Lifting the Burden? The Ethical Implications of Studying Exemplary, Not Pathological, Wartime Sexual Conduct

2020 ◽  
pp. 229-242
Author(s):  
Angela Muvumba Sellström
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Armed Group ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Sexual Conduct ◽  
Conducting Research

This chapter examines Angela Muvumba Sellström's fieldwork and encounters with non-state armed groups in Burundi, South Africa, and Uganda that established sexual discipline among their commanders and foot-soldiers. It reflects on ethical dilemmas of conducting research on “non-cases” of wartime sexual violence among armed groups that have regulated sex in wartime conduct. It focuses on the non-use of sex as a weapon of war that may acquit armed groups from other human rights violations they may have committed. The chapter mentions some sexual-violence survivors who are unwittingly silenced by a certain research focus even after the armed groups have regulated sexual conduct. It analyzes the regulation of sexual conduct that may be based on the male leadership of the armed group rather than female sexual autonomy, which may foster entrenched gender inequalities in society.

A Three-Pronged Approach to Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Armed Groups

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tilman Rodenhäuser
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Armed Group ◽  
Respective Type

Chapter 6 proposes a three-pronged approach to possible human rights obligations of armed groups by distinguishing between (i) human rights obligations of groups exercising quasi-governmental authority in defined territory; (ii) human rights obligations of groups exercising de facto control over territory and population; and (iii) human rights obligations of groups not controlling territory or populations. This not only reflects contemporary international practice, but also the different capacities of armed groups and the varying circumstances in which they operate. This chapter examines each type of armed group separately. For each type, it shows to what extent human rights obligations for armed groups are needed; it provides international practice showing that a number of states and human rights experts consider the respective type of groups to have human rights obligations; it considers which sources of international law could bind the type of group in question; and suggests which scope of obligations should bind them.

From Weapon of War to Tactic of Terrorism – Dangerous New Ground in the Fight Against ConflictRelated Sexual Violence and Human Trafficking

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-187
Author(s):  
Lauren Aarons
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
Boko Haram ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The One

In recent years, the term 'tactic of terrorism' has increasingly been used to describe conflict-related sexual violence and human trafficking by non-state armed groups. This framing has complemented (and at times replaced) the longstanding recognition of 'rape as a weapon of war' including at the UN Security Council. This association with terrorism has tactical advantages but also poses wider risks for the realization of human rights. On the one hand, it has the potential to engage counter-terrorism powers and resources to prosecute perpetrators and prompt reparations. However, it also risks legitimizing harmful counter-terror measures and obscuring a more comprehensive understanding of the gendered harms associated with conflict and terrorism. With particular reference to the conflicts involving Boko Haram and Islamic State, this article weighs the advantages and costs of framing sexual violence and human trafficking as a 'tactic of terrorism' in order to inform and warn feminist human rights advocates.

Female Combatants and the Perpetration of Violence: Wartime Rape in the Sierra Leone Civil War

2013 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dara Kay Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Armed Group ◽  
Female Perpetrators ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Gang Rape ◽  
Female Fighters

Much of the current scholarship on wartime violence, including studies of the combatants themselves, assumes that women are victims and men are perpetrators. However, there is an increasing awareness that women in armed groups may be active fighters who function as more than just cooks, cleaners, and sexual slaves. In this article, the author focuses on the involvement of female fighters in a form of violence that is commonly thought to be perpetrated only by men: the wartime rape of noncombatants. Using original interviews with ex-combatants and newly available survey data, she finds that in the Sierra Leone civil war, female combatants were participants in the widespread conflict-related violence, including gang rape. A growing body of evidence from other conflicts suggests that Sierra Leone is not an anomaly and that women likely engage in conflict-related violence, including sexual violence, more often than is currently believed. Many standard interpretations of wartime rape are undermined by the participation of female perpetrators. To explain the involvement of women in wartime rape, the author argues that women in armed group units face similar pressure to that faced by their male counterparts to participate in gang rape. The study has broad implications for future avenues of research on wartime violence, as well as for policy.

