Image Bank/Getty Images) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data What happened to the women? : gender and reparations for human rights violations / Edited by Ruth Rubio-Marín ; foreword by Colleen Duggan. p. cm. isbn 0-9790772-0-6 (alk. paper) 1. War crimes. 2. Women — Crimes against. 3. War reparations. 4. Reparations for historical injustices. I. Rubio-Marín, Ruth. k5301.w47 2006 342.08’78 — dc22 2006038218 CONTENTS 9 CONTRIBUTORS 13 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 15 FOREWORD Colleen Duggan 20 INTRODUCTION The Gender of Reparations: Setting the Agenda Ruth Rubio-Marín 48 CHAPTER 1 Evaluating the Gender Content of Reparations: Lessons from South Africa Beth Goldblatt 92 cHAPTER 2 Guatemala: Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey 136 cHAPTER 3 Linking Gender and Reparations in Peru: A Failed Opportunity Julie Guillerot 194 cHAPTER 4 Women and Reparations in Rwanda: A Long Path to Travel Heidy Rombouts 246 cHAPTER 5 Gender and Reparations in Sierra Leone: The Wounds of War Remain Open Jamesina King 284 cHAPTER 6 Learning to Engender Reparations in Timor-Leste: Reaching Out to Female Victims Galuh Wandita, Karen Campbell-Nelson, and Manuela Leong Pereira 336 APPENDIX Questionnaire for the Preparation of Country Studies Contributors Karen Campbell-Nelson is a researcher at the Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation (CAVR) in Timor-Leste. She has lived and worked in West Timor, Indonesia, for 20 years, working with church groups and NGOs. Since the early 1990s she has actively supported several women’s NGOs with writ- ten resources and training in violence against women (VAW) documentation. In 2000 she was coordinator of documentation for the West Timor humani- tarian team that recorded incidents of violence against East Timorese women in refugee camps in West Timor. The findings from this work were published in Perempuan dibawa/h Laki-laki yang Kalah: Kekerasan terhadap Perempuan Timor Timur dalam Kamp Pengungsian di Timor Barat (Women in the Hands of Men Who Lost: Violence against East Timorese Women in West Timor Refugee Camps). In 2003 she served for six months with the CAVR as coordinator of the women’s research team that documented women’s experience of human rights viola- tions in East Timor (1974–99) and also helped to write and edit parts of the CAVR’s final report. Beth Goldblatt has a BA (Hons), LLB, and LLM from the University of the Wit- watersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. An attorney of the High Court, she is a senior researcher at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies in its Gender Research Programme and has been employed there for nine years. Her work involves research, advocacy, lobbying, litigation and teaching. She has pub- lished in the areas of gender and South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Com- mission; human rights and constitutional law with a focus on equality; family law; and social security law. Julie Guillerot is a French lawyer with a masters degree in public international law, and completed her graduate studies in the international protection of human rights at the University of Paris X Nanterre in France. She served in the legal department of the French delegation of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) in Paris. Since 2000 she has served as a researcher in 9 the legal department of the Association for Human Rights [Asociación Pro Dere- chos Humanos] (APRODEH) in Peru. In 2000 and 2001 she also worked in the regional office of the Coalition for an International Criminal Court (CICC) in Lima. She has collaborated with the International Center for Transitional Jus- tice (ICTJ) since 2002: first, in 2002, as a member of the investigation team for “Parameters for Designing a Reparations Program in Peru,” joint report by the ICTJ and APRODEH; then as local associate in Peru. In 2003, she coordinated the technical team on reparations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commis- sion, where she collaborated on the conceptual and technical development of the Comprehensive Reparations Plan and was in charge of relations between NGOs, victims organizations, and the team. Jamesina King, a lawyer working in a private law firm in Freetown, Sierra Leone, has an LLM in international legal studies from Georgetown University Law Center. She is a frequent author, speaker, and radio commentator on issues affecting women and children. She is currently the president of a female lawyers’ organization, Legal Access through Women Yearning for Equality, Rights, and Social Justice (LAWYERS), and is a Leadership Advocacy for Women in Africa (LAWA) Fellow. She made a submission to the Truth and Reconcili- ation Commission (TRC) in Sierra Leone on behalf of the Campaign for Good Governance on 23 May 2003 on the “The Situation of Women and Girls in Pre- conflict, Conflict and Post-conflict Sierra Leone.” She was a consultant for the TRC and compiled two reports on the legal
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