Toward a Progressive Realisation of Socio-economic Rights in Ghana: A Socio-legal Analysis

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-113
Author(s):  
Nana Tawiah Okyir
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
State Policy ◽  
National Development ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Judicial Activism ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
The Supreme Court

This article argues for the strengthening and entrenchment of socio-economic rights provisions in Ghana's jurisprudence. The purpose of this entrenchment is to engender judicial activism in promoting more creative pathways for enforcing socio-economic rights in Ghana. The article traces the development of socio-economic rights in Ghana's jurisprudence, especially the influence of the requirements of the international rights movement, particularly of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The article delves into the constitutional history of Ghana and its impact on the evolution of rights in the country. Of particular historical emphasis is the emergence of socio-economic rights under the Directive Principles of State Policy in the 1979 Constitution. However, the significance of the socio-economic rights only became profound with the return to democratic rule under the 1992 Constitution, again under a distinct chapter on Directive Principles of State Policy. However, unlike its counterpart, the chapter on the Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms, which is directly enforceable, the Directive Principles of State Policy were not. It took the Supreme Court of Ghana a series of landmark decisions until finally, in 2008, it arrived at a presumption of justiciability in respect of all of the provisions in the 1992 Constitution. It is evident that prior to this, the Supreme Court was not willing to apply the same standards of adjudication and enforcement as it ordinarily applies in respect of rights under the chapter on Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms. Having surmounted the non-justiciability hurdle, what is left is for the courts to begin to vigorously pursue an agenda that puts socio-economic rights at the centre of Ghana's rights adjudication framework. The article draws on comparative experiences from India and South Africa to showcase the extent of judicial creativity in rights adjudication. In India, the courts have been able to work around provisions restricting the enforcement of Directive Principles by often connecting them to Fundamental Freedoms. In South Africa, there is no hierarchy between civil and political rights on the one hand and socio-economic rights on the other; for that reason, the courts give equal ventilation to both sets of rights. The article further analyses these examples in the light of ongoing constitutional reforms in Ghana. It argues that these reforms fall short of the activism required to propel socio-economic rights adjudication to the forefront in Ghana's jurisprudence. In this regard, the article proposes social movements as a viable tool for socio-economic rights advocacy by recounting its success in previous controversial issues in Ghana. The article also connects this to other important building blocks like building socio-economic rights into a national development blueprint. Overall, the article calls for an imaginative socio-economic rights enforcement approach that is predicated on legislation, judicial activism, social movements and a national development blueprint aimed at delivering a qualitative life for the Ghanaian.

Humanitarianism, Human Rights and Biopolitics in the British Empire, 1890–1902

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Clark
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Boer War ◽  
Personal Rights

The 1890s were a key time for debates about imperial humanitarianism and human rights in India and South Africa. This article first argues that claims of humanitarianism can be understood as biopolitics when they involved the management and disciplining of populations. This article examines the historiography that analyses British efforts to contain the Bombay plague in 1897 and the Boer War concentration camps as forms of discipline extending control over colonized subjects. Secondly, human rights language could be used to oppose biopolitical management. While scholars have criticized liberal human rights language for its universalism, this article argues that nineteenth-century liberals did not believe that rights were universal; they had to be earned. It was radical activists who drew on notions of universal rights to oppose imperial intervention and criticize the camps in India and South Africa. These activists included two groups: the Personal Rights Association and the Humanitarian League; and the individuals Josephine Butler, Sol Plaatje, Narayan Meghaji Lokhande, and Bal Gandadhar Tilak. However, these critics also debated amongst themselves how far human rights should extend.

A Call for Public Participation in the Treaty-making Process in South Africa: What can South Africa Learn from the Kingdom of Thailand?

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Retselisitsoe Phooko
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Legal Implications ◽  
Future Situation ◽  
Rules Of Procedure ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government ◽  
Personal Jurisdiction

On 2 August 2002 South Africa signed the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Tribunal and the Rules of Procedure Thereof, thus effectively recognising and accepting the jurisdiction of the SADC Tribunal. Among the cases received by the SADC Tribunal was a complaint involving allegations of human rights violations by the government of Zimbabwe. It ruled that the government of Zimbabwe had violated human rights. Consequently, Zimbabwe mounted a politico-legal challenge against the existence of the Tribunal. This resulted in the review of the role and functions of the Tribunal in 2011 which resulted in the Tribunal being barred from receiving new cases or proceeding with the cases that were already before it. Furthermore, on 18 August 2014, the SADC Summit adopted and signed the 2014 Protocol on the Tribunal in the SADC which disturbingly limits personal jurisdiction by denying individual access to the envisaged Tribunal, thus reducing it to an inter-state judicial forum. This article critically looks at the decision of 18 August 2014, specifically the legal implications of the Republic of South Africa’s signing of the 2014 Protocol outside the permissible procedure contained in article 37 of the SADC Protocol on the Tribunal. It proposes that South Africa should correct this democratic deficit by introducing public participation in treaty-making processes in order to prevent a future situation where the executive unilaterally withdraws from an international treaty that is meant to protect human rights at a regional level. To achieve this, this article makes a comparative study between South Africa and the Kingdom of Thailand to learn of any best practices from the latter.

Foreigners' Rights to Work and Fair Labour Practices in South Africa: A Review of the South African Labour Legislation and Jurisprudence

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre Mangu
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
South African ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
The South ◽  
Legislation And Jurisprudence ◽  
Foreign Nationals ◽  
Lay Persons ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Labour Legislation

After several decades of apartheid rule, which denied human rights to the majority of the population on the ground of race and came to be regarded as a crime against humanity, South Africa adopted its first democratic Constitution in the early 1990s. The 1996 Constitution, which succeeded the 1993 interim Constitution, is considered one of the most progressive in the world. In its founding provisions, it states that South Africa is a democratic state founded on human dignity, the achievement of equality, the advancement of human rights and freedoms. The Constitution enshrines fundamental human rights in a justiciable Bill of Rights as a cornerstone of democracy. Unfortunately, in the eyes of a number of politicians, officials and lay-persons, the rights in the Bill of Rights accrue to South African citizens only. Xenophobia, which has been rampant since the end of apartheid, seems to support the idea that foreigners should not enjoy these rights. Foreign nationals have often been accused of posing a threat to South African citizens with regard to employment opportunities. In light of the South African legislation and jurisprudence, this article affirms the position of the South African labour law that foreign nationals are indeed protected by the Constitution and entitled to rights in the Bill of Rights, including the rights to work and fair labour practices.

Involuntary Circumcision of Males in Illegal Initiation Schools in South Africa: A Violation of African Customary Human Rights?

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Porsche Makama
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Topical Issue ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Traditional Practice

The incidence of deaths associated with the practice of forced and botched circumcisions at initiation schools has become a topical issue in South Africa. In recent times, the number of deaths and injuries among initiates has risen at an alarming rate, most of them occurring at illegal initiation schools. The continuous rise in the number of injuries among initiates at these schools has elicited mixed reactions among community members, some referring to it as genocide in the case of fatalities and calling for its abandonment, while others argue that this traditional practice should be allowed to continue. The majority of young men who go to initiation schools do not make the decision on their own, nor do they have a choice in the matter. Instead they are compelled by parents or guardians, influenced by friends, and also coerced by others in the community who insist that they have to ‘go to the mountain’, as initiation schools are generally referred to in South Africa. It has been argued by those against circumcision that this practice infringes constitutional rights and contravenes the Children’s Act 38 of 2005. There have been numerous instances where young and even mature males have been taken from the streets, or even from the comfort of their homes, and forced into circumcision camps with or without their consent. This begs the question whether the continued practice of a cultural tradition that violates the fundamental human right and freedom to choose religious and cultural beliefs is justifiable.

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